My own writing

Jay Writes -

Luke has written part of a short story himself this week. Here is part one - I'm coaxing him to write part two , so pop back to read the next instalment

Luke Writes -

I am a gruesome and horrible child. Enjoy. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha...

What happened on Planet 9

John came crashing through the forest panting; he didn't look back for fear he would have to see it again. He tripped over a tree root and fell. He tried to get up but his foot was stuck fast. He pulled out his knife and began sawing at the root. It eventually snapped. Then John made the mistake of looking up, so he could see the large pair of jaws filled with razor sharp teeth right above him.

The problem with being in Planet 9's black forest is that the trees mute your screams.

***

Benjamin Folkine Marden was having a lovely dream about a tropical island when he fell out of the top bunk of a bunk bed.

"Wow, said his bunk mate Sam, "that looked like it hurt... a lot!"

"Well done," groaned Ben. "Did you figure that our all by yourself?"

Ben, Sam and twenty-eight others people had been in this harvesting camp for two years. Planet 9 had a large amount of zinomine, a rare and powerful substance, and the Government decided to send a group of men and women to mine the stuff and slowly destroy the natural environment. But someone, or more accurately some things, were not happy with this arrangement.

Ben looked at his timetable. He didn't know why he bothered; it was always the same:

Wake Up

Eat Breakfast

Work

Work

Work

Work

Work

Eat Lunch

Work

Work

Work

Work

Work

Eat Dinner

Work

Work

Got To Sleep

Repeat

Ben and Sam headed outside to start work.

"Hey Sam, you ever wonder if exciting will ever happen here?" called Ben.

"What, like an alien invasion?" answered Ben. "Are you kidding? If anything exciting ever happens here I beg of you, please include me." Then he saw Ben's face - a face he had never seen but knew what it was. It was the face of pure, indefinable absolute terror. "What?" Sam asked.

"Your wish," said a raspy voice behind him, "has been granted."

Sam turned to see the creature behind him. He felt a jerk in him. The creature looked down. So did he, so he could see in the three clawed hand his very own beating heart.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

According to the back of the book, all the events in the story actually happened to the author. In the story the main character is Anna, who starts age 9 and over the course of the book becomes 10 and 11. The book is about Anna's experiences when she is rushed out of her home into Switzerland and then Paris as she and her family try to stay away from the Nazis when Hitler comes to power.

Anna's father writes for the newspaper in Berlin in 1933. The Nazis want Anna's father because before the elections he wrote articles that criticised the Nazis, and because he is Jewish.

The first big change for Anna is that she is quickly taken out of Germany to stay in a small Swiss inn, to escape before Hitler can take away their passports. She catches influenza and nearly dies, and when her birthday comes around she realises how horrible things have become because she doesn't get a party and her presents are really small and rubbish. The family move to Paris. Over time Anna and her brother Max come to enjoy it thoroughly. Their parents struggle for the money to buy clothes and other basic things. Over just two years they go from being a wealthy German family who has everything to being a family of poor refugees doing their best to survive in Paris.

I found the book very formal in writing style. The feelings of Anna are described very well but I don't really think that I'd like to just decide to sit down and read this book. My personal taste is more for books with more inventive story lines rather than real life events, and it didn't exactly have me begging for the next chapter. I'm giving this 27 out of 100 for being well written but I don't plan on re-reading it in the near future.

The Owl Service

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Ummmmmmmmm.

That pretty much sums up this entire book. When I'd finished this book I was left thoroughly confused, and rather annoyed. I was annoyed because I couldn't pick out the story. All I managed to gather was that there was a girl called Alison, a boy called Roger and a boy called Gwyn, which at first I read as Gwen so I thought was a girl. Alison made paper owls that disappeared and Roger and Gwyn hated each other and both liked Alison.

There was also some plate smashing and a woman who had something to do with flowers. Gwyn's mother was very angry throughout the book because of something to do with the plates (that had owls on them, the Owl Service of the title). Roger got very annoyed because people kept messing up his photos. There was also an old man who was a bit weird and the only one who listened to him was Gwyn.

Even though I didn't understand the story, the author managed some very excellent descriptions of the valley in Wales, and the personalities of some of the characters. I think I would have to be a lot older and understand a bit more Welsh to fully appreciate this book. I'm giving it 21 out of 100.

A bit of philosophy

Jay Writes -
As well as the reading challenge, Luke's been doing some other work with me over the past few weeks. We've been looking at ideas; talking a bit about philosophy, religion, and myths. Luke's making a stop motion animation version of Ragnarok, the Norse end-of-the-world story. Inspired by Derren Brown's show about faith healers, we talked about why someone might believe and what advantages being part of a religion brings - lots of critical thinking for our devout atheist to consider!

Inspired by the Doctor Who episode The Rebel Flesh, we got thinking about what defines a person. I asked Luke to write a bit about his view of this tricky philosophical questions. Here's his piece -

I define a person as anything that can think creatively and can adjust quickly to a situation. While this might not work in many situations, for example people in a coma or people with severe brain damage, it is the best solution that I have.

When humans say, "Look at all the people," or, "What kind of person are you?" they don't know just how big that statement is. But that is what philosophy is all about: asking the big questions.

But going back to what makes a person - I am afraid creativity and adjustment is the best I have to offer. If you have a much better definition please post it on my blog! But for now, what I really think is that "what makes a person?" is an unanswerable question

Luke's reading Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder a couple of chapters a day, now that he's got interested in philosophy. As he says, sometimes you need to ask the big questions!

Red Cherry Red

This was another poem book; it was written by Jackie Kay. Something I definitely noticed about her writing is that she wrote lots of poems about the sea and animals related to the sea. She did include some others but those are the ones that stuck with me most.

My favourite poem was one called The Angler Fish and I found it interesting because the things written in the poem, once you figured out what they meant, included some really unusual facts about angler fish.

One thing I found rather annoying about the poetry collection was that the poet often used Scottish words that I didn't understand like ach, crofit and oot. Because of this, some of the poems left me rather confused. When I listened to the poetry on CD, she did a little introduction to a bunch of the poems to tell us what inspired her to write them. Some of them I didn't really thing were necessary but some were interesting.

I preferred reading the poems to listening to them, mostly because it was faster and I didn't really enjoy doing this poetry collection. I found it a bit tedious, so I'm going to give it 35 out of 100.

The Man Who Planted Trees

This book's appearance was rather pretty because it was small and completely made of paper, even the cover. However, in terms of the story, I was left slightly confused. It is told in the first person.

The man who was narrating said that after travelling for 3 days he met a shepherd. After staying with the shepherd for a few days, he discovered that he was a very quiet man who spent his days tending his flock of sheep and planting oak trees. He did this very calmly and did not get frustrated when most of them didn't grow, and he was quite friendly in a very quiet way. The narrator then left to fight in the 1914 war and did not see the shepherd for many years.

Once the war was over, he went back to visit the shepherd. He finds there are only 3 differences that have happened: the man is slightly older, instead of sheep he has beehives and he's started planting other trees like beeches. This time the narrator stays for longer and helps plant trees and collect new seeds. Of course, by now there is a huge forest.

Eventually the old man becomes a lot more tired but still carries on planting trees. The second world war occurs. The narrator goes to help with that, and comes back when the war is over and again goes to visit the shepherd. The forest is even bigger and lots of people are assuming it is a 'natural' forest.

In the end, after a small village has been built in the forest, the old shepherd dies, no one takes up his job but they do live peacefully in the village.

I'm pretty certain that there's supposed to be some moral or a lesson in this story but I simply can't pick it out. Although it was quite a nice story I think it's a bit obscure for kids my age. So I'm giving it a mere 57 out of 100.

Talkin Turkeys

This is my first book of poetry in the challenge.

I think my favourite poem was called Sunny Side Up because it was written upside down. It was funny because it said that when people see you reading upside down they think you're strange "but this poem is out to mislead."

One thing I noticed about Benjamin Zephaniah was that he wrote things how they are pronounced (like 'dat' instead of 'that') which makes it a bit harder to read and so you have to read them out loud. The poems were humorous even though some were about serious things like global warming and habitat loss.

I give Talkin Turkey 75 out of 100

Jay's Note - I read this one too. Zephaniah's warmth, humour and voice shine through these short poems. I think Michael Rosen is the first poet I'd introduce a child to and Benjamin Zephaniah is the second.