10 Important elements/ Characteristics of The Book of Three

10 Important elements

Here is my list of the 10 most important characteristics or elements in this fantasy. They are not in a specific order but all add to the

1. Entertaining – good read, funny,

2. Details – lots of details, vivid descriptions of setting that include all 5 senses.

3. Good lessons – very important and teaches collectively accepted beliefs

4. Good vs. Evil – clear distinction between good and bad.

5. Medieval setting – swords, horses

6. Quest/ Journey/ Adventure – Taran goes on a long adventure and ends up being a hero

7. Trilogy – there is not a solid ending to this story and could possibly be continued

8. Mythical creatures – There are many different creatures that show up throughout the story

9. Magic – one of the most important and adds to the excitement when you read

10. Forest – important metaphorically as a barrier between good and evil

A letter to Despereaux

A Letter to Despereaux

Dear Despereaux,

            I have been fortunate enough to read your story. You are one of the most inspirational and complex mice that I have ever heard of. You, my friend, are a brave soldier and you are the Knight in shining amour. Being brave is something that most people have problems difficulty with. It is very hard sometimes to over come your fears but you have done an exceptional job. Your love for the princess has leaded you to save her and bring happiness back to the kingdom. Although your bravery, courage, motivation and love are characteristics that I admire with great respect, they are not your best traits. The best thing about you is your high values. You have showed me that you are more than just a good mouse. When you said, “I forgive you, Pa.” (DiCamillo 208) you impressed me. Even though he has done the worst possible thing that he could do to you, it showed me that you have good inside you.  Not many other people or mice are so good. I think that if more people and mice where like you, the world would be a better place. There would not be evil. The dungeons that you were sent to would no longer be dark and there would not be any prisoners inside there. The whole kingdom would be able to enjoy a nice warm bowl of soup everyday and enjoy life in happiness.

            I wish you all the good things in the world. You have brought light upon your kingdom and you deserve to live happy life with the princess. I hope that the evil rats will never bother you ever again. You earned what you have and should never lose it. I wish that I could learn from you and have your bravery, courage, happiness, and love. I have much to learn from you, just tiny mouse that weighs less than a spool of thread. I hope that you continue to live happily ever after. 

Original Book Project week 5 Discussion Board 4

Plot: 
The plot of the my story is about a young boy who has caused lot of other people to suffer for his mistakes and mischief but later realizes what he has done and does all that he can do to fix everything.


Conflict: 
Trying to get forgiveness from people and do whats right even though its uncomfortable 


Character:
 The main character is young boy named Colten. He is very daring, fearless, careless, and reckless at the beginning but later changes. 


Setting:
 The story will take place during a summer break in a neighborhood. The neighborhood is mostly filled with expensive houses except for a small street with 2 small housed on the edge of the woods and right by a pond. 


Theme:
 Consistency and handwork will bring success


Point of View:
 The story will either be told by Colten or will be about Colton. 

Jazzy Reading Journal - Meet Murphy

Jazzy Reading Journal

It’s not over yet Part 3

            Just as you thought it was over and everyone lived happily ever after, the automaton started to move again. How could that possibly be? Thought Hugo. “He is moving on his own!” The automaton started to move as if it was alive! He was going completely out of control! He stood up and started to walk and move around and then fell strait back to the ground. This was the scariest but also the most amazing thing that Hugo has ever seen.

            When this incident first happened both Hugo and Murphy were in the now large workshop that Hugo had acquired with the money from his uncles cashed checks. This workshop was one large room that had all the tools anyone would ever need to fix anything they wanted. Along one wall there was a large shelf with jar upon jars filled with mechanical parts. There was one small window by the door on one wall and one large window that completely covered the ceiling so you can see stars at night in the sky. Hugo lived in this workshop and spent most of his time in it trying to perfect his automaton.

            Hugo was terrified at what happened earlier that day but he had to figure out what it was. He did not make any mechanisms in Murphy that could allow him to walk but yet some how he did. Hugo had to figure out was happened. He placed the Murphy back on his chair and wound him up again but he no longer worked. He was broken, or was he? Murphy then jumped from his chair as if he was a chimpanzee and jumped toward Hugo. He got up really close to Hugo’s face as if he had never seen something so amazing before. Hugo did the exact same thing and could not believe what was going on. Suddenly Hugo heard some knocking on his door. Who could that possible be and what would they say if they saw that the automaton had come to life! Hugo was freaking out and did not know what to do and everything around him started to go around him in circles and he felt as if he was melting away. Indeed he was as the sunlight was shining strait in his eyes as he awoke from the crazy dream he had just had. He stood up quickly and looked at Murphy to see if he was still sitting at his desk.  Murphy turned his head back at Hugo and winked. 

Gary Paulsen

Gary Paulsen is a well-known American writer with a very strong passion for reading. Gary is a very hard working person and has gone threw many tough jobs in his life. He wrote over 175 and close to 200 articles and short stories for young adults and children. He was very committed to writing and at times he would spend up to 20-hour days writing. Paulsen is one of the most important writes for young adults because three of his novels won the Newbery award. A book that most people might have encountered by him is called the Hatchet. I read this book many times. The book is about a thirteen year old boy who is unfortunate enough to crash land on a lake in the Canadian forest. The book is about him trying to survive alone and about all the things he goes through before he is finally rescued. Many readers were so impressed by this book that they wanted to see what would happen if the main character in Hatchet wasn’t rescued. Gary Paulsen accepted that challenge and wrote yet another impressive book. He is a writer with great skill and pride in his work.

This author influenced the development of children’s literature in many ways. Gary has a desire to tap deeply in to the human spirit. This influences readers to observe and care about the world around them just like some previous writers started to do in the last couple centuries. 

My Myth

My Myth: Locked up Dragon

            Long ago, in the age of dinosaurs, a tyrannosaurus rex sits over her fresh eggs that she just laid.  There were three eggs, they all looked identical to each other. As time went on the mother T. rex started to notice a strange spot on one of the eggs. It was a dark circle spot on the top of the egg, which seems to be swallowing the egg as time moves on. The mother started to worry for the egg and was afraid that I was infected or even dead already. She tried her best to take care of the unfortunate egg and pay extra close attention to it. Not long after, when the eggs were just about ready to hatch, one of the two white eggs cracks and a little tyrannosaurus rex head pops out and starts to struggle with the rest of the shell.  Just moments after the second white eggs hatches too and both little t. rexes start to learn and develop into a fully-grown flesh-eating dinosaur. The mother was so joyful with her two new baby rexes that she completely forgot about the third black egg.

            As time went on the black egg still lay there motionless. The mother was starting to get worried that the egg will never hatch. After a while of watching mother rex show love to the egg the baby rexes started to be jealous and decided that they should destroy it so they can get more attention.  Early in the morning when the mother was sleeping the baby rexes slipped the egg from under her and rolled it out of nest only to see it fall onto a rock and crack open. They were finally happy after they got ride of the egg and were relieved until they saw what crawled out.  It was another baby rex that was back and unique. The other two didn’t like that he was not the same so they decided to try once more to get ride of it! They attacked it with aggressive moves but soon realized that they weren’t doing anything to it. The little dinosaur got scared so he let out a cry and to everyone’s surprise fire came out that scared away the attackers.  Mother rex finally woke up after the fight controlled the problem. She then names the baby rex; Dragon.

            The black dinosaur eventually learns to trust and grow with the other rexes until one day he notices wings growing on his back. He was frightened by them and was afraid that no one will accept him so he ran away in search of place to hide. After a long and difficult day of running away finally finds a very narrow tunnel that leads somewhere. As he crawls deeper and deeper the still developing dragon finds an empty cavity deep inside the tunnel and is big enough for the dragon the rest. The following morning Dragon wakes up and realizes his wings grew bigger and now he is not able to climb back out the tunnel he came from.  Ever since then the black Dragon has been trying to get out. He is stuck inside the cavity and desperately moves his body to try to free him self but it is just not strong enough. To this day the dinosaur is stuck and every time he moves he sends massive earthquakes that rattle the earth.  

Reader's Sketch

Vasiliy Grin

Thomas Maltman

Children’s Literature, Spring 2012

Reader’s Sketch

1/19/2012

The Reader’s Sketch

         My very first memory of a story is when my mom first read to my siblings and me. We were all sitting in my mom’s cozy bed listening to my moms soft voice as she read stories in Russian. The stories that we requested her to read were usually stories of miracles happening to people. We listened in silence to every single word that she said to make sure we don’t miss anything. It was good to hear these stories and enjoyed them every single night.

As a child I was lazy. I hated reading and avoided it as much as I could. I will always remember my mothers screeching voice yelling at me in Russian, “Vasia! Edi Chitaat!”  In English that translates to “Vasiliy! Go read!” I had all the books a child could ever need but I never took advantage of it and now I remember that with great regret.  When I lived in my old house in Blain Minnesota I had all my books in my basement, half on a large bookshelf and the other half scattered around on the floor. I don’t have much memories of me ever reading the books but I do have plenty of me throwing them around and stacking them so I could later knock them all down by throwing a ball at them with my brother or what ever friends where over. I always got in huge trouble for doing it. But that didn’t last very long because my mom said if I ever do anything with the books besides read them she would force me to read them all with her. There was no way in the world I would ever want to read that much so I never throw another ball at the books again.

            When I just started elementary school is when reading started to get more serious and I continued to hate it even more. For me reading was like a chore so I still tried my best to stay way from it. That was extremely hard for me to do at that age because that is when I got my first reading log that I had to follow from my school.  Strangely enough I was actually very motivated to keep up with it, well, maybe that’s because if I read the most out of my class I would get a magic yoyo as a reward. That magic yoyo was one of the first things that I truly would do anything for. I was first introduced to it when my teacher had a speaker come into class to speak about reading. Also he just happened to know how to do yoyo tricks witch amused everyone in the class, even the girls. When he showed the class his first trick, which was called Walk the Dog or something similar to that, that’s when I realized I needed to have that to show off to everyone and get the attention I always loved. To get that yoyo I had to read more minutes then anyone else in my class. Challenge accepted, I thought to my self. So that was a big problem at first because I hated reading and I was not about to read for a few hours a day. What I decided to do for the first day of the log was just completely lie about I just wrote in the times and had my mom sign it and she did. At the time my mother did not know how to read in English so she usually signed everything I handed to her. It worked out perfectly for the first few days until my day caught on, eventually he figured out what the whole log was about and started to monitor my reading. Although now my reading was watched over from a distance I still refused to read. I would sit on my basement couch with my blanket and look through all the books I had over and over again. I did not want to read anything; all I wanted to do is just look at the creative illustrations from page to page and from book to book. The books that amused me the most are the ones by Dr. Sues. The pictures where different from most books, they where so abstract and sparked my imagination. I remember starting at a single page for 10 minutes at a time analyzing it and looking for things I might have previously missed. That is my first memory enjoyable member of books. I never ended up getting that yoyo but I did learn an important lesson about working hard for something that I desired.

            As years went on I learned to finally enjoy books for what they are. I started to love to read through out middle school. My favorite book or book series while I was growing up was called Flight 29 Down by Walter Sorrells. It was a very exciting and mysterious series that I enjoyed to read. I was about a plane that crashed on an Island and the things the group did to survive. These books really shaped my reading future. They showed me that books could be interesting and fun. Although I did start to enjoy books I do not consider myself a life long reader because if I had free time to do something fun or exiting then reading would unfortunately be one of the last things on my list. I plan to continue reading for as long as I can because reading will always bring me enjoyment when I cant do other things. I hope I can start reading more often though so I can grow as a person.