The Unfalse Prince

So we have nearly made it through an entire year of high school, and we are finally on the last blog post of the year. The struggle has been real. The book I finished for this blog is The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielson. I know, I know I had been reading Game of Thrones and now I switch to a book that won an award as a middle schooler’s book. What am I thinking? I had heard of this book a long time ago and really wanted to read it, I somehow forgot about it and know I remembered and read it. The author is not really all that well known and I had never heard of her before but I decided to read the book anyway and boy am I glad I did. The concept of the story is amazing (there may be some slight spoilers in the next few sentences) it is about an orphan boy , who may or may not be the prince) is taken in by a man looking to find a boy who looks and act enough like the actual prince that he can rule the country through. Since one of the boys he chooses for this role is the actual prince you can imagine this doesn't go too terrifically amazing. At the end of the story the crazy guy who buys orphans so he can rule a country ends up in jail, sound like a Disney movie yet, and the real prince becomes the king.

Now you see the main points of the story, but author Jennifer A. Nielson puts a ridiculous amount of detail into this story. The reason no one knows if the real prince is dead or alive, is the fact that a ship he was supposed to be on was attacked by pirates and sunk, no survivors were found but they never found the princes body. That was because the prince was never on that ship he had snuck away and was living in a church when his father the king found him, his father disowned him and told the nation his son was dead to avoid going to war. Disowned him. I know most of our parents, aka all, would never do that, yet this king believes it is necessary.  Well his dad was VERY nice and kind to him, so nice he never even told his wife that their son was still alive, if I remember correctly the queen ends up dying because of this somehow, while the son is still out there somewhere living in an orphanage. Then the entire family is assassinated by the crazy man who wants to rule the country through a fake prince who is really an orphan. This might have made the real prince slightly angry at the crazy man, and it also gave him a reason to put the crazy man in jail. All in all this is a book that goes into great detail about every part of the story and a book like that is always fun to read.

Game of Thrones pt. 2

So I have finished the first Game of Thrones book: A Game of Thrones, real creative, and the second book: A Clash of Kings which I absolutely loved. As I mentioned in my earlier post about Game of Thrones the author, George Martin, does a great job of balancing action and plot throughout the story allowing him to travel back in forth between characters and time without missing details or action.

In the second book the empire splits and has 5(6 can be debated) kings at one time. This leads to civil war in which 2 of the kings are killed and a third,the main character's, is left without soldiers. Following that there is a army larger than any their kingdom has ever seen marching from the north to take over their country in it's weakest hour. This has created for a very dramatic and action packed book. I am looking forward to the 3rd book. 

Game of Thrones

I have recently started reading the Game of Thrones book serie and have really enjoyed it. Throughout the first book you have plotting, lies and action all in the same chapter, which I find interesting. The author balances action scenes with important details well throughout the book, so that you can understand a complex book and not feel bored. I have only finished the first book and am halfway through the second and so far I have really enjoyed it.

I decided to read these books based off the amount of people who watch the tv show. I prefer to read books over a movie or tv representation because I get to imagine the characters the way I want to see them and not how the producer sees them. This is important to me while I read and that is why I prefer  reading over movies. If you have a different opinion I would love to hear it, just put in the comments. So far I would recommend the Game of Thrones series to anyone who enjoys historical fiction books.

Columnist Reading

For homework this weekend I had to read 6 columns written by professional authors. Throughout them I noticed that the author usually appeals to your feelings to get out their message. They do this by talk of death or pain or loss. They also use jokes quite often throughout their columns. This keeps the reader entertained.The columns are crafted in sch a way that you se the authors point without it being forced down your throat. You can also have  laugh while reading most of these which makes it all the more interesting.
I particularly like the column about the Boston Marathon bombing. I liked it because it shines a light on the unsung heroes who saved lives but are hardly acknowledged for that. I feel like it is a big deal to risk your life to save someone's life that you don't even know. I agree with Mike Lupica in that those heroes deserve more than we have given them. The true heroes are the men who first ran into the smoke to save the injured runners for that is truly an act of heroism.

Fahrenheit 451 theme handout

Bell 2 Hayden Cobb, Mohammed Abouelsaad ,Noah Trenaman, Rose Bruns and Avery Wilson

Theme statement: Engaging with difficult and uncomfortable thoughts and experiences is the only route to true happiness.

Timeline

• Montag talking to Clarisse and realizing that society is not perfect. He tells her that life was a lot different in the past.
• Mildred’s attempted suicide. Montag never thought of Mildred as depressed. Their relationship isn’t very authentic.
• The second time Montag and Clarisse meet up, she makes the comment that his laugh seems more genuine.
• Montag burning the old woman’s house down. For the first time, he actually feels bad for someone whose house he burned down.
• Montag’s stash of books was uncovered, and now he has to burn his own house down. He’s under arrest.
• Montag killed Beatty. Beatty basically committed suicide when he faced Montag.
• After escaping the police, montag has exited the city and finally finds happiness by experiencing nature, finding the book people, and deciding on a new goal for his life: to preserve knowledge instead of destroying it.

Textual examples of theme development:

“‘Are you happy?’ she said…. Happy! Of all the nonsense… He was not happy” (Bradbury 7-8)

”We have everything we need to be happy, but we arent happy. Something’s missing… I thought books might help”. (Bradbury 78)

“We’re going to build a mirror factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them.” (Bradbury 158)

Why the theme is important to the understanding of our story:

This theme is important because it shows the issues of the society that Montag lives in. People are so inattentive of the world and of their own feelings, and are able to avoid their uncomfortable thoughts by distracting themselves with things like TV shows, games, and their parlor ‘families.’

How this theme connects to modern day society:

This shows that if modern day society advances too far we must be careful not to get rid of all difficulties because without them we never experience life as it was meant to be lived, we must work for what we want to achieve if we are to enjoy achieving anything.

Should I read Unbroken?

I have heard a lot about Unbroken in the past few months and sense track season is starting to kick off, I was wondering if this was a good book to read. I have not seen the movie so I know little about the story save that there is a young track prodigy who is captured in WW 2. With that summary it sounds like a terrific book.
I was wondering if there is a real focus on hs imprisonment or more on track and him going off to war. I was also wondering if the book is in third or first person as that changes the reading experience. Personally I like to read books in first person. If there is any other information you think that could help me decide whether to read this book or not please comment on this post.

Dover Beach and Fahrenheit 451

Mrs. Phelps was walking home after the rather awkward and strange events that had transpired in the Montags' house. She pondered the poem Guy had read to them, what was it called, she thought to herself, Ah! Yes Dover Beach was its name. He friend Millie had said he brought a book home once a year to show how silly they were, but this nights events were having a quite peculiar effect on her, one she had never felt before. She had cried. 

Never before had that happened to her, it was rather strange to cry in their society. This new felt emotion would have been called sadness in our society but in theirs Mrs. Phelps had no clue what it was as it was a new felt emotion. She thought it must be the crazy ness of books like Millie had said and as she opened the door to her house her had convinced herself it was just that. 

The next morning she awoke and the first thing on her mind as that god awful poem again, she thought it books were so silly why she could not get rid of this nagging feeling that the poem was important. She went about her day, and the next day, and the next week, but she could not figure out why the poem still stuck with her. One day sitting by herself in the parlor watching the people on her new 4 wall television, she realized that she was truly not happy with how her life was she was lonely just the poem talked about and wished to do something other than sit around and waste day after day watching fake people on her TV screen she wanted to be someone, and on that day her life changed forever.