The Mother of all Parties (Honors English 1B Post #8)

Column: The Mother of all Parties 
Author: Dave Barry

Dave Barry is a humor columnist for the Miami Herald, retired in 2005. In The Mother of all Parties, he writes, "Like many moms, my wife believes that a child's birthday party requires as much planning as a lunar landing -- more, actually, because you have to hire a clown." In this quote you can really hear Dave's voice come through his writing. You can envision the way he moved his hands and the tone in which he said it. It puts the two of you on a first name basis. All throughout this column he uses a conversational tone which makes it fun and interesting to read. He keeps things sarcastic as he describes the minuscule details his wife puts into the party for their soon to be 4 year old. He also pulled in a facetious quote from a birthday party planning website which actually makes you laugh out loud. Dave Barry uses sarcasm and a very conversational tone with his columns that make you want to read more. 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2014/03/05/dave-barry-parenting-tips/5982019/

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Wear Sunscreen. (Honors English 1B Post #7)

Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young: A fantastically written column by Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune in 1997. The column was written to the class of  '97, it was advice to them as they go out into the real world. I found this article to be great. Not only was the advice Mary gave solid, she worded it in a way that made you think. The column was written in a paragraph form, pretty typical, but then she broke up the structure by adding in one worded paragraphs. These one worded paragraphs brought your eyes straight to them, signifying their importance.
"Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself."

While this article was written for/dedicated to the class of 1997, it is still very relatable to me and really anybody. I think everyone who does read this can get something out of it. The advice is important and I would recommend it to anyone.

http://zulkey.com/2013/11/the-mary-schmich-interview.shtml#.U101eVVdWSo

Hollow City Predictions (Honors English 1B Post #6)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been a month and I'm STILL reading Hollow City. I'm using Fahrenheit 451 as an excuse.
Where I'm at:
Jacob and the Peculiar children got to the Peculiar animal menagerie. Miss Peregrine is still stuck as a bird and as of now, there isn't much hope of her ever going back to human form again. The kids have 2 days to get to 1914 London to find more time loops to get to the people who captured her originally.

Predictions:
They are going to find the loop (obviously, what kind of book would it be if the heroes didn't win?)
They are going to get stuck fighting Hollows (the book is called Hollow City for a reason, right?)
I'm not expecting a finality to their adventures. I don't feel like that after I read the last page then the book will be over. The adventures of the Peculiar children will continue after the ambiguity of an ending that I am expecting.

451° Is Fairly Warm (Honors English 1B Post #5)

     Fahrenheit 451 was only slightly painful to read. The book is split into 3 sections instead of chapters, which I'm not a big fan of. The beginning was extremely slow and boring to read. Ray Bradbury went into excruciating detail, which I find to be exhausting. An example of this is found on page 134, "The sun burned every day. It burned Time. The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis and time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt things with the firemen, and the sun burnt Time, that meant that everything burned!". I find this paragraph to be irritating to read. He repeats the words time, sun and burned so many times that it is a little confusing. 
My brain gets tired of reading those words over and over and it makes my mind drift off so that I don't even know what I'm reading anymore.

           I had so many questions during The Hearth and the Salamander that it was hard to get through. There was apparently a war going on, they went to a doctor who wasn't a real doctor, they had a room with TV for walls; it was confusing. Even though Bradbury did go into such detail, he kind of leaves it up to the reader to figure major questions in the book (does it make me a better reader? No. It makes me more confused.) The second part was much better. The pace of the book picked up and things started to make more sense (after my countless questions were answered). One of the worst things was that the ending was unsatisfying. It reminded me of Looking for Alaska by John Green. There was a ton of build up, and I was waiting for the climax of the plot, only to be let down by the unsatisfying and almost ambiguous ending. If I had to give the book a rating, I would say 6/10. I found things I liked about the book including the theme, but the description he went into bored me to no end. Who would like 451? If you are interested in futuristic, sci-fi, and plot twists, you might just enjoy 451.

http://altarstudio.blogspot.com/2012/01/too-personal.html

Hollow City (Honors English 1B, Post #4)

We are four weeks into this trimester and I'm sad to say I haven't finished a book yet (besides Fahrenheit. But I'm not counting that). I read Miss Peregrines in two days, and I've now had Hollow City for 3 weeks. Today I took the time to sit down and actually read for pleasure and it was fantastic. I had to give myself a little refresher on Jacob's world in Hollow City. Jacob and his newly found peculiar friends are exploring their new world, still stuck in 1940 during WWII. As they are trying to get away from Nazi soldiers who are also Peculiar hunters, they stumble across another loop entrance. This is part of the book where the pictures really help. When Riggs described a house, "It was very small, and perched not atop a cloud but on a very large tower constructed entirely from stacked-up railroad ties, the whole thing set smack in the middle of a grassy plateau. It was one of the strangest man-made structures I'd ever seen." (Riggs, 76) This description was perplexing to me as I didn't understand how you could stack up railroad ties and then put a house on top of them. Then on the next page there was a picture and then a clear image in my head. After that I thought what it would be like to be there. What if I was a peculiar? Anyone could be, really. Maybe they just haven't found out about their powers yet. That's one of the many reasons I like science-fiction and fiction in general, they can make you think about what all kind of people could possibly be in the world. As far as I know, I'm human.