Series of unfortunate events #11 The Grim Grotto

By: Lemony Snicket

****

This fascinating book is continued when the Baudelaires are being founded by 2 people in the stricken stream. The people are Captain Widdershins who is a good friend of the Baudelaires' parents and the other person is Fiona, the captian's stepdaughter who is now their friend. They go into caverns to find the sugar bowl, a very special, secret item to save themselves, but at the end they didn't find it. Fiona betrayed the Baudelaires by joining Count Olaf and his evil troupe. At the very end of the book, they met Kit Snicket, another one of the Baudelaires parnet's friend. And for the first time they felt that their lives are finally going to change out of the unfortunate events.

Definately check this book out because when you start reading this, you'll never want to put it down! Or might as well read the whole series!

Elvis lives! and other anagrams

By: Jon Agee

This funny book is about anagrams like Southern California-hot sun or life in a car. An anagram is when you take a sentence or word and jumble it to create new sentences and words like punishment?-nine thumps. It has the same amount of letter and the same letters.

Jon Agee is an author and illustrator for children's books. He writes creative, funny books about words. One of his many books is Smart Fellar, Fart smeller when he introduces spoonerisms which is when you switch the first letters of each word in the sentence. One of the examples is well oiled bycicle-well boiled icycle.

Check out his books at the library and get your mind thinking about what you can do with words.

Characterization

From the book: The Grim Grotto

By: Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket really brings some characters alive like the evil Count Olaf. There are some new characters like Captain Widdershins and Fiona who have a very distinctive attitude.He presents the characters by their actions or by another character's interaction. And each chapter we get to see more of what the character is like.

On page 2 , Lemony Snicket shows that Violet was an inventor who could get away of hard situations through out her miserable life. "Violet who was 15 years old and nearly the best inventor who had ever found herself trapped in the grey waters of the stricken stream, found her way out by using some tools she had early on." That explains that a girl so young had a brilliant mind, and yet could escape. It matches to the chart underneath hobbies, cause she loved inventing.

On page 3, Lemony brings Count Olaf's greediness to the page. Part of the sentence wrote, "the amount of trouble and woe these skills would bring him once he and his siblings met up with Count Olaf, the notorious villian who had been after the children ever since their parents had perished in a terrible fire." The fire was even done by him, so he could get his filthy hands on the Baudelaire's rich fortune. The author gave a hint with the keyword notorious villian, to show that he never did any good. It also shows how eager and desperate he is to get the money. It matches with number 9 on the chart.

On page 7, he brings out violet's inventing skills again with the quote, "and she looked at her siblings, who were waiting for her inventing skills to save them." Usually Violet was the one who saved them, so her unventions have to be strong to hold them all. They always relied and depend on her, but she didn't mind because she loved her sibling very much. This means she cares about them to love them.

Because of the different characters and the way he introduces them, I keep on reading his fantastic books!

Disaster strikes Java

On September 02 2009 around three o' clock, a disaster hits java, Indonesia. The whole island was shaking from small to big. It was only a few minutes around Jakarta, but in Bandung and Tasikmalaya it was shaking for ten minutes because it was the closest cities to the ocean. This natural disaster caused 2,900 people to be seriously injured and 48 dead. There are also people who are not found yet becasue they're trap underneath houses that collapsed, mostly in the villages. It was 7.0 RS. Scientists said there's going to be an earthquake 30 times more then this, but they're not sure when. Can you imagine it? This earthquake was really dizzy and scary enough for me!



As we know earthquakes comes from underneath oceans, which causes the water to rise. Scientist and reporters gave out a tsunami warning, but already in some places there was flood. It's not surprising because we are on the ring of fire, unlike if it was in Europe or other places away from it, it would be shocking. As you heard people say that animals always come out before the earthquake or act abnormal, it's because they have senses. If they live underground they would probably hear it or feel the vibration, but if they're not underground they have instincts and don't act like themselves. here's a real life story: In school, when most people were gone home, the teachers were having a meeting when suddenly a big fat snake came out of nowhere. Out of all the days of it's life, the snake chose this day to finally come out to warn people about this earthquake. The teachers were all scared but they didn't realize that it was a warning because they weren't use to earthquakes. Your pet might run around in circles or make unusual noises.

So just be careful.....

The series of unfortunate events #10 The slippery slope

by

Lemony Snicket

****

This wonderful book is about three orphans whose parents died in a fire done by the evil Count Olaf. He tries to get his hands on the Baudelaires rich fortune inherited from their parents. They keep getting sent to guardians their parents friends with, but Count Olaf murders them all one at a time, until he kidnapps the orphans. Count Olaf finds them annoying when they are the ones who are well-behaved and polite. So he thinks he should just take one Baudelaire which is the youngest, Sunny and leave the other two behind. Because in order to take the fortune, one Baudelaire has to be alive. Count Olaf and his evil troupe head to the Mortmain mountains on the highest peak and finds the V.F.D headquarters. The V.F.D headqaurters is a place where the Baudelaires parents and other friends, secretly meet. Later on they burn down the headquarters. Violet and Klaus some how found Sunny again and someone they would never expect to meet, Quigley Quiqmire. Their friend's triplet who was claimed dead. But that wasn't true. They find the burned down head quarters, and tries to find more clues to their parent's past.

I reccomend this book to anyone who is in for an adventure, or likes complicated, miserable books. This book is a bit challenging and has many series linked with more mysteries after another. There are 13 books in all, and I'm on 11. Almost there!!

Facts about Lemony Snicket

This amaing author's real name is Daniel Handler. He uses Lemony Snicket as a pen name, becasue he's known for being mysterious. For example, if you see all his pictures, it's in black and white, but they're recent pictures. And also he wears a hat and his back to the camera. Rarely you will see his face in pictures. He beleived that some children didn't have a happy begginings and that was true. Daniel's father fled from germany as a young boy because of the Holocaust. "I learned about the Holocaust at a very young age than everyone else", said Daniel Handler. The information affected him in his writing and politics. His famous series: a series of unfortunate events is about three miserable orphans, Violet, Klaus and Sunny who's parents died because of a fire done by the evil villian Count Olaf. He tries to steal the Baudelaire's rich fortune, so every guardian who takes care of the orphans, he murders them all until he kidnapps them. It's about the miserable journey of orphans. That's why all he's book are not happy. He also plays the accordion because his mom and dad are opera singers.

The books that I read from him are the sereis of unfortunate events from book 1 to book 10. Here are the list of titles starting from 1. The bad beggining, The reptile room, The wide window, The miserable mill, The austere academy, The ersatz elavator, The vile village, The hostile hospital, The carnivorous carnival, and the book that I'm reading right now is The slippery slope.

Links

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ff=/c/a/2003/10/13/DD138106.DTL

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/06/23/daniel_narrowweb__300x336,0.jpg

http://www.lemonysnicket.com/

Typhoon Morokat

This is a picure of a 6 storey hotel that collapsed in the taitung county in taiwan done by the disasterous Typhoon Morokat. I chose this picture because I wanted to show how strong the current of the waves was at the bottomof the picture. Also I wanted to show how powerful the typhoon was that it knocked down a heavy brick, tall building. It was starting to lean in the first picture and the next one is when it's pulling the weight down. After that it collapses into the river and crashes into peices. Now no one knows where it's vanished to. The officials said that 300 of them were evacuated and uninjured. But dozens are still missing and feared dead. It was the worst flooding in 50 years. It hit Taiwan and the east part of China. The typhoon broke the famous bridge in the Chaiyi river. What we're trying to learn from this natural disaster is the people of Taiwan and how they connect and interact with it. We also want to know how the typhoon can seep into the ground and soil, which bases it down to learning about the environment.