Slice of Life #2 Skiing at Snowmass

hi- I was going to write about something that I do everyday, but decided to write about this instead:).
The sun shines on my goggles, reflecting off of the snow around me as we swing through the air. This is my first time skiing since last year, and I'm excited. But hell, it's cold. I pull up my coat over my nose and breathe out, fogging up my goggles. The chairlift comes to a stop and we slide off, regaining our balance. We look ahead to see the volunteer giving out warm apple cider. Jack and I look at each other, and he says "let's get some", his breath creating huge clouds in the air. The warm cups return the feeling in my hand and make it sting. I start to shuffle around to the trash can to throw my cup away and then realize that this huge old guy is in my way. Instead, I judge the distance really carefully and then throw it towards the opening of the trash can, missing the guy's stomach by about an inch and sailing off the corner of the trash can into the opening. I scream "yeah!" and pump my fist, and turn around to see my dad raising his eyebrows at me. "Ready?" he asks, and starts to ski away. I push off the edges of my skis and jump to gain momentum, and then start gliding down the ramp leading to the main slope. I take one last longing glance at the warm, lit-upbarbecue place, Sam's No. 3, and slide out onto the main slope, the sun dazzling my eyes.

Slice of Life

I look at the river. Then the people behind me. My friend raises her eyebrows. And then I stare out at the long line, only about as thick as my fingers, spanning the huge, white-water river in front of me. I'm excited; I love stuff like this. We're about 20-30 feet up in the air, on a platform which Abby has made clear to me has no railings (sorry, Abby). The harness gives me a tug, bringing me up on my tiptoes and almost sending me flying off the platform not be choice. the guy tightening my harnesses looks at me and gives me a thumbs-up.  "You ok?" he asks. "Great", I say. He goes over how to slow down, how to speed up again, and how to rescue myself if I get stuck in the middle of the zipline, over that raging river. Great. Well, I did volunteer to go first. As soon as he finishes, I close my eyes and jump-fall off the platform and start sliding. Fast. The wind and spray from the water whip against my face. Forgetting about everything, I almost spread my arms out to the side, but then remember that I'm supposed to keep my arms on the zipline. I remember that I'm racing Katie, and look over to see that I had probably started ahead of her; she's way behind me. I'm starting to slow down, and end up just sliding gently down the rest of the line. I end up stumbling onto the platform on the other side, and getting fist-bumps and high fives from the people on the other end. Then they harness me up to go across the swaying bridge. Double-great.

The Book Theif

This week I read The Book Thief by Micheal Zusak. This is one of those books that everyone kept telling me I had to read and never really got around to it. But warning:  this is a really good book. I should have listened to everybody earlier. This book follows the life of a child named Liesel in Nazi Germany during WWII. She's a pretty normal person, but at the same time a lot of pretty awesome things happen to her, and she ends up maybe making a very, very small difference to a lot of people by doing a lot of really small things. All of the characters are really lovable and it's even kind of funny sometimes, even though the topic is really grim. It's also kind of weird; the book is told from a weird perspective; you pretty much figure it out in the first chapter but I still don't want to give away too much. It's kind of a long book, just a little bit; it's more than 500 pages ( I think 530? I should go see and probably check it out if I find it, wherever it went). Anyways, this isn't the easiest book to read, but it's not really hard either. Part of it is that there are SO MANY WORDS PER PAGE, that it's kind of ridiculous. At least in my book. I would totally recommend this book to almost everyone in our class, even though it's kind of grim and depressing sometimes, especially the ending (no spoilers):)!!! Overall, awesome book.
3-5 books I might read next: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Far, Far Away, by Tom McNeil
The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck
Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.

Lymerick Poems

Max's Excuse.
Winter Break Poem:
There once was a guy named Bill
Who went sledding down a hill
He knocked out his teeth
Now all who he meets
say do you play hockey still?
Logan Poem: It's kind of gruesome and awful but it was the only Logan poem that I had.
There once was a student at Logan
Who's little hands were frozen
She said, at last,
Stuck her hands in boiling gas
Let's just say there was quite an explosion.
And finally, me being weird: Lymerick Ode to Will Champlin on the Voice
There once was a guy named Will
He liked Guacamole not dill,
He might win the Voice
Americas choice
And I'll be talking about it still.

Haha. That's great.

Occasional Poem

Hi- my unit is astronomy so I did first man on the moon. I don't like it, but oh well:).
From trains
to plains
to cars
nothing has ever
ever
reached up this high
this far
past all problems
we have kept
going higher
goin stronger
until we touch the stars.
And we have, haven't we?

Poem

I was just think about the fish. The fish has no life, but never mind- who knows? The fish does have a life. We always make assumptions like that. We think that there are like "lesser beings" than us, not knowing what's beyond their fish tank, or whatever. But don't we do the same thing? We totally immerse ourselves in our own world, and our society,not knowing what's beyond our world.  So we are judging the fish. I don't know what I think of that. I still think that it's impossible to write down what your thinking on paper, because I don't think in words, exactly. Wonder if I'll get to watch the voice tonight. My thoughts always seem to circle back to the voice. That's perfectly fine with me.

Racing in the Rain

This week I read Racing in the Rain  by Garth Stein. This was the teenage/ young adult-/whatever adaptation of the book The Art of Racing in the Rain, which I've also read, but I think that this adaptation is probably more connectable to people our age. This book is told from the view of a dog, and is probably the best dog biography that I've ever read; it's not like other books told at the viewpoint of a dog at all, it's totally different. Racing in the Rain is also really good; I read it in less than a day and it's about 350 pages long. The book kind of follows the storyline of the dog's life, focusing in on eight years. It talks about how the dog (who's name is Enzo) gets affected when a couple of awful thing happen to his family, when his owner's wife dies of brain cancer, and his mom-and-dad-in-law start trying to take custody of his toddler, insisting that his career is getting in the way of taking good care of her, which is definitely not true. It talks about everything happens around this point in time from Enzo's perspective. WARNING: This book is really sad, and really relatable. I mean, really sad. Overall though, the message is positive, and it's a great book. Really. You should read it. I think it's worth reading both the adult adaptation and this one, the one for adults is on the higher end of our reading level, and this one is on the lower end, but the teenage adaptation is more relatable and I would start with that. I would compare this book to books like See you at Harry's and A Mango Shaped Space, but it's really not like either of those and is totally original. Overall, great book.
Wow. That was a lot of writing.

Oh Brussel Sprouts, why?

A master composition by Sarah London. Not really (about the masterpiece part)...
Why, brussel sprouts,
Why?
Why do you continue to dissapoint me so?
I do not know
All I know is that you can go sizzle up in that vat of oil,
You can end up under the dirty fingernails of my brother,
You can burn until your crispy little skin falls off.
May You be eaten by fleas, tortered until you bleed your horrid green juices out onto the clean, polished table.
May your brain be eaten by a half-starved cat,
May your little sister crawl inside your head and stay there and never come out.
May you end up on the bottom of the toilet bowl, being retched upon,
And finally, may you end up strangled in a dusty chimney somewhere, choked like you have done to us all of these years with your horrible taste.
Oh why, brussel sprouts, why?

The Pact

This week I finished reading The Pact. This book totally was better then first expected. I felt like it ended kind of abruptly, but it's a non-fiction book, so maybe that was actually the way it was. This book is about three boys who live in The Central Ward, basically the ghetto honestly,  of Newark, New Jersey. In High School they meet each-other and make a pact that they are going to become doctors. This is a big deal, because many of their friends and family are either dead or drug dealers/and or addicts. It takes a lot of hard work, but eventually they become doctors. NO, this is not a spoiler. The last part of the book is kind of about them reflecting on their life, becoming doctors, and seeing what could have happened to them in some of their patients. This book is fast-paced, interesting, and inspiring, and I would really recommend that you should read it. It's better then this boring description makes it sound like.

Free Verse Poem

Alright, here it is. It is really dramatized.
She sits there
alone
the snow falls all around her, gathering in banks by the side of the street, and on the thin roof that just happens to be above her.
She snuggles closer into her black down jacket, shifting slightly on the rock hard bench of the bus station.
Lights shine and delicious smells waft out from the houses all around her, through the gently drifting snow.
She hums a song to herself.
Finally, headlights appear out of the fog, she runs a hand through her hair and climbs in.
The headlights fade into the snowy darkness.

The Pact

I am in The Pact book group, so kind of obviously I am reading The Pact.   Ok; you knew that. This book is about three boys who grow up in a really poor part of whatever town, I think that it is NYC, but anybody who is reading this and in my book group feel free to correct me. Everyone else, look at the comments. They make a pledge-or a pact-when they start hanging out with each other that they would all grow up and be doctors. This would be a big accomplishment, considering that they have no money, not a very good education, and almost everybody in thier life is either addicted to something, getting in trouble, or selling and/or dealing drugs. They have very few good roll models and no matter how much they try to stay out of trouble they pretty much get pulled back in. Slowly they inch their way up, get better education, and finally get into a special program called the Pre-Dental/Medical Program, and then into another college, but they are not done with all of their challenges.
This book so far is really good. I think that almost everybody in our class should read this book; in some ways it could be life changing. You get to know Sam, George, and Rameck pretty well, and really admire their success, and the amount of difficulties they faced. This book is an autobiography, but a really interesting one, and the story and writing is pretty amazing.

Allegiant

For the people who didn't check book blogs last week, here is: Allegiant! I feel so behind!
Anyways, I read Allegiant by Veronica Roth. This was the third book in the Divergent series, and it was second-best in my opinion to Divergent, but better than Insurgent. Let's start this off by saying
WARNING: You will read this book in about 2 hours maximum. It's really good. In this book, Tris and Co. finally find out all of the secrets that people have been keeping from them. A lot of people die and it is really depressing, especially the ending. Honestly, the ending was super depressing but I felt like it fit in very well with the whole book series and was actually pretty good (that does not mean it wasn't depressing). I love the fact that everything doesn't go right the whole time/in the ending, like most books. It was extremely fast paced, maybe not quite as much as the other two, but still. In one moment the characters were in one place, the next moment there was something else and totally different going on. I would call this book dystopian/adventure, and definitely would recommend reading the other two books before you read this one, Divergent and Insurgent. Overall, this was a great book, and you have to read it if you've read the first or second book in the series, or both!!!

And Then There Were None

This week I read And Then There Were None By Agatha Christie. I would describe this book as a murder mystery. At first, when my mom got me this book, I didn't want to read it, because "it was all old-fashioned and stuff.". Eventually, I just decided to read the first couple chapters, and I got totally pulled in. And Then There Were None is about eight guests who get invited to an island, called Indian Island, for one reason and another. The Island was recently bought by a millionare named U. N. Owen.   They all come, and get stranded there in the middle of a storm with the two serving people, with no U.N. Owen on the island. Slowly, they start to get murdered, following the nursery rhyme hung over each of their beds. This book is about the creepiest book I have read for a long time, and really good. The twist at the end is crazy, and the characters seem really believable- for the time period, at least. There are lots of surprises that make the book interesting, and it's one of those books that you don't want to put down. It keeps you in constant suspense. The reading level is a little challenging because the talking is all old fashioned, but it's actually not all that bad. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes murder mysteries, or anybody that is looking for a creepy book with lots of surprises to make life interesting.

See You At Harry's

This week I read See You At Harry's by Jo Knowles. I had really high expectations for this book, because apparently everybody loves it and it makes them cry. It wasn't that sad for me, but still a really great (and a really sad) book. I won't give away too much, but basically it's about a twelve- year -old girl named Fern who is trying to cope with all of the things going on in her life, including her (kind of hilarious) dad. It follows a lot of different stuff going on in her life, one in particular very tragic, and has her and the rest of her family trying to move on from it. I know my description might sound kind of boring, but this was a really fast-paced and good book; I couldn't even put it down. It is really sad and you definitely connect to a lot of the characters in the book, even the ones that you don't like at first. Even though it's really depressing, I would say that the overall message of the book is positive; that does not mean it's not sad- it is. I would recommend this book to pretty much everybody in our class, despite your age and gender. I would call the genre realistic fiction- is that even a genre? Even though I would call it realistic fiction, I would definitely encourage people who read all sorts of different genres to try this book- believe me, it's really good, you won't be disappointed.

Breadcrumbs

This week I read Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu. This book was really good. I would call it Fantasy but also gets into real life; the main character is a normal girl. This is a really great book that Linda recommended, but I would warn you that we are probably on the upper range of the reading level, not out of it though, but close. Because of that, I would probably recommend this to 6th graders,  and only maybe 7th and 8th graders. It is about a girl named Hazel going to search for this boy in the woods who has been captured by a witch thing. The story sounds cheesy, but is actually kind of entertaining and not really silly. The characters are really connectable. I would recommend this book to people who liked books like Wonder by R.J. Palacio, books by Wendy Mass, or the Apothecary by Maile Meloy. Overall, this was a really good book with a total hook ending.

13 Gifts

This week I read 13 Gifts, by Wendy Mass. This book would probably be classifyed as realistic fiction. I don't normally like realistic fiction books like this, I normally read stuff like adventure/sci-fi, etc. I read this book because the last book that I read by Wendy Mass, A Mango Shaped Space, was really good. I thought that this book was relatively good, but still a little disappointing. Basically, it's about a girl named Tara going into eigth grade who (long story short) gets sent to stay with her aunt, uncle, cousin, and (unknowingly) a whole bunch of other bizarre characters for the summer. Tara is really antisocial; she doesn't have a lot of friends at school and just doesn't really like to be around people all that much. You get the feeling that she wants to have friends, just doesn't really have good "social skills" or whatever. She likes to sit things out, and watch from the sidelines. When she gets to her cousin's house, another long story short, she realizes that sometimes you have to take a risk for there to be any reward at all. I liked this book, even though it didn't live up to my expectations from A Mango Shaped Space. It takes a little while to get going, and the end has a pretty cool twist, that you half expect is coming but don't really believe it. I would recommend this book to both girls and boys, but probably girls might enjoy it more. The reading level is really easy, and I would recommend it to all of AS. Overall, this was a great book if you normally read this type of genre, and also a worthwhile book to read even if you don't read this genre, you'll probably like it, just, well, not as much.
That's all, folks!

Bitterblue

This week (or two weeks,  or whatever) I read Bitterblue, by Kristen Cashore. It is the second book of a series; the first one is called Graceling. Bitterblue is about a queen named (guess what) Bitterblue trying to help her kingdom recover after the awful tyranny of her father. Graceling is about the events leading up to this. It sounds kind of dark, and it is a little bit-numerous people commit suicide, animals and people are tortured, and the main character goes through a lot, but it's not really anything too bad for the people in our class. The overall darkness of the book kind of surprised me, because based on its theme it sounds like it shouldn't be that dark, but it kind of is. It is probably classifyed as fantasy; but it does fit in more than one category. It is really entertaining, even though it doesn't really have a clear point. I think that girls would probably like this book more than boys; it is told from the perspective of a girl, and just fits in with what I think most girls in our class would enjoy more than the boys would. I would also recommend reading Graceling before Bitterblue. The "companion book" or whatever they call it to Bitterblue is called Fire; in my opinion it's not as good, but if you like Bitterblue, you should probably try it. You can't just read Graceling and then read Fire, you have to read Bitterblue as well, but you can read Fire first, and then read Graceling and Bitterblue. Overall, I would recommend this book to people who are looking for an entertaining book to read on, well, a six and a half hour bus ride down to Taos, New Mexico.

MILA 2.0

So, this week I read MILA 2.0 by Debra Driza. This was one of the types of books that I like the best, it's sci-fi/action/futuristic. And it was really good, not surprisingly. It is about a normal girl who doesn't remember much about her past. Then she discovers that she is not who she thinks she is. She has to go in the run/into hiding to try and avoid the two groups which are trying to capture her alive in order to use her powers to their advantange. It's really entertaining and futuristicey, with a lot of cool technology and epic-sounding flips:). The main character is likable and for me was connectable. It was not hard or easy to read; most of it is that it's just really long to read in one week (it's like 550 pages). It does make up for  it in the fact that it's so entertaining that you will probably read it in a few hours and not be able to put it down, if you're anything like me. What, true fact:). Overall, this was a really good book and I would recommend it to anyone who likes sci-fi/futuristic stuff/artificial intelligence type books/even people who like fantasy.
Next Week's Book: Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card(sequel to ender's Game) (probably)

A Mango Shaped Space (book response week 2)

This week I read A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass. This was a book about a 13 year old girl that sees colors when she hears sound. She thinks that this is normal, and when she realizes it isn't, and tells somebody, they make fun of her and don't believe her. For the next five years, until the book takes place, she doesn't tell anybody. Everyone slowly forgets the first time she told them, and blames it on her imagination. The main plotline of the book is about what happens when she finally tells somebody her secret, but there are lots of alternate stories weaved into it. It is about her everyday life, but is actually quite fast- paced and interesting. It is not too hard to read at all. I'm not sure what genre I would call it; it's kind of a mix of a couple. One thing it definitely is not is sci-fi or adventure, so I was surprised that I liked it. I would recommend this book to almost anybody. Even though the main character is a girl, boys should like it too. Overall, this book was awesome!!!
Next weeks book: Mila 2.0

1st Book Review

HI!!!
This week I read Daniel X by James Patterson. I read this book because I have heard of it before, I like the author, and it was recommended by somebody (I don't even remember who now). This book is about a boy named (guess what) Daniel X whos life is dedicated to hunting aliens misfits that are trying to take over the world and more worlds as well as ours. The book is pretty entertaining with not really one dull moment, which is probably just as well:). You really do feel bad for Daniel though, because he's an orphan, etc., etc. I thought that there was not really an interesting plotline, lets face it, or an especially important one. Just my opinion. It did make up for that though in surprises and action. This book had lots of surprises; you will keep wanting to read a little bit more over and over and over again. I Would call this book a fantasy-sci-fi-adventure book. Itis not especially too hard to read.  I think the person who would like this book the most is someone who likes futuristic fantasy/adventure books. Overall, this was a pretty good book this was fun too read!
Sarah
Next week I will read:A Mango Shaped Space 
TBR List:
Green Glass Sea
Outliers
The Secret Life of Bees
BitterBlue/Fire
Shooting The Moon
The Clockwork Three
The Eyre Affair
Speaker for the Dead
The Night Circus
13 Reasons Why

Intro!!!

What's up, people! I'm Sarah London, as you probably already know. I am currently twelve years old. I enjoy many things such as swimming, playing piano/guitar/singing/you name it, listening to music,  playing soccer, science, basketball, reading. I also enjoy talking about multiple things with my friends that include pop music, other types of music, skiing, the debated awesomeness of star trek, ice cream, just plain ridiculous things- ok, you really get the point by now!!!
One book I read that I really enjoyed was called The Last Dragonslayer, by Jasper Fforde. Yes, with two Fs. At first I was skeptical about it because it's a fantasy/magic dragon-type-book:), but it's so funny! It incorperates modern day aspects into a kind of ridiculous fantasy world. It also makes fun of books like Harry Potter. Another book that I love is Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. This book is kind of like a sci-fi dystopian book, and the main character is really relatable. One last book is Viral by Kathy Reichs. I thought the (futuristic yet possible) science behind it was cool and also just the characters. The setting was really fun, I'd recomend this book to a lot of people who like sci-fi, fantasy, and really fast paced, realistic books.
So, that's it. G'bye.