The Man Who Walked Between the Towers

This book is about Philippe Petit and his amazing attempt (and success) to walk between the used-to-be-existent Twin towers of New York City. He was a person that performed in a circus and did the tightrope walk. He really did other things like juggle but I really have to say the tightrope walk because that is basically what he did (except for the fact that they were between the tallest buildings in New York at the time). The thing that made this different was a) super duper height and b) no net to catch him if he fell and finally c) most of the watchers eventually became police trying to arrest him.

You are obviously not supposed to do this because you would almost surely fall and die. But he didn't. It sounds crazy especially since he was on there for quite a while but it is true (this obviously must appear in Ripley's Believe It or Not book somewhere). I responded to this book in a few ways. First, "Wow that dude that they are talking about is amazing!" Second, I pretty much liked the book a whole lot. Last, see if I can find something about that or something similar in my Ripley's Believe It or Not book. I think this guy was amazing, brave and quite a dare devil but this list probably goes on quite long. I think that I wouldn't do this because I barely go on the balance beams that are at some playgrounds and if I did it, I probably wouldn't be very good at it. The other reason is that I probably wouldn't be that brave. I'd call myself crazy over and over again if I suddenly dreamed of myself doing it.

The pictures are great too, as well as what happened. The pictures basically give you the sense that this is not an exaggeration. The images of the towers probably looked much like what you would see in a photograph. The pictures at least to some people actually give you the image of what it might be like from his point of view; in fact, it makes Mom feel kind of dizzy and activates her fear of heights!

Ultimate Field Trip 5: Blasting Off to Space Academy

Ultimate Field Trip 5! You might have read my previous Blog Article about Ultimate Field Trip 1, Adventures in the... oh, just see it yourself! Anyway, both 1 and 5 are, although this may be obvious to you, part of a series of Ultimate Field Trip books. In this book, a bunch of kids known as Team Europa (named after one of Jupiter's moons) go to Space Academy which is in Alabama. While they are there they do some of the stuff that astronauts-to-be at NASA do (use equipment like 5DF chairs, use swimming pools to simulate weightlessness, etc.) and then go on a simulated adventure. They found out how to build model rockets--the kind that actually launch--use creativity to make possible future stuff for landing on Mars and much more.

I think that this book is amazing, especially the simulated adventure part which I should say is my favorite part. I'm amazed that they somehow managed to operate that space shuttle simulator! At the end they had a celebration and also the team won the outstanding team award for amazing team work. That's probably the most major thing they learned--teamwork actually is important in space. You can't get much done without help from others.

This makes me think that I want to go to space camp someday too. I really hope I do since by the sound of this book it sounds amazingly fun though I may agree with what one kid said and never think of really going into space because it's too scary, even though I don't believe that now.

Anyway, check this book out!

Ultimate Field Trip 1: Adventures in the Amazon Rainforest

Wow! Follow a bunch of kids one-week trip to Peru and the Amazon rainforest and that's what you'll say. These kids studied the rainforest for a year (by the way they are in Michigan and people from Michigan are likely to like that fact, including myself) and at the end got this trip to it.

They learned amazing things -- I might be more surprised than they were since I didn't study about the rainforest. They definitely couldn't learn that just by reading books--for one thing, if they didn't go the book wouldn't exist! Just reading it you can't always visualize it--you might think they are exaggerating; that's part of the reason why they put photos in. They have to see it with their own eyes.

The most interesting part was the strange things like humongous lily pads that had razor sharp spikes on the under sides of them! At least to me, what properly would be considered interesting would be their opinions but I'm not sure who to choose to take the opinions of!

I think people should read this book because they have to know how amazing the Amazon is. Also they should read this because at the same time it explains that the rainforest is being destroyed and they need to help by not buying as much stuff that comes from it.

By the way, I had a similar experience except much nearer to home and not a rainforest. It was being at Camp Talahi, a place that I and the rest of my class at school went. I learned many things about the regular forest including building shelters just like they built thatched houses and someone (I believe it was my little sister) found a little tree frog. But that's another story that we wrote about in our Camp Talahi News.

I'm sure I'd like to read another one of the Ultimate Field Trip books, especially the Space one that I got the image of the cover of while we were looking for the image of the cover of this book that I'm talking about. That says that I really want to read all these books and whoever is reading this should too.

A Boy Called Slow

I finished this book on 07/17/09.

A Boy Called Slow is a book about a Native American boy (called slow). The reason he got the name Slow was that kids were most often named like this: first, the parents find a word or words that describe the kid well. Then they use it as the kid's (not permanent) name. For example, I might be named Computer Liker or Likes Computers!

The name isn't permanent though. If you lived then, you'd do something quite significant to outgrow your kid name (which I believe many kids loathed.)

Slow got his name when he didn't respond quickly to one thing his dad or mom asked. To outgrow his old name, Slow gets on a horse he owned and wards off enemies that were attacking their tribe. He became a very famous Indian chief and earned the name Sitting Bull. You might have heard of it before which gives away that this is nonfiction!

In this book I got a better idea of Sitting Bull. I knew there was some famous guy called Sitting Bull but I didn't know much about him, nor did I know that kids were named like his child name. This also reminded me of something that I did in my class at school. My teacher, Denise, took us to West Park and fixed up an old Native American trail along with some help from our buddies from Community High. It was a huge thing and actually the city did some of it too!! Later in the summer me and my friend Saul walked down it, at least a section of it.

First on the Moon

I finished this book on 7/10/09.

First on the Moon is (obviously, unless you never knew about it) about the Apollo 11 mission to land men on the moon for the first time ever. One interesting thing about this book was that it also talked about Buzz Aldrin's daughter, Jan, as she watched him on TV while he was in space. It also told about how one of them, I can't remember which one (Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin) found a funky looking rock that looked like it was molten though it obviously couldn't be, because the moon doesn't have a molten bit of it.

The Science Fair From the Black Lagoon

I finished this book on 7/9/2009.

The Science Fair from the Black Lagoon is a quite easy to read but at the same time it's silly, so it's still a great book. Its sense of humor gives the entertainment, like when one kid which, in the beginning of the book, said that his project was to turn invisible, but, at the end, he just handed out blindfolds!

The Voyage of the Beetle

I finished this book on 7/02/09

The Voyage of the Beetle is another book about Darwin, but this time, A: it isn't a picture book, and B: it isn't from a human's point of view. Instead of using a human being's point of view, the author of this book uses the viewpoint of Darwin's “pet” beetle, Rosie! It was a very good idea for the author to do this because it made it a bit more interesting. I learned that Darwin at first didn't even like being at the Galapagos Islands-–he said some kind of swear-word like thing when he stepped on the shore because he didn't like the looks of it, though he made one of his major discoveries there!

39 Clues, book 1

I finished this book on 6/23/09.

The 39 Clues is a great book about a cool hunt for 39 clues (duh) and I Like it a lot. My favorite person in it is Dan. He is very silly and also good with technology and math like me.
The famous person this book has to do with is Ben Franklin and I actually learned something about him. For example, he made batteries and an essay on farts.

The Stuff of Life

I finished this book on 6/20/09.

The Stuff of Life is a cool comic book about genetics and DNA and that kinda stuff. It is a least a bit silly—as almost all comic books are—but really manages to get excellent information in there in the same time. If you're not that much of a comic reader you might want to read about genetics in a traditional book, while if you look at comics all the time and nearly never look at regular books, LOOK AT THIS!

What Darwin Saw

I finished this book on 6/19/09.

What Darwin Saw is a book about Darwin and the journey he took on a ship called The Beagle. The book isn't too much of a straight forward reading book, but it is still interesting to read in any order. It was organized by the time this happened and followed Darwin's journey from place to place. He went to places like areas in South America, a few stops in Africa, and a bit in Australia. And of course, the Galapagos, which you might already know about. He figured out that things evolve differently in different places when he was in the Galapagos and one of the points of this is that the Galapagos is so far off from the mainland of South America that there are species that you can only find there and they differ from one island to the next, but they are still similar. There were three fonts in the book. One was like a narrator, one was some stuff that Darwin wrote down himself in his journals, and last one was (there were only a few of these) an orange type that showed what other people wrote or said.