109 Forgotten American Heroes (and 9 or so villains...)

There are plenty of heroes that have gone down through history. (Abe Lincoln as an obvious example.) BUT... DON'T SAY THAT THEY ALL ARE WELL KNOWN TO THE HISTORY BOOKS!!! This book is a history of the important people who should've gotten the good one, including Allan Pinkerton, who was the one who watched over Abe Lincoln, Frank Epperson, who made the popsicle, and, if you want half-famous, the part of Tom Jefferson that made him introduce Mac 'n Cheese to the U.S.  This book also has 9 or so villains, like Lester Wunderman, who is the moron who invented junk mail and email SPAM, David Wallerstien, who made fast food, and Robert Propst, who made the office cubicle since the office was a very stressful place, but accidentally helped what he was fighting against (his name is circled, saying, "Totally Accidental Villain").

This book also shows that history isn't boring, because this is a history book and it sure isn't boring. Keeps you going with...HUMOR! and...AWESOME GRAPHICS!
Book Rating:★★★★★!!!! TOTALLY AWSOME!!!!! 

All About Drums

Here it is, a guide to my favorite type of instrument that just HAS to go on my blog! This awesome, awesome, and more awesome book has all anyone needs to know about playing the standard five-piece drum kit, and has tons of songs to grab your sticks and crash, bang, and wallop into the ears of your audience with your drumset! If you're drum-crazy, this is your book!

The parts I liked the most about this book were the two parts at the end, first, the "who's who" part, which names important "kit-drummers"(not orchestral drummers). My favorite guy was named Neil Peart, and his drum kit is HUGE, and it's components stretch my imagination. In fact, the picture doesn't even help, since I hardly can see some parts, and there are probably lots I can't see at all! (What a bad angle, stupid camera dude.) The other part I liked was the appendix, which might come in handy when I learn to play drums with written music.

George's Marvelous Medicine

This book by Roald Dahl is short, but still totally hilarious. I think anyone who wants humor in a small package better get their hands on this.

One day, little George's parents go on vacation, and George has to stay with his horrid Grandma--who's such a grouchy old hag that she definitely doesn't deserve to be called Grandma because of the "Grand" part of the word. Her usual medicine doesn't do a thing to cure her grouchiness, which meant George was stuck with mean old "Granny Grunt". Suddenly he was struck with an idea-a great one. He would make grandma a new medicine that would either make her explode or something like that, or make her a much better person. and so it started. George ran all around the property with a big pot, putting all sorts of stuff into it. Later he boiled it and stirred it and whadaya know, it's ready! When George gave it to grandma, the results were bizarre. Grandma ended up with her head sticking through the roof--and her feet still standing on the living room floor! To find out what happened afterwards, read the book.

My favorite part was when grandma got her new meds. First she caught fire from inside her, then she did a perfect backflip, then she inflated and deflated with air, then she got taller and got stuck stretched with her head breaking through the roof and her feet still standing on the living room floor. I think I forgot somthing, but whatever. You've GOT to read it.

Warriors #5: A Dangerous Path (1)

I'm sorry about this 1/2 post, but I had to do it because I haven't been reading as much. I'm somewhere about 3/8ths of the way through this book.

Fireheart, who was taking the ill Bluestar's place at the gathering, was surprised (in the bad way) to see his greatest enemy, Tigerclaw, as leader of ShadowClan. (I should say Tigerstar instead of Tigerclaw now, but I'm just tellin' ya who this guy is.) Just when the the young deputy with the fire-colored fur was about to warn the three other clans about Tigerstar's former presence as a rogue cat. But he seemed rather peaceful.  Perhaps, now that he has satisfied his hunger for power, his only goal is probably to make his sickness-flooded clan powerful again. In fact, the ShadowClan medicine cat got an e-mail from StarClan that a new great leader would rise. (Just kidding about the e-mail part.)

Later, back in the ThunderClan camp, cats were detecting dog-scent nearby, and kept seeing dead rabbits. When Bluestar was informed, she said that WindClan killed the poor bunnies (WindClan hunts them more often then the other clans) and ignored the dog part. Later, a blind kit named Snowkit was taken by a hawk. Bluestar said it was a sign that StarClan was at war with ThunderClan, and that was probably the last major event since I left off.

So far my favorite part was where Fireheart discovered that Tigerstar was the leader of Shadowclan. I like how the author explained this. She used a lot of words and sentences that make it easy to picture and understand.

Warriors #4: Rising Storm

Finally, it's here! Fireheart and the rest of Thunderclan are back into action as we see them live in peace-but soon Bluestar starts to think that Starclan is abandoning her! Fireheart does his best to comfort her, but this fails. Then something terrible strikes. Here's a clue to what it is: Spottedleaf's last message to her clan as a living medicine cat said it would save the clan (poor Spottedleaf-the rest of Starclan must be angry because of how she said the message) and it's HOT.

My favorite part was when they were planning about what would happen at a gathering that was near the end. It was very cool.  Since Bluestar was ill, they had to decide whether it was worth it to go to the gathering without a leader, just the deputy, or if it wasn't worth it. They decided that Fireheart had to take her place because there were many things that they had to warn the other clans about. This doesn't mean that Bluestar died, but she was just too sick to go; she's still the leader of the clan. Fireheart did do a good job in her place at that gathering though. Boy, now I can't even imagine him being the kittypet he used to be!

This series is definitely not going to run away from the house of interest yet! In fact I don't think it ever will!  I already started the next book in the series, so stay tuned for my review of that!

The Story of Doctor Dolittle

Poor Dr. John Dolittle is getting very low on money! He is a doctor who likes animals more than people. This is why he becomes an animal doctor. Soon his talking parrot, Polynesia, teaches him that animals have a language, and even how to speak it. This allowed him to understand the sick animals that get taken there, so he could give them the right stuff, like when a blind horse came in, he said he needed glasses, so that's what he got! The Dr. became famous for that. But chi-chi, the monkey, gets a message from monkeys in africa that they are sick and need the doc badly! So he and his buddies from other species sets out on a journey to africa, with only adventure awaiting them!

My favorite parts of it are the most exiting parts (boys always like excitement)  like when pirates tried to attack them. I also liked the part about dr. doolittle learning animal languages and it would be fun if I had a dream about that. There were a bunch of funny parts, like for example in the learning animal language part, Polynesia says "If I say 'Polly wants a cracker' you understand me, right?" That's quite funny to me. And when Jip the dog was sniffing for a lost person and he kept smelling funny things from a long long way away from them.

I'd recommend this book for anyone who likes animals and perhaps humor too.

Dragonbreath

As a whole, this book is a good, kind of short but fun all the same book, probably classified as plain fiction with a drop of fantasy added to the mix. Or maybe two, but as if I care.

Anyway, Danny Dragonbreath, who just got an F on a paper about the ocean, is in deep trouble--he has to redo it by the next day! (silly Danny, writing his entire thing on the bus without even gathering facts first...) Suddenly his mom (or his dad) got the PERFECT idea: having him (and his friend Wendell) go on a tour of the ocean with his uncle Edward, a sea serpent. Going deep into the water to avoid getting deeper into trouble was exiting but dangerous. (very.) Will the two young adventure-seekers survive their risky journey? Read the book to find out. (You knew I would say that last sentence, right?)

My favorite part of this book was that in some (short) parts it switches to basic cartoon format. I guess I was interested because I read pokémon comics a lot. :-)

The Big Friendly Giant (the BFG for short)

This book is an excellent story that I say is for anyone who stumbles upon it. (but there is the problem that some copies of it, like the one from the library or school, have a boring cover. But you can't judge a book by it's outfit, at least not unless...OH, BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!) Anyway, this thing is Hilarious, Unpredictable, and 'Super-glued to your hands' (if you get what I mean) all at the same time. Even though that sounds impossible to write, well, here it is!

Here's the story, in a nutshell: One dark night, alarmed Sophie spots a giant stomping the streets. But soon she realizes that he isn't having a midnight snack, he's messing with this trumpet (or, should I say, tuba) thingy. Suddenly he snatches her and takes her to his cave. But Sophie soon (not very soon, but who cares) that he is the BFG, and he lives up to his name. After a long and fun time in the cave, Sophie learns about the other giants terrible diets, and is willing to risk her only life to defeat them. But HOW? Read the book to find out, and trust me, it has a happy ending.

Aside from all that, the BFG talks funny, for example, instead of "right or wrong" he says "right or left". This is why I wouldn't rate it for preschoolers, since they might learn 'giant speak' instead of American-english or english-english. But please don't call it bad for that. :-)

How to keep dinosaurs

This is a cute and funny book I'd rate a ★★★★★ for anyone, especially Alaina (she LOVES cute things). Imagine if dinos hadn't (BAM!) gone extinct, and if you could have them as pets. Some of you might've had a dream about this, especially if you're a "dino-holic". (If you did, please don't call me or the author a "psychic psycho".) Anyway, the author of this thing tried to imagine the qualities of certain dinos in the house, and if they just didn't fit, he put them in a different category. There are a lot of categories: dinos for beginners, dinos as pets, dinos as flying pets, dinos for recreation and the circus, dinos for security work, dinos for meat and eggs, dinos for hide and feathers, and dinos for safari parks and zoos. (that is a lot of categories.) Plus, each "dinoscription" is a long and descriptive one (nice, unless you aren't a very skilled reader). In these descriptions, it explains basic facts, its diet, a good place for it to live, conditions for mating with another dinosaur and where to find it.   This is kind of like a how-to-care-for-a-kitty or something book but with dinos! That's kind of the whole joke of the book.

The illustrations are very detailed and are probably taken from real photos of places and then they use computers to add the dinos. They probably did a little editing of other things, like if it is holding something in its mouth or they did something that they mischievously weren't willing to really let happen--like messing up a kitchen.

Learn Spanish with Superman: Up, Up, and Away!

You might have thought of having comic books integrated with learning to make school more fun. Well, if so, here it is! (I'd think the author was psychic!) Anyway, in this book, random words are chosen in a Superman comic, deleted, and re-written in Spanish. The Spanish words are then re-written on the side of that page (in order) and their English meaning is written below them.

If you (or anyone else) asked, "Is this useful in Spanish class?" I would have to say Yes and No, because, as I said earlier in this post, random words are chosen. This means that I shouldn't expect to see the word "dare" in Spanish on the whiteboard very soon, but there are some words to expect. In other words, expect the word pero, or but from your Spanish teacher before está muerto, or you're dead, or tú, or you before ¿Crees que soy patético? or You think I'm pathetic?. (for some reason, whenever I see that é thing I notice that the same thing is in Pokémon...)

Car Science

Did you know that cars actually have science behind them? To tell the truth, they have a TON of science under the hood. This book mainly talks about both forces and motion, and car stuff, with occasional breaks to show the reader stuff like the Top Ten CRAZY ideas, (I like this part!) with ten totally FREAKY cars or concept cars, my favorite of which is a Swiss concept called the Rinspeed Presto, which, to avoid tight parking spots, can shrink from a four- to a two-seat roadster at the touch of a button! This book is AWESOME!!!  

I learned about lots of things in this book like how skids can be awful or awesome and the physics of what you are trying (or not trying) to do when you skid. Some of it includes your rear wheels floating off the road slightly, causing you to turn more tightly than you want, or your front wheels doing the same which makes you not turn sharp enough. Or, if all of your wheels lose grip probably on some water, which causes you not to be able to turn at all. Trick drivers can use skids to do awesome tricks, like skidding and turning their car around onto the next lane which would be handy if you really need to turn around fast!  Basically this is a really big skid caused by the rear wheels which I forgot to tell you, is called Oversteer (Understeer is for the front wheel one). In skids it is basically friction and inertia causing problems. Friction, as you probably know, is the force that gives something its grip, even ice has some friction. Inertia is a force that makes something keep moving if it was moving, which I think is also one of Newton's three laws. It also talks about engineering that could be used to prevent skids. Most cars have Antilock Brakes and some have Traction Control. Antilock Brakes do their work when a wheel stops turning because the brake has locked the wheel which can easily happen on wet or icy roads because the brake and the wheel don't have much friction. The system then kicks in and automatically releases and then reapplies the brake quite quickly which allows the wheel to roll just enough to get back its grip.

This book has that much science detail for all of its facts! There are a whole bunch of pictures and words so it's really good for everyone.

Warriors comic books

Now here's some more Warriors for you! This series of books is actually a bunch of side stories to the novels. It tells you about a point of time which I haven't reached yet (I'm on book 4 which is called “Rising Storm”). Anyway, Graystripe gets lost and ends up stuck with a bunch of Twolegs (people). He soon makes friends with a cat (I almost wrote kit-kat!) named millie and soon he escapes from the torturous Twolegs (with millie) and finds himself...worn out. but he survives, and finds his way back to the forest...which is in ruins. (*DUN-DUN-DUH!*)

Compare and contrast to the Warriors novels:
To me Warriors novels are more detailed but I like the comic books just about equally, perhaps from my liking of reading lots of Pokemon graphic novels! To me, the images in the comic book tell me what the cats might look like in certain people's minds. They don't match up with what I picture them most of the time and they definitely don't match up with the pictures of Greystripe and Millie in my Warriors Cats of the Clans book (which basically shows all the characters in the novels). The comic books are better for people who think best with pictures instead of words. I'm not sure which I am--probably I'm just both, but let's not get off topic too much! Those people who prefer words would prefer the novels.

The Secrets of Droon: Journey to the Volcano Palace

Droon is back! The gang now faces lord Sparr and must take the Eye of Dawn, a magical jewel that can do many things, from him. But first they must get there-which involves throwing water at an invisible gate to make it visible! Will the group of kids manage to steal the eye from Sparr's palace-which, by the way, is in a volcano? Read this book to find out!
Who I would Recommend this book to?

Anyone who likes Spore computer games and Harry Potter books. This is a combination of those two sort of things, at least to me.
This book was slightly easy for me (like the first one)--I probably read it in something like an hour, but there was a big gap between reading part of it and the next part because me and either Mom or Dad or both went somewhere before I finished the book. But anyway, here's some things you do and don't get out of easy books:
You do get a lot of entertainment but you don't get much reading practice. It's pretty fun to blast through a book but it is also kind of nice to have a book that lasts a long time.
I think I might read more of these books, but I'm not totally sure. I still have to decide.

Go Figure!: A Totally Cool Book About Numbers

Think numbers are hunks o' junk? Think about it, and you'll realize that you just called something that can be interesting, cool, and even kinda fun crud.  Did you know that division by 0 is impossible because you end up with a conclusion that shows that 1 is equal to 2-which is impossible?  Or that you can use the number 1,089 to read people's minds?  Or that a doughnut is topologically equivalent to a mug?  Believe it or not, it's truer than true, and I'm no liar.  This book shows you Möbius strip magic, the math in the paintbrush, and how mind-bustingly huge, Huge, HUGE, a Googolplex is. 

All I can say is that it was just a blast with a Googolplex of reasons!  
This person put something to astonish anyone that had to do with math in the pages of this book to make them want to keep reading it.

It showed some of the same stuff as The Great Number Rumble, but way more other stuff (there's no 1,089 revealing the mind in the Great Number Rumble.)

Warriors #3: Forest of Secrets

Warriors has returned again! In this 3rd Book-of-a-one-of-a-kind-series, (☺) Fireheart mainly tries to prove his suspicions. My favorite part is the end, as it always has been. Then, Fireheart finds out that Tigerclaw, whom Fireheart has always been suspicious of, was trying to KILL BLUESTAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!☠
Fireheart had always been incredibly loyal to his clan, and was NOT willing to give an SOS. Why the HECK would he let bluestar die‽ He greatly wounded tigerclaw and defeated him. but, (*dun dun duh!*) Tigerclaw the outlaw was still alive. I predict that this Tigerclaw-outlaw thing will turn up in Book 4 (which I need to get from the library!)

I think being loyal means not doing a thing against your, in this case, clan. I strongly think about both my family and my class at school: this means I'm loyal to them. For example, when I walk Fiona to school, I am making sure she is safe. That's kind of being loyal, which is pretty much just taking care of her. But I guess that's a part of loyalty.

Secrets Of Droon #01: The Hidden Stairs And The Magic Carpet

Once upon a time, whenever it was, three kids named Eric, Neil and Julie went down in their basement to get a soccer ball to play a game of soccer--not very interesting yet, eh?

They, for no absolute reason, opened a little room's door--like about the size of a closet perhaps. And they discover a magical stairway that only appears when you shut the tiny room's door. This discovery starts out confusing when they accidentally shut the door on Julie and she say she's falling. And after that she comes back without the ball and they think she got hit on the head by the ball because she's acting kind of wacky. But soon they discover that this was no lie and she didn't get hit on the head by the soccer ball. It was a staircase into the magical world of Droon.

As they descent the magical staircase step by step they know, just know, that only magic and adventure awaits them.
>!<>!<>!<>!<>!<

The book was slightly easy for me, but I like having books that I can read quickly. Plus it gets a lot more stuff on this blog and I have to do a blog post one time each week! Anyway, easy and fast to read doesn't mean it wasn't interesting. My favorite part was when they got to the disappearing tower of Galen (hey, there's a boy in my class with that name! ) perhaps because one of the kids slammed into something that wasn't there, if you get what I mean, because that's funny, isn't it? Oh, I slammed into some air! :) It wasn't generally funny, it was interesting, but most books have to have a little bit of humor to be interesting (at least books that have a story in them).

This is the first book in a series and I definitely want to read the next and the next and the next and the next....Of course, I don't like this as much as my super-cool Warriors books, but they are interesting just the same.

Anyway, you've GOT to read it! Ooh, what's in this little room here? Wait a sec, don't shut the-BAM! AAAAAH! (*falls down magical staircase*)

The Mighty 12: Superheroes of Greek Myth

The Mighty 12 is a book about 12 gods/goddesses of Greek myth. They are so powerful that the author calls them superheros on the cover. Their names: Zues, Poseidon, Hermes, Hera, Hephaestus, Hades, Dionysus, Athena, Artemis, Ares, Apollo, and Aphrodite.

These "Super-Gods" are explained in Poetry. I think the reason the author wrote this book like that was because he both wanted a unique book and it just seems to fit in like an lubricated puzzle piece!

I think Zeus is probably my favorite god. The reason I like him most is either he is the leader of all these super people or that I just paid the most attention to him. I think the reason I paid the most attention to him is that I both thought that there was some important mythical dude that threw lightening bolts in some kind of religion or else I just noticed that above the poem it said "God of All Gods". It's because he's the leader then.

Warriors #2: Fire and Ice

Warriors is back again! First, let's recap: Fireheart, then known as Rusty, chooses to leave his twoleg (that's what the Clan cats call People) home and joins Thunderclan. Then he becomes known as Firepaw. In the end, he proved himself a Warrior cat by helping to strip Shadowclan of their leader, Brokenstar. Anyway, Fireheart (he earned that name proving himself) continues life as a Warrior. The most important part (to me) was the battle Thunderclan fought to protect Windclan from being driven from their territory--Again. Fireheart fought off many, many, many Riverclan and Shadowclan cats. Shadowclan gave up, and then Riverclan. Thunderclan had saved Windclan--Again!

The Warriors books are probably the most interesting books I've ever read! The author is definitely an animal lover. She either came up with the teriffic topic while daydreaming or saw a cat that looked like Fireheart. She really seems to know how to put some excitement into things, because she makes Fireheart be an astonishing warrior. And I'm glad about that since the excitement keeps me reading.

The Great Number Rumble

The Great Number Rumble is a fictional story about math. When the Director of Education in some non-specific town where a kid named Jeremy lives (the whole book is told from Jeremy's perspective) removes Math from the School Curriculum, the kids held a “yay-saying marathon”. Even the teachers happily ditched their math textbooks, expecting not to see them ever again. But Jeremy's friend Sam, a self-proclaimed mathnic, hated the math ban that the director of education, who's name, by the way is Mr. Lake, set up, so he sets out to prove to Mr. Lake that Math is fun, and also proves that math is everywhere in the doing of it. He covers all of the math in sports, art, music, nature, and more. Sam finally convinces Mr. Lake that math is fun, and then he lifts the ban. Cool, huh?

My favorite thing about this book was how many tricks Sam had up his sleeve. He seemed to have a way to get around everything Mr. Lake threw at him. Plus, I thought that math was integrated into almost everything, but I didn't know how.

There's also some history of famous mathematicians in this book. My favorite one was probably Pythagoras and the order of Pythagoras. They tried to prove a mathematical universe, and got extremely close, but disaster struck when one of them discovered the square root of two, which is impossible to write in whole numbers (decimals weren't part of math then).

Warriors: Into the Wild

Warriors is about four wild cat clans that seem more like societies to me. A human-pet cat named Rusty joins one of them which is called Thunderclan and takes the name Firepaw.

Let me explain something about the clans: the names of them are Thunderclan, with a leader named Bluestar (all leaders are given the name 'star' when they become leader). Thunderclan is perhaps my favorite one, just to tell you. The evil Shadowclan, which is really just evil because they have an evil leader who I think is pretty stupid--all he wants is power. His name is Brokenstar (broken the promise of being a good leader of course :\). Shadowclan is across a street from Thunderclan (they call the street the Thunder Path because they think the cars are monsters). Riverclan lives across a river from Thunderclan's forest; their leader is Crookedstar (because of his crooked jaw). And finally Windclan which is pretty much separate from all the other clans on a plateau near the Thunder Path and a farm. Their leader is Tallstar. Shadowclan drove them out so they aren't heard about much in this book.

There's also something called Star Clan, but that's basically the heaven for the cats.

Anyway, Rusty gets turned into Firepaw in Thunderclan and he becomes a warrior apprentice. The clans of cats have warriors which basically are the fighters. The book is about him training to be a warrior and all that happens within his training. First he quickly becomes friends with a cat named Greypaw (all of the apprentices are named 'something'paw--Firepaw got his name from his fiery red fur.)

Suddenly some warrior or warrior's apprentice says that Bluestar's deputy (Redtail) is dead. This is very disappointing moment as Redtail was Bluestar's deputy for many moons (they call months 'moons') and by warrior tradition Bluestar must choose a new deputy before the next full moon (moon-high). Bluestar chose a warrior named Lionheart.

The thing I enjoyed most in this book was the most exciting part when Thunderclan defeated Shadowclan's sinister leader. There was a huge war between the two clans--some Shadowclan cats hated their leader so much that they helped Thunderclan.

By the end of the book, Firepaw becomes a warrior and his name changed to Fireheart. That's basically the end of the book--of course that's just the first book!

I read this book faster than I usually read a chapter book because of how much it excited me and interested me. I think the author, whose name is Erin Hunter, is probably really good at putting excitement into her stories. This was perhaps the most exciting chapter book I've read ever! And as a result of that I've quickly tried to find the next Warriors book (which we have since my Dad and Fiona read both this book and are somewhere in the next book) and I've already started reading it. So stay tuned for that--coming up pretty soon!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (part 3)

In this Blog post I will talk about the end of the book. After returning from a long journey trying to destroy a Horcrux (I have no clue how to spell it, OK?), Harry and a weakened Dumbeldore find out that Hogwarts had been attacked by Death Eaters!! :(

Eventually during a fight, Dumbledore gets thrown off a tower after Avadakadavra--the killing curse--is used on him by Severus Snape. It was supposed to actually be Malfoy, believe it or not, he had never actually killed someone and he felt like he just couldn't do it.

Dumbledore was a very important person so this is very, very significant. With Dumbledore not there, Harry will have no one as important as him to help him. When I was reading the book, I couldn't believe Dumbledore was dead! He was quite a powerful wizard.

Dumbledore had rescued Harry and no there was no one to do that. Which is very significant to Harry. I don't know if Harry will be strong enough to defeat Voldemort without Dumbledore's help. Before when Harry reached a stumbling block, Dumbledore would step in and help him, but now there is no Dumbledore to do that. In this book, at the end, Harry says that he won't be going back to Hogwarts because he'll be trying to destroy horcruxes and Voldemort. Ron and Hermione say that they won't go back to school if he won't--so Harry won't totally be on his own. But they're young witches and wizards too. So he doesn't have anyone with much experience following his path with him.

By the way, Harry later discovers that Snape was the Half Blood Prince. So the theory that Hermione earlier placed was correct.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (part 2)

This is another section of my Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince blog post. It is about a certain section. Harry goes to a potions class, which he thought he wouldn't be taking because he only got an "E" on his OWLs because Professor Snape, who Harry loathes, was teaching it. Part of the reason is that Snape only continues teaching people who got "O" on their OWLs for potions. But Harry can take the class because Snape is not teaching it anymore!

Anyway, he forgot his book and then gets a spare which the last user apparently scribbled a whole lot of annoying notes in. He starts making the potion that Slughorn asked his students to make and then eventually (after deciphering the writing that was obscured by those annoying notes) he took a chance and tried to do what the annoying notes said. When he smashed a bean with a silver knife (he was supposed to cut it if he was just paying attention to the author) it did exactly what the book said the results should be.

He now knew that the annoying notes were not annoying at all! And the next time he followed the instructions and got what he wanted in like two seconds once again.

To me the significance of this is it lets Harry get Felix Felicis, which is liquid luck, as a prize. This unlocks a whole ton of things that rely on it so Harry can basically do almost anything he needs to.

A list of stuff Harry learns from the Half-Blood Prince:

1. How to be good at potions, even better than Hermione!
2. A few spells that the Half-Blood Prince invented himself: Levicorpus (which makes someone float in midair) and Sectum Sempre (which makes the person aimed at spill out their blood--the Prince wrote "should only be used against enemies.")

Hermione really doesn't approve of the Prince. Because Harry is kind of following someone else's orders, she gets quite unhappy. She thinks that the person who invented the spells was a dark wizard.

Harry really feels good about this Half-blood Prince but Hermione is suspicious. They both are kind of right but I believe the proof of who this Half-blood Prince is, personally I must say, belongs in my next post.

Stay tuned (please...)!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (part 1)

Just a quick note: this may be an awkwardly long blog post, so please just... keep... reading...(well, it is a big book!) So, anyway, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is another harry potter book (duh!).

A lot of the energy in the lessons that Harry took from Dumbledore is spent trying to find out about Voldemort (oh no! I said it!) and his past. It's important to find out this because this may help them defeat Lord Voldemort. They go into many people's memories with the Pensive and each one is about something to do with Voldemort. You need to know your enemy's strengths and weaknesses.

Here are a few things that Harry may have discovered in that range.
Voldemort's Strengths:

• He can obviously stand to kill someone, which is probably his main strength.
• He was a pretty good student when he was at Hogwarts. In fact he was pretty much the best student anyone had ever seen. So he's probably pretty smart.
• He has an army of Death Eaters--he basically controls them with fear.
  
• He has killed many people to make Horcruxes. A Horcrux is a part of a person's soul that got ripped apart from the rest. You can't be killed if you have your soul ripped up into pieces until the many pieces are destroyed.
  

Voldemort's Weaknesses:

• He is not good at making friends.
• It's not really good for you to have a ripped soul. He doesn't even look human anymore. He looks kind of like a snake.
• Voldemort never told anyone about the Horcruxes. So it is a weakness that his enemies know, y'know. Now they can destroy however many Horcruxes they know of. They believe the number of Horcruxes is 6, with the 7th piece of soul still in him. Voldemort knows that 7 is the most powerful magical number.
• They have destroyed two, one which was Voldemort's diary, and the other was Marvolo's ring (Marvolo was one of Voldemort's ancestors, to be precise his Grandfather). They think the other ones are: they thought they had found a horcrux in Slytherin's locket (but it turns out to be a fake, there is a piece of paper in the fake that says that someone intends to destroy the real one but we just know they intend to, not whether they actually did), Helga Hufflepuff's cup, and something of Griffendor's and/or Ravenclaw's.
• Dubledore says that Harry has a power that Voldemort doesn't--he can love. It's kind of weird to me. And Harry might think "how is that a power" as well, but still then again Dumbledore is pretty smart!

In my next post I will talk about some other stuff in the book.

Tiger math

Tiger math is about a Siberian Tiger who's Mother, without warning, died of cancer (and learn graphs from the tiger cub, who's name, by the way, is T.J.). Poor T.J. had no one but the Sheila, the tiger keeper, and Cindy, a vet assistant at the animal hospital, to take care of him, so it was up to them to do it. Their goal: get him as big and healthy as his father, Matthew, was at his age. It was hard to reach it, but, eventually T.J.'s condition was just as good as his father's. About the math? well, this book explains graphs using things about T.J. and tigers in general. for example, there's a pie chart that shows the number of different types of tigers on the globe (the whole thing representing tigers in general). My opinion of their method is, "Excellent!"

39 Clues, book 2 (first half)

The 39 Clues!

I chose to do "One False Note" as its called (book 1 is "The Maze of Bones") in I/IIs, so its not all of the book. OK, now U get that, so lets explain the book. The 39 Clues is about Amy and Dan Cahill. The Cahills are the most powerful family on the face of the globe. They have been fighting for ages and, to me, seem to have no idea what Peace is. ☢=☑ Oᵒ%oO☮=?

Questions from my mom:
Each book has some historical figure that it teaches you about. What person is featured in this book and what did you learn about him or her?
The person is Mozart and Mozart's sister Nannerl. I learned that Nannerl would have become as great as Mozart if women were more allowed to be musicians back then. I think I learned that Mozart was a prodigy.

What do you think is going to happen in the second half of the book?
They were in Venice when I stopped reading. We last left off at a place that it is hard for me to guess from.

Is your favorite character still Dan? Why or why not? (give examples)
My favorite is, yes, still Dan because he's still silly enough. For example, he was trying to operate a boat in Venice and he said he had a lot of experience because he had played a lot on X-box! After he bumped into someone, he said it was better to think of bumper cars. But he ended up being pretty good at it!

Do you think you want to read book 3 when you finish this book? Why or why not?
I'm not sure. I think yet again that I'm not quite at the point where I'm ready to say that yet. I do like the books, especially Dan's jokes, and I kind of like the cat-and-mouse aspect of it, but I might find that we leave off on a really so disturbing part of it that I'm starting not to like it as much, like the way that people are unkind to each other or the way that someone blasts the over violence aspect into existence. And I might just be reading other books too much.

But I will definitely write about part 2.

TO BE CONTINUED....