Hey folks, I've been doing lots of summer reading so far. Some of my reading has been research for the introduction and first chapter of my book, and other reading has just been for fun.
For fun:
The Tenth City by Patrick Carman - this is the third book of a trilogy that follows 13 year old Alexa Daley who lives in the land of Elyon. She's been given a special gift (the ability to speak to animals) and that gift helps her find out what's behind the walls of her city in the first book, and then fight a great evil in the second book. In this book, she has to help vanquish this evil for good before it destroys everything and everyone she loves.
Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception - This is the fourth book in a series about a 14 year
old boy from Ireland, Artemis Fowl II, who is a genius but also a criminal mastermind. In the past three books, he has discovered that there is a whole civilzation of fairies, dwarves, trolls, and other magical creatures hiding under the ground away from human sight. Their technology is at least 100 years ahead of human tech, and Artemis tries to exploit that tech in the past couple of books. In this book, a villain from book 2, Opal Koboi, an insane genius, escapes from her cell and enacts a series of revenge plots on Artemis and the other fairies that put her in jail. The events in this book are a twist b/c it takes the characters in a different direction than the past three books. I really enjoy this series b/c of its attention to detail and fleshed-out characters.For School:
The Seekers by Daniel Boorstin - Boorstin is a great historian who has written several books on American history, but he's also written a few books on how mankind has discovered, created, and sought knowledge. The series, The Discoverers, The Creators and The Seekers examine some of the greatest thinkers, scientists and philosophers in human history.
I'm only about 12 chapters into this book but it's pretty interesting, and it's taking me back to my college classes on Plato's Republic and some of the concepts I really didn't like about his book - for instance, his idea of strict hierarchy of social classes. It's like an old caste system. Plus, his best form of government is an aristocracy, and democracy rates pretty low on Plato's list. So, you're wondering why I'm doing this? Well, starting in a couple of years, we'll have to start teaching a World History class, and I'm expanding my knowledge for that class whenever that may come about.Give me your feedback. What are you reading? Anything good?
Any good movies? I finally saw the X-Men and it was better than I had anticipated! Very intense.
