Persistance, Joy, Love

The piece Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely reminds me of my many attempts at magic.  Most of my tricks were successful and still are today.  Others got tomatoes thrown at me.  Needless to say, I never used those tricks again.

My favorite type of magic is by far close-up magic.  I love this form of magic because I can see their look of amazement on their faces, their shock at me doing the impossible, their laughing faces after a good joke, and most of all their joyful expression when I am finally done which to me is more rewarding than a million dollars. 

The other type of magic is isolation levitation.  Also known as the art of Fushigi.  This type of magic revolves around the audience literally.  With my mesmerizing glass ball floating around by its own free will, it's impossible to miss the crowds gasp of astonishment and looks of awe which are truly a wonderful sight.

But there are also the failed tricks.  When I drop a card,  or stumble over my own words.  When a stranger finds a stray tomato, or the audience sees something they weren't supposed to.  Those are the times magic loses its meaning.  Because a jeering face is just as hurtful as a joyful one is rewarding.

That's when I just have to hang tough.  If I come off the stage in tears, no one will be there to help me.  So I stay on the stage because in the end, that's what magic is all about.  Persistence, Joy, Love.

Horace

Horace is a very interesting and humble character in the Rangers Apprentice series that over goes through a major character change throughout the story.

In the beginning of the series Horace was a bully to the main character Will and was also selfish.  As the story progresses along Horace begins to change and becomes friends with Will while at the same time becoming a humble person.  This progression is a good change for Horace because it allows me to pick him as my favorite character.  It also means that Horace can play a lot more roles in the story than he would have otherwise not been able to play if he was a selfish and mean person.

Additionally Horace gets a lot more skill with the blade and even learns to strategize with the best.  Both of those changes make Horace one of the best rescuers ever.  That's good because it  means that whenever Will gets in trouble Horace will be there to get him out.

Horace is also big influence to other people in the story. From helping people escape a war to demolishing legions of other armies to save a village Horace really does it all to save others.  He is also a example for other knights in the battle school and Horace takes care to visit there often.

 Furthermore Horace has been an influence to me as the reader.  Horace's humble personality(after the first book) has made me rethink some decisions I made in my life and also impacts some of my present decisions.  After reading this book the one character that left the most impact on me was Horace.  It even influenced my decision to write this piece. 

I think that Horace is a lot like Saphira from The Inheritance Series.  Both of them are strong, humble and willing to risk their lives for others.  They also have smaller more subtle similarities.  One of those being their lack of parents and another similarity being that they both fight for the right reasons.  Both of these characters play huge roles in their respective stories and without them both stories would fail.

With all due respect to the main character Will: I think that Horace is the single most influential character in the book.

Collosal books

                What happens when you mix all the books in the world together…  You get one colossal book.

That’s also pretty much everything you are going to see on this page.  A collection of awesome, super huge, mammoth sized books.  Starting off the list would have a collection of awesome books with a super long name.  What’s the name of this series you might be asking, well it’s The adventures of Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Brightscales.  Isn’t that a mouthful.  It’s also known as the Inheritance Cycle which is the name I prefer to use.

                Next up would have to be the Arabian Nights.  While not as good as the Inheritance cycle this book has more than 3000 pages and that’s only one book!  I first discovered this book online and I made it my goal to read this super long and antique book.  Which was surprisingly good considering it came from the Triassic age. (Joking, well kind of…)  This book was actually made in Arabia a very, very long time ago.

                Another long series is the Rangers Apprentice series.  While none of the books in this series cap 400 pages they add up to more pages than the Inheritance Cycle.  This series was actually written by a father  in Australia to get his son to like reading.  Then the father decided to publish this series and was instantaneously famous.  Even now, two years after the series was created it remains on the New York Times top seller list.

                Last but certainly not least comes The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  This book is actually a collection of six books which were originally a radio broadcast.  This book was introduced to me by my 6^th grade teacher Mr. Finn and focuses heavily on 42.  This book has a ton of pages  and takes the grand prize for the book that took me the most time to read.

                Together this collection of books has more pages than I could possibly imagine having ever read but I have read those pages and this is what I was left with.  One vast collection of colossal books and one writing idea that was put into action.

Patriots Pen

I wouldn’t tell the founding fathers anything.  

If I did tell them something that could change history.  Which happens to be something nobody wants.  For example, if I told them that they would win the war then maybe the soldiers wouldn’t try as hard and we might lose.

Or maybe I could have told them to end slavery.  That could create a premature civil war and wipe out america before it even got a chance to start.  That would suck.  

Another thing that I could have told them to make the constitution more fair.  But then some whacko laws could have gotten thrown in there that would mess it up even more.
 
I wouldn’t tell the founding fathers anything because of those possibilities.  If any of those happened America would become a bad place.

A confusion of princes (cause/effect and conflict resolution)

                    In A Confusion of Princes the conflict is man versus government.  The main conflict in this is when Khemri realizes that the empire isn't very good and that he is bound in lots of ways.  In the story Khemri kills himself with perfect timing so that he can become a human forever and in turn resolve the story.  This conflict/resolution is similar to no other book that I have read which is one of the reasons I like this book so much.

                  The majority of story twists in this book are caused by Khemri turning into a human.  One of the effects of Khemri becoming a human is him finding out what it is like to be a human and finding out how wrong the empire is.  Another effect of Khemri becoming a human is his choice to leave the empire at the end of the book.  The one book I can think of that this relates to is Inheritance because at the end both protagonists leave the known world and venture off into the unknown.


Authors note, this was done for my reading lab because Mrs.Hanson is such a strict teacher and made me do it.

Flyte (retelling)

               This book is about a kid who finds out that he is a seventh son of a seventh son.  After getting apprenticed to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard the main characters brother gets jealous and runs off to learn dark magyk.  A bit later the brother comes back and kidnaps the princess, who the main character rescues and after a battle with his brother, takes back home.


(authors note) This is a retelling which is supposed to be as short as possible and still get the main conflicts across.  That is why I forfeited the names and place whenever possible because they weren't needed.