Reading Wishlist

The City Trilogy by Darren Shan:
1. Procession of the Dead
2. Hell's Horizon
3. City of the Snakes

Zom-B series by Darren Shan:
1.  Zom-B
2.  Zom-B Underground
3.  Zom-B City
4.  Zom-B Angels
5.  Zom-B Baby
6.  Zom-B Gladiator
7.  Zom-B Mission
8.  Zom-B Clans
9.  Zom-B Family
10. Zom-B Bride

Lady of the Shades by Darren Shan

Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Food Jim Gaffigan

America Again by Stephen Colbert

Rookn's books

The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

by Wm. Paul Young

The Thin Executioner

by Darren Shan

Hell's Heroes

by Darren Shan

Dark Calling

by Darren Shan

Wolf Island

by Darren Shan

Book 2 Trailer

Book Talk Presentation

Nick Rook is awesome!

Book 4 Review

5 reasons why Jadis, the White Witch of Narnia, is a manifestation of sin

               

Jadis is one truly evil witch. She is so evil in fact that she represents some of the gravest sins ever recorded.

            1.       She utters the Deplorable Word

The Deplorable Word is a malicious curse that ends the life of all except the one who speaks it. In The Magician’s Nephew, prequel to The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, we learn some background on Jadis. She was a native of Charn, an entirely different world from that of ours or Narnia. She was born into power being a sorceress and the daughter of a long line of kings and queens. But this line of royalty had grown corrupt over the generations. It grew so corrupt that Jadis began a civil war against her sister ending in her own defeat. Just as soon as all seemed lost for Jadis, she utters the Deplorable Word ending the war along with the lives of every person in Charn.

2.       She ate the apple from the forbidden tree

Another event in The Magician’s Nephew is that she eats the fruit of everlasting life. This fruit was rumored to give immortality and she succumbed to temptation and sin much like Eve in the story of Adam and Eve. Something else to note is that in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Jadis was rumored to be descendant of Lilith. Lilith was Adams first wife who tried to speak the unspeakable syllables of God’s name and paid a terrible price for it. That is very similar to Jadis and the Deplorable Word

3.       Her only interest is in herself

Jadis spoke the deplorable word without any regard for the lives of the innocent, only for her own gain. The people there only existed to her as tools. They were tools to gain her more power. Jadis will stop at nothing to better her life, even if it means ending the lives of others. This affliction is a detriment to all except her but she does nothing to change it. Then one day her rule is threatened by the Pevensie children and the return of Aslan. She goes to great lengths to stop them and retain her rule even ordering all creatures of Narnia to kill any human they find on sight.

4.       She uses dark magic

When she becomes the queen of Narnia, she casts it in a state of eternal winter where Christmas never comes. Then when Edmund first discovers the vast world of Narnia he has a run in with Jadis. She conjures up a box of enchanted Turkish delights that act as an extremely addictive drug leaving Edmund wanting more.  This is how she gets the rest of the children to Narnia, promising more if he brought his brother and sisters to her. Another use of her dark magic is that she can turn people to stone with her scepter. She does this to many of the natives and leaves them outside her castle as tortured statues, including Mr. Tumnus.

5.       She kills Aslan

Aslan could be considered Jesus in C.S. Lewis’s fantasy world, and Jadis kills him! He is the son of the Emperor Over-the-Sea who acts like God. He is the King of Beasts which is comparable to Jesus being the King of Kings. He created Narnia with a song. Then after Jadis kills him on the Stone Table, he is resurrected similar to how Jesus was killed and resurrected 3 days later. Aslan even offered his life in place of Edmunds to save him from Jadis, an embodiment of sin, just like Jesus died to save us from our sins. Jadis basically killed another form of Jesus.

Jadis may be one of the most evil villains ever to be conceived. Not only is she extremely narcissistic, psychopathic, and powerful, but she kills the symbol of everything benevolent in Narnia. She truly is

a manifestation of sin. 

Book 3 Listicle

5 Reasons Arnold’s Life Sucks

Arnold’s Life isn’t just bad, it sucks! I don’t know how he can put up with all the misfortunes he has been dealt.

1.    Arnold is a Hydrocephalic:

Hydrocephalus is a condition when a child is born with excess cerebrospinal in their brain. This condition causes the head to swell and causes many problems including mental disabilities. This condition “Mucked up the works” and caused Arnold to talk with a stutter and a lisp. Because Arnold talks funny, he is picked on and beaten mercilessly. He became an outcast of the outcasts as Native Americans were shunned from society anyways.

2.      Arnold is Extremely Poor:

The worst part is that being poor is out of his control, it ran in the family. He states that his parents “came from poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people.” And now there is Arnold who came from those poor people. He is so poor that when his dog is suffering from heat exhaustion, his dad has to shoot the dog in order to avoid paying the vet bills. In fact his entire reservation is poor. In his school on the reservation, his geometry book is the same one used by his mother over 30 years ago!

3.      Arnold is Shunned for being Indian:

When Arnold asks his parents “Who has the most hope?" they both respond at the same time saying “White People.” Indians are outcasts in many places of society. They are poor and they are different. On his first day at his new school in Reardan, a middle class white town, everyone stares at him. He looks like he doesn’t belong. He feels like he doesn’t belong. The only other “Indian” there is the school mascot! This causes Arnold to be picked on a lot by his classmates.

4.      Arnold is Shunned by his own tribe:

As if it’s not bad enough that Arnold is an outcast at his new school and is shut out of modern society, he is shut out of his own home! Arnold throws his Geometry textbook in a fit of rage after he finds his mother’s name in it and ends up hitting his teacher, Mr. P, in the head. This causes Arnold to be expelled from the school. After Arnold leaves the reservation to go to his new school, his friends feel as if he betrayed them. Rowdy, his best friend, felt so betrayed that he punched Arnold in the face! Arnold felt like he “was the kind of idiot that got punched hard in the face by his best friend.” After that the two become enemies even playing each other in a game of basketball. In their first game Arnold is booed by the crowd and knocked unconscious by Rowdy who hit him in the head! I guess it was payback for hitting Mr. P.

5.      Arnold’s life is ravaged by Alcoholism:

His mother is a former alcoholic. His father is a current alcoholic. His grandma is run over by a drunk driver. His father’s best friend is shot in the face and killed by one of his friends “who was too drunk to even remember pulling the trigger,” while fighting over the last sip of alcohol.  His sister and new husband both die in a house/camper fire after drinking too much. That sucks!

 

Arnold’s life sucks. Born both poor and hydrocephalic. Shunned by both the outside world and his home. Alcoholism plagues his life. But aside from all this, he somehow manages to keep up hope. Hope for the future and hope that he will make it out ok.

Blog Post 5

When I was young, I was fascinated by what I could learn from books about animals, geology, or space. I read nonfiction in order to learn something new.  I didn't want to learn something that wasn't true, and I still don't today. How would it feel to read an entire chemistry textbook only to learn that everything inside was just made up?

In order for a book to be considered nonfiction, it has to be 100% true. Nonfiction is as the name states, not fiction. Fiction is an invention or fabrication, writing that describes imaginary things. That makes nonfiction not an invention, not a fabrication. It is writing that does not describe imaginary things. The only thing left is unaltered facts. Seth Greenland said he thinks it is a sign of the apocalypse that we think truth is malleable. Altering a fact turns it into a lie; that's a fact! If anything in a nonfiction book is not a fact, it can not be called nonfiction.

Half truths are perfectly fine, as long as they don't appear in a nonfiction work. The truth is not malleable, bend it just a little and it will break. A broken truth has no place in nonfiction.

This is why David Shields is wrong. The truth matters. Not all writing is just for a good story. Some writing is meant to teach, and you don't teach lies.

Post 4: Adapting Your Book

The five most important decisions to make while adapting Shutter Island are

1. Shutter Island should be made into a TV series. It would be about Dr. Cawley throughout the years. Each episode would be about a different mental patient who came to the island/comes to the island and how Cawley deals with each of them.
2. They would need to add a  history of the island. How it was founded, past patients, and previous events. They would also need to add a history of Cawley as well as make him seem like the good guy instead of the mad scientist.
3. Cawley would need to be played by an actor who could play the role of a mysterious doctor. Not much would be known about Cawley's past at first and every episode of the TV series would reveal a little more about him and his motives. As mysterious as Cawley is, the actor would also have to be likable to make people actually want to watch the show.
4. In order to keep the heart of the book, the adventure of Teddy Daniels would have to be played out in the first episode. Since the entire book is about Teddy's trip to the island, if this story was never included in the series then the only similarity between the book and the series would be the names of the characters. The main difference between the series and the book would be the perspective. On the first episode, it will be a retelling of the book but from Cawley's perspective. This would start off the show in the right perspective without ignoring the book the show was adapted from.
5. The soundtrack would have to include many eerie songs. Songs similar to ones from horror films. This is due to the unsettling nature of the book. It is a very creepy story where the characters go to a mental hospital on an isolated island. The music would need to portray the suspense and air of uncertainty felt by everyone on the island.

Book 1 Project: Weekend at the Shack

Nick Rook Book 1!

Spend a Weekend at one of our marvelous shacks in the Oregon wilderness. Don’t worry, the Little Ladykiller won’t be waiting for you. Instead you will find a weekend full of adventure and self-revelation. If you enjoyed the book and want to have a similar spiritual journey like Mack’s, you must check out Weekend at the Shack. In The Shack by Wm. Paul Young, the protagonist Mackenzie Allen Philip receives a mysterious note in the mail and inscribed on the paper is “Mackenzie, It’s been a while. I’ve missed you. I’ll be at the shack next weekend if you want to get together. –Papa.” Mackwas bewildered by this note on account of the travesty it reminded him of. One Labor Day weekend before school started for his kids, he decided to take them on a family camping trip to the Oregon wilderness. During the trip, his youngest daughter Missy was abducted by the Little Ladykiller. The Little Ladykiller was “responsible for killing at least four children so far,” soon to be five. A massive search ensued following the kidnapping and eventually they tracked down the last whereabouts of the criminal, an old abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere. There they found “Missy’s torn and blood-soaked red dress,” and Mack realized the fate of his daughter. Mack wondered who could have sent the letter to him and why they would remind him of such a terrible event. Because of his curiosity, he decides to travel back to the shack telling no one of his plans except his best friend. There he encounters God and travels through a spiritual journey that leads him to finding his daughter’s body and the Little Ladykiller to be arrested and put on trial. The Weekend at the Shack is a retelling of Mack’s spiritual journey. Once you sign up you will receive a letter in the mail inviting you to one of our shacks. On the date you are supposed to arrive, come on up to the shack and let the adventure begin. Staying with you will be three of our staff members each acting as Elousia, Sarayu, and Jesus. They will be leading you on many fun activities such as canoeing, stargazing, gardening, and carpentry. They will also serve as your spiritual guides for the weekend. If you ever have any questions about how faith works, don’t hesitate to ask. Family meals will be served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The food is all homemade and past visitors have stated that it was some of the best they have ever eaten, almost like it was crafted by the hands of God himself.

The Weekend at the Shack will work because it mimics the journey Mack went on in the book. Readers of the book will want to experience the same thing he did and now they have the chance to. For those who haven’t read the book, the Weekend at the Shack will encourage them to see where the idea for this retreat came from. If this experience catches the attention of major literary critics or famous celebrities and they tell everyone how awesome it was leading to many more wanting to share in the experience. This will also raise awareness of the book and create a desire to read The Shack. Overall the Weekend at the Shack experience is a way that readers can connect with the story by living it themselves, without the pain of losing their daughter of course. They get to spend a weekend learning more about their faith and the three faces of God, just like Mack did in the book.

Post 2:What is a book?

A book is a median through which an author can share his story and the story is what actually matters, not the median through which it is shared. The story is where an author expresses himself and his ideas. Can you hear all about Gatsby's extravagant parties from a blank piece of paper or a blank computer screen. The answer to that question is no. You hear all about  how everyone who was anyone attended Gatsby's parties through the words written on the paper or the screen.It does not matter if a book is written on paper or accessed via the internet or an electronic device. The story will not change if it is recorded on paper or online. Moving words from a book to a computer will not change their meaning nor the words themselves in any way. It is like moving water from a bottle into a glass. The water never changed, it is still water. The only difference is where you can find it. The internet has provided a way to make books more widely accessible by giving you a new place to look. It is comparable to a bookstore in that you can buy books from the internet. What makes this bookstore special however, is it contains almost every book imaginable with an almost infinite supply. It is also very convenient as all you have to do is get on your computer, type in the name of the book, and hit enter. Compare that to the hassle of driving to your nearest bookstore, searching through the aisles in hopes that the story has your book in stock, and if you are lucky enough to find it, buying the book and driving all the way home. It seems almost silly to go through all that extra effort to get the exact same story you could get from the internet.

Post 1: Why I Read

Nick Rook is awesome!

I read because reading teaches me new things. I remember back in intermediate school when I would read nothing but nonfiction. It may be the reason I am so smart today. I would love to read about turtles as they are my favorite animals. In addition to reading about turtles I would also read about penguins, lions, and other interesting animals. The scariest animals I read about were parasites as they had always freaked me out. Through reading I learned so much about how the world works. In addition to learning, I also read for pleasure. My favorite types of books are horror novels. I read the entire Goosebumps series by R. L. Stein. Some other series I read were the American Chillers and Michigan Chillers. As I grew the books I read got more and more complex leading into the works of Darren Shan. He is my all time favorite Horror author. I would be engrossed in his books until I got to the end then immediately would move on to the next book in the series. The Saga of Darren Shan and The Demonata were my favorite series by him. All together reading has taught me a lot about the world around me and given me a lot of pleasure throughout my years.