Book Groups

Book groups.

This year we had book groups in Term 2 same as last year. This year we had a little bit more books than last time. Mainly the main idea of our school book groups is to have a bunch of people reading the same book. For our school's book group we had to pick 3-4 books we liked to read from the selection of books that were chosen by our intermediate teachers. If we liked a book we had to write it down on a piece of refill or scrap paper we would then rate the books we wrote down on the piece of paper on a scale of 1-3 or 1-4. The teachers would then try to sort out some book-groups by assigning 5-8 people who liked the same book to make a book group. The teachers tried to even out the boys and girls in each group so there wasn’t a lone boy or girl in one group. There wasn’t.

The books.

 The books we could chose were Hatchet, Tangerine, Rocco, The Wind Singer, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, Running Wild, When The Whales Came, Dairy Queen and Among The Hidden (These are great books by the way so you should read them).

My choice.

 I ended up choosing Tangerine by Edward Bloor for my 3^rd choose and got in for it. In my group there are all boys, 6 boys to be spefic; because all the girls basically choose Dairy Queen. My group consists of Renzo, Paolo, Astin, Matthew Scoble, Sam V and me.

Why are book groups helpful?

Here are a good few reasons why book groups are actually helpful… You can communicate to people you don’t usually talk to; you can discuss the meaning of word you don’t know with the people in your group; and you can refresh your memory about what actually happened in the book.

 

Crackers Unlocked!

 

The teachers also made a system where if all the kids in your group are good and always on the book topic and are sensible then your group would unlock crackers basically from then you could bring chips, candy, lollipops, chocolate, biscuits and crackers. It was a scam to be extra good and thoughtful for all you said and did, for all of the book groups. We have usually 2 book group meetings one on Tuesday and one on Thursday. We didn’t unlock crackers straight away but we unlocked it the book group meeting after that. Now for the things that went well and bad with our book group.

Things that went well with my group.

-We agreed on the same amount of pages to read.

-Nobody read above the agreed amount of pages to read.

-Everybody let everybody have their thought on the book.

Things that went bad with my group.

-Some people went off topic

-Some of us didn’t say much about what we thought.

-Some of us didn’t listen at times.

Tangerine

I have been enjoying the book Tangerine so far. I would rate Tangerine a 4/5 because it doesn’t have an action in it but it does have mystery in it. I would say that a normal person does need to read this book. Hopefully you enjoy this post, and if you didn’t read it all well then read it all over again. Please remember to comment and check out my older posts.

 

Questions

For all those in my school here are the questions.

How much would you rate the book you are reading for book group out of 5 and why?

How did you think your group co-operate with each other and why?

For all those blog readers aren’t from my school. Here are the questions.

Why don’t you start your own book group?

Why don’t you give one of the books I mentioned above a try?

This has been another post by James. Goodbye.

 

My Favourite Childhood Book!!!




All of Julia Donaldson's and Alex Scheffler's books.

The most favourite book when I was younger was The Gruffalo (above, top left). The story’s plot was about a cunning mouse that made up stories about a mythical creature called the Gruffalo to the other predators of the mouse and who wanted to eat him, so they would get scared and run away. In the end the mouse finds a Gruffalo; a very hungry one, and somehow finds a way to not get eaten. The book was written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. The book was first published in 1999 and has won several book awards since then. The Gruffalo sold 3.5 million copies worldwide and still selling copies worldwide and was translated in 31 different languages so far. Oh I almost forgot to mention, they made a animated movie about it and tons of plays about it when I was a little kid. By the way I couldn't be bother to watch the Gruffalo movie. 

This book was probably the first rhyming book, I personally remember I read, plus the book inspired me to draw, so most of my drawings when I was younger looked a lot like Alex Scheffler's drawings. I read this when I was 5-6 years old. I really enjoyed The Gruffalo because it had a great pictures and I liked the rhyme in it, the nice description and the story itself. After The Gruffalo I became addicted to Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler books and continued to read other books made by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler such as Room on a Broom to Super Worm. My favourite Julia Donaldson book and Alex Scheffler book is Stickman but that’s a different story.

 I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and if you haven’t read The Gruffalo then you missed out on a great childhood and there is nothing you can do to change it, unless you read The Gruffalo! Goodbye till my next post. James.   

Spoilers,easter eggs and references for The Amazing Spiderman 2

Hello blog readers as you know The Amazing Spiderman 2 came out in cinemas not a long while ago here are my spoilers for the film. I would not recommend this post if you haven't watched The Amazing Spiderman 2 and hate spoilers. If you are planning to watch The Amazing Spiderman 2 don't read this. Read on if you are intersted if not read another blog post.

-Harry Osborn's female assistant Felicia is actually black cat or Felicia Hardy and fictional character from the comics and is a world class buglar. Perhaps Black cat will help Spiderman with the Sinister Six in the next movie.



Alistair Smythe/Spider Slayer.

-Reconize this face to the left. This is Alistair Smythe former co worker with Max Dillion who supposedly turn Max into Electro. His name links the name of one Spiderman's villians Spider Slayer.
                                                                               

-In the Harry Osborn's files there were files labelled about different villians such as Dr Octopus, Venom and Morbius.

-Spiderman's ring tone is actually the main theme song of the orignal animated spiderman tv series.


-During the climatic fight with Electro and spiderman; Electro creates music by shooting his electrical beams shooting Spiderman at the poles in the power facility. If you listen carefully to the song or nursery rhyme it is Itsy Bitsy Spider. Spiderman says, "he hates this song."

-The masked man in the hat in the Amazing Spiderman 2; who walks into the room with the vulture's wings and Dr octopus's tentacles is a man called Gustav Fiers or also called as the criminal The Gentleman. He is the man who is a little like a Nick Fury to the bad guys and helped assemble the Sinister six. You may have reconized him from the first The Amazing Spiderman where he appeared at the end and ask Dr Curt Connors if he told Peter Parker anything about his father and when the lightning struck he disappeared from Curt's cell. In a comic book of the sinister six Gustav Fiers was a business man who gathered the Sinister Six in order to have revenge on Spider-Man, as his parents Richard and Mary Parker had thwarted one of his plans years back.

-When Gwen Stacy dies in The Amazing Spiderman 2 she wear the exact clothes Gwen was wearing in the comics she was wearing a mint coat and purple skirt just like in the comics and the movie. It was good to see that the movie makers were keeping to the comics. You can compare it over here on the right...

Thanks for reading this post and if you noticed any references or easter eggs please tell me in the comment below. Please comment if you like this. I hope enjoy this blog post. Goodbye guys. Till my next post bye.

The Holidays post.

Hello fellow blog readers it has been a long, long time since I published a blog post. The holidays have finished. I basically did nothing in the holidays just a average boring homeside holiday aside for watching three movies The Lego Movie, The Amazing Spiderman 2 and Captain America The Winter Soldier. I have written a blog post about some of my most favourites times in the holidays which were watching these movies. Well here it is so... read on.

 It was the first Sunday on the holidays and I was so happy to get out of school. I was in the city and I went into the movies. I was going to watch Captain America 2 The Winter Soldier. I was waiting for my friends Arthur and Anthony to come. My brother Andrew was also watching because he wanted to come. It was 3:30 when Anthony and Arthur came. We then booked our tickets and headed to the cinema.

 There were a lot of ads before the show, around 7-8 ads but I was so excited. This was the movie I was looking forward the most for the whole year! The movie ran for a duration of 136 minutes or 2 hours and 16 minutes. The movie was very good and for those who didn't watch it i'd recommend it. The movie also (if you were watching very carefully and are a good comic book fan) had a credits scene linking to the upcoming 2015 movie Avenger 2 Age of Ultron which was pretty cool plus the new villian for the next captain america movie.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The next movie I watched was the Amazing SpiderMan 2 which was better than I expected. The soundtrack was great at least it was playing at the right times unlike The Amazing Spiderman which had bascially no songs at all. Another thing I liked about it was it had incorpartated a lot of stuff for the Amazing Spiderman sequel such as the Vulture's wing and Doctor Octupus's tentacles so they could form the Sinster Six. Another thing I liked about the film was the supsense and mystery about his parents and how it all links back to Oscorp tower. It also had a little bit more about Peter Parker's parents and how they were involved in Oscorp and what Oscorp was going to use their research for. I also liked how this reboot of this Spiderman sequel was more better than the last one because Peter actually cared about the death of Uncle Ben and his parents. The villian's costumes were updated and more practical and realistic which most have took the filmers a long time to design, I mean rhino in his armoured Oscorp rhino suit with attached missiles.The only thing I didn't like was the death at the very end I had been expecting it but they could had that person for little bit longer instead of killing that person off.

The Amazing Spiderman 2 also had a credits scene but not for the next spiderman sequel but for X-Men days of our futures past. This is because Sony signed a contract with marvel so pratically Spiderman, The Avengers, X-Men and Marvel Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D are in the same cinematic universe.

The Lego Movie.

The lego movie was ok I liked it for a PG movie and stuff. It was about this minifigure called Emmet living in Bricksburg city a living a normal life and sticking to the instrutions. But suddenly after a day at the constrution site Emmet falls into a sinkhole a gets a brick stuck on his back called the piece of Resistance. Suddenly Emmet is chosed by the prophety to save the world from President Bussiness. A cool thing I liked was the awesome main theme song of Lego Movie which was... Everything Is Awesome! I also liked the effects espically the steam train pouring out steam which came out of the funnel. I also liked the building and structures of the film I particularly liked Brickburg city and the road scene with like over a hundred cars, trucks all different colours and types.