Book Review: Escaping Titanic

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ruth, a twelve-year-old girl, is excited about going on the new cruise ship, the Titanic. But on one terrible night, her excitement vanishes. As the ship is breaking, her mother and siblings are safe on a lifeboat. But she is still on deck. Will she get to safety? Will she be left on the boat?

This true story is very inspiring for me. The young girl faces a terribly hard night when her siblings and mother have to leave her on the Titanic. But she has faith. She prays and asks God to help her. The story’s moral is that you have to have faith in God and he will help you through trials and hard times.

Escaping Titanic is written for children, and the colorful artwork will keep their attention. The author has won many awards for the children’s and biographical books she’s written. The illustrator who did such a great job at capturing the excitement of this story is Kory S. Heinzen.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the netGalley book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255

Book Review: Garden of the Purple Dragon

AUTHOR'S DESCRIPTION: Ping thinks she is safe hiding in the shadow of the Tai Shan mountains. Here she struggles to care for Kai, the baby dragon she is responsible for. But even in her remote mountain hideout, Ping's enemies find her. It is Kai they want.

Who can Ping trust? It is impossible to distinguish friend from foe. The easy road beckons. Will they find sanctuary in the Garden of the Purple Dragon? Will Ping embrace her true destiny?

MY REVIEW:  In a land far away (ancient China during the Han Dynasty), Ping and her purple dragon Kai live in peace. But not for long. The necromancer attacks, the empire arrests them, what more could happen? They must avoid hardships and escape danger.  Can they escape the necromancer? Will they go free from the empire?

I love this book because it is full of adventure and danger and because I love dragon books!  It tells the story of friendship, love, hate, and fear. I would recommend this book for ages 6 and up, adults and kids.

Author:  Carole Wilkinson (click here for her blog)
Series:  Dragonkeeper Trilogy (2nd in series)

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving! Other than Christmas, my birthday, Valentine’s day, and Hanukkah, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love the pumpkin pie, the macaroni and cheese, turkey, and stuffing and gravy, and biscuits and the chicken and dumplings. But what I love more is our family tradition of going around the table and saying one thing that you’re thankful for. I know it’s hard sometimes, but its fun! When my grandparents came over a couple weeks ago, we had an early thanksgiving with them. (Poor Camille was sick, so we saved her some leftovers.) It was so good! The Mac and cheese (with real cheddar cheese) and the biscuits and chicken and dumplings. OH SO YUMMY!!!  I realized that Thanksgiving isn’t just about eating good food and dessert and remembering dead people, but about being thankful. I hope all who read this have a great Thanksgiving!

Book Review: The Bridge to Never Land

Aidan and his sister Sarah have found a magical paper in their dad’s antique desk. Aidan and Sarah head off on an adventure, never knowing what it has in store. They encounter various troubles, like monsters, shadows, fantasy creatures, and flying boys. Have some fun with Peter Pan and Tinker Bell in this bestselling book.

I am in love with the Peter Pan series and, when I found this book, pounced on it. This is definitely one of my favorites. The adventure, danger, and returning characters were all so thrilling that I couldn’t put the book down.  I recommend this book for anyone who has read the Peter Pan series or seen the movie.  Because this is part of a series, it would be hard to understand without reading the first three books.

Authors:  Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
Publisher:  Disney Hyperion
Series: Starcatchers -- Peter and the Starcatchers (2004), Peter and the Shadow Thieves (2006), Peter and the Secret of Rundoon (2007), and Peter and the Sword of Mercy (2009), The Bridge to Never Land (2011)                                                  

Book Review: Lily Renee

Lily Renee, a talented artist, is a Jewish girl who has to escape her home when the Nazis arrive to attack. It's a normal day when she thinks she had a dream where she can hear screaming and marching. She wakes up only to find that it's real. She kisses her parents good-bye as she hops on a ship that will take her to a British friend's house. When she arrives, she finds out the lady of the house is cruel. She runs away in search of a way to fulfill the promise she made to her parents, to bring them to America. Will she ever see her parents again? Will she find a way to bring peace? Will she use her artistic talent to help her family?

It surprised me when I opened the book to find a comic, but that didn’t make a difference on how inspiring and interesting the book was. The drawings are great—very realistic and descriptive. I like the book because it shows how even young people can help others by using their talents. Even though we have trials, we can ask God to help us and He will. I would recommend this book to 11 to 14 year olds. 

TITLE:  Lily Renee, Escape Artist: From Holocaust Survivor to Comic Book Pioneer
AUTHOR:  Trina Robbins
ILLUSTRATORS: Anne Timmons & Mo Oh
PUBLISHER:  Graphic Universe

The Zoo......

Don't you love surprises? How many of you hate being told about something really important the day before it's going to happen? I do! That's what happened to me. As I go to bed, my mother mentions, "Oh, yeah. At 7:30 tomorrow morning, all the 30 kids from the children's home plus the American missionary teams are going to the zoo, and I told them you're going." WHAT?!?! No escaping now. Not that I don't want to go. Don't get me wrong. I'm almost 13 and I relish at the opportunity to act like I'm 5 and squeal at every little caterpillar on the sidewalk with my friends. So I went.

My choices: (You hate this part, don't you?)
1.  All 30 kids, most of them younger than 12, and sweaty 18-25-year-old Americans--no offense--crammed in a bus, most of them puking OR
2.  in a smooth SUV with a cute baby and fun people.

Which would you choose? If you think I went in the bus, you get and X. I chose the car. Of course :)
NO OFFENSE MEANT FOR ANYONE!  OK!

So when we get there, we go into a museum. What's a zoo without a museum and a creepy guide that likes to talk about mummies and shushes you when you ask a question? Well, we got a zoo complete with the creepy guide. YAY!!(that was sarcastic;P) We stood outside of the museum a good 20 minutes to a half hour. The whole time the guide was explaining about what your camera flash can do to the animal hair, and how they give it chemical reactions,and how one man walked in and took a picture with flash and they "practically watched" the hair fall off. You get the point.  So when we finally walked in there's a little room to your right and in it, a little bridge with animals on each side. When were all on the bridge, the guide starts talking about how once when he was on the bridge, he fell off. Interesting, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the animals?

We then stepped into a different room and looked at dead fish. Then the butterfly and bug room. And SPIDERS! There the guide talked about how this one little bug killed a big amount of people and stuff. Great. After that room, we went into the room with all the deformed animals in vinegar bottles. The last room was  the weirdest, the room with all the Indian stuff. The guide talked all about myths and superstitions and stuff like that. "If you put this little round wooden plug in your ear, it will keep the spirits out."

Now the zoo! You've probably been dying to read this ever since you looked at the title. Here it is. There was one small lion, an elephant, a hippo, and a HUGE snake everyone got to hold (later on).  There were ducks and pigs, monkeys and snakes, ostriches and big cats.  Maybe the zoo in Paraguay isn't quite as advanced as the U.S. but it was still fun.  Lots of fun, big, scary, weird, cool, awkward animals.

So the snake I mentioned above.... We were all walking along and having fun when a man comes up holding a boa. I squeal and point, and we all go over there to get a better look. The guys asks if I want to hold  the snake. SURE! I hold it and get my picture taken. Then the guy asks the kids if they want to drape the snake around there neck.  Whoa! The kids and Americans go up there and get there pictures taken, too.  Later in the day, one of the kids tries to put the skin of the snake on everyone. Gross.

Lunch time! Some of the adults went for pizza while the kids stayed and played. With adults, of course. While we were talking, one of my friends suddenly got excited and pointed at a tree. Yeah, a tree. Never seen one before? But wait! As you look closer, you can see a monkey on one of the tree limbs. Asleep. Awesome! A monkey on the loose! Well a lot of random stuff like that happened and I had a LOT of fun. I want to thank the people who made it possible for us to go. Including my mom! :)  Hope you enjoyed this!

Missionaries :)

The reason I haven’t blogged in a while is that I’ve been having the best couple of months ever! Two mission teams came. The first from Lee University, they stayed for 10 weeks. The other was the family and friends of a missionary already here, Dana. They were both SUPER fun!!

Letitia and Me

Audra and Me

The first team, Audra, Erica, and Letitia came and did all kinds of fun stuff!  First they did a VBS every Saturday. Next they had an English class for anyone who wanted to attend every Tuesday and Thursday.  We translated for it all, and don’t get me started on how hard it was. It was cool, though. I had sooo much fun with them and made three new best friends! They were AMAZING and so cool! I already miss them!

Erica and Me

The other team, Ashley, Angie, Tarah, Ryan, and Austin were also REALLY COOL!!! They came and painted the playground, painted the school room, taught a class for 10 days (the whole time they were here) and got loved by the kids as well.  They did sports and field days. We also translated for them. They were so much fun! And as always, the worst part is when they leave. I had so much fun with all of them! I hope God will permit us to see again sometime. I had such a great time. Thanks for coming, teams!

 

Pictures :)

The roses in front of my house.

K-bars

This is a recipe that my Nana always makes. We can't make it here because we don't have all the ingredients, but when Nana visits, she packs them in her suitcase and we enjoy K-bars! It's so wonderful that I thought why not share it with the world? So here it is.

Ingredients:

1 cup white corn syrup

1 cup sugar

1 cup peanut butter

6 cups Special K cereal

1 cup chocolate chips(mmmmmmm!)

1 cup butterscotch chips

Heat sugar and syrup to boiling. remove from heat and stir in peanut butter; pour over cereal. Mix well. Press in greased 9x13" pan. Melt chips over low heat and spread on top(don't forget to lick the spoon!). Put in fridge or freezer until cool and cut into bars. Enjoy! (Number of servings 18-24 bars)

Fruity Tootie Jello

I have just recently made a recipe I would like to share. JELLO! It's actually a great snack for really hot days (which are very common here). Ladies and Gentleman, my jello recipe.

First you'll need a 9x13" pan.  If you have fresh fruit you can use that, but I just use the canned fruit. I would NOT recommend apples or bananas. You can take fruit cocktail or peaches (I use peaches) and put them in the bottom of your pan. Then you mix up a couple of boxes of jello (you thought the jello was homemade didn't you?) and pour it over the fruit. You stick it in the fridge and voila, you have the perfect snack for hot days.

Floating Bus

Most buses in Paraguay have photos, stickers, or designs on their back window. Our favorites are when they photoshop pictures of buses in mountains or in the middle of a desert. Check out the bus on the right in this picture below. It's floating in the river!