In Santa's Defence- A Christmas poem

IN SANTA'S DEFENCE

Mother raged like a fire in the fireplace

Father screamed like a child who dropped their ice cream

Sisters looked astonished, standing in the background, gawky birds trying to see

Standing on a chair Velociraptors screech from a nest of straw

Brother looks happy, more things to play with

In Santa’s Defence

Velociraptor was written in black block letters

Toy Velociraptor was not

Santa tried

He’s not here to fix this mess

So we have to deal with the screeching vultures, for another year.

A Writers Block Story

Dear Writers block,

It’s not you, its me. I really do try to make things right between us but I don’t think that I can do it anymore.
We can’t keep this up, fights rage each night and it hurts me and you.

This relationship that we had isn’t stable, its not working for me and I’m no longer happy.
Again, I say it’s not you, but me. I’m unhappy because of me not you. I’m writing this because
I’m leaving you. We can’t be together anymore and it must hurt, I know.

But I can’t go on like this anymore.

Writer’s Block, this is goodbye for the last time. I will miss you but I won’t at the same time,
I hope you understand my decision.

I wrote this to my writers block as a breaking up story. I'm not the biggest fan of this
but I thought I would post it before the holidays come around and I won't get the chance to post it .

City as a person

My city….

Fast cars race down the roads, like feet running a marathon

Buildings, tall and slender arms that touch the clouds

Busses go slow, snails trying to go faster

Roads that twist and turn like strands of grey hair

Light poles flicker on and off, eyes of the city glowing.

Bushes,trees, roads cars adorn the town like clothes.

Hospitals,fire stations police stations, beating like hearts, to keep it alive

This is my city…

4 items, 1, very very long paragraph

-Green and pink sign “reading ‘First and Only Show on Soon”

-A blue and gold 1957 Mustang  

-The ‘dinging’ of a pile of coins falling from a man’s pocket

-The alley leading to Marigold Park on 5th Street.

I stood, staring at the dingy little caravan- well it didn't really even deserve to be called ‘caravan’
but that what it was. The peeling, tacky paint and the tinted black windows.
There was a little lime and hot pink sign on the outside of the van.
I think it was meant to read “First and Only Show on Soon” but it read
“ Frt d ny hw on oo”. I didn’t want to even go near it but it was in my way of the petrol station.
 I looked at the car behind me - a blue and gold Mustang- and wondered if
I should just walk back home and leave it. But my dad would kill me if I did that.
I gulped and made my way forward. I only made it three steps into the alley with only one
light but the door of the van opened. A unwieldy man with crazy white hair stepped out.
There must have been a hole in the bottom of his grimey khaki jeans, because a mountain
of shiny gold and silver coins rolled out. One stopped just by my foot and I picked it up.  

I walked up further to the van and helped the man pick up the coins. Just as I was about to pick
up the last coin, the man grabbed my hand. I got a  shock from the contact and dropped the coins
I had picked up. He smiled an empty grin as he had only 4 teeth. “Do you want to watch my poker game,
lil’ girl? It’ll only be a quick one. I promise.” As I’m about to say ‘no’ he rushes back into the caravan
and comes running back out with a table in hand. He places it down and places a pack of cards on it.
 “Make a bet lil’ girl.” He says as he shuffles the cards. I look at him “Uhm...I don’t have any money on me.
I was just going home in my car.” I look at him as he stares, looking at my car. “Bet the car then, lil’ girl.”
I gulp, and nod. “Yes, sure I will.” I shouldn't have done that.

*5 mins later *

I stare at the cards, horrified. I’ve lost, and that car at the end of the alley is my dad’s pride and joy.
Before I can think, I spin on my heel and bolt down the alley. “WAIT! THAT’S MY CAR LIL’ GIRL!”
I hear the man scream as I run. I can soon hear him puffing as he runs after me for the keys.
I reach the car and jump over the passenger door and lock the doors.
I can’t put the hood up until the key is in the ignition and I can’t flipping find it.  
I find it just as the crazed man is at the door. The hood goes up and hits his hands. He yelps and pulls...

I jolt awake, sweating. Oh. It was just a dream. I rub my eyes and pad downstairs
. At the table my Dad sits with my Mum. I look between them.  
My Dad goes from calm to ANGRY in 0.2 seconds.
“WHY DID YOU BET MY CAR TO A DODGY MAN!?” He yells.

Okay……..Maybe it wasn’t a dream….

Wuthering Heights-Book Review.

After I had finished reading the Invention of Hugo Cabret, I moved on to the collection of classics that I had got. I started reading Wuthering Heights and managed to finish it all in one night. Its a good book but even after finishing it, I was still very confused on the concept of the book.

"A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly."

-Emily Bronte                                        

WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT 

The book is-for the fist couple of chapters- in the view of Lockwood, the young man who had rented the manor from a man called Heathcliff.  Lockwood had gone down from his house to visit Mr. Heathcliff and was trapped there for the night as it had started to snow rather heavily. Lockwood asked many questions but got no answers. He left the next morning and went back to his house where, he then asked the house keeper what was going on and she told him the whole story. The book from then on in is told in the third person up until the last few chapters. 

WHAT ARE MY VIEWS ON THE BOOK

This book-I had the kids version but it still gave you the overall effect- was good. The characters had bee displayed nicely and the words that Emily Bronte had used to describe them gave you what you can imagine them to looked like. Even after finishing the whole book, I still had no idea on the overall concept of the book. It was a little confusing  but I still really enjoyed reading the book as it is a classic and has been read by lots of people all across the world and it was good to read  a piece of literature over 100 years old. 

The Roaring Twenties

The 1920's was known as the Jazz Age and it was a decade where people lived with prosperity and were very carefree. The 20's had started off well ad then its ended badly as the Great Depression had started when the banks went bankrupt. The 20's was the decade of change. Many Americans had cars, telephones and radios for the first time ever.

There were two very big events that happened in 1920 that kick started the decade of change. In August, on the 18th, the Nineteenth Amendment passed the right for the women to vote (bit late mind you, New Zealand had already done it in 1893) and then on November 2nd, the first commercially licensed radio broadcast had been made and heard across Pittsburgh.

Musical styles were also changing a lot in the 1920's. 1922 came around and Louis Armstrong started to improvise and to add personal variations with his trumpet, using a style that we know as Jazz. Then in 1925, flappers found a new dance craze known as the Charleston- I'll get into this more soon.

1927-1929 motion picture started to come into style. Up until 1927, the pictures had been silent picture and no sound had been shown across to the audience. The Jazz Singer was the first big, successful talking, moving picture. Mickey Mouse appeared in Steamboat Willie in 1928 and the Popeye can around in 1929 and was in the comic strip Thimble Theatre.

These were a few of the good things that had happened during the 10 years of the roaring twenties but there were a lot of bad things that had happened as well. These things had made their mark in history and some are still talked about today.

In 1921, a revival of the Ku Klux Klan-KKK- the white supremacist group had made a come back and were targeting the Catholics, blacks and Jews with their terrorism. The stock markets crashed in 1929, and the resulted in the Great Depression. A law was passed, abolishing the manufacture, sale, transportation and consuming of alcohol. the gangsters then saw this as a way for them to earn a lot of money, as people needed alcohol. The prohibition was what lead to  growth in organised crime, speakeasies, saloons etc.

In the play, Fat Sam's Grand Slam is a speakeasy.  A speakeasy is a place that illegally sells liquor to people. This is the reason the Fat Sam's is disguised as Becker's Book Emporium so the Fat Sam doesn't get caught. This is also one of the reasons that Dandy Dan and Fat Sam always seem to have fights and want to kill each other SO MUCH.

Flappers-as mentioned before- are a generation of women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz and flaunted their dislike of what was considered 'acceptable behaviour. They were dancers that danced in speakeasies and in saloons and other things like that.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret (book review)

Last Wednesday, Jaime Burns and I were given the opportunity by Mr Aitken to get a few books that we could read over the Summer. We managed to get, between the two of us, around 24 books. I got

• Wuthering Heights,
•  Jane Eyre,
•  Tale of Two Cites
• Little Women
• Heidi
•  Pride and Prejudice
•  The invention of Hugo Cabret 
• Two NZ Short Story books 
• The Outsiders
• Animal Farm
• 1984
•  Go ask Alice

 Out of the thirteen books that I managed to get I have read 3 and am in the process of reading Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Jaime has done book reviews on the books that she has read so far and I thought that that was a good idea as we get to share our views of the book on our blogs and other readers can comment and tell us what they thought of the book that we wrote a review on. Even though the books are meant to be for Summer reading, I'm probably going to have to go back and get some more as they might all have been read by then.

The first book that I read was The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT 

This book was based around the orphan, Hugo, who went to live with his Uncle at the train station and he was all by himself after his uncle didn't come back on night and he didn't mind this all. His job is to oil and maintain the clocks like his uncle showed him, but more than that, his job is to protect the automaton that his father had fixed and kept.  But then his life becomes intertwined with a girl and the man that runs the toy booth after the man takes Hugo's fathers book. his life and secrets are put in jeopardy and he has to find a way to keep himself and the automaton safe after the girl-Isabella- finds out his hiding place and his secrets. 

WHAT MY THOUGHT OF THIS BOOKS ARE 

I did enjoy the book and it had a great story behind it. The way it was told, with around 150 pages of word and the rest of the book being made out of pictures, it gave you an idea of where Hugo lived, what he looked like and what the train station looked like. The pictures are drawn with such detail and look amazing in real life. 

During the book, I did get twisted up a little bit and didn't quite get what was happening but I got there in the end and it was a really good story of friendship and trust.  I enjoyed this book and enjoyed the picture that he had drawn to go along with the words that he had written. 

I recommend this book to read and I find that id you are into adventure and mystery you would enjoy this quite a bit. Age level would be any as you can really get into it at any age. 

The pictures on the right are pictures that are in the book. The very top on is of Georges sitting at this toy booth looking sad. And the bottom one is of Etienne, the boy that worked at the movie theatre before he go fired. Jaime Burns