Book Review: The Great Good Thing by Roderick Townley

Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Scholastic
Website: N/A
Source: Gift from my aunt (:
Rating: 5 stars



"Sylvie had an amazing life, but she didn't get to live it very often." This is because she's the protagonist of one of the last remaining copies of an out-of-print book, The Great Good Thing. Without Readers, the characters never get to act out their story, making their days long and monotonous. That is, until Claire comes along. Suddenly, Sylvie has the chance to go where no protagonist has ever gone before... and it's up to her to save her story.

Roderick Townley's novel manages to flawlessly intertwine magic, wit, quests, and love, creating a web of words that kept the reader trapped in its pages until the very end. It's one of those books that you can read over and over again without ever tiring of it, which is just how the characters in the book would like it.


You'll like this if you liked: Inkheart (Cornelia Funke), Redwall (Brian Jacques)

Fiction is Fact?

"Of course you're real- like any thought or story. It's real when you're in it." ~Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)

To all the writers out there:

Do you ever feel that the characters in your novels or stories existed long before you ever penned them? I may just be crazy, but I do. Sometimes it's like they're guiding me to that "Aha!" moment after a bout of writer's block. I've heard other (AKA real) authors say similar things. In one writer's autobiography, she said how she had been stuck while working on her latest mystery novel. She couldn't figure out what was wrong until she had a dream where her characters informed her that she had pegged the wrong person as the murderer. They went on to tell her who had actually committed the crime. When she tackled her book again, she realized that her characters were right! Likewise, Neal Shusterman (author of Everlost, Full Tilt, etc.), posted a conversation he had with one of his characters on his blog. The chat had helped him worked out some issues he was having with the plot. (The conversation is also pretty funny- I recommend you read it.) Of course, this doesn't prove that these characters are real, but it's still kind of incredible, isn't it? And maybe our protagonists are only in our heads, but as Dumbledore wisely said," Of course this is happening in your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?"

What about you? Have your characters ever "spoken" to you?

(The link to the hilarious Neal Shusterman's blog: http://nstoryman.wordpress.com/)

Do Something Good

You may or may not have heard of this amazing site, dosomething.org, which empowers teens to (you guessed it) Do Something in their communities. Their latest campaign is Staples for Students (partnered by Staples, but you probably guessed that, too) where teens are supposed to run school supply drives for underprivileged students. I've started one and I want to encourage you to do the same. It doesn't matter whether you're fourteen, twenty-four, or forty- there's no age that's too young or too old to do good. This cause is so important because everyone deserves a proper education, and you can't do that without the proper tools. I can't imagine life without paper and pens, and why should anyone have to?

Here's the page with all the details: http://www.dosomething.org/staples-for-students. Best of luck with your drives!

A Novel Idea: Using the Kindle as kindle

I hate e-readers. I loathe e-books. You may agree or disagree (in which case, feel free to sound off in the comments), but I really, truly abhor them.

Why do I detest them so?

Well...
1. Books have history. The fact is, you can't pick up an e-book to see This Book Belongs to: John Smith on the inside cover. You can't imagine who John was, or where that book's been. The favorite pages in a chapter aren't slightly worn from being thumbed through time and time again. Technology takes away a book's character.
2. Authors can't sign e-books. Okay, so they may be able to sign the back of the e-reader, but eventually you will end out of room, and then what?
3. Books hold up better. Imagine this: You're sitting in a cafe, sipping on your low-fat-skim-milk-no-foam-mocha-frappe reading a book on your brand new Nook. You lay it down for a second to pick up your scone and whoops! You accidentally knock your coffee onto the e-reader, which promptly makes a pitiful sizzling sound and dies, leaving you book-less and $200 short. If this had happened with a book, all you would have to do is quickly dry the pages. Sure, the pages might be wrinkled but at least it still works. Is this scenario a little romanticized? Yes. But is it still possible? Probably.*
4. You get hassled. When you read in a public place, oftentimes you get asked, "Hey, whatcha reading?" and maybe, "Is it good?" before the literary conversation is over. However, with e-readers, people don't stop there. "Hey, is that a Kindle?" they'll ask, before begging you to let them see it. And then, once they've pressed every button on the screen, they'll continue to chat, thus ending your reading.
5. They're not eco-friendly. I've heard the argument that books kill trees, but new trees can be planted to replace those cut down, while the energy a Kindle uses can never be put back in the environment.
6. They killed Borders.

*This may or may not be true. For some reason, my friends who own e-readers won't test my hypothesis. Furthermore, I realize that some of these points may or may not be valid.