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Why I Didn’t Like Paper Towns by John Green

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Paper Towns by John Green follows the life of senior Quentin “Q” Jacobsen in his last month of high school. His life is pretty normal, even a bit boring. That is, until his old friend Margo Roth Spiegelman comes back into his life (who, coincidentally, Q has loved all his life). They have a wild night of getting revenge on all of Margo’s enemies and breaking and entering into various places. But in the morning, Margo is just…gone. No note, no voicemail, nothing. Q then spends the rest of his senior year trying to find Margo by decoding the cryptic clues she left for him. I have a lot of things to say about this book, but one of the first things I notice in a book is the characters’ personalities. And I have to say, there was nothing special about the characters in this book. Q is your stereotypical “nerdy kid” who thinks way too much about everything. I guess he has some character development over the course of the book, but it’s kind of hard to tell. His best friends really don’t have...
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Wilderness First Aid by A. Thygerson, S. Thygerson and J. Thygerson.

    Wilderness F irst Aid  is a book that I had to read for, you guessed it, a wilderness first aid course, which is often required for high adventure trips in scouting. This means all but about four people will not give any mind to this book, and I figure that's perfectly fine. Wilderness First Aid  is a 32-chapter e-book used as a prerequisite to taking the wilderness first aid course to get the certification. If any of the scouts are interested in taking the wilderness first aid course, get in contact with anyone from Crew 1. They tend to run the course over the weekend at Camp Drake.     Wilderness First Aid  covers about every condition/injury you could possibly come up with and teaches you how to perform first aid for the condition/injury. The book teaches how to deal with anything from dislocations to being struck by lightning. If you have taken first aid courses before, Wilderness First Aid will likely just be a review except for some of the m...
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Dune by Frank Herbert

    Paul is the son of the head of house Atreides. Leto Atreides (the house head) is ordered by the emperor of the universe (or something like that) to take over Arrakis in place of house Harkonnen. Arrakis is a desert planet spotted with patches of a cinnamon-like substance called spice which is only found on Arrakis and is crucial for inter-planetary travel. Arrakis is also home to a group of natives called the Fremen who are great fighters and have adapted to the desert life along with giant sand worms that react to vibrations in the sand. Spice is one of the most expensive and coveted materials in the universe and house Harkonnen has just had it taken and given to the Atreides. Do you see where this could go wrong? After a small time of control over the spice, house Harkonnen takes back control of Arrakis, killing most of house Atreides including the Duke Leto, but Paul and his mother Jessica escape. They make their way into the dessert and meet up with some of the Fremen ...
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

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                 I recently read the first book of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, a short comedy sci-fi that follows the intergalactic travels of a very mismatched crew of aliens, humans, and animals. The main character, Arthur Dent, is the only human aboard the ship. He’s joined by his friend Ford Prefect (an alien researcher for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who’s been stranded on Earth for 15 years), Zaphod Beeblebrox (the two-headed, ex-hippie, President of the Galaxy), Trillian Astra (mathematician and astrophysicist), a guy named Veet Voojagig, Marvin the perpetually depressed robot, and two hyper-intelligent mice. Arthur and Ford escape Earth moments before it’s demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, and from there, the story evolves into a quest involving a fabled planet and the meaning of life. The humor is definitely the main component of this novel and is what keeps it going. The author’s...
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Digital Reader or Physical Book: Which is Better?

In my opinion, a Kindle or different type of digital reader is better than a physical book. This is of course always a decision that has to be made by each specific reader, but these are a few reasons why I believe this. In this article, I am going to be arguing specifically for a Kindle because that is where most of my knowledge and experience is centralized. The main argument that people make against Kindles is that they don’t “feel” like a book when you’re holding it. Honestly, I don’t have a great argument against that. Yes, it doesn’t feel like a book and there is no paper or physical pages. It feels a bit weird at first, but I adjusted to the feel pretty fast. If you’re not someone who can get used to a different feel, then a Kindle might not be for you. For me, the different feel was positive. I can leave my book open on the counter while I’m doing other things and I know I won’t lose my page if the book accidentally closes. It is very light and thin, so you can just throw it ...
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When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed

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I first read When Stars Are Scattered in sixth grade, because it was on the Rebecca Caudill Young Reader’s Book Award list. It’s inspired by Omar Mohamed’s real life story. When I first read it, I thought it was pretty good, but now that I have more appreciation for the deep themes inside the book, I love it even more. When Stars Are Scattered is narrated by Omar, an adolescent Somalian refugee. He lives in a refugee camp called Daadab, with his younger brother, Hassan. Hassan has a disability that limits his ability to speak (he can only say one word), and he sometimes has seizures. Hassan is also the only blood-related family Omar has left; their father was killed in Somalia, and their mother has not been found. The book follows Omar’s day-to-day life in the refugee camp as they hope and pray for a better life. The fact that it’s narrated by Omar and not in third person gives the reader a unique window into his frustrations, worries, complicated emotions as a refugee. This book conta...
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Peanuts Comic Review

 Hi guys, in this blog I'll be going over the classic Peanuts comic series by Charles Schulz. Peanuts has been a world favorite ever since Schulz began writing it in 1950. Throughout my childhood, I have been reading these strips online and in The Complete Peanuts collections of the strips between the years. I have read almost every single Peanuts strip in existence, as when I was younger, I had nothing better to do during my free time. In this blog I’ll overview the strips from the 1950s to 1960s. Peanuts consists of quite a few characters: The main 2 characters showing up are Charlie Brown and Snoopy, showing up 8588 and 7744 times in strips respectively. Charlie Brown is often portrayed as a “wishy-washy” person, with a somewhat weak personality, often giving in to other people. He often has a lot of bad luck, shown in his many kite flying accidents and baseball games. A recurring pattern in these strips is when Charlie Brown chickens out of doing something, and everyone get...
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