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Visit Scotland blogs! Click here to go to Joshua’s blog! Once on his blog read about the 100 year old KODAK camera his mom got. Visit and here about that his teacher is going to try and take a class picture with it! Comment!

Today I visited blogs from a class in New Zealand. Click here to visit Tim’s (a student) blog. Tim is 11 years old. He has many pets and his dad is the teacher of his class! Also on Tim’s blog you can read the story he has been writing on his blog.Go to Tim’s blog and read his story, see some of his projects and please comment!

This is my poem about Kali who was one of the unfourtunate people to be taken on the Amistad.

I never had a chance to say goodbye.
I was in the street when unknown
Men came and took me.
I miss my mother and father the most but
I also miss my brother and sister.

I miss the palms, the grass, and all of my
Friends and animals I played with.
I miss my town and my people.

They took me on a boat named the Amistad.
Fear gripped me. I had never seen a boat this size before.
Cinque told me not to worry. But I could not help being scared.

I am longing to go back to Africa. There I was
safe, now anything could happen to me,
I never had a chance to say goodbye.

“Millions and millions of African people were taken captive during the long and horrible time of the Atlantic slave trade. Mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts, nieces and nephews, granddaughters and grandsons, brothers and sisters, friends and enemies were ripped away from their families and taken to the Americas. Untold numbers died. Countless others ended up on plantations. Very few ever went home.
Sarah Margru Kinson did.”

Sarah Margru Kinson born in Mendeland, Africa (now where Sierra Leone is) lived in a town with many other Africans. Her father had nothing. Not even food. So in this historical fiction telling of her story, he pawned Margru to work for another man and in turn the man would give her father food. He gave the man her because she was the only thing he had. Back then in Africa no one used money. Instead they traded. Someone could trade seeds for rice but there wasn’t a set price. People came and traded for whatever they thought was fair.

But one day slave traders came. How it worked was white men came to the coast up near West Africa. They got black people to go and capture other black people. Then they were sold to the white men and taken on ships and brought to America. Sarah Margru Kinson was brought onto a ship to sail to Havana, Cuba. From Cuba she sailed on a ship called the Amistad, which means friendship in Spanish. On that ship other Africans killed some of the sailors and told them to take them back to Africa.

Daytime they sailed to Africa but at night the sailors tricked them and sailed to America. Finally they were spotted off the coast of America. Read about Sarah Margru Kinson’s story and find out how she survived…

My buddy JW13 wrote this paragraph about how house 43 is trying with their buddies to help repair the damage that Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans.

House 43 has a relationship with children in New Orleans, Louisiana. Each kid has one or two buddies. I have two; J and B. They write letters to us and we write back. We write about activities in school and out of school. I usually tell them some facts about New York City. I think that I have a very fun relationship with my buddies. The first time they wrote to us some of them talked about beignets. I wrote back to J asking what a beignet was. He said that they were like donuts except they had sugar on top.
By the way, I am JW13. House 43, my house, is trying to find a project to raise money. We will give the money to New Orleans so the city will get repaired. Some of the buddies said that the flood from Hurricane Katrina destroyed their houses. I hope that our plan to help them will be a complete success.

Half a Sixpence based on the book by H.G. Wells is about a boy named Arthur Kipps. He works at a drapery store in about 1890. The only friends he has are the other workers. But when he encounters a fortune he has to make a decision between his friends and being with rich and with all the important people.

I really liked the play. I thought that the way it was done was great. All of the songs really went with the play. Also the actors played their parts to make it very good. If you haven’t seen it I highly recommend seeing it.

Dragon Rider, by Cornelia Funke, is an amazing fantasy book. The three main characters: Ben(a human), Sorrel(a big cat), and Firedrake(a dragon), set out to find the Rim of Heaven. This is a place where dragons can live peacefully without having to worry about the evil Nettlebrand or the humans. On their journey they meet many other creatures who are their key to finding the Rim of Heaven. They also run into Nettlebrands spy’s,obstacles, and bad weather which throws them off course.

…and from
The gloomy land of lonely exile
To a new country bade me come…
-Pushkin

I read a book called Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse. It’s a great historical fiction book about a girl who’s escaping from Berichev, Russia with her family in 1919. Whenever they ask for help all people say is “That man is only a Jew. Why bother with the troubles of a Jew.”(p.13)
There are many examples of good writing in the book too. Some of them are when they are escaping Russia on a train like, my head pounded as if the train [had] run over me. All the horrors of Russia returned to me. Then finally on Ellis Island she writes to her family. I miss you like soup misses salt.
Also there are historical examples too like: The city/country names like Berichev (Russia), Poland, Antwerp (Belgium) and there are things that happened to many people like, They are holding me, detaining me at Ellis Island. I think that Letters from Rifka is a great story and also a great example of historical fiction.

Because of you, a war among the gods is taking place. But, only you can stop it. Percy Jackson is the kid teachers cringe at the thought of having. He’s dyslexic and always gets into fights. Oh yeah, he’s a demigod. No one knows that but Percy’s mother and Percy’s best friend from school, Grover, who’s actually a satyr, who was sent by Chiron, the trainer of the gods, to watch him and take him to Camp Half-Blood, a camp for demigods. On the way to Camp Half-Blood, the Minotaur, gunning for Percy, supposedly kills Percy’s mother. Not only that, but Percy finds out that his father is Poseidon, who took a vow on the river Styx with his brothers, Zeus and Hades, that they would not have any more demigods. Zeus’s master bolt is missing, and Zeus thinks that Poseidon used his new-found demi-son, Percy, to steal the bolt. Percy is sent on a quest with Annabel, Athena’s demi-daughter, and Grover, his satyr friend, to find Zeus’s bolt, which supposedly in the underworld with Hades. On the way to the underworld, they encounter the furies, Echidna and her son, the chimera, and other monsters to get to the underworld. But before that, they meet Ares, who gives them a backpack full of clothes and money in exchange for a favor. When they get to Hades, he tells them that he does not have the bolt, and he accuses Percy of stealing Hades’s helm of darkness. Percy solves the case. In the backpack Ares gave Percy, Zeus’s master bolt was in there, along with Hades’s helm of darkness. Ares planted it in Percy’s backpack, as per Kronos’s instructions. Kronos is planning to overtake Zeus’s kingdom, but once Percy tells Zeus, the matter is not spoken of again, nor is it taken care of. This book was very good, and anyone who likes mythology should read this book.