Farnsworth House Blog

Warriors is a really good book written by Erin Hunter. It consists of three series, Warriors, The New Prophecy, and The Power of Three. The books are mainly about a band of cats that call themselves Warriors. They live by a code and consult the Starclan, but Starclan cats are not always clear about their answers… Starclan’s answer in prophecies and sometimes tell the cats in no more than 5 words. They foretell upcoming wars with other clans, or in one book the destruction of their forest home.

The author, Erin Hunter is a really descriptive writer and really gives a feel for the whole setting. You can almost see the forest, home of the Warriors, in your head. This story involves a lot of confusing names such as Fireheart, Feathertail, and Leafpool. They are hard names to remember but Erin Hunter conveniently provides a map of the territory, and a description of all the cats in the book. I think this book is great for animal lovers and people who are interested in astronomy.

Three Wishes is a book by Deborah Ellis. It is about the lives of Palestinian and Israeli children who are living in the Middle East. This book takes place 5 or 4 years ago, so some situations have changed. Recently there are less incidents of suicide bombings in Israel. Some situations are the same. For example, the Israeli’s and the Palestinians are still at war and barely ever have peace. Some people have not recovered emotionally and physically because their houses have been bombed and they are going through trauma or are in hospitals.

Some of the kids in this book have very extreme stories to tell. For example, one kid said that when his mom was at a Palestinian checkpoint the Israeli soldiers said that she had to eat grass and then they would let her go through the checkpoint. Some of the stories the kids tell are hard to believe.

I believe that though the Israeli’s have done some wrong things, they are not cruel people. You have to remember to be equal minded as you read this book and remember that both sides are going through a lot.

I recommend this book to anyone who knows what is going on in the Middle East and to anyone who wants to learn about what’s going on in the Middle East.

-MR

Science Fair by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson is a book about a boy in middle school called Toby Harbinger. Grdankl the Strong, president of Kprshtskan, the land without many vowels, is plotting to try to take over the U.S.A. Oh, by the way, both of Toby’s parents are Star Wars fanatics. They met at the premiere of the fifth Star Wars, one dressed as Princess Leia, one dressed as C-3PO. They have all this Star Wars memorabilia in their basement.

Toby really wants a computer so he sells a Harrison Ford hand-autographed blaster for $2,000 to a guy named D.Arthur Vaderian and buys his own computer. Meanwhile, in the Hubble Middle School, these rich kids called the M.E. kids are trying to win the science fair by cheating. They leave fifty dollars in an envelope, and someone unknown gives them the blueprints that are supposed to help them win the science fair. Toby finds out and tells the principal. Then his school catches on fire because of something someone stuck into his locker. Then he gets into a huge mess…

I would rate this book 4 stars. It starts out a little slow, but it gets a lot better, I assure you. I would recommend it to people who like mysteries and people who like books that have characters with problems.

-CH

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell
- A National Book Award Winner

Evie is a fifteen year old girl who lives in America. It is two years after WW II and her father has just come home. Her family takes a trip to Palm Beach where they meet an ex-GI Peter Colridge, who worked with her dad in Austria. She finds herself in an endless web of lies and recognizes them at a very slow pace. She soon realizes that everything she thought she knew about her family and Peter was a lie. How will she figure her way out of the mess? She’s only fifteen.

I thought this book was excellent. It is based on what can happen in real life. The story was intriguing and intelligent but also very serious. This book can take you to a world that you have never been to before. It shows you how life was back then and what situations you sometimes had to deal with. I recommend this book if you like mystery and romance.

-MR

I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You is by Ally Carter. The story is about a teenage spy at The Gallagher Academy. Her name is Cameron (Cammie the Chameleon) Morgan. People might claim that the school is for geniuses and snobs, but it’s actually a school for spies. At this school they learn how to hack, sneak, spy (of course), kill someone in seven different ways and speak fluently in fourteen different languages. Cammie is just trying to be something she can’t (normal). But one day on a mission she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she’s an ordinary girl. Of course she can hack into his computer, sneak into his house and take his DNA. But can she have a relationship with someone who can’t know about how she’s a spy?
At first I thought this book was really about spying and genius issues. But, it was really about how Cammie and Josh (the normal boy) keep their relationship. I think this is for girls ages 10 and up. I think it’s for these ages because it has some material in it that has to do with relationships and issues that an average 7 or 8 year old might not understand. To tell you the truth most kids who are under 11 have read this book. My friend HL told me about this book. We have the pretty much the same tastes in books. So I tried it out. Before I read this book my mom couldn’t get me to read it. But, once I started it, my mom couldn’t get me to put it down.
Ally Carter has a talent for telling about realistic characters at their age. For example Cammie acts like how any teenage girl would. She likes boys, she thinks her mom is totally embarrassing and she has outfit crises. I thought this book was very engrossing. I loved this book. I am the type of girl who likes books with romance, adventure and humor. This book has all of those things. If you’re that type of girl then you’ll love this book too.

-DB

We recently wrote poems that were reflections on our trip to the Tenement Museum and the Lower East Side. First we visited the Tenement Museum and learned about immigrants at the turn of the century and the garment industry. (For more information on the Lower East Side Tenement Museum click on: Tenement Museum.) Afterward our class split into groups and walked around routes we made the day before. We concentrated on the area contained by the streets Essex and Mulberry and East Houston and Grand. Each group had lunch at a different restaurant with cuisines from different cultures such as Mexican, Chinese, French and Italian. Through out the tour we got a feel for the cultures that immigrated to the Lower East Side. We visited places like Guss’s Pickles, and Economy Candy, among many others. We took photos of as many of the cultures as we could find on our walk.

When we got to school we made digital collages around poems that we wrote in response to the trip. We used the desktop publishing program called Pages. For our collages we selected pictures that we took from our trip and pictures of the old Lower East Side from the NY Public Library digital image bank. Once we selected our photos we were able to drag them onto a blank template and arrange them using all kinds of effects. We hope you enjoy our poems and collages. Click on the thumbnail to view the whole collage and poem.

We have been studying the books of E.B. White. Our class did E.B. White boxes based on the art of Joseph Cornell. Joseph Cornell was an artist who made boxes out of nature objects and every day things. We also used materials that we found in our everyday life. We based our boxes on the themes that we discovered in Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and Trumpet of the Swan. Our class chose themes that we would represent in our boxes. The themes were life and death, friendship, change and contrast. The whole fourth grade did this project and Farnsworth House boxes are presently on display on the 9th floor hallway.

To check out the art work of Joseph Cornell go to:

http://www.josephcornellbox.com/menu.htm

http://www.pem.org/cornell/imagination.html

Fern?Charlotte?Templeton?

The student’s of Farnsworth House each wrote a two paragraph essay on these questions. As you can see, there are many heroes to be found.

DB
KB
LF
JF
CH
CH2
AK
HL
JM
MR
LR
KS
CS
SW
CY
JA

Farnsworth House has annotated the first chapter of Charlotte’s Web! Each student has now been assigned their own chapter. They will annotate the chapter on their own and present their findings to the rest of the class in a symposium.