The Reading Nook

Today we had another official meeting of Literary Lab…Mrs. Feldman brought cookies so it was well worth it.

Deven started out by discussing the book “The Thirteenth Child.” The book is about the girl who’s the thirteenth child of her family (what a surprise). The girl’s family supposedly has to move to avoid “magical beasts” like mammoths and steam dragons…the girl feels like everything is her fault b/c she’s the 13th. Her proffesor, Jeffrey, tells her she’s the seventh daughter so she’s actually pretty lucky. The book’s about how you choose your own fate. it’s pretty boring. Wait, no, apparently these things called grubs get under the magic barrier and eat all their crops…and the family moves to a settlements of Rationalists who hate magic…who have something to do with the grubs…I’m not doing a very good job of paying attention…Deven says the book is like “Twilight.” One-tenth of it is actually action and nine tenths of it is plot. Not recommended.

James shared a creepy, creepy book named “Legend of the Seeker” which is part of a series. Interesting how the title reveals absolutely nothing…Mrs Feldman says that it is “very inappropriate.” James tells us how he practically stole it from the library. Apparently Ben Ginsberg’s brother forbade this book. Mrs Feldman: If you get past all the perverted sexual stuff, it’s actually pretty good. Mrs Feldman tells us how Dan Brown is a really bad writer, he’s just good at plot. Apparently being a novelist is really easy if you are an idiot. I probably shouldn’t write this down. Excerpt (paraphrased) from “Stone of Tears” (2nd of the Legend of the Seeker series by Goodkind.)
He howled with laughter.

He laughed with a howl.

His howl sounded like a mocking laugh. This is all in 1 page of the book, I kid you not.

We discuss watching Legend of the Seeker on Hulu. Ben: I’ll quit the club if we watch that.  They’re good books but you might not like the style. Leighton: I haven’t read this book. Grant: Me neither. Mack: Me neither. We are all really confused.

Mrs Feldman (continued:) The writing is like, He was angry and stepped angrily into the room!!! THE BOOK IS TERRIBLE! *calm* Now I’d like to discuss the book Shiver.

Ben: It’s a very good book. It took my 3 days to read it and usually it only takes 2 hours. Some parts were boring..it was like, “I love you. x100″ There was too much loving. It’s about a girl tProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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t gets mauled by werewolves and a werewolf saves her and they become lovers. Everyone else: ….what the ….? Mrs. Feldman: Grant, stop stealing Mack’s stuff while he’s writing things down…I shouldn’t have wrProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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e that….

Mack: I’d like to review a thing I wrote…

Everyone: zzzz…..

Mack: I wrote this thing, it’s like horror short story…you all should read it…I’ll email it you. NO ONE CARES..

Mrs. Feldman: I’m reading this book called Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. It’s about hybrid animal machines which don’t pollute the earth. There’s this gigantic Leviathan which is an airship. It was made from the life-threads of a whale and millions of smaller creatures. (There’s this totally awesome picture of a pimped-out whale/machine/hybrid thing.) The plot is that the Archduke of Austria and his wife were assassinated and the prince of Austria is being escorted away from the enemies. There’s another story with a girl disguised as a boy so she can be an airship pilot. It’s a lot of fun to read and there’s a lot of technical details. It’s cool…Boys and girls would like it.

Now…I read you a ghost story…..

Mrs feldman read us a ghost story. Which was really spooky. It’s from “A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts” which is food-themed and makes your bones rattle. (Not my words)