Committee Day!

Today was a very special day. Today was the day of the committee for the Birbery competition. We got to ride in a limo. We picked up the people from Derby (Berkshire was already there) and we were off to the Baldwin Public Library. Once we got there, we played a nice game of Headbands. The people on our headbands were characters from these 6 books: Circus Mirandus, The War That Saved my Life, Echo, Roller Girl, Mark of the Thief, and Fuzzy Mud. Out of the 10 Birbery books and 15 committee members, no one got a character in the game of headbands form Masterminds, Stella by Starlight, Fish in a Tree, and The Boys Who Challenged Hitler. After headbands, we met former Newbery committee member, Karen Lemmons, who walked us through the process of the Newbery selection and that how at the end of this year, a picture book won the Newbery medal. After lunch, we got right into discussing the books. After the first 5 which were (in the order we discussed them) The War That Saved my Life, Circus Mirandus, Stella by Starlight, The Boys Who Challenged Hitler, and Fish in a Tree, we took a break. After the break we discussed the remaining books in this order; Roller Girl, Masterminds, Mark of the Thief, Echo, and Fuzzy Mud. In the end, we did a ballot. Because the top 5 (Fish in a Tree, Masterminds, Mark of the Thief, Circus Mirandus, and The War That Saved my Life) (If you want spoilers on who wins, look at the pictures or below) were so close, we had to retake the ballot. Twice. Overall, here were the final standings:

1st Place: Masterminds by Gordon Korman

2nd Place: The War That Saved my Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

3rd Place: Fish in a Tree by Linda Mually Hunt

Tied for 4th/5th Place:Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley/Mark of the Thief by Jennifer A. Nielson. 

Back on the limo, they gave us Sparkling Juice. I had Sparkling White Grape Juice. The 5 BCS committee members got back to school at around 3:00.

The winner of the 2016 Birbery Awards, Masterminds by Gordon Korman

Digimon Review

Last year, my friend Jaylen introduced me to the TV show called Digimon. It's about monsters like Pokémon in a separate dimension. There are different branches of the series. The best series in my opinion is Digimon Fusion, where the Digimon fuse together with the help of humans. I recommend this series to anyone who likes fantasy books.

70's and 80's Music

A while ago, my dad introduced me to the music period of the 70's and the 80's. Some of the greatest artists of this period are Michael Jackson (70's and 80's), Queen (70's), Survivor (80's) (they wrote Eye of the Tiger), and Aerosmith (70's). Their music had a powerful impact on the world. Queen's songs We will Rock You" and "We are the Champions" became songs that my generation still sings (sometimes). These singers/songwriters (Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury wrote their songs before he passed away) have a powerful impact on me too. Asrosmith's "Dream On" inspired me to keep dreaming until my dreams come true.

Star Wars

What do you think it would be like if Star Wars was real? Then, people would fly off  onto other inhabited planets, battle your opponents, and maybe even blow up 2 space stations that are evil. Which gives me a question. If you could be any Star Wars character, who would it be? I would pick Darth Vader because he's amazingly powerful. He can choke his enemies without laying a finger on them.

Monthly Idea Generator - April (I know it's not April yet)

I don't know what to write about. Whoopee. I used to do these on my old blog so I figured, "Why not do an idea generator for 2016?" Please leave ideas in the comment section below or send me an email at cobracrane11@gmail.com

Crazy Test

Today I took a math test. Sounds boring, right? But pretty much nobody could finish the thing. It was on statistics. It had things like the Mean Absolute Deviation, or MAD, the Inter-Quartile Range or IQR. Unit 9 is difficult and very tiring. Luckily, Mr. Burdick said that from Unit 8 to unit 15 (unit 5 of 7th grade) we could use calculators. Since there's a half day tomorrow, I only have LA and Math. Yippee! I can finish my test!

The Adventures of Frosty: Book 4: Terror in Frosting Prolouge

At the entrance to the cupcake castle, the 6 friends were questioning Pop of his fear of ALMOST everything.


"Here it is. Pop, are you sure you don't want to go back to the yacht?" Doughy declared. It turned out that he and Shocker were very kind. Pop stated, "Despite my phobia of everything else, I don't have a fear of bats, werewolves, vampires, and ghosts. In we go!"

The Adventures of Frosty: Crazy Èclairs! FULL BOOK

Prologue

Last time you saw Frosty and his crew get frozen by the Freezer Frog and had their new friend Snowy turn on them. Now, the stakes are raised even higher. With Mystery Meat trying to prevent this merry crew from completing this prophecy: "A man made of ice cream will thwart the dangerous meat evil with 5 friends in tow:  A Red Velvet Vampire, A Patti Shoe Dragon, A Snow Cone Saber-tooth, A Popsicle Monkey, and a Cakeasaurus Rex." Mystery Meat XIV, the descendant of the first Mystery Meat, is working to prevent this. Currently, there is only one Patti Shoe dragon remaining. If he kills it, the prophecy won't be completed so far because the other 13 Mystery Meats expired of old age. But prophecies have this thing of coming true one way or another. Even if it's not in one generation, it will be completed in another. Read more to find out if this prophecy comes true in this generation.

Chapter 1: Arrival

"This boat is getting WAY too crowded." Pop the Popsicle Monkey stated. He was only the second person to ride it other than the big sleeper, Frosty the Ice Cream Man. Frosty and his friends Pop, Cakeman the Cakeasaurus Rex, and the newest addition to the merry band of friends, Snowy the Snow Cone Sabertooth are going to the Eclair Savanna to find a Patti Shoe Dragon (Patti Shoe is the dough that makes eclairs and cream puffs). "Right. I can fix that at the harbor. There is an area where they rebuild your speedboats into a Faygo Yacht." Frosty said. "Then, Land Ho!" Snowy exclaimed. "Look! The harbor!" Cakeman said. Frosty deposited the ship by the harbormaster. "Look! A cream puff rhino!" Snowy was taking in all the sights because he lived in a Tundra. Then right as he said this, the rhino looked at the eclair tiger and the tiger pounced and the rhino charged.

Chapter 2: Arrival (Again)

Frosty and the gang stepped back and watched nature in dessertia. Naturally, the rhino charged into the tiger and killed it because cream puffs are small but strong. "We should get going before we're next." Pop told Frosty.
"(snore)"
"Frosty!"
"Just drag him. They're unwakeable." Snowy said.
"They're also the heaviest of all of us." Pop declared. It took all of them, but they managed to drag him into the beignet prairie, which is a part of the savanna but is where everybody knows the dragons live. When they walked in, lightning struck them. At that excact moment, Frosty woke up.

Chapter 3: The 2nd Egg

"I guess this is it." Frosty said while taking a bow. He took his hat off. In doing this, the hat absorbed the lightning blast. As he was putting the hat back on, he saw the lightning in the hat and immediatly flipped his hat in the opposite direction. In doing so, lightning struck a nearby Beignet Prarie Dog instead. Enraged, the dragon struck Pop, who screamed in terror and ducked, thus narrowly avoiding the lightning blast. This is how it went, dragons attacking the strangers, the quartet narrowly dodging each and every lightning bolt. Once the heroes had ran across the entire prarie, they saw something intriguing. It had a single star on its oval-shaped surface. It was a Patti Shoe Dragon egg! "Frosty, come on. Grab it!" Pop exclaimed.

"I think we'll let Snowy take this one." Frosty declared. As soon as Snowy grabbed the egg, a Donut Cyclops saw the egg, which it wanted to eat for dinner. The strangers with it could be an amazing appetizer, it thought. So, the cyclops roared in their faces while raising his club up in the air to strike.

Chapter 4: The Dangerous Doughnut 

The cyclops slammed his sprinkle club into the ground. Everyone jumped out of the way. The club made a fissure in the ground. Shoot, the cyclops thought; I should have hit them with Jelly first. Frosty told his friends with fear in his voice, "Guys, let's try and reason with him." Frosty jumped over the jelly and ran up Doughy the Doughnut's gargantuan leg. Once he got to his eye, Frosty said, "Why are you attacking us? I think it might be because you want to eat us, or attacking is your way of being friendly. I'm going to go with the latter." Little did Frosty know, Doughy was very moved by this speech and stopped attacking. Frosty said, "Will you come with us?"
"Yeah!" Doughy replied.
"Then can you put my friends and I back?"
"Sure."
"Also, let's get that egg!"
"Oh. I noticed that the egg dropped into the fissure."
"Then into the fissure!"

Chapter 5: The Fissure

Deeper and deeper into the chasm the five people went. It seemed like one of those bottomless pits you see in movies. Suddenly, Doughy saw the egg. He exclaimed, "Look! The egg! Somebody get over to it!" Frosty "Swam" over to the egg and sat on it. Out popped a full-grown pattishoe dragon! Frosty told the dragon, "Hi. My name's Frosty. Can I call you Shocker?" The dragon nodded yes. "Can you fly all of us out of here?" Shocker nodded his head again, lifted his wings, waited for Frosty and the others to get to him, then flew out of the bottomless pit at terminal velocity. Shocker flew them all the the Faygo yacht before noon (it was 11:59 when they got out of the pit) and the 6 friends took off for the Cupcake Castle.

Epilogue

We go back to the evil mystery meat's lair in Grocerie where Mystery Meat Evilsteak XIV (Mystery is his first name, Meat is his middle, and Evilsteak is obviously a last name) was waiting for the postman to bring a letter from the local fortune teller, Butcher Fateseer. The postman, Skinless McChicken, told Evilsteak, "Mystery, Butcher told me this is very important and that he wanted to tell you in person but....." at that very moment Butcher appeared with his crystal ball. He picked up where the postman left off, "What Skinless is trying to say is that my magic is very rusty You do realize I was the adviser to your Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather, or Mystery Meat Evilsteak I. I never quite pieced together the full prophecy. I just found out that there will be a traitor to the meat society that originally betrayed Dessertia. In doing this, the "Heroes" will have some muscle. Also, I believe Doughy the Doughnut Cyclops has left the Meat Society."
"He is the muscle. But we have nothing to fear. That Popsicle Monkey is way too terrified to go into the Cupcake Castle. That's our chance to grab him."
"Maniacal Laughter from all three meats"

The Adventures of Frosty Book 3: Crazy Eclairs! Epilouge

We go back to the evil mystery meat's lair in Grocerie where Mystery Meat Evilsteak XIV (Mystery is his first name, Meat is his middle, and Evilsteak is obviously a last name) was waiting for the postman to bring a letter from the local fortune teller, Butcher Fateseer. The postman, Skinless McChicken, told Evilsteak, "Mystery, Butcher told me this is very important and that he wanted to tell you in person but....." at that very moment Butcher appeared with his crystal ball. He picked up where the postman left off, "What Skinless is trying to say is that my magic is very rusty You do realize I was the adviser to your Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather, or Mystery Meat Evilsteak I. I never quite pieced together the full prophecy. I just found out that there will be a traitor to the meat society that originally betrayed Dessertia. In doing this, the "Heroes" will have some muscle. Also, I believe Doughy the Doughnut Cyclops has left the Meat Society."
"He is the muscle. But we have nothing to fear. That Popsicle Monkey is way to terrified to go into the Cupcake Castle. That's our chance to grab him."
"Maniacal Laughter from the three meats"

The Adventures of Frosty Book 3: Crazy Èclairs! Chapter 5: The Fissure

Deeper and deeper into the chasm the five people went. It seemed like one of those bottomless pits you see in movies. Suddenly, Doughy saw the egg. He exclaimed, "Look! The egg! Somebody get over to it!" Frosty "Swam" over to the egg and sat on it. Out popped a full-grown pattishoe dragon! Frosty told the dragon, "Hi. My name's Frosty. Can I call you Shocker?" The dragon nodded yes. "Can you fly all of us out of here?" Shocker nodded his head again, lifted his wings, waited for Frosty and the others to get to him, then flew out of the bottomless pit at terminal velocity. Shocker flew them all the the Faygo yacht before noon (it was 11:59 when they got out of the pit) and the 6 friends took off for the Cupcake Castle.

Luck of the Irish

Today was an extremely lucky day for me. First, at our school's local competition for the 10 birbery  books, I, another sixth grader, two seventh graders and an 8th grader were chosen the top 5 competitors. In the 5th/6th grade classes, there is a little reading competition inspired by March Madness and the fact that March is Reading Month. I just happened to randomly draw the best basketball team in the NCAA, Kansas University. 

The Adventures of Frosty Book 3: Crazy Eclairs! Chapter 4: The Dangerous Doughnut

The cyclops slammed his sprinkle club into the ground. Everyone jumped out of the way. The club made a fissure in the ground. Shoot, the cyclops thought; I should have hit them with Jelly first. Frosty told his friends with fear in his voice, "Guys, let's try and reason with him." Frosty jumped over the jelly and ran up Doughy the Doughnut's gargantuan leg. Once he got to his eye, Frosty said, "Why are you attacking us? I think it might be because you want to eat us, or attacking is your way of being friendly. I'm going to go with the latter." Little did Frosty know, Doughy was very moved by this speech and stopped attacking. Frosty said, "Will you come with us?"
"Yeah!" Doughy replied.
"Then can you put my friends and I back?"
"Sure."
"Also, let's get that egg!"
"Oh. I noticed that the egg dropped into the fissure."
"Then into the fissure!"

The Adventures of Frosty: Crazy Eclairs! Chapter 3: The (2nd) Egg

"I guess this is it." Frosty said while taking a bow. He took his hat off. In doing this, the hat absorbed the lightning blast. As he was putting the hat back on, he saw the lightning in the hat and immediatly flipped his hat in the opposite direction. In doing so, lightning struck a nearby Beignet Prarie Dog instead. Enraged, the dragon struck Pop, who screamed in terror and ducked, thus narrowly avoiding the lightning blast. This is how it went, dragons attacking the strangers, the quartet narrowly dodging each and every lightning bolt. Once the heroes had ran across the entire prarie, they saw something intriguing. It had a single star on its oval-shaped surface. It was a Patti Shoe Dragon egg! "Frosty, come on. Grab it!" Pop exclaimed.

"I think we'll let Snowy take this one." Frosty declared. As soon as Snowy grabbed the egg, a Donut Cyclops saw the egg, which it wanted to eat for dinner. The strangers with it could be an amazing appetizer, it thought. So, the cyclops roared in their faces while raising his club up in the air to strike.

The Tender Land

Today I saw Aaron Copland's  "The Tender Land" with my friends Matteo and Molly. It was a production from the Michigan Opera Theater, just not at the MOT. It was at some place I can't  remember the name of. It takes place on a farm. Laurie, the lead, is the first person to graduate high school in her family. The day before her graduation ceremony, 2 strangers appear. They're names are Top (what kind of a name is that?) and Martin. Laurie's grandpa hires the two men but remains suspicious because two girls have been attacked recently and grandpa moss doesn't want Laurie to be then third. Later that night, at Laurie's graduation party, Laurie falls in love with Martin but Ma Moss (Grandpa and Ma Moss are extremely overprotective) suspects that Top (again, top is NOT a name) and Martin are the culprits that attacked the two girls. Laurie and Martin go outside and there is a really romantic moment between the two of them. This goes on until Grandpa interrupts the moment and tells Martin and Top to go away by daybreak. Laurie sees Martin pack up and says that she's going with them. But Top convinces Martin to leave before daybreak. Laurie goes out of the house at daybreak and is devastated to find out that Martin and Top left without her. So she leaves the house and the young girl, Beth is seen playing with Daniel, her doll as seen in the beginning.

The Tender Land by Aaron Copland at the Macomb Center for Performing Arts performed by the Michigan Opera Theater. 

Random Stuff (2)

Today was theday of my little sister's talent show. At first I thought it would be boring, but it was okay. There was one act where one girl was looking at the other so she did the movements a tad late. There was two acts where they had one person laying down, and another person sat on top of them so they could "do" cool tricks. Overall, some of the acts (some means most) were so weird they were funny.

Cowboy Story

Sometime ago at Sunday School, there was a presentation about an architect named Albert Kahn. We were supposed to write a historical fiction story. Now if you're wondering "When do the cowboys come in?", I have the perfect answer. We could customize the location, people and buildings so I customized the location to "The Wild West".  Here is my story featuring "The Wild West","Henry Bacon","Eleanor Clay","Belle Isle Aquarium" and "Adaptive Reuse" (this is not word for word):

After Sheriff Henry Bacon finished his architectural travels in Europe, he got on a boat to the U.S. so he could get on a train to go home to the Wild, Wild West. On said train, he met Eleanor Clay. He was in love! But Eleanor was engaged to Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford (her engagement was true), and she loved him with all her heart. Henry asked her out and she said what was stated in the last sentence. The hero of this particular short story was heartbroken. He suddenly stopped talking and sadly went to his seat. The heartbroken hero returned to his hometown and returned to his passion of architecture. One day as he was working on his grayprint (

Clash Royale Review

There's this really cool game I've been playing called Clash Royale. It's a game by Supercell where you use mostly troops from Clash of Clans (another game by Supercell) and some others like the Musketeer or Prince. You use these different cards (they're sorted out into 3 different categories: Troop, Spell, and Building) to attack your opponent's towers. The player who destroyed the most towers in 2 minutes wins the game. One tower, the king tower is special. When you destroy it, you win automatically.

The Adventures of Frosty Book 3: Crazy Eclairs! Chapter 2

Frosty and the gang stepped back and watched nature in dessertia. Naturally, the rhino charged into the tiger and killed it because cream puffs are small but strong. "We should get going before we're next." Pop told Frosty.
"(snore)"
"Frosty!"
"Just drag him. They're unwakeable." Snowy said.
"They're also the heaviest of all of us." Pop declared. It took all of them, but they managed to drag him into the beignet prairie, which is a part of the savanna but is where everybody knows the dragons live. When they walked in, lightning struck them.

What Frosty and the gang are looking for (without the eclair skin)

The Adventures of Frosty Book 3: Crazy Eclairs! Chapter 1

Eclairs, a cream filled pastry

"This boat is getting WAY too crowded." Pop the Popsicle Monkey stated. He was only the second person to ride it other than the big sleeper, Frosty the Ice Cream Man. Frosty and his friends Pop, Cakeman the Cakeasaurus Rex, and the newest addition to the merry band of friends, Snowy the Snow Cone Sabertooth are going to the Eclair Savanna to find a Patti Shoe Dragon (Patti Shoe is the dough that makes eclairs and cream puffs). "Right. I can fix that at the harbor. There is an area where they rebuild your speedboats into a Faygo Yacht." Frosty said. "Then, Land Ho!" Snowy exclaimed. "Look! The harbor!" Cakeman said. Frosty deposited the ship by the harbormaster. "Look! A cream puff rhino!" Snowy was taking in all the sights because he lived in a Tundra. Then right as he said this, the rhino looked at the eclair tiger and the tiger pounced and the rhino charged.

Baby Dragon in Clash Royale

The Adventures of Frosty Book 3: Crazy Eclairs! Prolouge

Last time you saw Frosty and his crew get frozen by the Freezer Frog and had their new friend Snowy turn on them. Now, the stakes are raised even higher. With Mystery Meat trying to prevent this merry crew from completing this prophecy: "A man made of ice cream will thwart the dangerous meat evil with 5 friends in tow:  A Red Velvet Vampire, A Patti Shoe Dragon, A Snow Cone Saber-tooth, A Popsicle Monkey, and a Cakeasaurus Rex." Mystery Meat XIV, the descendant of the first Mystery Meat, is working to prevent this. Currently, there is only one Patti Shoe dragon remaining. If he kills it, the prophecy won't be completed so far because the other 13 Mystery Meats expired of old age. But prophecies have this thing of coming true one way or another. Even if it's not in one generation, it will be completed in another. Read more to find out if this prophecy comes true in this generation.

Birbery Book #9 DONE!!!

Today is a good day. Last night I finished the book "Circus Mirandus" by Cassie Beasley. It was an amazing book about a boy named Micah, his dying grandfather, and a magical circus. Micah is technically an orphan because both of his parents died. His grandpa would be his guardian until he died. Then Micah would fall into the hands of his pessimistic Great-Aunt Gertrudis.

The cover of "Circus Mirandus" by Cassie Beasley