~The Lighting Thief~

-by Rick Riordan

My cousin had read this book awhile ago. I just never took the time to follow his advice. Well, I am completely in love with it now, and I am starting on the sequel, The Sea of Monsters.

What made me pick it up, though, was the fact that it's going to be a movie in Febuary 2010. And I really do hate to watch movies first... So I decided to be on the safe side and read it before it came out.

Now I am over excited for the movie! I just hope they don't mess it up, although I know the book will always be better.

~Playing with the Enemy~

-by Gene Moore

*ENDING SPOILERS*

(This has been in my draft box for quite a while now...!)

I really did enjoy this "school required" book...until I got to the end.

I'm a sucker for happy endings, which is why I was dissapointed when the main character, Gary Moore, never makes it to the majors and refuses to talk about his past. Why don't you just rip my heart out?

He was the perfect catch, the perfect leader, and the perfect all-around person. But it's not a fairytale book, which is what I didn't think I would have to remember.

As I said before, I love happy endings, and this is definetly not a match in the puzzle. It's one of those "exceptions" to the list. Like the pieces you cram together because they look right, but really they don't.

It is a very good read though, and definetly worth the time if you are expecting the major heart-break in the end.

Gene stepped out onto Madison Street, unable to reconcile the contrast in sights and sounds between Sesser and Chicago. In Sesser, sounds flowed through the trees, fields, and rolling hills. In Chicago, the noise bounced back and forth from building to building. The sounds echoing in front of Union Station reminded Gene of being in a gymnasium in rural Illinois. He was outside, and yet he felt closed in.

The game had almost forgotten about him, but he never forgot about the game.

"You Americans are not as smart as you think," Mueller said with a determined shake of his head. "You do it wrong. You should have been playing [baseball] to entertain the German troops." "Why's that?" "Baseball could be your secret weapon," smiled Mueller. "You could have bored us to death and won the war already."

Our poor old tree

Remember that storm two days ago? Yeah, its all his fault. :/

The big branch is hanging on barely.

Well, I guess I can't call it old.

It's not that I don't want to

Trust me, I'm still alive.

And I know it has been forever since I posted.

I don't want to give excuses, so I apologize for the lack of posting going on lately.

I'm trying my hardest to find time. And I'm not done here yet.

~The Enchanted Castle~

-by E. Nesbit

I was told about a year ago that we were considering using The Enchanted Castle for our cousin camp production in a summer to come. But after further discussion, it was decided that it had to many "un-realities" and it would be impossible to film.

At the time, I had not read the book, but I knew the jist of it. And being told I would be casted as the witty Mabel, I was, of course, outraged.

But only until now do I understand why. It is filled to the brim with magic, statues, estates, and feasts that would be impossible to film. (not to mention the flying gods)

Don't get me wrong, I would still like to attempt filming maybe just a few scenes... but that is for another few years.

It seemed about an hour, and was really quite ten minutes, before they heard the bedroom door open and Mabel's feet on the stairs. 'She hasn't found it,' Gerald said. 'How do you know?' Jimmy asked. 'The way she walks,' said Gerald. You can, in fact, almost always tell whether the thing has been found that people have gone to look for by the sound of their feet as they return.

'We've got to find these clothes,' said Mabel, 'simply got to. I used to want to be a heroine. It's different when it really comes to being, isn't it?'

'It is a fine mansion,' he said at last when they had come back to the point from which they had started; 'but I should suppose, in a house this size, there would mostly be a secret stairway, or a priests' hiding place, or a ghost?' 'There are,' Mabhel briefly, 'but I thought Americans didn't believe in anything but machinery and newspapers.'

And then it is as though a spring touched, a fountain of light released. Everthing changes. Or, rather, everything is revealed. There are no more secrets. The plan of the world seems plain, like an easy sum that one writes in big figures on a child's slate. One wonders how one can ever have wondered about anything. Space is not; every place that one has seen or dreamed of is here. Time is not; into the instant is crowded all that one has ever done or dreamed of doing.

Now to go eat dinner with my missed-much sister :-)