Dear Mr. Chase and John,

I have recently been reading  Artemis Fowl:The Arctic Incident. This masterpiece continues to impress me. Unlike the Alex Rider books, there was parts of the this book that were cheesy but I somehow didn’t hate them. Now that’s saying something. This may be the first time ever I have liked a cheesy part of a book. The reason I like it is that when Eoin Colfer does it is he makes it less cheesy somehow. Sometimes I think there’s going to be a dumb fight scene that the only reason was in there was to give some silly kids  a laugh, but I somehow like it. Colfer makes everything logical in the book. The little fighting scenes actually are necessary to the story. Besides, the book is so utterly awesome that I probably wouldn’t care that much for a few cheesy fight “rock’m sock’m”scenes. Those few bad parts (which there isn’t any) would be cancelled out by scenes like the (in my opinion) the best scene with a dwarf ever made. The scene involves a Dwarf who tunnels through wood  by eating it, job was to break into to places and steal things, and is geared with all sorts pf cool equipment. This dwarf tries to break into an Oscar-winning actress’ penthouse and steal her trophy in a place with booby traps at every page, which the dwarf has to try to avoid setting off. Please tell me if that doesn’t sound ridiculously awesome. If that doesn’t, then reading Artemis Fowl is something you should never do. There is also an unbelievably great plot that keeps the reader “at the edge of their seat” for every page. There is betrayal, and you never even know it’s coming. Anyone who could correctly predict every page of this book should seriously get predicting  as a job. It’s like trying to pick who’s going to win a sports game when the  2 teams are perfectly even. Trying to predict this book is like what I just mentioned except that there is 100 teams in the sports game. Unpredictability and originality are two evident qualities of a great book. I find this book to be both. Also in this book there’s wit. It livens up the story a bit. Even if a story has a great everything it sometimes gets a little boring when the whole book has the same tone and mood. A good book has many tones that go up and down throughout the book. If the whole book was happy and joyful, it would be boring. If the whole book is sad and depressing, then that would be boring. Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident is an absolutely perfect balance of the 2. I wish that every book was. That’s the problem with reading sometimes. When I’m done with this series I’ll probably be raving mad about how that book that I’m reading is terrible. The book probably won’t be THAT bad (Ex. Alex Rider later books), but in comparison to the books I’ve just been reading, it  probably will be THAT bad.

Happy Reading!

ZR

PS: I cannot believe how James’ blog (http://beecherjames.edublogs.org/) is almost three times longer than this. Hats off to him.

Dear Mr. Chase and John,

I have recently been reading The Arctic Incident (sequel to Artemis Fowl) By: Eoin Colfer. Finally, a good sequel. You’ve probably read my complaints to the sequels of Stormbreaker and Eragon. Those were sequels made for people who loved the author so much that they would buy the  books even though they knew they were going to be not as good as the first, while the author is getting rich for righting 500 pages of “mumbo-jumbo.” It’s like when some director uncorks a huge box office hit (movie)  and just makes another piece of junk because he/she knows that everyone eventually is going to end up seeing it just because everyone will have saw it.  Anyways, remember when I called Eldest “…like a not-as-good continuation of the book (,) Eragon…“, well I’ll just go ahead and contradict myself and call The Arctic Incident a better continuation of Artemis Fowl. That’s right, not good, BETTER. First of all, the first book was less well written (still was written amazingly), and the first book was way more confusing. This book organizes ideas better, and now that you know the characters you can actually start to build very in depth characters in your mind. Also, this book just a better job of switching places then the first book. In the first book, I sometimes found myself wondering “Who is doing what where?” (confused yet). Not in this one. I am reminded enough of what’s going on that I know what’s happening, but I’m not reminded so much that I just want the author to get to the story.

I hope that you enjoy the sequels of the books you’re reading as much as I’m enjoying this one!

Happy “sequeling”

ZR

PS: Anyone who is hoping for a snow day wear your pajamas inside out! (:

Dear Mr. Chase and John,

I have recently finished Johnny Tremain.  As usual, I have some problems with the ending. I can’t give the ending away but here’s how I think about it:

Good endings surprise the reader. This ending certainly tries to surprise you, but I think that there is a certain art to the surprise that this is lacking. The ending almost hits you out of nowhere. which is usually a good thing, but in this case it’s not done right. You’re supposed to be shocked at the stunning ending that either leaves you thinking or makes you want to read the next book.This ending happens so fast that you feel like Esther Forbes was righting the book and then someone told her she had to finish writing the book in the next hour. I didn’t care about the ending. Even though it was supposed to make me think about what happened and what it all meant it made me think “whatever.” I don’t care about the outcomes of war and this character’s emotions when it’s all explained in a sentence. It was like there was a long 700 page book and at the end, in the heat of the story the author wrote, “The End,” seemingly out of nowhere. The only thing I liked about the ending is that it was short and didn’t make me suffer through another 50 torturous pages which I would have picked apart in my next blog.

Happy reading!

ZR

Dear Mr. Chase and John,

I have recently been reading Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography. On the back it said that that  the book would tell the reader all the questions that we’ve (the readers) been begging to know. Daniel Handler (person who wrote the book, it is a FALSE autobiography) I didn’t think he was nice enough to tell his hypnotized readers the answers to the questions.  Since  he writes the Series of Unfortunate Events from Lemony Snicket”s perspective, and all of Snicket’s relative are in the story he leaves you with hanging questions. Some of them go on for at least the last 8 books, and if annoying Handler told the readers the answers they would all start singing in happiness.I doubt Handler knows the answers to the questions himself. He just puts them out to torture us faithful readers. Anyways, when you open the book the chapters have a little scribble on the side that says that all of the chapters have been renamed. This is a classic “Handler maneuver.” Only he could do something that mean. I knew he was going to do that, but I didn’t want to own up to it. I read 13 (now 14) books to get answers and now I get even more questions. The stories are still great but anyone who’s read them knows what it means to be frustrated. I thought this book was a savior, but as usual, it’s not.

Happy reading!

ZR

PS: Are you feeling better? (Mr. Chase)

Dear Mr. Chase and John,

I have recently been reading Johnny Tremain. This book doesn’t seem like an action-packed historical fiction  book as advertised on the back of the book (yet). I find it boring, slow, and superfluous (clap, please). Some things that could take 1-2 paragraphs take 5-8 paragraphs, like when the author takes forever to say what Johnny’s middle name is. Really? A middle name. Instead of just telling the reader Esther Forbes constructs a meaningless explanation with complex conversations, swimming at night, pointless “won’t tells”  and annoying details. When I’m writing teachers always tell me to “stretch it out” but in some cases everything is stretched out way too much. An example of something stretched out to long is: He gingerly scraped up the pencil, his finger muscles flexing to pick it up. The pencil turned for a second, but then settled in. The pencil tucked into a crease in his hand. His hand “half cupped” and let the pencil rest, sleeping, always sleeping. Don’t you think that little piece would be annoying in the middle of sci-fi book? That is how I feel about Johnny Tremain.

Happy Reading!

ZR

Dear Mr. Chase and John,

I have recently been reading Redwall. This book seems like it goes on forever. It’s very good, and its only 350 or so pages but it just takes  so long to get through. I have been reading at an incredibly slow pace of 1 page per 2 minutes. The pages aren’t that big but the type is like size 2. Also I find myself getting half distracted for about .5 seconds and then I lose my spot and take 30 seconds to reread a paragraph and get back  to where I was. Also, I find the plot a bit slow (ain’t I great, I was just complaining about to fast of a pace for 2 months and now I’m calling a book too fast), there’s tons of fighting but as I’ve experienced before, fighting does not=fast paced and not boring. All of the fights seem to blending together in my head and they’re just not that exciting anymore.  Even if these fights are greatly written and constructed they all seem to be the same fight happening over and over again. It literally is the same fight but the fight is in short chunks. The mouse fighting rats idea seemed cool at first but after the 1,000 time it isn’t that amazing. Especially since every fight ends literally the same way: The mice force the rats to retreat but the rats always come back and that happens at least 5 times. Maybe I should start reading some books with a little less fighting so I can criticize books in a different way.

Happy Holidays!

ZR

Dear Mr. Chase and John,

I have recently been reading Redwall. Like all books, Redwall is not flawless but I think it’s pretty good. One of the flaws is the author hits you with so much information in the first 100 pages that you don’t know if Constance (character) is a  badger, mouse, or other animal until Brian Jacques reminds you, which scarcely happens, so usually you forget after a while and then don’t know who’s who or what’s what. The book kind of turns into a story filled with names and when there is something happening you picture flashing images that are changing between characters. This problem of “too much at the start” I find happens in many series’. The author is so eager to tell all about his/her world that he forgets that the reader can’t see into his/her mind, and this all leads up to miscommunication between the author and the reader, and miscommunication hurts the quality of books.

Happy Holidays!

ZR

Dear Mr. Chase and John,

I have started reading Artemis Fowl By: Eoin Colfer. I suspect that you have  been getting bored of my “Alex Rider complaints so today I have some thing different (finally), but as usual it’s a complaint. I feel like the book in general is good by i’m having a hard time interpreting Colfer’s writing. The way he describes and writes is great, but he seems to be acting like I have already read all the other books in the series (the book I’m reading is the first Artemis Fowl). Until page 70 I didn’t realize that the Mud People were really just humans. There is other words and phrases that I still haven’t figured out 100 pages in. I think if I read all of the Fowl books I would know everything, but as it goes first impressions last a life time and there may be some readers who don’t give books as long as I do, and quit Artemis Fowl before page 25. I’m surprised that Artemis Fowl is so popular. Maybe everyone who made it popular liked the story and writing enough to keep reading it, just like me.

Happy Reading!

ZR

Dear Mr. Chase and John,

I have finished reading Eagle Strike and now am reading  Hatchet and Redwall. I recently have been talking about (in my RRB’s) too much action, too little description, bad vocabulary, and too little personification, metaphors, and similies in the Alex Rider series. But now that I’ve started to read other books I have finally realized what the problem is with the Alex Rider’s, the writing. I have hinted at this in other RRB’s but until now I’ve been making little  accusations saying why the Alex Rider’s aren’t as good as everyone says, little components that all add up to not that good writing. The writing isn’t that bad, but for me I’d rather have a book with an OK story and great writing then a book with a good story and OK writing.On the other hand I’m matching the Alex Rider books against Redwall, which might be the best written book I’ve read, and Hatchet, a fantastically toned book. Maybe i’m being a little too harsh. The Alex Rider’s are still pretty good books (I’ve read 4 and have no plans on slowing down).

Happy Snow Day!

ZR

Dear Mr. Chase and John,

I am currently reading Eagle Strike. Recently I have noticed a bit of a run on in the writing, “…was alien and bizarre and brilliantly organized…” there is a bit too many “ands” in this end of the sentence. I was once told that if there are 2 or more “ands” in a sentence the sentence is a run-on. If I counted correctly, there is 2 ands in this piece. Having 2 ands is  not a huge problem if the sentence flows, but by all means this sentence sounds like a scrambled egg that has been chopped up and sent to the 4 corners of the earth.Here is a sentence with 22 ands that is OK, “Bob and Bill went to the store and bought 5 apples.”  Yes, the sentence is not incredibly compelling but at least it flows a little and at least doesn’t sound as bad as Horowitz’s sentence. To take a less critical point of view this is a little understandable. When I  read the back of one of Horowitz’s books it said he was writing movies, multiple TV Shows, and of course books.  I could imagine being a little bit rushed. I might make some run-ons, but at least my EDITOR would fix it. I mean your an editor and you see a junk sentence like that and you don’t do anything. That’s the kind of thing that gets people fired! If I was Horowitz I would be mad as a mackerel!  And here is the strangest thing about this, the book is dedicated to the EDITOR!!!!!!!!!

Very odd.

Happy Reading!

ZAR