The Fall of The House of Usher

I don't like this book, well, I do, but it's scary! The Fall of the House of Usher was very full of suspense and excellent, let me repeat, excellent word choices! Edgar Allen Poe is just "cool" like that. In this book, each sentence sent chills down my spine, and I felt trapped like Madeline. It was scary cool, actually. I've never felt that while reading a book, so that's a first.
In our english class, we were working on a chart for this short story, and it was actually pretty fun to go deeper into the book and find its real meanings. I really liked this story, and normally, I don't favor Poe's weird stories. I would reccomend reading this story if you're up for a little scare.

The Night Children Response #1

The Night Children, by Alexander Gordon Smith, is kind of a "side book" to the Lockdown Series. Can I do a response about what the author is doing? Well, he's releasing the rest of the Lockdown series sometime next year, which I'm ecstatic about. The Night Children is about the Head of Furnace and how he came to be. Now, I'm just starting the book, so there won't be a second response for this week.
This book isn't the greatest I've read. It's not full of suspense like the lockdown series is, but it's sort of interesting, in a way. But, I do feel like I'm part of the army forces in the book, trying to get away from the enemy. I won't tell you who, because it'll give the whole series away. It's full of great word choice and very thought out sentence fluency. I would reccomend reading this book just because it gives you that extra information about the head of Furnace.

Coated In Fur: A Vet's Life Response #2

So, this is reading like a writer concepts for Coated in Fur: A Vet's Life. Everything about this book was amazing and I couldn't stop reading unless my mom took my iPad away. I read this book within three to four days, and it was around 600 pages. This book was chock-full of detail and suspense- I loved it.
Awesome sentence fluency, word choice, and so much more. I never once had to go back and read something twice, because I swear I could hear the author actually telling me the story-that's how real it was. I could visualize everything that she was saying, and enjoyed every sentence. All of my vocabulary words for this quarter are coming from this book. They may be veterinary terms, yes, but they are awesome word choices. I loved this book so much, and I would recommend it to anyone that loves animals!

Coated In Fur: A Vet's Life Response One

Honestly, this has to be my favorite book so far. It was a mix between "how to" and an autobiography. I really want to be a vet when I grow up, so I decided to find a vet related book. This one looked very interesting, so I bought it. It is now my favorite book, even more than the "Lockdown" series. If you love animals, this is definitely the book for you.
I felt a part of the book, almost like I was an intern for Dr. Chris' new office. The author described procedures with immense detail and that made the book come to life. I could see the little three legged kitten running around the clinic, teasing the caged birds and dogs. I really enjoyed reading about all of Christine's patients and what had happened to them before she did the procedure.
I'll talk about the "reading like a writer" concepts in my next response.

The Housekeeper and the Professor Response #2

 Just another post about the Housekeeper and the Professor. This response is about how I really felt when reading this delightful book.
  I never really thought that I would enjoy this book, let alone do a visual project on it. As it turns out, I really liked it, and wouldn't mind reading it again (if I had to, keep in mind.) I can't really describe how I felt, but it was a mixture between "this is really interesting, I'm going to keep reading" and "Oh my Gosh, this is a book we had to read over the summer, no one likes summer books!" But, as a matter of fact, it was more of the first than the second.
  Some paragraphs were really great, and they caught my eye. Others, of course, were boring, and didn't really have my attention. I felt like I was part of the book, and that was really cool. I like feeling like that, because you're more into it, if you get my gist.
  I recommend this book to anyone 10+, just because it is complicated in places, and hard to comprehend. Thanks for reading week four of book responses!

The Housekeeper and the Professor Response One

 The Housekeeper and the Professor was a very mathematical book, and somehow, I enjoyed it. I actually solved some of the equations in the book, even though I despise math. I really enjoyed this book because it was filled with detail, and I could imagine everything the professor did, and how the housekeeper kept up with him. It was a very intriguing book, and I wouldn't mind reading it again.
  This book, I believe, should be recommended for ages 10+, because it is very mathematical and sometimes hard to understand. Everything about this book included math: Every sentence, every paragraph, every chapter. It explained how numbers are just a part of life, and that isn't a summary.  

Death Sentence Response #2

I have to say, this book was the best out of the three. It combined all the monsters and horrible people into one, and that's a good thing! You could literally feel the sweat rolling off the inmates faces as they climbed to freedom. This book has such great organization and everything else that you could possibly imagine. "Death Sentence," I believe, is a great book for anyone that wants a great horror story to read anytime of the day, whether it be morning, night, or two in the morning! It's a great book to curl up and read on a stormy day, which is exactly what I did during Tropical Depression Lee.
I recommend this book for 14+ only because it is violent, and scary, and very, very, real in some situations. This response concludes the responses to the Lockdown series, and although I didn't post a response on Lockdown, the point still should be taken. Thank you for reading my responses on the Lockdown series, and I hope you enjoy the ones on "Fugitives" and "Execution" later on in the year!

Death Sentence Response

Death Sentence is yet another book by Alexander Gordon Smith. He is working on releasing the two final books to the series "Fugitives" and "Execution." This book has so much meaning, and could serve as the final book in the series. Again, I won't summarize for this whole entry, but this book is about how Alex escapes Furnace, finally! That is the only summary I'm going to give you, promise! Again, I felt like I was part of the book, scaling the elevator shaft to freedom along with the others. I felt their emotions, and their pain throughout the book. The monsters came alive and jumped off the pages into my head and it was terrifying, yet great at the same time.
This book used wonderful word choices, sentence fluency, organization, and so much more! There were so many words that were intriguing to look up in the dictionary. He used amazing adjectives which made the book come alive. This book is the number one choice if you want to read books like the story was happening right in front of you!

My Dream of Writing a book :D

 "When I was little, instead of playing on the playground with all my friends, I would sit inside and write stories. It all began in kindergarten, when we started tracing the little dotted letters on pages, over, and over, and over. I got the hang of it fairly quickly, and in the middle of the year, we began making those letters into words, and words into sentences. Every day we would have an assignment to write about what we did the previous day. I would always write a little more than I had to, and put a little picture at the top. Most of the kids took up half the page with a picture, but mine was small, and I filled up that picture space with more words. I remember the day when my teacher held up my paper and said "This is how you spell "baby." See how Caitlin did this?" I was so proud of myself for writing neatly and spelling a word all by myself."

This is a quote from my previous narrative, talking about how I grew up writing. I always, always loved writing, and I still do today. My dream is to write a book and get it published someday- although I do have other dreams too- but I can't get the right topic. I try and try, over and over, but I can't get it right. I would start over again and again, and every time, I would think to myself "How is this story going to work out later on in the book?" and just stop and throw it away right there. I think I might of found the perfect subject now that I've started high school. Surviving High School: Freshman-Senior.
Believe it or not, I take notes on what happens every day at school. For example, I would start out from the end of summer, and go on to tell my tragic story with the other school that I was going to go to. Here is the first few sentences of my book:
"Well, I guess my high school is not going to be the one I actually want to go to. We'll see how it works out, I hope it'll be okay, I won't be miserable. They can't just kick me out by one point, can they? Orientation is tomorrow, will I see anyone I know? Will I make friends? High school is stressful."
"The best day ever had to be today. I saw everyone that I could possibly know, and I made four new friends, on the first day. High school won't be so bad after all."
I was motivated to write my book by my mom and my old teachers. They told me frequently that I had a gift for writing, and that I should always write creatively. I love doing narratives and essays, as long as the teacher lets me put some of my own experiences in them. I love to write in extreme detail, and I always have, even since Kindergarten, as explained in my opening paragraph.
Not everyone loves writing, but boy do I. As long as you put your mind to it, writing can be like ice cream on a hot summer's day. Speaking of which, I would also write short stories all during summer, on how excruciating the weather was, and how I swam with dolphins one year, and how refreshing a nice cold lemonade was while sitting by the pool. I was a write-a-holic. There would be good and bad stories all over the floor of my room, and I loved to pick them up and continue writing, then when I finished throw them back on the floor for later. I wasn't very organized that summer.
I want to share some of my flaws of writing. I repeat myself. A lot. If you noticed, I said "I love...." a million times and that is certainly something that I have to work on. Another one of my flaws is to have at least 1,000 words in my essay, which I still don't have. Believe me, I have a self party once I reach 1,000 words. 100 will not cut it for me. The absolute minimum is 999 words, which rarely happens to me. I don't have many flaws, but the ones that I do, I really need to work on.
I really hope to publish my book someday, and share it with a lot of people. I believe that it would be somewhat of a self help book, but also a story of my life in high school. Guess what everybody? I have 1,006 words!
My dream continues on today, and I already have three to four chapters. It's been three weeks. I would like to conclude my narrative with another passage from my previous one.

"I've always loved writing dearly, almost more than anyone else did in lower and middle school. I still love to write today, as you can see by this essay. I had so much fun writing this, and I can't wait for another narrative because I know exactly what I'm going to write about. Every year, my love for writing grew, until it grew into an obsession, where I wrote at least three paragraphs every day. Writing is like a stress tool for me, whenever I write, I feel better, and I can write about how I feel or what I did that day and so on. Writing means so much to me and it should mean something to everyone else, too, because it expresses emotion and feeling, and hopefully, you felt some of my emotions in this story. Writing for me is like having your favorite thing right in front of you, wether it's food, an animal, or something else, that's what writing is like for me. You never really know what's in for you, until you realize it later on in life. You never know, maybe a few poems can turn you into the next big thing later on in life."

Why I love Writing :)

 When I was little, instead of playing on the playground with all my friends, I would sit inside and write stories. It all began in kindergarten, when we started tracing the little dotted letters on pages, over, and over, and over. I got the hang of it fairly quickly, and in the middle of the year, we began making those letters into words, and words into sentences. Every day we would have an assignment to write about what we did the previous day. I would always write a little more than I had to, and put a little picture at the top. Most of the kids took up half the page with a picture, but mine was small, and I filled up that picture space with more words. I remember the day when my teacher held up my paper and said "This is how you spell "baby." See how Caitlin did this?" I was so proud of myself for writing neatly and spelling a word all by myself. 

When we moved up to first grade, I was so excited to write stories. Our teacher gave us an assignment each week to write a four to five "half page short story", with card stock as the cover, and two or three pieces of paper folded in half, and stapled together. Only, I would write two to three of those stories a week, and I would never ever run out of topics to write on. I literally wrote stories from haunted houses to how I got my name. I felt really special when my story box was filled to the brim, and others' were only half-way full. I was so excited when I brought my box of stories home to show my mother. She told me that I had a real gift for writing, and that's when I understood that I did. She was so proud to see that I had written about our family, and the time that my little brother had an asthma attack and had to go to the hospital. I was overjoyed when I found out that our teacher was going to let us make an actual book! It had a hard cover, and twenty or so pages. I was ecstatic. I wrote my book about "Wild Horses" and even put a pretend organization to save the mustangs at the back of the book. Every day I would come into class, I would grab my book and start to work on it. It was a routine to me, one that I loved doing every day. I was so proud of my book, and at Publisher's Tea, I shared it with everyone. My picture partner was Blake Delacroix, who wrote "The Angry Sun" I still have that picture today.

Finally, we moved up into second grade. I was so excited for more writing. Our teacher gave us a red folder with one sheet of loose leaf in it. "Begin your journal with a title, and three paragraphs." she said. Well, of course I was going to challenge that. I took out a piece of loose leaf and stuck it behind the first in my red folder, and began to write. I wrote about how I felt that first day of second grade, and how I felt so grown up to be able to write an autobiography about myself with a journal. I wrote five to six paragraphs, each with more detail than the last. I was still writing when I heard the sighs and the gentle closing of the little red folders. Our teacher told us to put it away, but I just put it in my desk and continued to write. I brought my first grade book to school almost every day to show everyone what I wrote, but no one seemed to be interested. I put it off for a while, and did the same as I did in kindergarten and first grade. Sit out for recess and write about what everyone was doing. For example, I would write in extreme detail, "Max skipped over to the old, rusty green swing, and plopped down on it happily." Of course I used a lot of adjectives and adverbs, but I loved describing everything through writing.

I'm going to go ahead and skip to fourth grade, because third grade was just more writing in journals. In fourth grade, our old first grade teacher would come to our classroom every Wednesday and Thursday and teach us how to write exceptional paragraphs and detailed sentences. Her program was called "O.W.L" or Outstanding Writers Lab, and we would write haikus, and other poems. At this point, it was all about poems. I wrote one about a flame, and when the teacher saw it, she hung it up and left it there all year. I was so proud of being on the "wall of fame" because of my poetry. For the rest of the year, I tried to write at least one poem each day. When I couldn't think of a topic, I would look around the room and find something that could possibly be turned into a poem. A pen, a dusty old couch, the wall of fame, that one creaky desk in the corner, even the little spider that lived on the ceiling of the room. I wrote poetry about everything, and when my aunt came to babysit, I would make poems up on the spot, and recite them for her. I even figured out for myself that poetry didn't have to rhyme. A lot of the time I would rhyme, but occasionally, If I couldn't find a rhyme to a word, I wouldn't rhyme it, I would just find a good fitting word. I was the only one that seemed to have an interest in poetry, because when the teacher said write a haiku I heard the occasional grunt and whine, and the forever and always loud, exaggerated sighs from my classmates. The only thing that came from me was a big smile and my pen ready to write. The best part, I could write cursive then, so I could be all fancy when I wrote my haikus.

I'm going to skip to sixth grade now, because fifth grade, all we did was book reports. That was the only type of writing that I didn't like. In sixth grade, I began to write short chapter books, and it went on through eighth grade. Each year they would get more complex and a lot more detailed. The chapter books became into short stories, and those short stories became small novels. I worked on the stories tirelessly each year, and shared them with my teachers. They were so surprised that I stayed on task and didn't just give up, and they told me that I had a real gift for writing. At the end of the year, I wrote the story of my life at my old school which I loved and adored. The story was nine pages long (front and back) and the font size was ten. Everyone loved it, and it is now in the school office for anyone who wants to read it.

I've always loved writing dearly, almost more than anyone else did in lower and middle school. I still love to write today, as you can see by this essay. I had so much fun writing this, and I can't wait for another narrative because I know exactly what I'm going to write about. Every year, my love for writing grew, until it grew into an obsession, where I wrote at least three paragraphs every day. Writing is like a stress tool for me, whenever I write, I feel better, and I can write about how I feel or what I did that day and so on. Writing means so much to me and it should mean something to everyone else, too, because it expresses emotion and feeling, and hopefully, you felt some of my emotions in this story. Writing for me is like having your favorite thing right in front of you, wether it's food, an animal, or something else, that's what writing is like for me.

"Solitary" Reading Response #2

Okay, so I've decided to post another reading response. Alexander Gordon Smith is such a good author: He uses detailed vocabulary, and wonderful sentence flow. The organization of this book is fantastic, along with everything else, of course. Alexander organized this story so well, and put a lot of thought into it, something that would take me years to do. Sentence Fluency: Wow, amazing! It made me feel like I was part of the book, and the words just jumped right off the pages! Also, the Word Choice in this wonderful book was energetic and lively, full of suspense, and intensity. I really enjoyed all of the factors of this book.
Again, I would like to encourage you to read this series, because it is truly the first series that was so intense and suspenseful. Every part of it kept me reading until I couldn't read any more. I also liked the theme of the series, but you'll have to figure it out for yourselves, I can't just give it away!

"Solitary" by Alexander Gordon Smith

This book is such a good one- I'm sure that this book is fit for anyone. "Solitary" is so intense and full of action, I couldn't stop reading once I started. I don't want to give anything away, so I won't summarize too much, but talk about how I felt while reading this amazing book. This book is the second out of four (so far!) from the Lockdown Series by Alexander Gordon Smith. The next review will be on "Death Sentence", the third in this series.
I felt like the little kid that says "NO! DON'T GO IN THE CLOSET, TIMMY!" All through this book. There were so many decisions that characters made, that you just knew were the wrong ones. I truly felt like I was "part of the book" because it was so detailed throughout the whole book. Every chapter, every sentence, was filled with action and excitement. It kept me reading, until I practically fell asleep. I reccomend this book to anyone 14+ only because of some scary things in the book. I give this book five stars, and two thumbs up!