Secrets book review:

For our Summer Holiday homework we had to read this book called Secrets. I was really looking forward to this considering that last Summer Holiday I got seven pieces of homework from all different subjects. The author of this book came to our school and only our year got to talk to her. She read us a little parts of the book and asked us a few questions like how many of you read and for how long etc... Then we got to ask her some questions and this lasted for an hour. Me and my friend went to see her at lunch and asked her some other questions. After this we got given a book each and were told to read it over the summer. So I thought if I have to read it I might as well do a blog post about it and tell you lot about this.
   It wasn't the greatest book ever as you can guess if the author has time for a secondary school that to be fair isn't well known at all. Unless you live in the area you won't even know it exist. It was about a teenage girl that moves into a house that a man that her mum met on the internet owns. Her mum and the man (Shaun) get married in a week after they move in together. This Shaun has a son called Joe that seems too quiet and distant from his dad and the house. Then the day after they pick up her dog, he digs up something that Brooke also found in her room and she keeps it. The more she finds out about Shaun and his family the more scared she gets. She tries to get out the house as much as possible and Brooke makes a friend called Rose who is a traveller. Rose and her brother said they'll help Rose with Shaun in any way possible. Afterwards she makes a shocking discovery.
   I think my favourite character has to be Brooke's Yorkshire terrier . He reminds me so much of my old Yorkshire terriers. He helps Brooke to find evidence and is her comfort when Shaun is around. He was described as a really cute little dog.
   This post is going to be a bit short this time because I actually didn't really enjoy this book. It was building up the suspense all the way through the book and the end just dropped the suspense like that. It was a bit of a let down to be honest. However the start and the middle were really good it's just the ending that let the book down. When she spoke with my year she said that not many children read so to keep our attention she keeps her books short. I think if you're going to write a book use as many pages as you need if you don't use enough it's to fast paced for most people to read or like this one the start, middle or end will be over too quickly. If you use too many pages then you will drag the story on too long and the readers will get bored.

Hope you enjoyed this post and I'll see you next time. If you have any books you want me to read then please put them in the comments.

xxx

Northern Lights book review:

Not many people know about this book however most people have heard of the the film. The film is called The Golden Compass and to be fair it is a great film however when I found out it was meant to be a trilogy of films and there was a trilogy behind it then of course I had to read it. So about a month later me and my dad were going to London and we found a street which I have sadly forgotten the name of which had loads of book shops. Inside the shops we found so many books from fiction to non-fiction, action to adventure and even books about different coins around the world. I was in my own little personal heaven. Then we found in a small section near the window a book me and dad have been looking for for at least half a year. the 8th Series of Unfortunate Events book. I know I've been talking about this series so much but when I saw it in that book shop I was so happy. There was actually two copies of it and we hadn't found one where we live for half a year. Also we found the 2nd book in the His Dark Materials series (which is the Northern Lights series). Then we went in the shop next door and found the other two books in the series. I was over the moon in the space of half an hour I had found the missing book in a series of 13 books and found an entire series of a film I loved. Only I would go to London and not buy anything but books. Yes I bought some food however apart from that books, just books. Now back to the actual book.
   This book has such a better story line then the film. It's about a girl called Lyra that lives in Oxford at Jordan University and the Scholars and servants look after her. She was told that her parents died  in a accident and she sees her Uncle around once every couple of months. When one day she sneaks into a room where only the Scholars are allowed in. She founds out there is a thing called Dust that makes their Dæmons settle. Dæmons  are like our souls however in this book they come in a physical form. They can change into different animals till they reach a certain age where their Dæmons  settle and take the form of an animal that represents who the person is. She also finds out that her Uncle wants to go to the arctic where the armoured bears and witches are from. Witches have Dæmons  like humans however they can be much further away than humans can. So a witches Dæmons can be miles away from it's witch however a humans daemon can't be any further then a few meters. If your Dæmon gets too far you can feel physical pain. Near where Lyra lives children start to go missing and people are saying that it's people called the gobblers that are taking them. So Lyra joins the Egyptians ,who are people that live in river boats, to find the missing children. It may sound like I've revealed a lot however there is actually so much more I haven't talked about that still wouldn't tell you the entire story.
   I think my favourite has to be the main character, Lyra, she has no fear and always speaks up when she thinks something isn't right or if someone is not telling her something. Also, she's a real tomboy even if she lives in an University and goes to fancy dinners with the Scholars she still goes climbing on the roof with the kitchen servant Roger and under the University in the catacombs. However my second favourite is Iorek Byrnison. Iorek is an armoured bear that was recruited by the Egyptians to help find the missing children. He was told to look after Lyra because she has a special machine with her that can tell her the answer to any question. Nobody else can read this machine so the Egyptians need her to tell what they are walking into. This machine is called a alethiometer and she uses it by turn the three needles to different symbols around the outside of the machine then the fourth needle tell her the answer. Each symbol has many different meaning and unless you know all the meaning you can't read the answer.
   I loved this book so much and I would recommend it to anyone that I know. It's full of action, mystery and stranger forces.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you when I post next.

xxx 

End of School/ Dance Show:

Like everyone else in the world I couldn't wait for summer and me and my best friends (call out to them if their reading this) decided this year to do the school Dance show and I love it sooo  much. We've know said we're going to try and do this dance show every year because we loved it so much. I can't put any pictures of the show up sadly however I can tell you what it was like. Me and my friends had a contemporary dance that mostly involved street and ballet. The storyline of the dance was two friends having a sleepover and a doll comes to life and at the end the two girls die. It sounds so weird I know however it would make sense if you watched it. The teacher who made the dance show happen put us second next to the year 10's who had 26 people in their 12 minute dance and then us three with our 3 minute so we must have been okay. I just want to say thanks to all the people who helped with the dance show and everyone who was in it.

   On the last week of school we had an arts week. Which basically our school held a bunch of events during and after school. The dance show being one of the events. If you're wondering why I'm telling you about this then it's just because I want to mix my blog with books and exciting things that happen when I'm not reading. But don't worry this blog will still mostly be about books. Anyway, I think my favourite event (apart from the dance show) was enterprise day. Our school has this every year however this is the first time we've had it since we got new school buildings. We got extended lunch so we could buy things from the stalls that the year 10's were running. Everyone also got to wear non-uniform for the day and all our profits went to a charity. This enterprise day was more special then the rest because it was the school's 50th anniversary and because the school opened in the 60's most things were 60's based.  
   Another one of the events was the school barbeque. We had to hand in a slip that says what we wanted to eat at the barbeque and if you wanted an ice-cream then we got a free lunch. Again because the school opened in the 60's there was 60's music playing and me and my friends knew all the words to all the songs. It may have started to rain a little but it was still so much fun most people were chatting then there were my friends singing and dancing. The only time we stopped was for food and to catch our breath.
   I won't talk about all the events so I'll stop after this one. Lastly, there was an Indian day. Last year it was a French day, this Indian and next apparently is Kenya. Every year does this with a different place and for the first three lessons you learn about the place and the last two are the same as usual. This year we learned about all the important places in India, Henna and Mehndi and their languages. As you can tell this was a really fun day to be out of lessons and learn about different places.

That's it for this post I hope you liked the little taste of my school.

xxx

Top 10 favourite books:

As I mentioned in my last post, I will be writing about my all time top 10 favourite books. So here we go:

1)The first one is a trilogy and I have a reason for this. In my opinion all the books are equally as great on there own however as a trilogy they are the best books ever. This has to be the Inkheart trilogy. I have mentioned this trilogy quite a few times in this blog and if you read my blog then you will know that I'm obsessed with these books.The book is about people that when they read out loud the characters come to life however when something goes out of the book something has to go in. As you can tell. this leads to a adventure that carries on for three great books. I would recommend these books to anyone that likes to read because they are quite big books.

2) Next up is Hollow Earth which I have recently wrote a book review on if you want to check that out. I'll put a link to that here. I won't go into to much detail about this one because of the other blog post I did. It's about people that when they draw their drawings come to life. I just realised these two books sound really alike however I can tell you they really aren't. The only thing that they have in common is when they either read or draw something comes to life.

3) Then there's A Series of Unfortunate Events. This may be a kids/teenagers book however I really enjoyed it.  As you may know, I did a book review on all 13 books in the series so if you want to see them please scroll down. These books were really action filled and full of mystery and I love those sorts of books. It was about the Baudelaires that are made orphans when their parents get burned along with their mansion. They then have to go from guardian to guardian until they find their happy ending. These books are really fun to read and I would recommend them to anyone.

4) The Naturals is next. This is actually a series however I have only read the first one so I will only write about the first one. Just to add I will hopefully get the rest of the series for my birthday so we may be waiting a while for that. The basic story is that there are some people in the world that have special talents like a human lie-detector, profilers and people that can read emotions. These people are recruited for a F.B.I programme called the Naturals. Then a serial killer tries to get closer to one of the naturals to kill her but nobody knows who.

5) Next is the Narnia series. As everyone knows this series is a classic and I love all the classics. This was actually the first ever classic I ever read and it didn't let me down. I think my favourite out of all the books was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe so I can sort of see when they only did a few movies and that being one of them. Is it just me or does it annoy you that they only made a film out of a few of the books when there are seven books.

6) Percy Jackson is such a great series and I loved it so much. If you know me then you will know that I love Greek mythology. Don't ask why I just love all the monsters and heros. This was a mix of action, a bit of mystery and Greek mythology. It was like someone got all my favourite things and put it in a book. It's about a boy called Percy that doesn't know he's a demi god and the big three (Zesus, Poseidon and Hades). That's all I'm going to tell you about the books because I really want whoever is reading this to read these books. READ THEM.

7) Messenger Bird is another book where the author got my favourite things in a book. This one is a real mystery book and it was actually the first one I ever read. It's about a boy whose Dad gets taken away by secret agents. As you can tell it really is a cool book.

8) Unless you've been living under a rock then you will have heard of the Hunger Games. I don't really have to tell you what this book is about it's that popular. This is such a great trilogy and I would recommend it to anyone that doesn't mind a bit of a sad story.

9) Again if you haven't heard of this book just spend two minutes on some form of social media and you'll find something to do with Harry Potter. This is a magical adventure full of mystery and action. I love both the books and films and have also been to the Harry Potter studio tours.

10) When I went on a school trip to London to watch War Horse I saw a poster for the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and said to my friends how much I loved the book. It's about a boy who finds his neighbour's dog dead in their back garden. From then he tries to find out who killed the dog,

That's it for this post I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you next time.

xxx

Summer life hacks:

Like everyone else I can't wait for summer to start so here are a few things that will make your summer even better:

1) When you finish a 2 liter bottle of pop use the end of the bottle to make ice. This will make your ice flower shaped and look really cool. 

2) Take Vitamin B capsules during the summer. This wards off insects because they don't like the way it smells to them  so they'll stay away.

3) When you're listening to music on your phone put it in a glass. That makes your music louder.

4) If you've been for a long walk and your shoes smell a bit put a tea bag in them overnight. In the morning they'll smell really clean.

5) If you want cold water all day fill a water bottle so when you put it on it's side thee water doesn't spill out then put it in the freezer. Whenever you want a cold drink on the go take one out and fill it it with water. This leaves you with a long ice cube that keeps your water cool.

6) When you get wet sand on your toes use baby powder. Baby powder gets all the moisture out of the sand so the sand just falls off your feet.

7)  If you have sunburnt skin try using aloe vera ice cubes.

8) If you own a car, before you leave it turn your steering wheel upside down so you don't burn your hands the next time you drive.

9) When you're eating strawberries use a straw get rid of the hull.
10) When you're on the beach use a fitted sheet instead of a towel. Because of the elastic part you can keep all your stuff away from the sand.
11) If you don't have air conditioning use a fan and a bottle of ice water to cool your room down,
12) Get a finished sun lotion bottle and clean it out to put all your things in when you go on the beach.
13) If you have been bitten by a mosquito then put some vinegar on it and the itch will go.
14) Put some glow sticks in a pool and swim at night. This looks soooo cool.
15) Use your old soap bottle to pump your water balloons with water.
16) If you don't have a cooler get a bucket or something like that and fill it with frozen water balloons.
17) To make your own amplifier get two plastic cups and a paper towel roll. Trace and cut a hole in the plastic cups big enough for the paper towel roll. Put the paper towel roll in the holes and then cut a hole in the top of the paper towel roll to fit your device in and there you go.
18) If you end up with bugs in your drinks when your outside get a cupcake liner and put a straw through it. This won't let any bugs in your drink.
19) For a really cool party light get a jar, some glow sticks and glitter. Snap your glow sticks so they activate and put some glitter in the jar. Then fill it with water and you're done.
20) To make a eatable ice bowl get some chocolate (if you want you can colour it to make it look extra cool) and melt it. Then blow up some balloons and dip them in the chocolate. Wait for them to cool and then pop the balloons. You're left with cute little chocolate bowls.

That's it for this post thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.

xxx