Ranger's Apprentice: The Ruins Of Gorlan

"It's the Kalkara, they're hunting."

~ Will

Will is just a castle ward. He has never known his father or mother. He has no family name. His only companions are his four ward mates, Horace, Alyss, Jenny, and George. Horace is his rival, always beating him down with his larger size and strength. Horace is a warrior. Will always wanted to be, strong, big, and stronger and bigger. Battleschool is the desire of both, but only the strong and fit get excepted. Will's chances look slim. He is thin and small and the only things he has ever been good at are sneaking and climbing. Perfect traits for a ranger. Without Will's knowledge, the legendary ranger Halt, has been watching him and waiting for the choosing day when all the students apply for their career. Much to his surprise, Will is chosen as a ranger. But can he survive his first year? A wild boar hunt nearly kills him, but instead it wins him a mighty friend. And Morgorath, the kingdom's worst enemy, has set loose the two most feared beasts in the world. The Kalkara. Who better to hunt a Kalkara than a ranger?

     After I read this book I just thought... Wow give me some more. Luckily, there are ten books in the series, so there are plenty to read. After reading all ten of them I realized that most of this book was just a setup. Lots of characters are introduced in cool and inspiring ways. Halt is a big favorite. He is basically a ninja. This book had a good mix of action in it spread between the characters of Horace, Will, and Halt. I love this book. It is a good book for ages 12-15 but I still love them and my grandpa just started reading them! Now, this book isn't perfect. There are about four mild curse words inserted throughout the book. I went through it and marked them out with a pen. I would recommend this book, but I would also recommend a parent go through it first to mark out the language in order to make it super kid friendly. I would have to rate this book AG. It is very well written, very interesting, and nearly completely clean.  Highly recommended! Read it.


Author: John Flanagan ~ Language: English ~ Series: Ranger's Apprentice
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure ~ Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: 1 November 2004 ~ Media Type: Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages: 249 paperback ~ ISBN: ISBN-10 0142406635, ISBN-13 978-0142406632
Followed By: The Burning Bridge

The Hunger Games

 

     "Hope, it is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it's contained."
               ~ President Snow

     Katniss Everdeen is the only thing holding her small family together. Her father dies and after that, her mother retreats into a shell of sorrow and fear. Fear of losing the rest of her family. The choosing day arrives and Katniss is sure that her sister, Primrose, could not possibly be chosen. After all, her name is only in the drawing once. When Primrose is chosen, Katniss volunteers as tribute. Peeta Mellark is chosen as the male tribute.

Every year since the rebellion of district 13, the capital holds a game called "The Hunger Games." It was supposed to show their complete power over the 12 districts and their so called, "forgiveness." Each district is required to supply two tributes, a male and a female, between the ages of 12 and 18, to fight to the death.

The winner would be crowned with fame, riches, and a lifetime supply of food.

Katniss can't believe that she is actually going to have to fight, but she must win. For her sister. She promised that she would try to win, and she wasn't lying.

Rated PG-13, This is not a family friendly movie. After all half of the movie is teens hacking each other to pieces and some of them even try to get the most "kills." Although the camera does a good job of constantly flashing through the action to not show to much gore, it is still apparent. Bodies are shown lying across a field with blood covered wounds and sometimes with weapons still embedded in them. A girl is slammed against a wall until she dies and a boy is shown to have his neck snapped by another tribute. A girl is swarmed and killed by a nest of hyped up wasps, and another girl is hit by a spear and pulls it out of her stomach.

There is also moderate language scattered throughout the movie and a kiss.

There is little in the way of kindness in this movie. Katniss volunteers to be a tribute to save her sister, and another girl saves Katniss from the super killing wasps by covering her stings with healing leaves.

This movie should be PG-16. It is not family friendly and seeing teens hack away at each other mercilessly can give you chills. The concept of this movie is much the same as Gladiator. Except it's kids killing instead of adults and there is slightly less gore. It could be seen as interesting to some older viewers because of all the action but it is still not worth having. Watch it once or twice and its done. Do not buy. The cool action in it is not worth watching through the language and violence. Not recommended. I would rate this movie GD.

It has a neat story line that is fairly complicated at first and there is some good action in it, but it has too much gore and language to bring it any higher. That could be a generous rating.

Directed by: Gary Ross ~ Produced by: Nina Jacobson, Jon Kilik 

 Music by: James Newton Howard ~ Rated: PG-13

Film Editing: Stephen Mirrione, Juliette Welfling ~ Casting by: Debra Zane

Running Time: 142 min. ~ DVD Release date: Aug. 18th 2012

Distributed by: Lionsgate

Hunger Games official trailer.

The Last Jihad

The Last Jihad is a novel by Joel C Rosenberg. It is a political thriller written in a slightly religious viewpoint.

The story starts in 2020 when America is at peace. All the enemies of America have been defeated and are lying low, debt is also out of the picture. Wall street is thriving and it is once again a wealthy and powerful nation. Iraq and the middle east suddenly strike America and her allies in startling assassination attempts. Panic hits the world and nothing is certain. Jon Bennett, a wall street analyst and an expert in the stock exchange market finds a huge deal in the middle east. He works with the president to come up with a final peace plan. Shortly after, nuclear weapons are found and it is up to the president to keep Israel from completely destroying Iraq and the peace plan that could unite the world. The Iraqis plan a final attempt to destroy America. The president has to decide if he must launch nuclear missiles and destroy Iraq and possibly his entire peace plan, or be destroyed himself.

You have to read it to know the ending.

 There are 3 mild curse words said throughout the book but other then that it is clean. The Last Jihad is a good read if you have some time to put into it. If you read little bits at a time you wont remember what happens. It is a complicated story line with quite a few characters for good and evil. It is part of a five book series and this book is going to leave you wanting more, so if you don't have time right now then get your other reads out of the way. This book starts with lots of action but then lulls into the political world for almost the rest of the book. I would rate this book AG for almost great. It's almost completely clean, but it lacks the adrenaline pumping action that would put this over the top. Read it!

Author: Joel C Rosenburg ~ Language: English ~ Country: United States

Series: The Last Jihad ~ Genre: Political Thriller

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers ~ Publication Date: November 1st 2002

Media Type: Print (Hardcover and Paperback) ~ Pages: 307 (Paperback)

ISBN-10: 1-4143-1272-5 (pbk.) ~ Followed By: The Last Days

Ding!

In a word: Easy. But if I were to describe the directions that came with it the word would be: Useless.

The directions are full of words like "tricks" and "play a ding" and the meanings of these words and phrases are not given. I ended up having to search online for how to play the game. Apparently it's a common problem. But, enough of the bad, there are some good things. It is 3-8 players so it accommodates to almost all families. The amount of time it takes to play is also perfect, being about 30 min. long you can play 2 or 3 games if you want a longer game or if you don't have much time, it is short enough where you can finish 1 game and do what you need to do. The game board is simple as are the pieces. There are no tiny, tiny, pieces just waiting to get lost. Here is how the game goes.

1. Each player picks a piece and the matching "in" "out" and puts their piece at the "start"
2. The dealer gives everyone 5 cards and turns the top card in the deck over (Like a discard pile)this is called the "Trump Suit". Players look at their cards and decide if they have a good enough hand to be in for the round. If you turn your token to "in" then you play the round if you change it to "out" you sit through the round without losing anything.
3. Starting to the dealers left players can ask for up to 3 cards to replace bad ones. (You must give the dealer your discards before you are handed new ones)
4. After everyone has their hand the player to the left of the dealer begins the game by laying down one card. (If possible you must lay down a card that is the same color as the trump suit) If you don't have a card that is the trump suit color then just play what you have. Play continues clockwise. The card with the highest number wins the "trick" (A trick is one round of everyone laying down a card.) If you win the trick you move one space ahead.
5. If you don't have a card that is in the trump suit and you have a wild card then you must play it. The wild card is higher than all the other cards.
6. If you play a card that is a letter than it is worth only 1. However if you have the letters to spell the word Ding then you win all 5 tricks in the round and you move all 5 spaces ahead. (A ding must be played before the first card is played for the round.)
7. If you choose to be in on a round and don't win any tricks then you move back the number of spaces that the board says.

There now you have a little reference guide. Read the directions that come with it and these might help to clarify some things. The game is fun, easy, quick to get out and put up, and requires only a small amount of strategy. On a scale of 1-10 I would give this game a 7. The reason(s) being: It is easy for all ages, it is easy to get out and put up, and there is just enough strategy involved to make it fun for everyone. Again the only downside are the directions. Get this game, figure it out. You will probably enjoy it.