Seven Wonders-The Colossus Rises-Summer Reading

SPOILERS!!!

Ok, now that I've gotten that out of the way, I am going to summarize my favorite part.  The ending of the first book in "The Seven Wonders" series.  We open in on the main characters, Marco, Cass, Aly, and Jack.  Each of them has been diagnosed with the G7W.  This gives them qualities similar to super humans.  Not much is known on this condition, except that it is very deadly to the people that have it.  The four of them are sent to "The Karai Institute" where they get treatment for their condition.  That is the only thing keeping them alive.  They set off into a deadly expedition into a dark and ominious cave to where the think is a very important object is.  The "Loculus".  At this point in the series we are not sure exactly what this is and what it does.

As the main characters are walking through the labryinth like cave, they come to a large room.  In the center of the room, they find a black sword in a slit in the ground.  Jack is somewhat drawn to it and pulls it out.  He snaps back to his regular self and he puts the sword back.  After wandering around the caves a little while longer they come to the room holding the "Loculus".  There is a sudden tremor and a griffin comes out of nowhere and snatches up the "Loculus" and Cass.  This opens a whole in the roof which they all escape from.  Every bit of security from the Karai Institute comes out shooting the griffin.  The head researcher comes up to Jack and asks him what happened.  He then tells them the black sword was the seal on the griffin and Jack broke it!  

The Griffin flys off into the distance with case and the "Loculus".  All seems lost when the head researcher tells them they had trackers implanted into the four of them, which of course brings up a lot of trust issues.  The griffin has taken case back to Greece and back to where what I think is one of the seven wonders, the Colossus.  The problem is, Cass's tracker is somehow broken and they have no idea where the Colossus is in Greece.  The head researcher tells them that the guardians of the Colossus, they will find Cass.  They search for a while in greece before spotting people in robes.  They suspect these people of being the monks.  They follow them back to a temple where all chaos is breaking loose.

All the monks are running and screaming.  The griffin has built its giant nest right in the middle of the temple.  This nest is filled with holes that Cass could possibly be in.  They see the "Loculus" inside the Griffins mouth.  The lure it inside the cockpit in a truck which gets the griffins head stuck and drops the "Loculus".  They quickly grab the "Loculus" and they run from the Griffin.  They realize that they will never be able to find Cass if the griffin is always looking for a snack.  They realize that the only thing that could fight the Griffin is the Colossus.  They notice the "Loculus" start to glow.  They also see a part of the temple start to glow in unison with the "Loculus"  They all rush to see what the glow is causing the glow.

They see piles upon piles of broken sculptures.  The Colossus is among these broken pieces.  The "Loculus"  takes the form of a torch and all the broken Colossus pieces start to form into the original shape once again.  It grabs jack and decides to bring him along with him.The Colossus and the Griffin engage in a mighty battle.  The Colossus is defeated and the Griffin is very weakened.  The three stab the griffin and it falls into the ocean.  Jack grabs the "Loculus" and G7W activates within Jack.

He stars soaring through the sky, holding on as tight as he can to the "Loculus" to prevent himself from falling.  He picks up his friends and they start to search for Cass.  When they find him, he is all wrapped in a cocoon id griffin spit.  They break of a niece of rock and cut him out.  They all head back the Karai Institute and get Cass his treatment.  In the very last pages they realize that the Loculus is missing.  And so is Marco!

Hidden Talents

Prompts:  Summarize what you have just read.

The first thing that I read was that Martin was still getting the tour of the school.  After he finished the tour, he went to his room to get some downtime.  He took a short nap, then along with his friends Torchie, and Cheater, play some sort of card game that they made up.  Cheater strategized  his way to victory and beat Torchie and Martin, in no time flat.  After a few more rounds of Cheater winning, the dinner bell rang loudly.

On their way to the cafeteria they had to pass the hangout of the resident bully, Bloodbath, and his "cronies".  After sneaking past their hangout, they discovered that he was never really there, so the sneaking around was all for nothing.  On their way to the lunchroom Torchie was telling Martin, that on a good day, the food smelled like barf.  Martin soon found out the hard way when they got to the lunchroom.  He got his food and followed Torchie to their table.

When they got there, Martin was introduced to some more kids.  He quickly designated some of the kids as "weird".  I thought that he was one to talk having been expelled from like, seven schools and all.  Then one of Torchie's friends told Martin that it was rude to call people names and made Martin feel pretty guilty.  After that, it seems like they were hiding something because Cheater was about to tell them about their hangout and what they do there, but right before they could, the kid who made Martin feel guilty cut Cheater off before he could finish.

The 40 Book Challenge

The 40 Book Challenge was a good thing to keep your self motivator to keep reading more and more.  It gave me a goal to work at, and to complete that goal, I had to keep reading.  I told myself "If you want it done, you are going to have to read a lot"  Which is good because you have to read to get better at thing in real life.  I think the motivation comes from the the challenge it posed.  I know that I always like a good challenge to keep at.  It makes me feel really happy when I finally overcome that challenge. I think that it was another good way to spend tim rather than to do less constructive things like watching TV or something.

Another great thing about the 40 Book Challenge is that you get to try many new books and see if you like them.  I thought this was great because I found so many books that I thought were really good.  Then what I thought of the last book would want me to read more books!  From reading "The Boy Who Dared"  I discovered I liked historical nonfiction.  I thought the story was very interesting and even more interesting that it actually happened. Overall, I think the 40 book challenge was a excellent thing to keep working at.

Hidden Talents

Prompt: Create a wanted poster for the antagonist

Hidden Talents

Prompt:  Does the title fit the story? Why or why not?


So for I don't think the title fits the story.  Nobody has anything that is a secret or any special abilities   I know that they do because my friend gave me the synopsis, but so far, nothing special.  They all have a knack for getting them kicked out of school, after school, after school, after school.  The school called Edgeview is like a last hope for parents, and a "second chance" for students.  It's like the worst school you can be sent to if you can't behave, or keep causing any kind of trouble that the school would consider expulsion worthy.

Well, at least one kid has a "talent" but it's not really hidden.  His name is Philip, but everybody calls him Torchie.  If you haven't guessed, he likes playing with fire.  Except, he has no idea that he causes the fires, or that he is playing with fire.  In literally the first two chapters he sets something on fire again.  He claimed that he didn't do anything, but when they made him turn over his pockets, they were full of lighters.  When the main character, Martin, asks him why he lit the fire,  Torchie says he has no idea what he was talking about, and when Martin questioned him about the lighters, he replied "I just like seeing the sparks"  I don't know if stupidity is a talent, but otherwise he seems like a nice person.  He takes martin under his wing, and shows him around the school.

Let me tell you about Bloodbath.  That's no nickname, that's actually his last name.  He is the school bully,  To everyone there, he is the most intimidating guys they have every seen.  He even controls the mail flow he  has that much power over the school.  Say someone got some cookies from home,  Bloodbath, would get to them first and made sure the cookies would never see the lighof day.  Anything he wants, he gets.  If anything his not so hidden talent would be having people hate him on the first day.

As Small As An Elephant

Pages: 77-120
Prompt:What was going through your mind as you read?

What was going through my mind as I read?  Well here was my general thought *Ahem* "Oh my god dude!  Why would you do that!  Are you really that stupid?"  He makes all these stupid moves like breaking things, lying, and stealing.  And all in the same town! "Are you kidding me?!  You are one step away from being caught!"

One of these moments was when he totally was an idiot and broke his phone.  He was going for a swim with the family he had just met, and he forgot his phone was in his pocket.  He was in the water fot at LEAST half an hour.  So then when he got out and went to the bathroom to try and call his mom, he discovered the truth about where his phone was.  In.  His.  Pocket.  Jack started to panic and then he remembered how there was a little tag on the back that would tell him if the battery could be saved.  Red means bad.  That's just what he got.  The battery was gone.

Another stupid moment was when he started to pick a bunch of vegetables when a woman was hanging up her clothes.  He even started eating it right in front of her.  He started eating right in front of her to.  He even started lying about what he was doing when she caught him.  He said he was training, and when the lady gave him a chance for food after he was done delivering food to the food pantry, he thought of eating it all for himself.

Hidden Talents

Pages 32-63
Prompt:Write a paragraph describing the setting

Well the setting is close to that of a prison.  It has big iron gates with letters across the top(which escapes me about what it spells)  You have to take a bus to get there and once you do, you get escorted inside.  Once inside there are class rooms and dorm rooms.  The class rooms are well light but have a little but of a yellow tinge of all the lights.  The windows have iron bars all over them.  Everything is done to reform the students.  All the mail goes to this one kid first and if there is something he wants, he gets it.t