Author Archives: Dillon

13 Chairs by Dave Shelton

13 Chairs by Dave Shelton 

 

 

 

 

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Thirteen chairs by Dave Shelton is a horror book with lots of different stories inside. However, instead of having a collection of stories on their own, Dave made a story to tell the stories to try and make the reader feel more scared and hooked to the book. The stories are all written in a different style. They are also true to the characters that are telling them to the audience. 

I didn’t like all of this book because I couldn’t understand the old language in one of the stories. And I don’t particularly like horror stories. I also didn’t like the cliffhangers that were never finished, because it gives you a sense of anger at the book, with the reader thinking ‘ARRGH what happens next?! I want to know! I NEED TO KNOW!’ 

My favourite character was the main character, Jack. I liked him because he was being brave and scared the ghosts who were trying to scare him. The ghosts were telling spooky stories, but Jack told them about being alive and well. This made him special and different from all the other characters, as he was not scared to death as he was supposed to be but outplaying the ghosts at their own game. 

In conclusion, I don’t like all of this book and would give it three of five stars. I would recommend this book to advanced readers and people that like horror stories. 

This is part of the 7 for 7 book challenge. To see the main 7 for 7 post click here.

The Island at the End of Everything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

 

The Island at the End of Everything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave is a brilliant book about a girl called Amihan (Ami) and her nanay (mum). Ami’s nanay, Tala, has Mycobacterium Leprae (leprosy) and is Touched (a leper). Culion is an island in the Philippines and is a leper colony. When new laws from the Director of Health take place, nothing will be the same again.

I like the book because it is inspirational and gives the message that when you set your mind to something, you can do anything.

The book is set mainly on two islands, Culion and Coron. They are beautiful places, but the characters in this book are forced to go there.

My favourite character is Mariposa (Mariposa is butterfly in Spanish), everyone calls her Mari, because her right hand isn’t properly formed and she doesn’t care what people think of her. Mari is also brave, kind and adventurous. She was left on the doorstep of CORON ORPHANAGE as a child, because people thought she had leprosy.

In conclusion, I like this book a lot as it is really funny with lots of twists to the plot. I would recommend this book to young readers who like adventure. Kiran really twists a true story of an illness that was misunderstood into a beautiful story about the adventures of Ami, Kidlat and Mari trying their best to help Ami’s nanay.

 

 

This book is part of 7 for 7 book challenge. To see the main blog, click here

928 Miles From Home by Kim Slater

928 Miles from Home

 

This book is about a boy called Calum Brooks who is forced to put up with a stranger called Sergei Zurakowski who is moving into his flat along with his mum, Angie. When Calum gets run over, the two of them must work together to solve the mystery of who is vandalizing the Expressions community centre and who ran Calum over.

I particularly liked the book when Sergei and Calum are forced to work together and befriend each other. My favourite character was Sergei because the school bullies kept picking on him, and he was patient and kind with Calum when he was in an attitude. The story is full of mystery and adventure you never know what’s coming next. The story makes you feel really emotional through the speaker’s feelings. And you just wanted to keep reading the book because you can’t wait for what’s coming next!!!

I didn’t like the fact that the book ended because it just makes you want to know what happens next in his life.

I’d recommend this book to more able readers because of the words and vocabulary in the book. People who are fans of drama, comedy or mystery stories would like this book. I would compare this book to The Goldfish Boy and The Light Jar by Lisa Thompson.

      The Goldfish Boy                                    The Light Jar

 

This is part of my 7 for 7. To see the blog post about 7 for 7 click here

7 for 7

At school, there is a book challenge called 7 for 7. It is designed to make participants better at writing about what they are reading. To complete the challenge, specially chosen Year 7’s (including me) have to read 7 books and write reviews about all of them.

The books are

  1. The 1,000 Year Old Boy by Ross Welford
  2. 928 Miles From Home by Kim Slater
  3. The Girl Who Drank The Moon by Kelly Barnhill
  4. The Island At The End Of Everything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
  5. The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart
  6. Thirteen Chairs by Dave Shelton
  7. Welcome To Nowhere by Elizabeth Laird

To see my reports on these books click on the name. If it doesn’t work I haven’t done a review on that book yet.

Arr, Me Hearties

Earlier, I made a coding website with tips about coding. Well today, I made an extension which translates what you type into pirate speak. Click here to open the extension. I made this extension with help from a tutorial which helped me a lot when making this website. I hope you like talking like a pirate with this handy helper. The phrases that will be translated are:

  1. Hello
  2. You
  3. Stop
  4. Yes
  5. Loot
  6. Turn the ship around
  7. Bottom of the sea
  8. Goodbye and good luck
  9. Look out, cannon fire
  10. Get out of the way
  11. My crew
  12. Throw that overboard
  13. i’m not sure you’ve thought through this course of action

There is also a unique sentence starter when you start typing.

Magnificent Minecraft

Not long ago, I started playing Minecraft again and got really into it. Every chance I get, I’m designing new things on paper, which I want to build on Minecraft like mazes and places where you kill different animals and monsters (mobs) to get experience points which you can use to upgrade armour, tools and weapons. You can also make machines using redstone dust (electricity based substance) and repeaters and comparators which can act like circuits in a computer chip.

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Image result for block by block minecraft

Minecraft also boosts imagination and lots of other useful skills. This makes Minecraft a fun tool to help you learn important skills.

These pictures are things that I’ve built on Minecraft and are useful mechanisms to help life on Minecraft easier. The 1st picture above is for a stone generator and the second a machine to block lava.

Where is the ISS?

This is a program I made using Python on Trinket. It shows you where the ISS is at that current second and when it will next pass over The Shard in London.

I made this program using a Code Club tutorial which can be found here and some help from Open-Notify and a Latitude and Longitude finder. This program works by finding live data of longitude and latitude from Open-Notify which is where the ISS is. Then Python uses Turtle (a drawing program) to show where the ISS is in the world on a map. Then I found the latitude and longitude of The Shard and used Open-Notify again to find out when the ISS would pass over those longitudes and latitudes. Then Python’s turtle puts a dot over The Shard and writes the pass over date and time on the screen.

Click the play arrow to start the program, next to the pencil.

I hope you like this program and find it interesting.