Books: Book Reviews: Wildwood

Hello, Bookworms!

Today, I want to tell you about Wildwood, by Colin Meloy.

Prue lives in Portland, right on the edge of the Impassable Wilderness. She has an ordinary life, ordinary parents, an ordinary baby brother. Until, one day at the park, Prue's brother is kidnapped by a murder of crows and taken to the Impassable Wilderness. Now, Prue has to get her brother back,
and a bothersome classmate, Curtis, keeps trying to help her. Once they are in the Impassable Wilderness, though, they discover it's not impassable at all. Creatures of all types live in North Wood or South Wood, many birds live in the Avian Principality, and the stretch in between, an untamed, dangerous place, is called Wildwood.

I gave this book three stars.

Pros:

Setting

All of the different areas in the Impassable Wilderness are so different, yet extremely believable, and the setting/scenery is incredibly rich. Also, talking animals is somehow magical.








Commentary

Meloy was trying to comment on some issues, one of them being that individuals' concerns often aren't heard in large governments, and I think this had the ability to be done very well.

Promise

So many things were promising about this book. The story was there, the commentary was there, it just needed more work.

Cons:

Characters

Although I liked Prue, at first she was quite mean. We didn't know why she was mean, she just was. She did become nicer by the end of the book, but it would've been nice if she was more rounded and had more of a character arc and motivations.

It Needed More Work.

I loved the idea, the story, the commentary was great, the setting was great, everything had tons of promise. But the pacing was off, the sentences were all structured pretty much the same, things weren't described in an engaging way. . . Like I said, it needed more work.

The story has so much potential, but it makes me sad to see this as the published copy. I'm not trying to be mean; I just think this book would easily be one of my absolute favorites with a little more work.

Have you read Wildwood? What do you think of it?

Spruce Nogard

Attributions: https://www.amazon.com/Wildwood-Chronicles-Book-1-ebook/dp/B004QWZC9W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532639036&sr=8-1&keywords=wildwood

Creative Complex: Fire

Hello, Friends.

Today, we have a story starter. Enjoy!

The fire is dancing, turning, writhing. It has a strange lure, almost like the push and pull of the Sea. It has a strange energy, almost like the wrath of the North Wind. It has a power, almost like the might of Time.

Spruce Nogard

Attributions: https://pixabay.com/en/fire-flames-bonfire-sweden-night-123784/

Mental Library: Poetry: Types of Poems-- Acrostic, Free Form, Sonnet

Hello, Friends!

Today concludes our poetry series. There is tons more to talk about with poetry, but I'm just providing a basic overview. I enjoy poetry, just not as much as other types of literature. :)

Last week, we looked at a few different types of poems, and this week, we'll finish that. There are millions of types of poems, so these past two poetry posts are not complete at all, but these are just a few I've come into contact with.

Acrostic

Basically, acrostic poems use adjectives starting with the letters in a word. Here's an example:

Charismatic
Agile
Terrific

The first letter of each adjective spells the word "Cat." When I was little, I made acrostic poems for my parents using their names. :)




Free Form

Free form poetry is anything you want it to be. This is fairly self-explanatory, so I'm not going to give you an example.

Sonnet

Hurrah! Sonnets! Sonnets are tricky.

First, there are three stanzas of four lines each. These are called quatrains. After these, there is a couplet. The rhyme scheme is: abab cdcd efef gg.

To make it more complicated, sonnets have to follow a specific foot pattern. Feet are made up of stressed and unstressed syllables (if you do not know what these are, please see here.) Sonnets use iambic pentameter, which means five feet, each consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. A famous example from Shakespeare says: (U = unstressed, S = stressed)

Shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMMer's Day?

      U   S  U      S     U     S   U    S        U     S        

Have you heard of any of these before? What type do you prefer to write? What type do you prefer to read?

Spruce Nogard

Source: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetstyle.html

Attributions: https://pixabay.com/en/cat-kitty-kitten-feline-animal-2858906/

https://pixabay.com/en/summer-background-trees-day-walk-3529798/