Parker V


 

“The Supernaturalist”

A 267 page book by author Eoin Colfer

The story takes place in the Northern Hemisphere during the third millennium. In the Northern Hemisphere, there is a floating metropolis named Satellite City.  A fourteen-year-old boy named Cosmo Hill is unwanted by his parents and is sent to the Clarissa Frayne Institute For Parentally Challenged Boys. At the so-called orphanage the boys are tested and exposed to highly dangerous products and most boys are destined to die at age 15.  Cosmo is determined to escape his circumstances.  When the moment comes to escape, Cosmo seizes his chance and breaks out with another boy named Ziplock.  When The Marshal (the man in charge) catches the boys on a rooftop and threatens to kill them, the boys fall from the rooftops and into some wires and get electrocuted with 10,000 volts. As Cosmo lies dying he sees some strange blue parasite creatures that seem to come out of nowhere and start sucking the life out of him.  Fortunately, he ends up being saved by a group of kids that call themselves the Supernaturalists.  The kids hunt the creatures in hopes of saving humanity, but unbeknownst to them for every creature killed 100 will more take its place.  A secret that will question everything they look at and believe in.

 

The Supernaturalist is a great book to read.  Eoin Colfer is also the author of the Artemis Fowl books and I really like the way he writes and the way he makes you eager to read more.   What I disliked about the story is that the chapters are long.  Other than that, I would definitely recommend this book to any one that likes the fantasy genre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

here is my SCI FI

It was the year 3000 and the sky was green from the 60-hour war.  It was spring in the city of Nigh but right now it was chasing the small city of Oradal and yes, I did say chasing.  This was a great traction city, or a city with tracks like a tank’s wheels from the 20th or 21st century (its unclear because some history was lost during the 60-hour war).  Nigh had been happier these last few years but it had been hungrily looked at by bigger cities and had spent its time hiding in the southern point of what historians believe was once the Grand Canyon.  It was perfect that Oradal was now running through the Canyon.  As it was passing Nigh’s hiding place, Nigh jumped right out of nowhere.  Henry was in the Museum when Nigh attacked.  Not like he was there in a coincidence, he had been the janitor of the Museum for 32 years.  He had just dusted the giant whale replica of Moby Dick when he felt suspended in mid air and a huge lurch made him crash into an old costume of Barney from the forgotten America.  Then he said, “My turbo boosters!” as he clutched his artificial leg.  There was a beating noise, like a drum.  It must have been from the wheels switching into gear.  He ran to the front of the city just in time to see Nigh’s pinchers being used to grab its prey. Oradal was caught.  The pinchers were shaped like crab pinchers and were used to attach themselves to any fleeing city.

The people around Henry were cheering about their catch but stopped when a stranger came from nowhere and stood next to Henry.  The crowd gasped.  Henry was terrified.  He exclaimed, “Zep 3!” But it was too late.   Henry felt a push and felt himself falling many stories down to the Earth, off of the platforms of the city.

He was dazed and confused when he woke up and discovered the city had moved on.  He also discovered it was raining.  There were a few caves nearby and he went into the closet one.  Having never fallen off a city platform before, this was his first experience out of Nigh, and he found he couldn’t stand and walk straight as he was used to the constant movement of the rolling city.  He stumbled in and sat on a rock, except the rock fell away and part of the back of the cave blew up.   Surviving the blast, he looked to investigate what had just happened.  He found that behind the cave there was a secret corridor and beyond that a city made of metal.  And in the center he found a nuclear bomb.  As he was wandering the city, there was no one he heard or saw around him so he concluded that the city was empty.  He wandered back to the nuclear rocket and examined it.  He thought about Zep 3 and had a thirst for revenge. Zep 3 would pay for what he had done.

- Motivated by Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

here is another mcdonaldpedia

SAINTS

by Parker Van Voorhees

Saints have been on this earth since ancient times.  But what are saints and who are these saints?  Come with me to find out more!

A saint (or “Sanctus” in Latin) is a person who is most remembered for their goodness and high merit.  But they can also be a merciful holy man or woman.  There are older types of terms for saints like “patron”, “martyr” and a “Celtic saint”.   Though it seems like something only a missionary would qualify for, many saints actually had royal blood like St. Elizabeth of Hungary or St. Wenceslas.  Others like St. Louis IX of France and St. Bernard (one of the founders of the Knights Of The Templar) were crusaders.  Even popes have been declared saints.  Today, there are 27 popes who have been declared saints.  However, not all saints are Christian.  Some even hated Christians before becoming one.  There are more than 10,000 Roman Catholic saints.  That is only a few because there are saints or holy men found in all of the worlds’ religions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Confucianism.  Every religion has the concept of sainthood. 

Sainthood takes place after someone dies and the person’s life has been evaluated and gone through three important stages.  The first is Nomination by people familiar with the person’s life and why they are special; the second is Beautification (proving three miracles or great deeds that they were responsible for) and the third is Canonization (a recorded declaration of sainthood on a “list” or book).  In the Christian faith, during the ceremony of a person that is a candidate for sainthood, the pope reads the person’s life history of what happened and then he chants in Latin for a while.  Normally, it takes fifty years to be canonized after death, but St. Catherine’s sainthood took 81 years and St. Joan of Arc’s took 464 years. 

There are various types of saint categories rather than just “a saint”.    There are nine categories of saints:  virgins, apostles, martyrs, confessors, prophets, patriarchs, the chaste, the married and the penitents.  But only a few saints have received the “stigmata”.  The stigmata are marks or signs that have appeared on the bodies of people that signify something holy.  An example of stigmata is a person crying blood on Easter.  Another type of saint is a Celtic saint from medieval times and refers to a saint more naturally involved in the environment.  One Celtic saint is St. Wasstkentigern.  The last saint type is a child saint.  A child saint is…well, a child who has been declared a saint like St. Agnes of Rome or Joan of Arc.

Though it sounds easy and an adventure to have a saint’s life, it is the complete opposite of safe.  Martyrs are the class of saints that died for their beliefs like St. Evstore, who was roasted to death in a bronze bull, or St. Agnes of Rome, a teen who sacrificed herself rather than give up her virginity.  Others were forced to be outcasts.   One man was St. Simeon, who left his village to go into the mountains and build a high pillar about 60 feet high and 7 feet across so he could pray to God all the time and live up on the pillar.  Even the popes hated some saints of their time.  Some saints were Roman soldiers and hated Christians.  One saint, St. Apolhia killed herself by jumping into burning flames so that an angry crowd would not have the pleasure of killing her.  Saints were killed for 250 years until the Roman Emperor Constantine put a stop to Romans killing Christians and was posthumously declared a saint.

Even though saints sound like they had to be “holy”, many saints were inventors, lifeguards, and even gardeners.  One inventor was St. Cecilia, who created the pipe organ.  Even today there are modern saints still being canonized such as St. Joan of Arc, who was canonized in 2002 and Nobel Peace Prize-winning Mother Theresa of Calcutta, who achieved Beautification in 2002.  The way of man has persisted through the years but saints have evolved with mankind to help perfect a wonderful planet we all love…EARTH.

THE END

                   

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Angelsfire.com  15 Feb. 2009 <http://www.angelsfire.com/realm/ststanislas/saintfacts.html>.

Armstrong, Carole. Lives and Legends of the Saints. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Bonfante-Warren, Alexandra. Saints: Seventy Stories of Faith. Philadelphia: Running P, 2000.

Catholic Saints. 15 Feb. 2009 <http://www.catholic-saints.info>.

Gallick, Sarah. The Big Book of Women Saints. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2007.

LLewellyn, Claire. Saints and Angels. Boston: Kingfisher, 2003.

Mulvihill, Margaret. The Treasury of Saints and Martyrs. New York: Viking, 1999.

"Saint -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 15 Feb. 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/saints>.

Sanderson, Ruth. More Saints Lives and Illuminations. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2007.

Sanderson, Ruth. Saints Lives and Illuminations. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2003.

Self, David. The Loyola Treasury of Saints. Chicago: Loyola P, 2003.