Friday, July 24, 2009
The Book the Blogger Read
Cryptozoology once again was able to sneak its way into the hearts of children's book authors. Roland Smith introduces Marty and Grace, a pair of fun-loving, and yet slightly flawed twins in his book, "Cryptid Hunters." In the book, after their parents are missing from a plane crash, the twins end up with their Uncle Travis. Soon after, they get dropped into a jungle by accident. So, in a fight to survive the perilous jungle, they stumble upon something that both Uncle Travis and his enemy, Noah Blackwood, are after.
In a way, it's almost offensive to cryptozoologists, seeing as how their uncle, Travis Wolfe, is a cryptozoologist and yet, he is described as a cryptid hunter, while cryptozoologists aren't necessarily hunters of cryptids. I also found that I couldn't really tell where the twins were from because it didn't leave any clues in the dialouge, so I couldn't really establish that part of their character which had irritated me constantly. Also, the book never really explains some of the strange things that happen in the book, like how a native of the Congo is able to use a shotgun, or how you could get over lifelong fears in an hour.
But, the pros of the book are that it was very action packed, so there was never a moment of dullness or a moment where there wasn't something intriguing being said. It was also noticed that nothing was written in the book as a space filler. Everything was relevant to the story, or was at least going to trigger something later in the book, or maybe even was going to explain something later. I thought that the characters were interesting and had a lot of depth. Not like some books where the characters are just words on a page and nothing more. All in all, the book wasn't bad, but it could stand some improvement.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Red Fish, Blue Fish, Small Fish, Big Catfish
When Jessica Wanstall from Sittingbourne, Kent went on a vacation to Spain, and when she traveled to the Ebro River (also in Spain) to go for a little fishing trip, she had no idea that she would go home catching more than "tiddlers." In a 20 minute battle of muscle over monster, Jessica, with the help of her father Mark, reeled in a 109 pound, 9 foot long monster of a catfish.
"I didn't realize just how big it was until I saw the photos afterwards. I look tiny next to it," she said after the whole thing was over. "My dad thought it was going to be a small one and I told him it didn't feel small when I picked up the rod. It was really hard work pulling it in and my arms turned to jelly. My dad helped lift it onto the bank and I stood back and just laughed when I saw it. It was massive." The picture on the right gives you an idea of the size of the behemoth catfish. "Jessica normally catches tiddlers (hey, there's that word again!) but just loves a day's fishing," he said. After they took a snapshot of the fish and the fisherwoman, they threw the catch back into the water.
Regular readers of this blog will have noticed that this isn't really a cryptozoological happening, but it's summer and I just can't resist a great fish story.
Regular readers of this blog will have noticed that this isn't really a cryptozoological happening, but it's summer and I just can't resist a great fish story.
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