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Ten Mile River is a novel written by Paul Griffin, who portrays America in a different light to what we see in movies and television shows.

‘Homeless Group with Dog’ by Franco Folini

Homeless people are a prevalent fact in America, but Jose and Raymond are different. They choose to be homeless because they can. They go through what no teenage boy should go through, killing dogs, stealing, moving bodies, falling in frozen rivers and getting arrested.

“Yo Ray! Let’s get us that Lincoln then I can get my bike!” is some of the unusual American colloquialism used by Raymond and Jose, in their strange yet amusing lives.

Ten Mile River is an interesting book that breaks some of the teen-writing barriers, such as dead bodies and murder. Griffin portrays Jose as tough and strong, the leader and strength of the two. He portrays Raymond as intelligent, lost in a world that isn’t his, wanting the freedom to do whatever he wants to be intelligent.

Reading the blurb makes you think of a classic river story of young boys, Huckleberry Finn. Although there is only that one similarity between the two, I believe that it was written as a comparitive study for Huckleberry Finn, as the original publishing of 1884 is too long ago for a sequel to be written.

This book is good at most points, but it just gets under your skin in others so that you don’t want to read it anymore, yet sometimes you get sad when you must put it down to go do another menial task. Overall, this is an interesting novel to read because it stirs your emotions, gives an insight into American Life and shows how misguided troubled youths can be.

I Strongly recommend this book to avid readers, but if you struggle with reading a whole book, The American slang and troubling events will make it hard for you to not finish it.

Rated: 8.5/10

I bought this game from GameTraders at Castle Towers. The Price was excellent, $69.95 when EB Games cost $79.95.

Quite an average game, a nice big place to venture through and explore, but it seriously lacks story content. This Harry Potter game brings back the flying minigame and introduces the first ever potions mini-game.

Potions is probably the most worthwile part of the game, as flying is quite boring, flying continuously in a path through rings, with no variation. The story is terrible, made up of mostly cinematics, with all major plot points being unplayable.

Another big part of the Harry Potter franchise which has returned is duelling. You get to use many of the spells you read about in the books or have seen in the movies…IT IS FUN! You have the opportunity to become champion dueller of Hogwarts, and it truly is the funnest part of the game. Some parts are quite pathetic though, such as killing an opponent with a stunning spell or being continually bombarded by a glitch so that you are killed.

Quite a reasonable game, but with more content, I would feel better about how I spent my Money. Something that I can’t get over is the untapped potential. They made a large area to play in, but an ill-defined storyboard destroyed the game’s greatness. Everything was in a smaller area than it should have been, meaning a player only had to go into the far-off corners of the map to get Xbox 360 Achievements.

The story was short; I finished the game in less than a day, which is quite sad when you have played all it’s predecessors. I would not recommend this game, unless you were borrowing it from a friend.

by Daniel

The first novel in this amazing set of 3 series… is “The Forests of Silence.” Emily Rodda is an amazing artist of fictional literature. She has created a whole world in which the reader can immerse his or her self.

I have immersed myself in the Deltoran culture a multitude of times. My favourite part of the series was the Pirran Pipe. Although unrealistic and unearthly in certain contexts, Rodda still manages a great novel. The main character of the book, Lief, heir to the throne, is quite like the little bit of adventure inside all of us, trying anything.

Overall, I rate this series an 9/10. This is because I found out that there was only going to be a third series…

Marc McBride, the illustrator of the novel covers and the illustrator of books such as “The Deltora book of Monsters’, was kind enough to autograph my copy of “The Forests of Silence” when I met him in year 5. A very kind, free-spirited person he was, spraying a great picture in minutes.

Want to find out more?

The Author?

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General Information?

by Daniel

The Midnight Library series of books, is written by multiple different authors. The series is all written under one alias of “Nick Shadow.” Each book is one different author, which makes sure that the book is never boring, because all of the authors have different ideas.

The 8 books in this series so far are: “Voices”, “Blood and Sand”, “End Game”, “The Cat Lady”, “Liar”, “Shut Your Mouth”, “I Can See You” and “The Catch.”

Although I have not read all books in the series yet, I thoroughly enjoyed the novels “I Can See You” and “Liar.” There are 3 stories in each novel, meant to be scary. They are…unless you are brave enough.
So have a thrill, your heart beating a mile a minute…If you dare!

You can visit Fantastic Fiction to learn some more about this series.
 

Fan fiction is a term that describes authors’ creative writing that uses pre-existing characters from television, movies or other fiction. Usually composed of short stories, fan fiction used to be published in ‘zines and mailed to a small number of subscribers. Today, the Internet allows authors to publish their work to a much wider audience. From Chilling Effects Clearinghouse

The biggest fan fiction site around is FanFiction – unleash your imagination and here is what Daniel thinks of this site:

Everyone who can read has the choice to like or dislike reading. Whatever your feelings are towards reading, I know a website for you. Fanfiction.net has a multitude of stories including stories based on games, movies, cartoons, books and much much more… All the stories are written by different authors and are fantastically edited into masterpieces. Hope you like it! Daniel

We would love to hear what you think of FanFiction.net – some specific examples would be good. Click on COMMENTS below.

Some authors and publishers object to fan fiction being published on the web for copyright reasons. This is a tricky issue. For more information read this page at Chilling Effects Clearinghouse. J. K. Rowling has given her blessing to fan fiction writers, with a couple of provisos, and Mary Hoffman encourages it by publishing fan fiction on her Stravaganza web site.

Illustration: Fancy Hippogriff – Arizona Turquois Rump by Babbletrish.