Hey all. If you’re a regular here you know Reader Art of the Week on the OWL blog usually means drawings. But art is lots of things: songs, plays, stories, etc. Today our reader art is poetry, courtesy of blog reader Marissa.
Check it out:
Hamster
Happy, hairy, little creatures that are Adventurous sometimes. Miniature little fluff balls with Small, sweet eyes. They have teeth too big for their body at an Extraordinary size. Running little animal with black, beady eyes.
Cool, huh? I like how Marissa uses descriptions to paint a picture of her subject. You can tell she observed a hamster and put all her observations in the poem. That’s a very important skill for a writer. In fact, it’s something my favourite writing teacher was still asking us to do in university.
(Also, did you notice how she used the acrostic style from OWL’s Poetry Contest in May? I’m glad the acrostic is catching on!)
Many thanks to Marissa for sending in her poem. Send me your poems, stories, or drawings, and maybe I’ll post your art next week! Talk to you guys soon.
Well, blog readers, it’s been a busy week here at the OWL office. And let me tell you, I had some major plans for this post. Mailbag?, I thought. Things from the OWL vault? GAMES?
But did I say things were busy? Things were crazy. So instead of those other things, I give you this:
Awesome, right?
Many thanks to Chirp editor Jackie for sending me the YouTube clip. Talk to you next week!
First things first: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is both a classic children’s book and a brand-new movie. I haven’t read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, but I saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs last week. So there you go.
In the movie version, Cloudy is the story of a young inventor named Flint Lockwood. When his town hits hard times, he invents something he thinks everyone will love: a machine that turns water into food and sends it falling from the sky.
Unlike a lot of Flint’s other inventions, the machine actually works — his town becomes world famous, and suddenly he has more friends and fans than he can handle. The only problem is it might work too well. As the food gets bigger and bigger, Flint needs to make a tough decision. Turn the invention off or risk letting it spiral out of control.
Here are a few observations about the movie:
1) It’s funny! Honestly, seriously funny. I mean, the characters are funny. The dialogue is funny. Even the problems are funny. Funny, funny, funny. Funny. Can’t say it enough.
2) Unlike a lot of recent animated movies, Cloudy doesn’t star a ton of super-famous voice actors. But that’s not a bad thing. Because I didn’t recognize most of the voices, I wasn’t thinking about the voice actors at all. That made the characters all the more real and alive.
3) It has several good messages, including a) “Be yourself,” b) “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again,” and one you don’t often see in movies, c) “Bigger isn’t always better.”
In case you hadn’t guessed by now, I pretty much loved Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It’s one of my two favourite animated movies of the year — along with Up. I recommend it to anyone who likes truly zany comedies and loves to laugh.
The movie opened in theatres on Friday. If you go see it, let me know what you think in the comments below!
Hey all. Here are the results for the reverse mailbag questions from a couple weeks ago. As usual, I’m going to tabulate the most popular answer for each question, and then I’m going to weigh in with my own thoughts.
Let’s rock!
1. If you could have one wish, what would it be?
Popular response: World peace, millions of dollars, and to be smarter (three-way tie). Special mention goes to Marissa who would wish to not be afraid of biology so she can become a marine biologist. Good luck, Marissa! I know you can beat biology.
CB response: World peace. It’s not original, but it’s important! If I had a second wish — after the world had become peaceful and all — I think I’d ask for the ability to fly. Imagine the freedom! Also, I could cut several minutes off my travel time to the OWL office!
2. What makes you laugh?
Popular response: Another three-way tie! Jokes, tickling, and your best friends make you guys laugh in equal measure.
CB response: You mean, other than the “Last Laugh” section in OWL? I’ll have to say… the new movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. I saw it the other night, and it’s hilarious. Check back here on Monday for my review.
In the meantime, here’s the trailer:
3. What was the best place you visited this summer?
Popular response: Camp. Other cool places visited include Canadian provinces, U.S. states, and even some theme parks. You guys did a lot of moving around this summer.
CB response: Honesdale, Pennsylvania! That’s the home of Highlights, an American kids’ magazine. The staff of the magazine host an annual retreat for editor types, and art director Susan and I went to represent OWL. Tons of trees, beautiful weather, and you could actually see stars at night. What’s not to love?
Popular response: Bunnies by a [giant’s] nose. Last reverse mailbag I created a hall of fame for bunnies and pandas because they’d both won two rounds of the OWL Blog Cute-off. But now that bunnies have become the new all-time champs (three wins in a row!), we might need to create a new distinction for them. Is there such thing as a super hall of fame? This is getting complicated.
CB response: Tigers. Seriously. I thought tigers had a chance here. I mean, not only are they cute, but they’re also exotic and rare. That’s a tough hand (paw?) to beat.
5. Would you rather time travel to the past or the future?
Popular response: Past. A humongous, record-breaking 81 percent of you would rather head back in time than forward.
CB response: It’s a tough call, but I’m going to say the future. I can head to the library right now and find out what life was like at almost any point in the past. But the only way I’d be able to find out what the world will be like in, say, 2100, would be to time travel there. It might be weird, but it would be totally mind-blowing, don’t you think?
And that’s it. Hope you enjoyed this eighth edition of the reverse mailbag roundup. I’d love to post some Reader Art of the Week next week, but I’ll need your help for that. Send in your drawings (and your stories and poems, too!), and I’ll try to publish them on the blog.
Hey guys! I was out of town and away from the computer for a couple days… and that’s the only reason I haven’t posted this tennis highlight yet.
It was filmed at the US Open on Sunday, and it’s… well, see for yourself!
Through his legs! Backwards! On the second-to-last point of the match! Wow.
The tennis magician in the video is named Roger Federer, and he’s currently ranked as the best men’s player in the world. Judging by that video, it’s easy to see why, huh?
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