Snow Day Surprise One magnificent afternoon, while I was enjoying life to the fullest, I heard the phone ring. It interrupted my online research on techniques for swimming and what to eat. I strode over there like I had all the time in the world. I saw the Caller ID. It was my Read more…
“Welcome to the 31st Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2016! My name is Dilma Rousseff and I am honored to be giving this speech on behalf of the country of Brazil. I am very pleased to announce that this is the most number of Olympians ever reported participating in the Summer Olympics, and here is Miranda Delphine of Ireland to light the Olympic torch!”
Miranda starts to process on stage with a pearly white smile against her velvet soft red lips. Her perfectly painted fingers wrap around the torch like serpents. She reaches the top of the spiral staircase and with a flick of her wrist, like the wave of a wand, the silver case of the enormous torch comes back to life, as if it was hibernating. Everyone cheers and claps, for the torch is awakened and all the athletes stand tall and proud as the National Anthem of Brazil begins to be sung by a choir of small angelic children, bringing tears to all who listen to the melodious tune. When we proceed back through the tunnel, everyone takes a last glimpse of the crowd and wishing this would never end, go back through the tunnel which we all enter and kiss the stadium goodbye.
Mileena Nguyen’s Three Simple Words is narrated by Evangeline Garnier, a girl who seems to possess a mysterious power to feel the pain of others. The story begins with a quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline, which happens to have the same name as the protagonist. This is probably not a coincidence, as the prologue Read more…
Roald Dahl’s imagination often pits cunning children against bitter and repulsive adults. This continuing theme may be so important in his work based on Dahl’s experiences in boarding school, when his English masters beat him, and upperclassmen were mean and territorial. But in The BFG, the beaten character, the BFG, seems to be similar to Dahl himself; because the BFG spends all of his time giving pleasure to children and saving them, we learn something about who Dahl really is.
THREE SIMPLE WORDS Prologue “And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline’s story While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answer the wail of the forest.” (lines 1397-1400) –Evangeline, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Mother’s warm breath ghosted across my ear as she read. She flipped the worn, tea-colored page, reached Read more…
