Volume 1 Issue 3

Hunting with Birds By Bradley Palmer

Hawks and Falcons were popular hunting tools in the Middle Ages. Lords and Ladies would have they're own hunting birds, which were trained to hunt small animals. These birds would swoop down swiftly and silently to capture animals like rabbits and squirrels. They also were trained to capture birds that flew higher than an arrow can reach, because they could reach these great heights. Large birds would then deliver the prey to its master. It took a long time to train these birds. Hawks and Falcons need to be cared for, housed and fed so only the wealthiest nobles had them.

Wand Thief Strikes on Two Continents By Emma Palmer

On Oct.1, A wizard family of five was found shaking in a corner of their living room and it was not because of the cold weather we've been having. The wand thief came to their house in the night and took all their wands.  One child woke up for a drink of water and saw the wand thief. She ran to her mom's room screaming, and that woke everyone up. They tried to get there, but it was no use. The thief cast a spell over the family, and it scared them so much they went to the corner and watched the thief get way with their wands. On Oct.4, the wand thief invaded the home another family, in Britain. They hid in their bedrooms until he left. Nineteen more robberies were reported in America, and eight more in Britain. Police advise citizens to keep their wands in a safe place at night because the wand thief is likely to strike again.

Maximum Ride the Angel experiment by James Patterson

A review by Anna Petersen

The Angel Experiment by James Patterson is the most amazing book! It has everything: blood and gore, love and family, freaks and circus side shows, trauma, lab coats, and so much more.  I've read a lot of books in my time, including the famed Harry Potter, but this is feathers and mind control powers above them all!

This amazing book starts with the flock: Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gassy (Don't ask, you do not need to know.), and Angel.  In case your wondering, they named themselves. Max, Fang and Iggy are all 14, give or take, Nudge is 11, Gassy is 8 and Angel is 6. They were taken as babies to the School, a lab where they were genetically engined to be 2 percent avian and 98 percent human which gives them  wings and other amazing abilities. But Jeb, a labcoat, feels sorry for them and sneaks them out to a hidden house in the Colorado Mountains. One day he disappears and they are certain he’s dead. Just as they’re  getting used to living without him, Erasers (mutant half man, half wolf) find the flock’s home. It’s them against the Erasers, labcoats, school, being discovered and much, much more. And don't forget to look for that latest recipe for rat-BQ or cactis smoothies.

FLY ON Stay tuned for a review of Schools Out Forever, another Maximum Ride novel by James Patterson

Sammacock the Monster By Natalie Morphis

He lived in Monster Inc. movie under a tree there.  He’s invisible, but then he comes back. He has lots of eyes.  He has ten eyes, brown and pink.

He cock-a-doodle-dooed so he can wake up.  Then he played tic-tac-toe with his mama.  His mama’s name is Cockintalkin.  He loves his mama. He loves The Leaf.  He likes to write for The Leaf. First he writes something for The Leaf and then he hammers the TV and breaks it really hard.  Then he goes through the TV by jumping after he hammers it.

He has lots of arms and only two hairs.  He has a spider friend names Cockin the Spider.  He has three legs and two eyes.  He loves his friend the monster.  He loves him so much.

And then a shark came and they were sailing home, happy ever again. The End.

Turning Weakness Into Strength By Jane Smith

“And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness.  I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”  Ether 12:27

I remember well walking home from school one afternoon when I was about twelve years old. Walking ahead of me twenty feet or so was a group of kids from my school, one girl and a pack of boys. They were laughing and talking as they walked and at one point the girl pulled a scrunchie from off her wrist, combed through her hair with her fingers and wrapped her scrunchie around her hair about three times pulling her hair back into a ponytail.  It was a perfect ponytail!  I was amazed.  I had tried at home with brushes and combs and various products to produce what she had done in less than a minute with only her fingers, a ponytail without any bumps in it.

Later on in that year was my 6^th grade graduation ceremony.  I was so excited about it and I had picked out, and my mom purchased, a pink t-shirt dress (t-shirt dresses were very popular at the time) with daisies on it to wear for the occasion.  The Sunday after the ceremony, I wore my graduation dress to church and when I got compliments from my friends and teachers I told them it was the exact outfit I had worn from my black mary janes to my pink dress and even my hair had been worn in the same half-ponytail style. 

One of my Sunday School classmates asked, “Did you wear your hair exactly like that?  With all the bumps in it?”

I immediately deflated.  I had spent maybe an hour that morning using every tool at my disposal trying to make my hair lay smooth.  I had eventually come to the decision that it was close enough and probably I was the only one who noticed the imperfections.  But here I was, just seconds ago so confident, now mortified.  I had been found out.

I felt like a failure and a disgrace to my sex, I felt frustrated, embarrassed and ugly.  Weren’t hair skills inherent to girls?  Why was it that I couldn’t pull off even the simplest of styles?

That summer was my first time at Stake Girl’s Camp.  When I arrived at the camp for the first time I met my cabin mates and my counselors.  One of my counselors was a girl a few years older than myself who knew how to braid in every way imaginable.  The counselors and girls from every other cabin came to ours to have their hair plaited.  Of course, she always did our hair first.  She could do regular braids, French braids, Dutch braids (French braids that pop out), braids that made a circlet around your head, she could do them in any number and in any direction, and, this is the part that impressed me most, she could even do all of those things on herself!

I learned a lot at camp that year and I really enjoyed myself, but the thing that made the biggest impression on twelve-year-old me was watching that young woman quickly and with great skill styling her own hair.  I left camp that year determined to learn a French braid.

For the rest of the summer I wore a French braid in my hair every single day.  I would have preferred to learn on someone else and work up to doing my own, but I was the only model to which I had regular access.  Those first few days the braids were loose and ends stuck out in every direction.  They were crooked too, starting at one side of my head and ending above the other shoulder.  But, as the summer wore on they began to be a little straighter, a little smoother, a little tighter.  As the days past I became quicker and the task seemed easier.  By the first day of Jr. High I had mastered the French braid.

I never looked back and as the days and years went by I became more and more adept at various hairdos.  I became the girl that friends came to for complicated styles and of course, that old favorite, the French braid.  Now, I have no fear of the once infamous ponytail and can finger comb my hair (when it is long enough) into a lovely and smooth one with hardly a thought.

Heber J. Grant seventh president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints loved to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson: “That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased.”  He believed that, with the help of the Lord, he could achieve anything he set his mind to.

As a boy he spent many hours practicing baseball so that he could play on the best teams.  When he was told that his handwriting looked like chicken scratches, he practiced until he had beautiful penmanship.  And though he was not blessed with a naturally beautiful voiced, he practiced until he could sing the hymns without any mistakes.

I believe, like Heber J. Grant, that we have the power to make more of ourselves.  And, that with the help of the Lord we can achieve any worthy goal.

So, is there anything that you have always wished you could do?  Have you ever seen someone who was well organized or great at cooking or math or sports or drawing or writing or making friends and wished you had the same skill?  I would encourage you to get busy and try it, then try again, again and again, keep practicing and pray to enlist the help of the Lord and you will find “weak things become strong unto [you.]”

Diego's Rescue Pack Backpack By Matthew Morphis

When Diego got his Rescue Pack Backpack he’s going to school at night.  His Mama told him to go to school, and he brought his backpack to school. 

He get his pencil and he write his paper and then he draw Diego and animals.

And then he brought his animals and his jaguar.

And then Diego got his backpack and then he went like this, “Mom, can you get my backpack on?”

And she said, “No, I got to get dinner.”

He got his pencil and go to school.  And then he sang, “And they run on the road and his is flying with his animals.”

And then he got his rescue backpack and his backpack had eyes to talk.  And they he got his jacket to watch the animals play with him.  To get his pencil and then write “Diego in the world.”  The End.

 

Musings

A Weekly Column By Damarco Montoya

More Work, Please!                                    

Would you believe it?  “Work” doesn’t always have to follow “hard” after all!  I must have been 11 or 12 years old, that’s right, only a few years ago (maybe a little more than a few . . .) when that principle or idea started to really sink in.  Sure, I worked before that age; in fact I worked really hard.  Let’s see, I mowed the lawn (front AND back), weeded the garden, cleaned my room, did my homework, and then there were my regular landscaping contracts with at least a dozen different clients, my job with the city driving the transit bus, and of course I worked with the local bricklayer union supervising the construction of the new business district.

So, one night I was asked to tackle the giant, enormous, the stupendous leaning tower of dishes all by myself.  Here’s the thing, we must have gone a year without EVER washing the dishes.  In fact I don’t think my mom knew how to wash the dishes since my brothers and sisters were always the ones doing it, except of course over the last year when we just let them pile up.  I think the tower of dishes reached the moon.  The house was so accustomed to the tower that it slowly grew around the dirty dishes, creating a hole in which the dishes could escape while continuing to grow higher and higher to accomplish its mission to Mars.  Well, needless to say I would have rather not done the dishes and instead watched the TV or have engaged in something equally fun and/or less labor some. 

            

The sad thing is my mom didn’t see it my way.  For whatever reason, she thought doing the dishes wouldn’t take me very long if I could just get started, and to top it off, she wouldn’t let me watch the TV (not even when the BEST show in the entire world was playing- don’t ask me what that show was called since I have absolutely no idea, but it was the BEST I’m sure!).  She wouldn’t even let me play games or engage in anything at all that was less labor some or as I would put it, relaxing.  I mean what gives?  While I’m off building buildings and driving for the city, all I really want is to sit back with a good cup of flavored ice water and a little TV.  Do I really need more work in my life?

           

 I told her the dishes have been sitting for a year, so what’s one more?  She didn’t like that answer very much.  I’m not sure what got into me but all of the sudden whatever it was started to leak out of my eyes in buckets.  I cried and cried and cried some more telling her how unfair it was that I had to be the one to wash the dishes when they were stacked so high and everyone else was having fun watching the BEST show in TV history (don’t ask me what the program was but it was the BEST, trust me!).  I told her how it was unfair the dishes had disgusting food particles all over them and getting them cleaned would definitely take at least a year.  I tried and tried, using all the logic and reason tactics that I learned back in my days as the state’s leading defense attorney (did I forget to mention I was a lawyer?).  That rock of a mother didn’t budge, not even a sliver.

            

You know what I did then?  After the BEST show in existence was over, everyone had eaten Rocky Road brownies (the kind with marshmallows and chocolate on top, MMMMMMM), and while everyone was getting ready for bed, I decided to tackle the unbeatable dishes to see just how bad it could be.  Would you know it, I finished that entire stack, washed AND dried them in about 15 minutes.  Even though the tower had since become the leading obstacle in the Martian Olympics, that job wasn’t so hard after all . . .