CALEB'S ADVENTURES

The Bronze Bow

There are so many good books out there today and a fantastic one is The Bronze Bow, written by Elizabeth George Speare in 1962. The definition of a historical novel is a novel that has as its setting a period of history and that attempts to convey the spirit, manners, and social conditions of a past age with realistic detail and historical fact. The Bronze Bow is a great historical novel for many reasons, but the main ones are that it is set in a great time and place, has real historical people in it and it has a amazing story.

The historical setting in The Bronze Bow has a lot to do with the whole story. The setting combines with the people and the time. It took place in and around Capernaum, on the northern bank of the Sea of Galilee in Israel. The time was the first century when the Romans had power over the Jews. The Jews did not like being slaves for the Romans and that is the conflict in this story. It really helped me understand how the Jews lived and worked. The setting was really interesting, but wait till you hear about the characters.

The characters were all interesting and played a big part in the book. Some historical people in this book I know from the Bible: Jesus, Simon Peter, and some of Jesus’s disciples. They were  a big structure of the story and it made it a lot more interesting having a story mixed with Jesus’s life. Knowing the background characters helped make Daniel and Joel sound more real. Daniel was the main character and he left his family to join a group that were going to fight against the Romans. Joel was a rich Jewish boy and became friends with Daniel, but Joel’s father was a priest and didn’t like Daniel very much. Their adventures made me want to be a part of the story.

The storyline of the book was really great and it was written in a very easy way to understand. A strength of the book were in the details. The author didn’t just explain what Daniel was doing, she explained what he was thinking and how he was feeling. The rebels had a big plan to go against the Romans but it didn’t work out the way they were expecting. Daniel was impatient so he left the rebels and started making a plan to fight the Romans that were invading his land. Jesus healed Daniel’s sister and made him hate the Romans less. It had some really intense parts and a few slow parts that always kept you interested.

All around The Bronze Bow was a good book for many reasons: it had a excellent setting, characters that pulled you into their lives and a great story line. I liked how it all flowed together and was easy to read. I have read a lot of historical novels in my lifetime, but this one really stood out. I would recommend this book to everybody, especially if you are interested in the Jewish and Roman conflict of the first century. Another book that I read by Elizabeth George Speare was The Sign Of The Beaver and that was great, so after reading these two historical novels it makes me more interested in reading her other novels.

Tales Of Ancient Egypt

These stories are my favorite in this book for lots of different reasons and they are really interesting to me. The Shipwrecked Sailor is about a guy who was shipwrecked on a island with a bunch of treasure and ten foot serpents that talk and they let him live on the island. After a few months he leaves the island with a assortment of precious things and goes to tell the king about his adventure, but when he goes back to find the island it is gone. The Treasure Thief is about a king who gets many valuable things so he builds a strong building so that no one can get at his treasure. The builder makes a secret entrance and is the only person to know about it, but before he dies he tells his two sons and they go and take all the treasure. Ra And His Children, is about a god in Egypt who created everything that lived. He was really important to everybody in Egypt and was remembered for thousands of years. All these stories are good, but my favorite was The Shipwrecked Sailor, because it had a lot of different things happening and had some interesting problems.

Ups and Downs In Jason’s Life

In the book, Tales of The Greek Heroes, in the chapter, “Jason And The Golden Fleece”, Jason had a lot of good and bad times just like us in our regular lives. An example of something good was when Jason accomplished his task of getting the golden fleece and a example in my life is accomplishing something like finishing a paragraph. One of the bad times in Jason’s life was when his uncle tried to kill him so his uncle could be king and in my life it is like someone trying to hurt me.  One of the worst times was when Jason got lost at sea and he mistakenly fought and killed King Cyzicus and his men who had just welcomed them at his palace. In my life it could be like accidentally doing something wrong when your trying to do good. One of the best times in Jason’s life was when he helped a old lady across a river, she turned out to be a Immortal Queen, said that he would be a legendary hero and for me, it is like when I shovelled someones driveway and they payed me unexpectedly. Jason had a lot of good and bad times in his life and we do too, but we have to make the best of it and it will all work out eventually.

Making Cookies

Everybody likes cookies, but not everybody knows how to make them and who wouldn’t like to know how? The first thing to do is preheat the oven to 350 F. Measure out the ingredients: flour, eggs, baking soda, salt, butter and sugar. Mix the butter and sugar together, add the other dry ingredients and then the eggs. Last, but not least, add the chocolate chips; don’t worry about adding too many because you can never have too many chocolate chips. After putting the chocolate chips in and eating a few, make little balls of dough, put them on a greased cookie sheet and put it in the oven for about 13 minutes or until they fit your standards. When the cookies are done baking eat them, and since I told you how easy it is to make them, eat them all and make more.

Freedom

Freedom is an easy concept to understand but I will explain it a little more in this paragraph. Freedom means the power to determine action without restraint. Freedom is not captivity, imprisonment, bondage, slavery or restriction. Other descriptions of freedom are liberty, immunity and independence. Some things that limit our freedom are gun laws and speed limits. With different laws in different countries comes different freedoms in those countries. Freedom is never free: someone has to pay for it somehow. A example, is in World War 1 people didn’t have the freedom to chose if they wanted to go to war. They were drafted automatically but they fought for our freedom. Nowadays you can chose if you want to go into the military or not. That’s freedom. I hope this helps you understand freedom a little more.

Cartoon Characters

Cartoon characters have been around for centuries and will entertain us for centuries to come. Some popular cartoon characters are: Calvin and Hobbs, Baby Blues, Archie, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Cartoon characters are mainly meant for entertainment but are sometimes used for learning which, I think, ruins them. There are endless amounts of cartoon characters, from animals to aliens and kids to robots. Cartoons are seen all over the place like newspapers, movies, comic books, Halloween costumes and even bill boards on the sides of roads. Almost everyone still reads or watches cartoons and everybody has their own favorite cartoon characters. Cartoons are great for entertainment and there are hundreds of popular characters out there just waiting for you to enjoy.

My Favorite Dinners

My favorite dinners are all better if they are home-made, but I still enjoy them if we get them from a restaurant or from the store. Lasagna is always good no matter where you go and I’ve never had a bad lasagna. Spaghetti and creme sauce with bacon is the best if mom makes it and I always look for something close to it when we go to a restaurant. My mom’s stew is really good and I’ve never had it anywhere else and I don’t want to. Pizza is the greatest home-made but we usually just get it from the store which is still great. My Baba’s home made perogies are by far my favorite thing to have for dinner and store bought ones just can’t compare. I love food no matter what and I will never get tired of these amazing foods.

Cause and Effect Paragraph: Why the Persians rose to power under the power of Cyrus and Darius