Hello there. I think that I’m going to stay anonymous for now, but I can tell you that I’m planning to be a mountain climber when I grow up, which is why I’m here, getting ready for my first bouldering lesson. Now, before you start thinking “Hey, you should know something!” as far as mountains and me go, I’m not really into rock climbing. Yet. I have seen a documentary about a person who free solo-ed a cliff, and I have hiked at least a few times, though none were very steep. Now, if you’ll excuse me for a second, I’ll meet you at my first route. Hi! Just met up with my coach, and now I’m going on my first route! I put both hands on the starting hold, and then hoisted myself onto the wall. I found the right holds, and with my coach’s help, I made it to the top. Then my coach told me to jump off the wall. I gave him a look of disbelief. He just grinned, and I sighed, took a breath and jumped, hitting the mattress intact. My coach said that I was doing great, and I was ready for a harder route. I tried it, and I was doing fine until the middle, where two holds were far apart. I moved my feet, put my hands on the hold and hauled myself up to the top. It might be worth mentioning that I’m not very athletic. But nonetheless, I mustered the strength that I needed to get on the hold and complete the route. My coach said that I needed to practice that route more, and that’s what I did for the next bit. After going up and down some times, my coach set me a challenge: I had to climb the wall sideways, using any holds I wanted without falling off. I started and quickly realized that it was essential to know which holds are “good” and which are “bad.” Here’s an explanation: You could only step on the flat parts of the large round rocks, otherwise you would more than definitely slip off. You also needed to keep distance between your arms and legs, because if they were too close, then your elbows would collide with your knees, but if your limbs are too far apart, then you end up stretching, and that hurts! I kept falling at this point where I had to stretch my leg to get to the next hold, but I kept slipping in the process. I asked my coach for some advice, and he told me to “jump.” I gave him my look again, and he demonstrated. I had to release one foot while I land the other. I tried it, and it worked! I made it halfway across the wall when the lesson ended. Want to know what I learned next lesson? I do too!
Young Bloggers
Loneliness, a poem by Salma Hadi-St. John, 11
Salma Hadi St. John, 11 Oak Park, IL Loneliness Salma Hadi-St. John, 11 My friends are all gone My life has disappeared Into a new world of loneliness It is just my family and I Loneliness is like a tree in the desert The only cat in town A star stuck in space A speck of dust in the air Loneliness is when you are the only one At your birthday party When you sit on the steps of your porch On a dark rainy day It feels like I am trapped inside Waiting for people to come Watching the clock on the wall Scratching the door like a dog But sometimes you just have to fight Loneliness You can’t be alone everyday When I wake up today It is the start of a new day We can be a force together We just need to reach out for each other Feeling happiness again
Kate Milford’s Rich and Realistic Shared World
Kate Milford is one of my all-time favorite authors, and while I love the intricate plots, fleshed-out characters, and how her books read like something out of an Agatha Christie novel, what I love most about her books is the way in which all the books are connected. Many authors set their books in a “shared world,” as Kate Milford refers to it on her website, but Milford’s world is richer and more realistic than most. Her books take place in either the crossroads town of Arcane, Missouri; the Sovereign City Of Nagspeake, near Magothy Bay and the Skidwrack River; or New York City. A few of the books take place in each of these settings, and those books are directly connected by place, but what makes Milford’s novels so unique is that the settings are tied together by characters who move between the places, linking all the books together into her very own universe. As you read more and more of Milford’s books, you stumble upon characters with mysteries you can only uncover by reading other books, or maybe you already know something about a character or place that the protagonist doesn’t know yet because you read about it in a past book. We are introduced to Nagspeake’s smuggling history in Greenglass House, but it is only in The Thief Knot and Bluecrowne that we get a close look at its old iron that as far as anyone can tell, seems to move of its own accord. We find Simon Coffrett in Bluecrowne, but we only figure out what it means for him to be a Jumper in The Boneshaker. We meet Meddy in Greenglass House, but we only realize her amazing capabilities in The Thief Knot, and so on. Every new book you read makes the shared world and the characters that inhabit it feel more and more realistic until readers almost convince themselves it’s real. On several websites, readers have asked if Nagspeake is real, and where it is, and if it’s a good place to take a vacation to, and this striking realism that makes it seem convincing enough to be true stems from the way the shared world digs deeper into Nagspeake (and Arcane) with every book. There are maps of these places, and a tourism website, and countless other things that most people have almost never done with a fictional place. It really goes to show how much the shared world impacts the credibility of the novels, considering that these places are obviously fantasy. There are ghosts, there are magical entities, there are machines in places set hundreds of years in the past so advanced that we don’t have the technology to build them today- and yet people still believe in the possibility of these places being real. The shared world that all of Kate Milford’s books are set in makes the plots more compelling, the characters more relatable, the settings more lifelike, and the books more electrifying.
