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The Girl with the Louding Voice

The unforgettable, inspiring story of a teenage girl growing up in a rural Nigerian village who longs to get an education so that she can find her "louding voice" and speak up for herself, The Girl with the Louding Voice is a simultaneously heartbreaking and triumphant tale about the power of fighting for your dreams. Despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in her path, Adunni never loses sight of her goal of escaping the life of poverty she was born into so that she can build the future she chooses for herself - and help other girls like her do the same. Her spirited determination to find joy and hope in even the most difficult circumstances imaginable will "break your heart and then put it back together again" (Jenna Bush Hager on The Today Show) even as Adunni shows us how one courageous young girl can inspire us all to reach for our dreams...and maybe even change the world.

Reading Reactions is a new book review style I am experimenting with. It was inspired by my newfound love of Twitch. Watching someone experience my favorite video games for the first time was pure joy and I wanted to bring that same joy to reading. I will share a summary of the whole book chapter by chapter as well as my thoughts and favorite quotes in chronological order. That way, if you haven’t read the book you can understand the context of my reactions. And if you are currently reading the book, you won’t get spoiled.

I had a few people tell me that after reading my reactions (when I first posted this review on Instagram stories), that they decided to pick it up and read it themselves. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me! So whether you have read this book or not, I hope this new review style brings you some joy and that there’s something in this new review format for everyone.

Chapters 1-4

Adunni’s papa is marrying her off at age 14 to pay for rent. Adunni’s life has gotten worse since her mother died. She misses her mother so much. Her mom earned most of the money for the family by selling food. Adunni is hurt and confused by this turn of events. “I rub my chest, where too many questions is causing a sore” (pg 19). I love how she explained that. I’ve felt exactly what she is talking about.

Even though her mom was their main and maybe only source of income (what the crap does her dad do???) she still gave food to those in need. “Adunni, you must do good for other peoples, even if you are not well, even if the whole world around you is not well.” (Pg 9). Her mother sounds like a good person and now I’m sad that she died. Adunni is devastated by this marriage arrangement and is going to miss her younger brother. She visits her friend Enitan to see if she will help her get out of the marriage but Enitan thinks she should be happy and wishes she could get married, too. (That was not the reaction I was expecting. I would have plotted with Adunni to get her out of it.)

Adunni is going to miss school. She won’t be allowed to go anymore once she is married. Adunni was older than the other kids at school because she started late and they made fun of her. She said “Learning is not having age. Anybody can learn.” (Pg 19) I love that quote. She learns “A is for apple” at school even though she’s never seen an apple in her life. I know it’s small but it’s really bothers that they don’t get to learn about things relevant to them.

Adunni remembers a few years ago a rich foreigner visiting. He was going to marry her mother but she hadn’t gone to school so his family said no. Her mother values education because of this and says the best quote in the book:

“‘Your schooling is your voice, child. It will be speaking for you even if you didn’t open your mouth to talk. It will be speaking till the day God is calling you come.’ That day, I tell myself that even if I am not getting anything in this life, I will go to school. I will finish my primary and secondary and university schooling and become teacher because I don’t just want to be having any kind voice…I want a louding voice.”

-Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 25

Adunni tells her papa she doesn’t want to get married and reminds him that he promised her DYING MOTHER on her DEATH BED that he wouldn’t marry her off for money but he doesn’t care. He says promises don’t pay rent. RAGE. PURE RAGE IS NOW COMING OUT MY EARS. I hope his dead wife haunts him.

Chapters 5-10

Adunni’s friend, Enitan, is helping her get ready for the wedding. She hopes the wedding might get canceled but feels hopeless. She tries to be positive and see the good in the marriage but she can’t.

At the wedding, her father says to her new husband, “This is your wife now, from today till forever, she is your own. Do her anyhow you want. Use her till she is useless!” (Pg 37) (Ew. I hate him.) The new couple drives off. Adunni doesn’t want to talk to him during the drive and he gets mad. (I also hate him.)

They arrive at her new husband’s house so he can introduce her to his other two wives (Yes Adunni is the third wife which just emphasizes for me how unnecessary this marriage is). Adunni meets his first wife, who calls her a husband snatcher. They go in the house to meet the second wife. (I was holding out hope that this wouldn’t actually happen but here we are. I think my hope finally died at this point in the story.) Adunni meets the second wife Khadija. Morufu, their husband, is around 60 (!!) years old. He says the rule in the house is children and wives don’t talk back to him. (Gross). Adunni meets all the kids and the oldest is the same age as her. Morufu married Adunni because he wants sons. All his kids are girls so far. He explains the sleeping arrangements to all the wives and Adunni is confused when he says she will sleep in his room BECAUSE SHE’S 14. Khadija comforts her and gives her a tour of the house.

If you are reading the book yourself, just be aware that there is a trigger warning for rape in Chapter 8. My review does not go into detail about chapter 8. Chapter 8 is short and can be skipped if you wish.

After the house tour, Khadija takes Adunni to Morufu’s room. She’s terrified and tells Morufu that she just wants to sleep. I can’t bring myself to say what happens next but I think you know.

Adunni wakes up the next morning in pain and Khadija helps her. Adunni promises herself not to cry for a stupid old man like Morufu. Four weeks have passed. The house is full of abuse. Morufu abuses Adunni, the children, and the other wives. Labake, the first wife, abuses Adunni as well. Khadija is the only one who is kind to her.

Adunni tells Khadija that she doesn’t want to have kids. Khadija says she didn’t want kids either but loves her children now. Adunni isn’t convinced. “How will a girl like me born childrens? Why will I fill up the world with sad childrens that are not having a chance to go to school? Why make the world to be one big, sad, silent place because all the childrens are not having a voice?” (Pg 59) When Adunni tells Khadija that she’s terrified of having kids, she gives her birth control and says Morufu must never find out.

Chapters 11-15

Khadija, the second wife, sends Adunni on an errand to the river so she can see her friends. Morufu, the husband, usually won’t let her leave but today is a rare day that he’s gone. Adunni is happy to see her friends but is most happy to see her little brother. (I’m incredibly sad when I think about how much friends meant to me at this age and how hard it must be for her to never see anyone.)

Kike, the oldest daughter of Morufu, is protecting Adunni from the beatings Kike’s mother (the first wife) gives her. Kike helps her because now she has to get married young, too. (They are close in age. HIS DAUGHTER AND HIS 3RD WIFE ARE CLOSE IN AGE *barf*). They bond because they both want an education but can’t get one. I just want to hug them both and take them to school and let them be young, happy girls.

Khadija wants Adunni to come with her to see a midwife but is oddly vague about it. Adunni is not dumb. She knows something is up. Khadija is desperate to have a boy because Morufu says he will stop giving money to her parents and siblings, who live in poverty, if she doesn’t. Khadija tells Adunni to go find a man, not a midwife, when they reach the town they traveled to. Adunni is so confused and she describes her confusion like this: “So I stand there, looking like a big fool, waiting for the thing I am finding to find me.” (Pg 87) (I love the way Adunni says things. It’s endearing and insightful. Sometimes you have to stop looking and wait for understanding.) Turns out this man she went to get is the real father and has told Khadija there is a curse that only a ritual washing in the river will get rid of. Adunni wants none of this ritual nonsense and wants to take her to a midwife.

Adunni is scared that Khadija is going to die.

“Death can take form of anything. It clever like that. Today, it can take form of a car, cause a accident; tomorrow it can shape hisself as a gun, a bullet, a knife, a coughing-blood sickness.”

-Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 93

Whoa. That is deep. I had never thought of death that way but it’s so true. Adunni has to take Khadija to the river alone because the “foolish man” (excellent nickname by Adunni for the real father) has a wife. He meets them at the river but he forgot the special curse-breaking soap and says he will come back. (I can feel it. This dude is not coming back.) Adunni sings a song to comfort Khadija while they wait. The song is about how if you want to become a lawyer….wait hang on. The AUTHOR is a lawyer. Is this book based on her life?! (Excuse me while I read the author interview and biography in the back of the book). According to the author interview, no it’s not based on her life. Kind of. The author grew up in Nigeria and had maids in her house. She got to know a few who she based Adunni’s life on. Read the whole interview for yourself. It’s fascinating.

Sorry, back to the plot. Khadija dies by the river while Adunni sings to her. I have no words for how tragic that is.

Chapters 16-24

Grief stricken, Adunni goes to the “foolish man’s” house to tell him Khadija is dead. But his wife answers and says he is traveling. They argue until someone calls Adunni a thief and she runs away. Adunni runs to her father and tells him everything. He wants to tell the chief about it but Adunni is scared the chief will blame her.

“Papa say nothing will happen to me, but Papa make a promise to Mama and he didn’t keep the promise. How will he keep his promise now to save me from this troubles?”

– Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 105

He won’t. RUN GIRL. And she does.

She runs to the next village and goes to Iya’s house, the old woman her mom used to help and give food to. Adunni wants to stay and help the old woman. Iya says no because she is going to die soon (that’s sad). Then Adunni’s papa bangs on the front door (I’m so stressed right now). Adunni hides in the bathroom. Her father sends her little brother to look for her. Her brother sees her but says she isn’t there. It’s bittersweet.

I’m on the edge of my seat now. Must know what happens next.

Iya’s brother, Kola, visits. Iya asks him to find Adunni a job like the other girls he helps. He agrees and takes her to Lagos. Adunni has never left her village and has culture shock in Lagos. She was most shocked by the poverty.

“In Ikati, we don’t have begging childrens. Even if the mama and papa of a child is not having moneys, they don’t send their children to beg. They wash and clean and pick dustbin, and the girls will marry and the mama and papa will collect bride-price and use to eat, but the childrens don’t beg for food.”

– Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 136

Adunni’s way of describing the things she sees in Lagos make me laugh – “gray smoke from the buttocks of the car” (pg 135).

The writing was so vivid that I had to Google what Lagos looked like to see how close it was. I imagined it exactly like this picture above. The writing is truly stunning.

Kola takes her to Big Madam’s mansion where he got her a job and says she must do what she’s told as the new housemaid. Adunni is sent inside and meets the chef, Kofi, who is from Ghana. He’s nice to her unlike Big Madam, who comes back in the house to boss everyone around.

Chapters 25-33

Kofi, the chef, gives Adunni a tour of the house. (I’m a little distracted by all the cool books that Adunni is listing that she sees in the library. “Things Fall Apart” caught my eye, so I added it to my TBR pile. I love adding books to my TBR from other books.)

The previous maid was named Rebecca and no on will say exactly what happened to her (I find this very sus). Adunni meets Big Daddy, Big Madam’s husband, who comes in after Big Madam fell asleep from her foot massage. “She is just eating the air and snoring.” (pg 165) Haha I can just see Big Madam’s head tilted back with mouth wide open while she’s asleep in a chair. Adunni has the best descriptions.

Adunni describes her relentless and exhausting chores. A lot of the work seems redundant like hand washing garments then putting them in the washer. Adunni is only fed one meal a day. Big Madam is abusive to her. To hide from the abuse, she reads books in the library.

Adunni has to work extra hard this week because there is a party. While she’s helping Kofi with the party in the kitchen, he gives her an ad for a scholarship application.

Adunni serves food to the guests at the party. The women make fun of her. One woman is nice to her. Adunni drops the food tray and Big Madam hits her in the head with a shoe. Tia, the woman who was nice to her, helps her with her injury. They talk and become friends.

Big Madam is traveling and warns Adunni to stay away from Big Daddy. (Yikes.)

Adunni has a hard time understanding the accents of the other servants in the house.

“At first I wasn’t understanding him, but now it is not too much a problem. Everybody in the whole world be speaking different. Big Madam, Ms. Tia, Kofi, Abu, even me, Adunni. We all be speaking different because we all are having different growing-up life, but we can all be understanding each other if we just take the time to listen well.”

– Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 208

Adunni is a treasure.

Adunni asks Tia to be her reference for her scholarship application. Tia says yes and agrees to tutor her as well while Big Madam is gone. Their tutoring session is ADORABLE. Adunni learns about Tia and that she lived in the UK.

Adunni: “I didn’t know that peoples like you can be living in the Abroad […]”

Tia: “What, you only see white people when you watch the news?[…] Actually” she sigh, low her voice, make it somehow sad, “you have a point.”

– Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 218

Diversity matters.

Chapters 34-41

An update on Adunni’s tutoring:

“Honest, honest, English is just a language of confusions.”

– Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 221

Haha! But yes, it is.

Talking with Adunni has changed Tia’s mind about not wanting to have kids. When they first met, Tia was against having kids and now she hopes she might be pregnant.

Big Daddy comes back from his trip and is CREEPY. Adunni asks for a lock on her door and Big Madam screams at Big Daddy because she knows exactly what that means.

Tia asks Big Madam if Adunni can come to the market with her. Big Daddy wants “gratitude” from Adunni for talking Big Madam into say yes. BARF. Adunni manages to get away from him. (This time. Ahhhh!! I can tell this is going to get worse).

Tia picks up Adunni to go to the market. Adunni helps Tia haggle with the market sellers by speaking Yoruba, which is why Tia wanted her to come in the first place. Tia is sad because she is not pregnant. Tia gives Adunni a book and phone to help with their tutoring sessions. Her kindness makes Adunni cry.

Adunni explains to Tia why education is so important to her:

“My mama say education will give me a voice. I want more than just a voice, Ms. Tia. I want a louding voice. I want to enter a room and people will hear me even before I open my mouth to be speaking. I want to live in this life and help many people so that when I grow old and die, I will be living through the people I am helping. […] The girls in my village don’t have much chance for school. I want to change that, Ms. Tia, because those girls, they will grow up and born many more great people to make Nigeria even more better than now.”

– Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 263

I loved the idea of living through those you help. I love the writing so much.

Adunni is afraid to write her scholarship essay, but she follows Tia’s advice to write her truth. So Adunni does:

“Then I swim deep inside the river of my soul, find the key from where it is sitting, full of rust, at the bottom of the river and open the lock. I knell down beside my bed, close my eyes, turn myself into a cup, and pour the memory out of me.”

– Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 275

I love the beautiful imagery in that quote.

Chapters 42-52

Big Madam takes Adunni to the fabric store/fashion empire that she owns. Adunni meets another house maid, Chisom, who mentions Rebecca (the maid who worked before Adunni at Big Madam’s house) was getting big before she disappeared. (I was not expecting a mystery story line in this book but I’m loving it).

Adunni goes to church with Big Madam. Adunni sees Chisom again, who is treated nicely by her Madam which Adunni didn’t realize was possible.

Tia is still not pregnant. Adunni goes with Tia to the Miracle Center for a ritual bath because Tia’s mother-in-law thinks it will help her get pregnant. After a blessing from the prophet, they send Tia to the river where they beat her with branches instead. Adunni and the mother-in-law are horrified and don’t know what to do (I’m equally horrified). After the beating, Adunni says:

“They pull Ms. Tia up, scoop water from the river edge, and pour it on Ms. Tia’s body, ever so gentle, as if to say, Sorry, sorry we flog you.”

– Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 310

I guess that’s the bath part??

Adunni is angry when they leave. She finds the whole thing sexist.

“I want to ask why the doctor didn’t come too. Why didn’t he come and get a beating like his wife? If it takes two people to make a baby, why only one person, the woman, is suffering when the baby is not coming? […] Why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than the men?”

– Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 312

That’s a good question. Followed closely by why are they beating people at all????

Adunni comforts Tia. Tia’s husband is mad at his mother for what happened and reveals that he can’t have children.

Adunni realizes she is a modern slave “with no chain” because Mr. Kola (Iya’s brother who found her the job) kept all her money and never returned to give it to her, like he promised. (MORE RAGE)

Abu, the driver, gives Adunni a letter that Rebeca (the previous maid) wrote before she left that he found in the car. Rebecca was pregnant from Big Daddy but the letter doesn’t finish. (Does this story remind any one else of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier? The mysterious character that we never meet and no one will talk about what happened to?)

Big Daddy tries to rape Adunni but Big Madam catches him.

Adunni hears Big Madam crying in the house and goes to help her with her wounds that she probably got from Big Daddy beating her before he left. Adunni doesn’t know for sure. Big Madam isn’t her friend. In fact, this is the first time Adunni does anything for her without being ordered to.

Chapters 53-56

Big Madam calls Adunni to her bedroom, something she has never done for anyone. Big Madam can’t understand how Big Daddy can go to church and still be the way he is.

“‘Because God is not the church,’ I say, keeping my chin down, my voice low. I want to tell her that God is not a cement building of stones and sand. That God is not for all that putting inside a house and locking Him there. I want her to know that the only way to know if a person find God and keep Him in their heart is to check how the person is treating other people, if he treats people like Jesus says – with love, patience, kindness, and forgiveness.”

– Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 339

Big Madam locks Big Daddy out of the house for the first time ever despite a long history of abuse and infidelity towards her. He honks at the gate like a spoiled brat (It’s hilarious). Big Daddy is completely reliant on her since she makes all the money.

Each chapter has a fact about Nigeria at the beginning. They are all really fascinating, but this is my favorite one:

“Fact: A 2003 study of over sixty-five countries suggested that the happiest and most optimistic people in the world live in Nigeria.”

– Abi Dare, The Girl with the Louding Voice pg 348

These facts about Nigeria before all the chapters are all true and they paint a fascinating picture of Nigeria. It’s full of poverty, excessive wealth, but also happiness and optimism like that quote says. I learned a lot about Nigeria from reading this book. I saw the country for the first time from the point of view of someone who lived there, instead of an outsider looking in.

Big Madam calls the police to frame Big Daddy for Rebecca’s disappearance, but when the police officer says he wants to question them both, she changes her mind and drops the whole thing. The officer leaves without putting anyone in jail (how disappointing).

Adunni got the scholarship!! She’s getting out of here!

Big Madam tells Adunni what happened to Rebecca (the previous maid) before she leaves for school. Rebecca had a miscarriage probably caused by Big Daddy. Big Madam says she drove her to the hospital and dumped her off with some money afterward and told her to never come back. Adunni doesn’t know if she can believe Big Madam who gets pissed when Adunni questions her. So I guess we will never really know exactly what happened to Rebecca.

Chapter 56

The writing in this chapter uses present tense which Tia taught Adunni earlier. Adunni was convinced she would never be able to learn it, and here she is using it over and over in Chapter 56 (I’m not crying. You’re crying). Tia takes Adunni to her new school and tells her they are going to adopt.

And that’s the end.

Wait. It’s over? But how does Adunni do in school? Does Big Madam take Big Daddy back? Kofi, the chef, says that Big Madam won’t keep her business if she isn’t married. Why? Is it against the law or will people not support her because they are sexist? Does Adunni get to see her brother again? Does she become a teacher or something else? Does she get a happy marriage? Does Tia like being a mom? How can this be over? Where’s book 2? I’m not ready for this story to end.

I guess this is the part where I get to make up what happens next since I have so many questions. I want Adunni to excel at school, reunite with her brother, become happily married and be a beloved teacher. I can see her advocating for young girls to save them from going through what she went through. I hope Big Madam gets some therapy, divorces Big Daddy and her business does better than ever. And I bet that Tia becomes a great mom. All of that would make a lame book 2, but if Abi Dare ever does write a sequel I will definitely read it because I know it will be way better than my version. But at least in my head, they are all now living happily ever after.

Thanks so much for reading my review! If you made it to the end, I would love to hear your feedback. Did you like this new review style? What would you want me to change? I would also love to hear your thoughts about the book! Leave your feedback or thoughts about the book in the comments or connect with me on social media (I love using Instagram.

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Where the Crawdads Sing

For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life–until the unthinkable happens.
Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

I started reading Where the Crawdads Sing right before the coronavirus hit my state in March 2020. Just as things started to take a turn for the worst in the book for the main character Kya, my family went into self-isolation. I almost couldn’t finish reading it because I couldn’t handle even one more thing going wrong, even if it was fiction. But I’m glad I read this. I found that I related to Kya’s loneliness more than I normally would have. In fact, when we discussed this at book club the first question that the host asked, which she had written before we all went into self-isolation, was how isolation affected Kya. And then added a follow up question of how had isolation affected us which made everyone laugh. But we also had a good discussion. “How much do you trade to defeat lonesomeness? (Pg 163)” After Covid-19, that doesn’t feel like such a rhetorical question anymore.

The swamp almost felt like a character. Everyone leaves her except the land. “Whenever she stumbled, it was the land that caught her. (pg 34)” It reminded me of Tara in Gone with the Wind. Kya is so young when her older siblings leave that she can’t even remember their names. She wonders why no one takes them with her. I wondered that, too. Because of Kya’s isolation, she has a special relationship with the land. “Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother. (pg 34)” It’s beautiful how literal that statement turns out to be. She learns from the minnows how to live with her abusive father. “Just keep out of the way, don’t let him see you, dart from sunspots to shadows. (pg 16)” But nature doesn’t have all the answers. She can’t figure out in all the biology that she studies “why a mother would leave her offspring. (pg 131)”

Kya was such an endearing, innocent, and relatable character. “She wanted to learn to read and what came after twenty-nine. (pg 27)” I just wanted to hug her when she couldn’t remember how to pray when she desperately needed help. I wanted to adopt her when the kerosene lights went out in her house the first time she was all alone. She was too young to realize that was even a chore that needed to be done. My heart ached for the little girl alone in the dark. Kya struggled to connect with people. For some reason, this quote really seemed to capture one of the biggest reasons she didn’t fit in: “Barkley Cove served its religion hard-boiled and deep-fried. (pg 66)” She didn’t know any of the names of the girls who were her age, so she gave them nicknames like “Tallskinnyblonde.” There’s something fascinating about the way Kya describes nature that makes it so relatable like her description of hens killing a wounded bird so it won’t attract predators. When Kya described it, it sounded less like a biology lesson and more like an accurate description of how the town treated her. By far my favorite observation of Kya’s was this: “Kya knew it wasn’t so much that the herd would be incomplete without one of its deer, but that each deer would be incomplete without her herd. (pg 272)” Right now, I can relate to that feeling of being incomplete without my “herd” a lot.

I was pleasantly surprised by the murder mystery story line. I wasn’t expecting it. And naturally, the more you read the more you wonder if maybe Kya is the murderer. I kept track of all the clues that it might be her. But then I couldn’t help wonder if I was prejudiced like the people in the town. And I had no idea what to do with the even more compelling clues that it wasn’t her. It had me guessing until the very end and I loved it. The cops were unexpectedly funny which I loved, too. I adored Where the Crawdads Sing. And it seems like I read it at the perfect time. It was exactly the story I needed right now.

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About Delia Owens

Delia Owens is the co-author of three internationally bestselling nonfiction books about her life as a wildlife scientist in Africa—Cry of the Kalahari, The Eye of the Elephant, and Secrets of the Savanna. She has won the John Burroughs Award for Nature Writing and has been published in Nature, The African Journal of Ecology, and International Wildlife, among many others. She currently lives in Idaho, where she continues her support for the people and wildlife of Zambia. Where the Crawdads Sing is her first novel.

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I have kept a journal all my life. My first journal entry was actually written by my mom under my direction because I was too young to write. When I was a teenager, I got some advice on how to write a journal entry that I have followed ever since and I wanted to share it with you. I’ll show you how to make anything into an interesting journal entry. This method will also help you process your stress and emotions. Anyone else having a lot of stress and emotions right now?? Journaling has been a big help to me during these stressful times and I hope this helps you, too.

5 Things all Journal Entries Should Have

All journal entries should include:

• Who
• What
• Where
• When
• Why
• How

This is something you might have heard in writing. I had heard it, too. But I had never thought about how to apply it to journal writing. I’ll show you a sample journal entry and how each of these items can make it better.

What and When

Most people when they write a journal entry only include the what and when. For example:

March 24, 2020

I did the dishes today.

And then you make another entry in 10 years, right? Haha. I don’t blame you. So here’s where the other questions come in to help your journal entry.

Why

When you record what happened in the day, ask yourself why. WHY did you do that? For example:

March 24, 2020

I did the dishes today because my family has been home for a week now. We are self-isolating because of the corona virus.

Adding why you do things to your journal entry will give it context. Context is easily lost in old journal entries. People often assume they will remember why it was significant that they did the dishes on that day. I can promise you, as someone who regularly reads old journal entries, that it is not obvious. Writing down why you do things will give meaning to your entries when you go back and read them. It will also help you process what you are going through right now. Maybe you didn’t realize how much of an adjustment that was for you to do the dishes until you wrote it down and thought about it. It can help you give yourself much needed validation and compassion.

How

How did that make you feel?

March 24, 2020

I did the dishes today because my family has been home for a week now. We are self-isolating because of the corona virus. I felt overwhelmed by the amount of dishes there were to do. I miss our old life where we were able to eat out more often and I got a break from doing the dishes.

Writing how even seemingly unimportant things makes me feel has helped me process my emotions. By writing them down, I haven’t smothered or ignored them. Those feelings now feel taken care of and I can move on. Sometimes I’m afraid that if I ignore these Important Feelings, then I will regret it. Since I wrote them down, I can tell myself that if I ever need those Important Feelings, I can come back to them any time I need to. Most of the time, I don’t need those feelings again.

Where

Make it a habit to include place names in your entry. I do this more often when I travel, but if you are at home try to mention once in your journal what city, state, or country you live in. If you go to a restaurant, store, or other location write that down. Small details like this are really hard to find or remember when you go back and read your entries.

Who

Try to always include the first and last names of people you mention at least once per journal entry. After that, you can just use first names. Don’t assume 5 years from now you will know who “Tom” is that kindly left you paper plates. Also try to include quotes from people as much as you can. Even when I was only 7 years old, I would write direct quotes from my aunts, uncles, parents, cousins, and siblings. They are some of my favorite journal entries to read. I can’t tell you how much comfort it’s given me to go back and read quotes from family members who have passed away. Or read things my children said when they were little. By the way, include children’s ages when writing about them. It can be hard to figure out later and it also adds context to entries.

March 24, 2020

Los Angeles, California

I did the dishes today because my family has been home for a week now. We are self-isolating because of the corona virus. I felt overwhelmed by the amount of dishes there were to do. I miss our old life where we were able to eat out more often and I got a break from doing the dishes. When our neighbor, Tom Hanks, dropped off some extra paper plates today, I almost cried. I haven’t been able to find paper plates anywhere. I finally caught up with my dishes today because of those paper plates. When I told him how grateful I was through tears, he said, “Don’t cry! There’s no crying in baseball!!” It made me laugh. Tom is always saying things like that.

Here’s a little cheat sheet to remind you of all the items to put in a journal entry:

• When – Use full dates
• What – describe events and actions
• Why did you do that? Why did that happen?
• How did that make you feel?
• Where did this happen? Use cities, states, countries, and even location names like restaurants if you can.
• Who. When mentioning people, always use first and last names once per entry. If writing about kids, try to include their age too.

Journal writing can be powerful in overcoming trauma. Here’s a quote from an article in the New York Times from 2018:

On the other hand, Dr. Pennebaker’s research has found that journaling about traumatic or disturbing experiences specifically has the most measurable impact on our overall well-being. 

In his landmark 1988 study, outlined in his book “Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotion,” students were randomly assigned to write about either traumatic experiences or superficial topics for four days in a row. Six weeks after the writing sessions, those that had delved into traumatic experiences reported more positive moods and fewer illnesses than those writing about everyday experiences.

I hope this little blog post helps you. I picked the example of doing the dishes to show that you can write a journal entry about anything. I hope that you realize that your life is worth writing about. Everyone has something worthwhile to say.

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The post How to Write a Journal Entry When You Think You Have Nothing to Say first appeared on Books: A true story

Star Wars: Aftermath

New York Times Bestseller • Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens
“Star Wars: Aftermath [reveals] what happened after the events of 1983’s Return of the Jedi. It turns out, there’s more than just the Empire for the good guys to worry about.”—The Hollywood Reporter
As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance—now a fledgling New Republic—presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star Destroyers gather like birds of prey circling for a kill, but he’s taken captive before he can report back to the New Republic leaders.
Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface, former rebel fighter Norra Wexley has returned to her native world—war weary, ready to reunite with her estranged son, and eager to build a new life in some distant place. But when Norra intercepts Wedge Antilles’s urgent distress call, she realizes her time as a freedom fighter is not yet over. What she doesn’t know is just how close the enemy is—or how decisive and dangerous her new mission will be.
Determined to preserve the Empire’s power, the surviving Imperial elite are converging on Akiva for a top-secret emergency summit—to consolidate their forces and rally for a counterstrike. But they haven’t reckoned on Norra and her newfound allies—her technical-genius son, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and a reprobate Imperial defector—who are prepared to do whatever they must to end the Empire’s oppressive reign once and for all.

The Writing is of the Dark Side

The number one thing you need to know about Star Wars Aftermath: sentence fragments. Confusion. Action. Chaotic action. Sometimes it makes sense. I think the good guys won. Explosion. My brain from trying to read this fragmented story. It’s kind of exhausting to read. Here’s an example:

“Gagging. Coughing. Suddenly someone is there. Holding her. Pinning her arms.”

-Chuck Wendig, Star Wars: Aftermath pg 355

A few sentences later we find out it’s someone she knows and everything is ok. I’m not sure what you gain by making the story so confusing on purpose. In one instance towards the end some bad guys conveniently died in a crash that all the good guys survived. But 4 pages later I realized that by “gone” the character had meant the bad guys left but they weren’t dead. Grrr! Why is this story so frustrating?! And why is this whole book written in present tense? Isn’t Star Wars always past tense? You know from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?? I was so confused by the end of the book that I honestly couldn’t remember how the rebels found out some super secret information even though its literally the main plot. Don’t even get me started on how jerky the story was with frequent scene changes – sometimes after only a few paragraphs. I would pause while reading and summarize what happened to help with the confusion. So they stole a ship and got on board a Star Destroyer. Got it. I could usually capture a few pages of plot in one sentence. My example above actually happened over several pages. It made the whole story drag. A lot. And there are a few instances of retelling the exact same information from someone else’s point of view in case it wasn’t tedious enough for you.

The Cast is Huge in This One

There are soooo many characters to keep track of. I struggle with keeping characters straight in all the books I read, but this book stretched me to my very limit. Here are a few of my margin notes about the characters:

• The book starts with some minor characters Wedge and Ackbar. I mean, I love them but I prefer reading about Han, Leia, and Luke.
• Well Han, Leia, and Luke still aren’t here even though I’m about 10 chapters in. But I still have hope. I miss the old Legends stories where they were the main characters. Who the crap are these guys.
• pg 140 We are STILL meeting new characters!
• Pg 154 goody more characters. And this is the main story, let alone the interludes (for context, Aftermath has interludes of events happening all over the galaxy after the empire fell that aren’t part of the main story line. Are they important? Do these people show up again? I have no idea. I gave up keeping track a long time ago. If the interludes are there just for interest, it’s over before I’m able to care about anyone or anything. So not all that interesting. I don’t know what the point of them is supposed to be. Just more confusion is this confusion sandwich I guess.)
• Pg 199 I’m still tired of new characters just for the record.
• Pg 246 Han finally shows up! Yay!! Wait that’s it? Ugh. But I have a new hope that they will actually show up in the next book. Lots and lots of hope is getting me through.
• Pg 309 “Please let me introduce you to a character you already know because they are meeting other characters in this book.” It’s tedious. We get it.
• How do Wedge and Norra know each other? This seems like something I should know and obviously I missed it.
• Main character is dead. Except in the next sentence they are not. First I was shocked. Now I’m annoyed. Don’t worry it’s not a spoiler. It happens more than once.
• The book is over. Finally. The only character I liked was Bones the refurbed Clone Wars Battle Droid.
• Just kidding! Not over! There’s an epilogue with a NEW UNNAMED character and a crappy explanation for the whole story.

A New Hope

I’m sure at this point you’re wondering why I even bothered finishing the book. The only reason I trudged through is because this is one of the most interesting times in the Star Wars universe and I wanted to know what happens. And its not all bad. I just didn’t like the writing or the characters. What’s left you ask? Well, there’s some cool background information that I liked. For example, the Jedi weren’t all killed in Order 66. Vader took some to Mustafar. That explanation jives more with the original trilogy. There are also instances with rare but glorious complete sentences where we get some fascinating thoughts on politics. Mon Mothma talks about the emergency powers destroying democracy and stresses the importance of demilitarizing the government with this great quote:

“Democracy is not in need of defense. People are. […] We will be a true Galactic alliance, and not a false one with an authoritarian sun at its center.”

-Chuck Wendig, Star Wars: Aftermath pg 87

Other things I liked:

• a small scene foreshadowing Jakku
• Wedge feeling compassion to ex-Imperials
• some brief but funny sarcasm
• an acolyte describing the dark side as honest and direct because its merciless (I find this justification of evil fascinating)
• possible foreshadowing of the First Order
• a nod to Princess Leia when someone describes the Empire as keeping order through a closed fist
• references to the Solo movie
• the irony of the loyalty Imperial officer leaving because he was trained by the Empire to see their own weaknesses

My favorite ironic moment is when the Imperials over-plan their luxuries and skimp on the practical things like security. It’s good irony but as I’m writing this, it doesn’t come across as very Imperial to me. They were more about efficiency than luxury. Oh well. Wish me luck as I move on to book 2 in the Aftermath trilogy. I still have hope that Han, Leia, and Luke will show up.

Book Review of Star Wars: Aftermath on a Post-it

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About Chuck Wendig

Chuck Wendig is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Star Wars: Aftermath, as well as the Miriam Black thrillers, the Atlanta Burns books, Zer0es/Invasive, and his upcoming modern epic, Wanderers (Del Rey, 2019). He’s also worked in a variety of other formats, including comics, games, film, and television. A finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the cowriter of the Emmy-nominated digital narrative Collapsus, he is also known for his books about writing. He lives in Pennsyltucky with his family.

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The post Book Review: Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig first appeared on Books: A true story

I’m so excited to be doing a cover reveal for The Legacy of the Stewardship by N.R. Bergeson! I loved the first book in this series, The Magnificent Glass Globe. The author, N.R. Bergeson, has lived in over 6 different countries and visited over 65. My favorite thing about his book was how it inspired me to travel more and see all the amazing people and places in the world. The locations and people felt very authentic to me because he’s lived there. They are wonderfully diverse and well researched with a delightful story. If you haven’t read the first book, check out my review and be sure to read it before this new book comes out on March 3, 2020!

Summary

Several months after their unexpected adventure in the Amazon, Ike is not happy. He’s tired of being picked on and being treated like a baby. But when the kids learn Anatoly has kidnapped a group of innocent children and is holding them ransom in the forests of Siberia, Ike knows he has to do something. But Anatoly demands a steep price; they must hand over the globe. When Grandpa suffers a heart attack, Ike, Mary, and Helen decide to help the other kids. Reluctantly, they decide to use the globe once again. Only this time, they leave better prepared. Or so they thought. When they arrive in Russia, they quickly learn that their problems are much bigger than just Anatoly. When a mysterious group of people appear using a second globe, Mary is kidnapped, and now it is up to Ike and Helen to cross the vast country and find her.

Excerpt

Mary pulled the globe from her bag and held it for a moment.
“Why don’t you take a turn?” she said, offering the globe to Ike. “It’s probably better if we all get some practice.”
“What?” Ike said, shocked. “Uh, no thanks.”
He thought about how they’d crashed into a tree the first time Mary used the globe.
“I’ll tell you what to do,” she said, insisting. “You’ll do fine.”
Ike reluctantly agreed. Holding the globe in front of him, he spun it with his thumb. It began to rotate rapidly, and within a few seconds, it illuminated with the brilliant image of the earth’s surface.
“Ay caramba,” Helen said. “I had forgotten how intimidating this is.”
The world began to expand rapidly as Ike pressed his finger against the glass. In a matter of seconds, the schoolyard vanished around them, and they hung in space, looking down on the massive orb of the earth.
Ike gulped. He felt his finger shaking against the invisible glass in front of him.
“Here’s hoping I don’t dump us in the ocean,” he said.

About N.R. Bergeson

N. R. Bergeson is the author of the “Glass Globe” series of children’s novels, a U.S. Diplomat, and a passionate proponent of global education.

N. R. (Nils) Bergeson spent his childhood in beautiful Northern Utah, graduating from Utah State University, and later earned a Master’s degree the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He subsequently set off to see the world, and has since lived in Russia (as a missionary with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and later as a student), Romania (as a volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps), Colombia, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and soon Indonesia (all as a foreign service officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development). He has traveled to more than 60 countries with his wife, Emily, and their three young children.

Nils is enamored with the international world and plans to visit everywhere if he can. He hopes his writing will instill a desire in the rising generation to take advantage of modern opportunities to see the world, learn new languages, and expand their cultural experiences as far as they can.

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The post Cover Reveal: THE LEGACY OF THE STEWARDSHIP (The Magnificent Glass Globe #2) By N.R. Bergeson first appeared on Books: A true story

If I finished the goal, it’s in green. If I didn’t finish it, it’s red.

Reading

Read 50 books

Read 3 formats a time – ebook, physical, and audio.

I really like this strategy. I read an ebook instead of using social media. Reading for 2-3 minutes at a time all day really helped me reach my reading goal this year.

Get a TBR cart

Don’t buy any more books until all the books I haven’t read yet fit into one TBR cart.

I didn’t stick to my book buying ban very strictly and sadly my entire TBR definitely does not fit in my cart. If anything I need more bookshelves now.

Spiritual

Read the Come Follow Me manual every Sunday

Invite people over for dinner and a lesson on Sundays

Have a pin incentive for the kids to do scripture study

Finish reading the Book of Mormon

Health

Walk and listen to an audiobook

This worked so well that I’m going to do it again this year. I love it so much. It keeps me from being bored. My favorite audiobooks to listen to are Star Wars.

Make a monthly health chart with prizes. 

I gave up on my monthly prize charts. I switched to the Streaks app instead and I love it so much.

Keep a daily food diary 

I simplified it by just taking pictures of what I eat. I don’t need to track so many things now because I’m feeling a lot better.

Make a sugar tracker in my bullet journal. 

I also track more nutrition now, too. I use my fitness pal and apple health to see how much fiber, sugar, and iron I’m eating on average every day.

Blog

Blog 30 hours a month. 

I’m trying to simplify my blogging so that I can do it more often. I really miss blogging.

The Year of Camping

Buy quality camping gear. 

Our goal was to have the comfort of an RV while in a tent. We definitely achieved that but what we didn’t think about was cargo space. It didn’t all fit in our van. So we are still trying to figure out how to solve that. But once we do, we will camp in style.

Camping bucket list this year: Redwood Forest 

We weren’t able to visit Dinosaur National Park like we wanted to so we went to Capitol Reef instead and oh my gosh I loved it! We are going again this year. Great Basin National Park had to be canceled because there was a lightning storm the whole time we were planning on going. But we will go there someday.

Christmas at Disneyland (Especially Star Wars Land)

We almost had to cancel this trip when our house flooded and we had to get all new floors. But we were able to shop around for floors and do some of the work ourselves to save money and we were able to still go on our trip. It was the best experience ever and I hope we go over Christmas again someday.

Personal

Organize pantry

Food storage in basement

Finish old journal

Finish hand lettering book

Do chores on Friday nights

Organize basement

Finish entryway

Get a library with a rolling ladder

I love looking back on my goals and seeing whether I did them or not. It’s never perfect, but I’m always surprised at how many I did finish. Overall, I finished 13/24 goals.

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The post How I Did On My New Year’s Resolutions 2019 first appeared on Books: A true story

I’ve always made my resolutions in categories in my life. It helps me find balance. And with the new youth program from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I just tweaked my format to follow theirs because it’s such a great program and I wanted to follow it even though I’m not even close to being young enough. I’m young at heart, right?

Spiritual Goals

• Meditate Daily
• Read Scriptures Daily
• Keep a gratitude journal

Social Goals

• Post to my bookstagram account regularly
• Have board game date nights
• Have movie nights or lunch dates with my friends

Physical Goals

• Do yoga daily
• Keep a food diary
• Exercise 5x a week
• Pretrack my food in my weight watchers app to help me lose weight
• Take a shower and wear makeup every day. Wearing makeup gets me to actually wash my face at night and when I do it consistantly, my skin stops breaking out and looks so much healthier.
• Marie Kondo my house

Intellectual Goals

• Take a Masterclass on writing by Neil Gaiman and makeup by Bobbi Brown
• Bullet journal daily
• Read 20 minutes daily in a physical or ebook
• Blog weekly

A lot of my goals are daily goals. I love the streaks app because for some reason it’s motivating for me to do something today if I’ve already done it 5 days in a row. I will also bend over backwards to keep my 169 day streak in meditating. I don’t know why it works for me but it does.

So the main thing I’m working on to achieve these goals is a sustainable daily routine. So far, I take a shower when I first wake up because I was wasting time in bed on social media for an hour because I was too cold and groggy to get up. I have always showered every other day because my hair is too dry to wash every day so I just washed my face on days that I didn’t shower. I love showering every day! I wear a shower cap and go longer between washing my hair and it’s been so much healthier. I prayed for help this year to know how to achieve my goals and I was inspired to make that one small change. After I showered, I was awake and warm so I did my makeup quickly and then did yoga and meditation. By that time, I was able to eat (I have to take meds on an empty stomach 1 hour before eating which was why I justified staying in bed on social media). With that one small change, I had achieved 4 of my 12 daily self-care goals before breakfast and I was able to keep myself occupied while I was waiting to eat that I felt good about.

I’m still working on finding time to blog and post to instagram. So far I’ve done it in the afternoon sometimes, but nothing consistent yet. My evening routine involves reading my scriptures and exercising.

I don’t have a routine for reading but I programed my phone to start the reading timer as soon as I open my ebook app and I read an ebook when I’m waiting for things or I want a break for five minutes. By the end of the day, I’ve easily hit 20 minutes even though I’m reading in 2-3 minute chunks.

Bullet journaling is the habit I struggle with the most. I have not found a good routine for it yet, but I will keep praying for ideas and looking for inspiration from my friends and family.

I wanted to find a scripture that would help me stick to my goals and I loved this phrase from Romans 2:7 “…patient continuance in well doing…” I feel like my biggest challenge is going to be trying again each day no matter how I did the day before.

The youth program also has a place to write a way you are going to celebrate finishing your goal. If I’m getting 70% achievement in all my goals, I’m going to buy myself a new smart watch. My husband is keeping me accountable and I’m so excited.

What New Year’s Resolutions do you set? I love hearing about other’s dreams and goals!

Find me on Twitter @BooksATrueStory

The post New Year’s Resolutions 2020 first appeared on Books: A true story

Wishtree

Trees can't tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . .
Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood "wishtree"—people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red's branches. Along with her crow friend Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red's hollows, this "wishtree" watches over the neighborhood.
You might say Red has seen it all. Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red's experiences as a wishtree are more important than ever.

It must have been fate to find Wishtree at the library right before our road trip to the Redwoods. We listened to the audiobook and followed along in the book as we drove among the huge trees.

I had no idea that Wishtree was told from the perspective of a tree. Listening to Red, the tree, tell her story made the forest around us come alive. I felt like the forest itself was talking to us as we drove under some of the biggest trees in the world. And it was nothing short of magic to hear a tree tell us fascinating biology facts that I had never heard before as we watched the beautiful forest go by out the window. I had no idea that only one percent of a tree is ever alive at any one time (pg 35).

And wow was the writing beautiful.

Trees can’t tell jokes. But we can certainly tell stories. And if all you hear is the whisper of leave, don’t worry. Most tress are introverts at heart.

-Katherine Applegate, Wishtree pg 3

Red is optimistic and endearing and not quite what you would expect a very old tree to be. She had wonderful advice about the virtues of the hollows in her trunk.

Proof that something bad can become something good with enough time and care and hope.

-Katherine Applegate, Wishtree pg 24

As much as I adored this book, my kids loved it, too. It’s funny and charming. My favorite part was probably all the creative animals names especially the raccoon babies being named You, You and You.

A delightful book that I highly recommend. And if you really want to experience it’s magic, read it outside under a tree.

Book Review of Wishtree on a Post-it

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About Katherine Applegate

Applegate was born in Michigan in 1956. Since then she has lived in Texas, Florida, California, Minnesota, Illinois, North Carolina, and after living in Pelago, Italy for a year, she has moved back to Southern California. She has an eleven year old son named Jake Mates, although she says the Animorph leader is not named after him. In 2003 she and her husband, Michael Grant, her co-author on many projects including Animorphs, adopted their daughter, Julia, in China.[citation needed] Following the end of Animorphs, Applegate took three years off. She is back at work and has written a picture book called "The Buffalo Storm," a middle reader novel called "Home of the Brave," and an early chapters series "Roscoe Riley Rules" with Harper Collins. Her book "Home of the Brave" has won the SCBWI Golden Kite Award, the Bank Street 2008 Josette Frank Award, and is a Judy Lopez Memorial Award honor book.

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The post Book Review: Wishtree by Katherine Applegate first appeared on Books: A true story

I went to Evermore Park four times during the Aurora season. Now that my health is starting to recover, I finally want to share my experience at the season finale for Aurora on February 2, 2019. If you want to read about my other Evermore Park visits during Aurora, Part 1 is about going before Christmas, Part 2 is about their New Year’s Eve Party and the new coded messages quest, and Part 3 is about our girls night out. This post is about the date night with my husband on the very last night which I’m calling a season finale.

Finding the Golden Ticket

My husband had to meet me at the park so I met up with some of my Evermore friends – Rachel and Danny – to do the new puzzle quest that night. It asked questions about character names and I knew all but 4 answers off the top of my head. Does that mean I go too much? LOL.

The big thing for the season finale were some golden VIP tickets hidden somewhere in the park. Danny mentioned that he had already gotten the VIP ticket that Rachel and I were looking for. He said that Sephtis the executioner would give you one if you traded something from our world. I had a bunch of collectible Owlcrate button pins that I didn’t like and one of them even had a skull on it, which I told him I thought he would like. Score! I also had to give him all my gold which was like 5 pieces. Rachel sadly had to trade her scarf because she forgot to bring trinkets to trade.

My husband met up with me and we decided to go ice skating. After ice skating, we met Folda and she had a quest. She wanted us to keep the dwarves from leaving and she needed our help making something to help them feel loved. We needed to show Tinker at the tavern the candle Folda had given us and he gave us a bell because the dwarves liked bells. He said to talk to Laura and Violet to add music but we couldn’t find them.

In the tavern we also met Rainer and Drifa. Rainer winked at me.

“How are you?” I asked him.

He said, “It is good now you are here.” Awwwww. Then Drifa gave me the last pearl I needed to finish my necklace.

We looked in the town square for the two girls we needed to finish the dwarf quest with the bell but they weren’t there so we got some food. I scarfed down a delicious cupcake and my husband got potatoes and beef skewers. I didn’t want to wait for him to finish eating so I went to find Gudrun who is the town historian and knows everything. She’s the one I talk to when I’m stuck. Elinore was with her and to my delight, they both recognized me. They informed me of a going away party for the Auroreans at 9:30 and suggested looking for Laura and Violet at the Burrows. They were there and we were able to sing a song to the dwarves with words on a piece of paper they gave us. There was no tune to the words so we had to make it up and it was….interesting. Haha!

The VIP Experience

Our ticket for the VIP experience had a time slot and it was our time now to go. They had free food – hot dogs, hot apple cider, smores bars, chips and drinks. It was pretty good.

Bryan from Florida introduced himself (as Bryan from Florida) and said they were experimenting with a new story telling platform. He asked some questions about us to get to know us and then we moved to a fire pit with fake candles that had carved logs placed all around it. He told us to analyze the logs – “analog if you will” – and pick one. We picked a cool one with a man’s face on it. It reminded me of an Ent from Lord of the Rings.

We went into the dragon keep building and sat around a campfire on benches. It was like an old Viking lodge piled full of artifacts in every nook and cranny. Jordani the fortune teller was there. He explained that he had made a deal with the fairies for a back door portal. There he found a friend that we were going to meet as well. It turned out his friend was a talking campfire.

The talking fire (I can’t remember if it had a name or not–Sparky maybe??) made lots of punny jokes about his 15 minutes of “flame” etc. etc. I think he said he came from an ember of the spark of imagination. He told a story about how camp fires were the original theater. The room actually smelled like smoke and our seats rumbled as he explained that he remembered all stories told to him. The fire asked us to place our memory logs around him (to login lol) and he started talking to the people in the group. The camp fire told us information that Bryan from Florida had asked us before we came in. It was a fun interactive theater. Until the fire started talking individually to people, I had thought it was a recording. I hope they bring this cool interactive feature to the park someday.

I wanted to talk to the dragon trainers since I had missed a special ceremony they did a few weeks ago to find out what had happened. I found the dragon trainers in the middle of a conversation with world walkers (aka people visiting like me) and the trainers suggested having a school and calling it “how to train your dragon.” We laughed and the dragon trainer said that the world walkers always laughed when she said that and she didn’t know why.

On our girls night out visit, we had helped the dragon trainers with a quest to find blue salt to help hatch the dragons. She said the salt had protected the dragons and now hundreds were on their way to Evermore. They were very excited about it. The dragon trainers didn’t have their dragons with them that night because they were too restless with all the new dragons coming.

There were new coded messages in the park and I took pictures of them, but I didn’t have time to solve them. I mentioned that to Gudrun when I saw her again and she said they were supposed to be almost impossible to solve anyway so I shouldn’t worry about solving them tonight.

Saying Goodbye to the Auroreans

It was time for the going away party for the Auroreans. It was on the steps near the fountain and even though the lighting was good, the people were standing off to the side and I couldn’t see them. Hopefully they’ll work out staging for next season. There were a ton of people there and we couldn’t hear well so Sedric the executioner’s apprentice gave a commentary on what was happening and it was hilarious. “Suds made a baby blanket for the Auroreans!” Haha! There was lots of crying from the Auroreans and the dwarves announced they would be staying. Then we all headed to the portal (which I had to ask about. It’s the entrance to the park which I hadn’t realized). We chatted with Boris at the park entrance. He said the king of Aurora had proclaimed him the King of the Bugs and that when the Auroreans leave, it will be warm again.

There were lots of pictures being taken with the characters and one big group one that people kept joining. You’re photo bombing my group pic King Aerik! HAHA!

I actually left the park feeling kind of sad instead of celebrating defeating the darkness like we did during the Lore season. I also felt like I missed so much of the story.

Before I left, I asked Danny what his name was. He said, “Why? Are you going to blog about me?” I am now! HAHA! I had my notebook out and he knows that I love to blog about Evermore Park. But I asked his permission and he said it’s fine to blog about him. He has a great Instagram feed with portraits of characters from Evermore Park. You should totally go check it out!

Solving the Impossible Cipher

When I got home, I realized the coded messages had riddles on them in English that led to a scavenger hunt around the park to find the key’s to the code. They had never done that before and I was sad I missed out on that. People posted the keys on facebook but it wasn’t the same as finding them on my own.

On February 5, I cracked the Evermore code that was supposed to be almost impossible. It was a blast doing it!! I felt like Sherlock Holmes. Lots of people on Facebook were trying to work together to crack them and no one was having any luck. Here’s how I cracked it:

I noticed a few patterns that told me it wasn’t a substitution cipher like it had been for all the other coded messages. There were repeating patterns in long words but with one or two letters that were different. None of the 3 letter words had a pattern that made sense. One of the words was the pattern ZZY (but in symbols) and there are no 3 letter words in the English language that have a double letter at the beginning (that I know of).

I had two theories to explain these patterns. The first was that the letters were scrambled. So I took all the two letter words and saw if they made sense once they were swapped. They didn’t. None of them even had vowels in them.

My second theory was that it was a more complicated type of code instead of the simple substitution ciphers that had been in the park so far. I googled different kinds of codes until I came across the Vigenere cipher. It uses a different alphabet with each letter which causes random repeating patterns. That’s what this code looked like! It uses a key phrase to unlock the code. At the season finale, the quiz paper we had been given said “Here lies the key to wrap up the mystery.” I remember thinking at the time that it was odd that there were no spaces in the message. But key phrases don’t use spaces. Plus Gudrun the historian in the park mentioned it was supposed to be almost impossible to solve and the Vigenere cipher was called “the impossible cipher” for years. I felt pretty sure that I was on the right track.

The problem was there were two codes I had to crack. It was coded in symbols, not letters, and I didn’t know which symbol stood for E. I made some educated guesses with the symbols people had found around the park but it didn’t translate into words with the Vigenere cipher. I noticed that the first word in the message was 3 letters and I wondered if it was the word “the.” Working backwards with the key phrase through the Vigenere cipher, the letters would be ULZ. So I flipped my symbol wheel cipher (that I had luckily made with my scout troop last week of all things) to match U to the first symbol in the word. If my theory was right, then the next two symbols would line up with L and Z. I got chills when it did.

I translated it once from the symbols into letters and then again from scrambled letters to a message using the Vigener cipher. I was pretty proud of myself for cracking it in two days. My son who went with me the first time helped me translate the symbols into letters. As far as I know, I was the first to solve it. I had been chatting with some people in the Syndicate guild and shared with them how I solved it. The riddle that came out made no sense to me and the guild cracked that. It actually turned out to be a phone number. Pretty cool. I left a dorky message. Apologies to whoever had to listen to it haha.

Mythos has some exciting stuff and I can’t wait to go again. They have more coded messages and adventure cards that you can collect and guilds to join. I’ll write about my visits when I go this season, too.

Thank you so much for reading my post! If you want to read more about my Evermore Park adventures, here’s a list of all my posts about the park so far:

• Lore Part 1
• Lore Part 2
• Aurora Part 1
• Aurora Part 2
• Aurora Part 3
• * This Post: Aurora Part 4

Photo copyright: The featured image belongs to Evermore Park. All other photos taken by me.

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The post Aurora at Evermore Park: Part 4 – Season Finale and How I Solved the Impossible Cipher first appeared on Books: A true story

Harry Potter Page to Screen: The Complete Filmmaking Journey

"Harry Potter: Page to Screen" opens the doors to Hogwarts castle and the wizarding world of Harry Potter to reveal the complete behind-the-scenes secrets, techniques, and over-the-top artistry that brought J.K. Rowling's acclaimed novels to cinematic life. Developed in collaboration with the creative team behind the celebrated movie series, this deluxe, 500-plus page compendium features exclusive stories from the cast and crew, hundreds of never-before-seen photographs and concept illustrations sourced from the closed film sets, and rare memorabilia. As the definitive look at the magic that made cinematic history, "Page to Screen" is the ultimate collectible, perfect for Muggles everywhere.

Harry Potter Page to Screen was like reading a yearbook of your time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It’s sentimental, full of great stories to reminisce about and there are lots or gorgeous pictures. There’s actually quite a bit of text even though it looks like mostly pictures. It tells how they made the movie in a story format. There’s a lot of information that it goes over but the narrative ties it together and keeps it interesting.

My review is mostly notes on the random facts that I found interesting. I can’t say for sure, but even if you’ve watched and read every documentary on the making of Harry Potter, you will still find nuggets of interesting stuff in this book.

• The Quidditch pitch was inspired by a medieval jousting tournament (Pg 47)
• The shots on location for King’s Cross Station were actually filmed between platforms 4 & 5 (pg 56)
• Rupert and Dan couldn’t do a scene without giggling so they had to be separated during the first movie. (I have boys this age. They always have to be seperated lol.) (pg 63)
• Dan Radcliffe found it ironic that the forrest set was made of plaster trees and a wooden bottom. Me too, Dan :) (pg 84)
• There was enough content to make the Goblet of Fire into two movies, but the director, Mike Newell, didn’t feel like there was enough story for two movies.
• There are a ton of locations. The locations might even outnumber the characters and creatures featured in this book.
• All the Harry Potter sets have some sort of basis on something that is real. Hogwarts castle was based on Oxford and cathedrals for example. (pg 339)
• Hogsmeade Station was a location shot at Goathand Village. It’s a real heritage line that didn’t need many changes for the film and was built in 1865.

Book Review of Harry Potter Page to Screen on a Post-it

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The post Book Review: Harry Potter Page to Screen by Bob McCabe first appeared on Books: A true story