Kävik the Wolf Dog

‘Kavik the Wolf Dog‘, is a book written by Walt Morey, and illustrated by Peter Parnall.  It was written in 1968 and has around one-hundred and ninety-two pages.

A brief review of the story might be something like this:

Charlie One-Eye (as he is called) is a dog breeder/trainer of sorts.  Kävik, is a vicious (but as Charlie One-Eye soon finds out, quick learning) pup who comes into the world on Charlie’s farm.  This is when Charlie finally gets the chance–a real chance–to win the North American Sled Dog Derby at Fairbanks.  So Charlie One-Eye trains Kävik up to be as mean and tough as he can get, so that he has what it takes to lead Charlie’s team to the Finish Line.

This is the dog that George C. Hunter saw standing at the Finish Line of the North American Sled Dog Derby.  While the rest of Charlie One-Eye’s team was laying in heaps–obviously exhausted–Kävik stood erect in the middle of the road, ready to start up again if his master gave the signal.  This was the dog that Mr. Hunter wanted to buy.

And so he did.  Mr. Hunter bought Kävik from Charlie One-Eye for a hefty two-thousand dollars.  It was arranged that the dog would be flown by Smiley Johnson over to Copper City, where one of Mr. Hunter’s tenders would take him aboard and deliver the dog to Mr. Hunter in Seattle.

But then, tragedy strikes.

What will happen to Kävik?

What I Liked About This Book:  This story was fun to read and wholesome, and was a lot like what I would expect from a classic about a dog.  All in all, it was very enjoyable, and I would say that kids (probably eight-years-old or older) who are dog fans would like it.

What I Didn’t Like About This Book:  There isn’t anything in particular that I didn’t like about this book.  🙂

Come back next week to read about ‘The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow’!

😉

I’m So Excited!

But seriously, I am!  😀

My parents surprised me by getting me a Bamboo Tablet (so that I can now draw digital art and possibly even animate) and a few days later, I was surprised again with a new video camera!  :O

I’ve been posting a lot of my art on my DeviantART, but I’ll go ahead and post some of it here…

This was my first attempt at drawing with my Tablet.

Later, when I was more acquainted with how to use my Tablet, I drew this. (It’s supposed to be Tigerclaw).

This is what happened when I was practicing drawing cats’ paws.

Doodles of different facial expressions. XD

And then we’ll just skip ahead to what I drew yesterday, which was more practice on cat paws.

So, I always seem to want to draw cats, dogs, horses, and Transformers…  Speaking of which, I took a drawing tutorial on how to draw Optimus Prime the other day, and I ended up with this:

And as for my new video camera:

Also, thank you all who told me about animating programs before.

😉

Animating?

You know that saying that goes like, ‘If you dream it, you can do it’ or something along those lines?  Well, one of my problems is that I spend way to much time dreaming it, and not actually investing my time in doing it.

For instance: I think that learning how to program a robot would be super cool, but instead of learning about robots so that I can grow up and get a career in building robots, all I want to do is lay around and daydream about my idea for a robot.

Another problem is that I have a lot of things that I’d like to do.  There’s the robot thing–but I also want to be a voice actor, an author, an artist, and to work with horses/at an animal shelter.  Because I love to draw, write/read, robots/computers, and animals of about any kind, I just want to do all of this stuff.

Truthfully, I could do more than one thing, and I hope to grow up and do at least two of those things that are listed above.

But there’s something that I’ve become very interested in lately.  I guess it’s kind of unusual, but I do like to write scripts (or just writing stories in general) and to draw.

Animating.  I really, really, really, want to learn how to animate.  I want to take the ideas that I have in my head, or the ideas that I already have written down into a story, and turn them into animations for others (and myself) to enjoy.

I’m not sure why, but the idea of my stories being put into the form of a cartoon gets me so excited, that I’ve managed to snap out of my little daydream about it, (or at least partly) and actually start researching it.

So I got word from someone on DeviantART that you can make animations with Photoshop, and that there is a thirty-day free trial for Photoshop.  I’ve actually heard from more than one place that you can animate with Photoshop, and I’ve even watched some of the animations that people have made with it.

So today I looked up ‘Photoshop’ and found a website for it.  But guess what?  The website is so ridiculously confusing!  But I am so close to being able to do it, that I’m too excited to stop now.  So does anybody know how to download the free trial for the animation program to Photoshop?  Or do you know a better program for animating?

I’m not looking for three-dimensional animations, I’m looking for how to animate cartoons.

Thanks for reading–I really want to know.

O_O

My Brother’s Birthday!

Yesterday, April 9th, was my youngest brother’s birthday!  He is now five-years-old, and I think that he had a good Birthday, too.

He got a Star Wars Lego set with his favorite Star Wars character in it, (Boba Fett, or however you spell his name) along with other things that had been sent by family, plus some cards.

I got him a present too–or actually, I made him a present.  I drew him a picture of Toon Link (the main character from ‘The Legend Of Zelda and The Windwaker) and he seemed to like it.  I enjoyed drawing Toon Link too.  🙂

Plus, mom made a chocolate cake that had purple icing on top, with sprinkles in the shape of a five!  And here’s another plus: for dinner, she made macaroni!  We all love macaroni!

Unfortunately, all of the photos from his Birthday are on my mom’s laptop, so I can’t put them in this post.  But I can try to post some of them later.

😉

 

I’m Sexy And I Know It? And My Mom Has A Clone

I’ve had a few more wacky dreams since my last post about a weird dream that I had.

But I felt like posting about the most recent dream that I’ve had.  🙂

My Newest Weird Dream (or at least what I am still able to remember of it.)

I remember that I was walking in a store, just me and no one else.  Well actually–there were plenty of other shoppers there, but my parents and brothers weren’t there.  So for some reason I’m shopping all alone, and then suddenly–‘I’m Sexy And I Know It’ comes on overhead.

Now for those of you who don’t know, ‘I’m Sexy And I Know It’ is a song about this guy who keeps singing about how girls are looking at his body and how ‘he’s sexy and he knows it’.  All in all, the song sums up in my brain to be very ridiculous, despite it’s catchy tune.

Realizing that this ridiculous song is playing overhead, the other shoppers begin to line up to the sides of the store and laugh.  At this exact moment I am walking out of the door, probably with a shopping cart or a shopping bag, when I have the sudden urge to start dancing.  And so I do.  I start dancing in the store on my way out the door, and it was probably really fun/funny for me in my dream–but I don’t really remember that part.

 Once I am out of the store, I see a lady hanging out of a car window in the parking lot, and from the back of her head I think that it’s my mother.  So I walk up to her and begin to talk, but then she turns her head.  She turned out to be a women with dark shades and dark-red hair who was leaning out of some fancy kind of car while her and my mom chatted from their car windows.

And what happened next?  Well, I don’t really remember.

😛

Star in the Storm

‘Star in the Storm‘ is a book written by Joan Hiatt Harlow.  Here is how it goes:

A young girl named Maggie has a lot of things going on in her life.  Her cousin, Vera, falls ill with a fever so quickly, that nobody expects it.  There is a huge ice-berg blocking the way into Bonnie Bay, which causes problems for more than one boat.  And atop all of that, a new law is passed that says that the only dogs aloud in Bonnie Bay are sheepdogs and other herding dogs.

Maggie has a dog too–his name is Sirius–but he doesn’t herd.  But no matter how desperate she is to protect her beautiful dog from the new law, there is a tragedy in Bonnie Bay.  And only Sirius can fix it.

What will Maggie chose?  Her dog–or saving a hundred human lives?

What I liked about this book: It was very fun to read and learn about Newfoundland culture.  The story was good, and the description was good too.  I think that nine-years-old and up could read this book, but it really just depends on your reading level, not your age.  😉

What I didn’t like about this book: Hm…  Well, I suppose that if there was a version of this that was written for more older readers, I would like that.  But even though it isn’t exactly in my level, there were still some words that I didn’t know.  I may even re-read it and find those words again.  🙂

Tune in next Friday to here about ‘Kävik the Wolf Dog’.

😉

This and That

First of all, it’s like 12:05am and I’m writing a blog post.  I read somewhere that teenagers are more active at night, and I think that it’s true–because nighttime is when I seem to get the most inspiration for my writing and whatnot.  But I’m definitely going to bed before 1:00am.  I mean, something inside me is like ‘just do it–stay up until it’s morning just to say that you did it’ but then I’m like–‘no dude, I already sleep until like 10:0o!’.  So yeah.  Mental wars.  *dun dun duh*!  😛

I was playing Minecraft just now, as I’ve gotten to really like that game.  Especially now that I actually kind of know what I’m doing on there.  And I learned how to take recordings of my computer screen!  (I also really need to clean my computer screen.)  So be expecting Minecraft videos on my YouTube channel in the near future.  😉  Right now I only have one Minecraft video:

Um…  Now what?  Oh yeah!  I just checked my calendar, and apparently it’s Friday.  Well actually, it’s Saturday now–and I totally didn’t do a book review!  So be expecting a book review later.

Bye!  (I need to go to bed!)

😉