Know-It-All

I decided to read Know-It-All because Mizzay said she had read another book similar to this one by the same author, and thought it was a very enjoyable read. This book was very challenging for only a couple reasons. For one, there were some very interesting facts in this book I would die to remember, and secondly this book was very repetitive and long. For the first time, I would not recommend this book to my friends. Although it was very interesting, it just wasn’t very fun to read.

                This book was organized in chapters by the letters from the alphabet and because of this the book read as just fact after fact in each chapter. The hardest part of reading this book was trying to remember some of these fun facts. For one, abalone, a type of snail, has five separate holes for excreting waste. Another fun fact is that for a Pueblo Indian woman to get a divorce, all she would have to do is place her husbands moccasins on the doorstep and SHABAM! They are divorced! There were many things I would try to do to remember some of the facts like re-reading things over and over multiple times, and dog tagging the page of a fun fact so I could go back and refer to it whenever I wanted.

                This book was very repetitive. Every chapter was a letter from the alphabet and then in each chapter there would be word after word starting with that letter. Although this was a big part of the repetitiveness another contributor was the pattern in which the author wrote. The Jacobs would write his chapters so it was word, fact, word, fact, and then a personal story relating the word back to his life. Although some of the stories were quite funny and some of the facts were defiantly worth remembering, it still became just too much the same all the time. This repetitiveness caused the book to get old very fast and I found myself beginning to get bored in the H chapter.

                Although the first challenge of this book was a fun one to overcome the second was in charge of making or breaking the book. Unfortunately it broke it and I would not consider recommending this book to anyone unless they simply needed to look up the definition of a word. Over all I am partially happy to have read this book because now I know fun facts that no one else does. Also I’m happy I have experienced a new kind of book because I know now that I don’t need to read another like it.

(441 words)

The Power of Song

I believe in the power of song. Singing makes it possible to create magic in people’s lives.

I believe singing is magical when it can make people feel. As a performer, if you sing a song that makes people cry, not because of the lyrics, not because of the band, but because of the sheer beauty of the sound, and the emotion and tone quality of every shimmering note, you have made magic. The ability to make people feel that happiness and bliss all from just a sound. As an audience member, there is no greater joy than to be able to listen to a singer who can place the goose bumps on your arms and the tears in your eyes.

I believe singing is magical when it can bring people hope. Back in the day when there were slaves in the United States, the African Americans of our nation needed hope. Without hope there would have been no drive, and without drive there would still be slavery today. The music sang by the slaves gave them the courage to go on. Without song as their refuge, they wouldn’t have accomplished a fraction of what they did in their quest to end slavery.

I believe singing is magical when it can make the impossible possible. In the bible there is a story of Jesus helping a blind man see. Just as Jesus gave sight to the blind, singers can give sound to the deaf. When a singer uses their instrument the right way they find that they can make magic. I have heard stories of people who sing to the deaf. This may sound funny because what’s the point in singing to someone who can’t hear. But if sang correctly, like a bat, sometimes the deaf are able to feel the sound waves of a singers voice. Although very different from actually hearing a song, the vibrations of the voice can still be detected, and to a person who cannot hear anything remotely close to sound, this is close enough.

 (340 words)