Macbeth is one of Shakespeares best plays and one of his deepest plays. It takes place in Scotland and starts off with Macbeth and Banquo which are both generals in King Duncans army who were walking home from a battle. They run into 3 witches who tell Macbeth that he will be the thane of Cawdor and soon later become the king. The witches also tell Banquo that his decedents will become kings. Macbeth ends up becoming the thane of Cawdor and gets invited to the kings castle. He writes a letter to his wife Lady Macbeth who is very wicked so when she finds all of this out she is ready to do what ever it takes for her husband to get ahead. She gets the idea to murder the king and after a lot of convincing Macbeth agrees. They frame guards with the bloody knife that they used to kill the king but a few minutes later a nobleman Macduff shows up at their gates and they made a whole big show on finding the kings body. Macbeth ends up becoming king but feels really guilty and is scared about what the witches told Banquo so in his efforts he payed some one to kill Banquo. With all of Macbeths guilt he went back to the witches and they told him he that any man born from a woman could not kill him so with this confidence he hired more men to kill anyone in his path including Macduffs family. Macduff was enraged and challenged Macbeth to a battle which he agreed to because of what the witches told him but found out that Macduff was a C-section so he technically he wasn’t born from a woman. Macbeth lost the battle and that was the end of him.

Shakespeare was a English poet and play writer born in 1564 and is considered as one of the most famous writers in history. He got married at the age of 18 and had 3 children and lived in a small English town where he was a writer as well as an actor. A theater in his town opened up called the globe where he performed all his plays such as Romeo and Juliet which made him very rich and with his money he bought a large house. He soon retired and passed away soon later. After his death people started to question if he really wrote all of his work or if he was stealing someone else’s. Even in his Biography it was a bit bland so people didn’t get why he wrote so simple unlike all of his writing achievements. Either way Shakespeares works influenced many writers today.

The Taming of the Shrew is a short play that was written by Shakespeare and I read the script this week for school. This is a wonderfully written play and I would definitely recommend reading or watching it.

The play starts off with a man named Lucentio who notices a father named Baptista with his two daughters named Bianca the youngest and Katherina the oldest who he is trying to marry off. When Lucentio meets Bianca he falls in love and asks to marry her but Baptista says no because he wants Katherina to be married first since she is the oldest but the problem is that Katherina is very mean and disobedient. There are already two suitors for Bianca but since Katherina isn’t married they can’t marry Bianca so when one of the suitors friends Petruchio says he needs to find a rich wife he was recommend to Katherina. Once they met Petruchio calls her Kate and says I’m going to tame you so Katherina agrees to marry him. Meanwhile Lucentio disguised as a school boy to try and make Bianca fall in love with him which he does. At Petruchio and Katherina wedding Petruchio doesn’t show up which made Katherina very mad she soon got fed up with waiting and left.

Once Petruchio finally shows up he is in gross clothes and when he doesn’t see his wife he leaves to their home where he refuses to give Katherina anything and keeps her awake all night. At one point he asks her to call the sun the moon which Katherina agreed to since she was so tired and fed up which Petruchio noticed that she finally lisened to him. Which is how he tamed the shrew.

Tom Sawyer is about a young boy who always gets himself into trouble. He has a best friend named Huckleberry Finn who’s homeless but that doesn’t stop them from being best friends. Since Huck is homeless he doesn’t go to school which is hard for him since tom will say words he doesn’t understand which makes Huck a little jealous of Tom since he knows how to read and do math. Huck ends up getting adopted at the very end of the last page of the book which definitely changes their friendship because Huck was very free before so he was willing to do crazier adventures with Tom. I love this pair of kids because of how Tom wasn’t always the nicest to others but you could see his nice side when he was with Huck. For example when Huck didn’t know a word because he didn’t go to school Tom would explain it to him which I found really sweet. I really liked this friendship and how they would always be by each others side.

The first permanent settlement in North America was Jamestown founded by Walter Raleigh. This settlement was decided on May 24 1607 and some of its original buildings still stand today. Jamestown was populated with fortune seekers who spent all their time hunting for treasure which did not help in the survival of the colony. This caused over half of the colony to collapse in the first year.

Jamestown turned itself around when new colonist arrived from Germany and Poland in 1608. Captain John Smith took over the colony and made everyone work together. He made a rule that if anyone didn’t work they could neither eat. John had to leave in 1610 to England to get a wound treated. In 1614 Jamestown made its first profit when a man named John Rolfe started selling tobacco. Rolfe became very wealthy and married the Indian princess Pocahontas. Jamestown could finally stand on its own feet in 1624.

Elizabeth was born in 1553 and was the child of Henry VIII. Elizabeth was cut out of line along with her sister Mary in favor of their brother Edward. After Edward died Lady Jane Grey became queen but Mary quickly over threw her. Mary was very paranoid and thought Elizabeth was going to try and steal the throne so Mary got her arrested and put under house arrest until Marys death in 1558. Elizabeth had many suitors in her life but never got married which gave her the nick name ”Virgin Queen”

While Elizabeth was queen she got into a face off with Spain. While Mary was queen she was married to King Phillip of Spain and he thought he deserved the crown or to marry Elizabeth. England had already invaded the Spanish causing damage so this gave Phillip an excuse to attack back. This face-off went on for a couple of years, but in the end England was victorious. Elizabeth died in 1603 do to an illness and depression because of her good friends dyeing.

I normally have a hard time with some events in gymnastics but the other day at the gym I kinda broke through on two out of the four events which were vault and bars. Those are the events I have the most trouble with form wise. One of my coaches helped me fix the problem with my vault which is the flip I do over the vault table called a half-on to a stack of mats. This vault is pretty hard to perfect and so when this coach helped me work on this it was so helpful and important for me to learn how to do it properly.

Then I worked on bars with the same coach. The skill that I worked on was called a cast handstand which is where you cast your stomach and lower body up into a handstand on the bar. I learned a lot more tips on how to do this skill because i currently don’t have this skill which is why I was working on it. My coach ended up surprising me by telling me to do a skill I hadn’t done before which scared me but I ended up conquering this skill.

Journey to the Center of the Earth is a story on a scientist uncle which is my favorite character and his nephew Harry. They start out in their home in Germany with their private chef who cooks and some times cleans for them. The uncle in this story is very nerdy and ends up finding a note that tells them how to reach the center of the earth. They first travel a long way to Iceland where they meet a guide to help them on their journey.

They come across a tunnel system that helps them get closer to achieving their goal. The tunnel ends up being a dead end and they also run out of water which caused them to have to go all the way back and choose a different tunnel where they ended up having to dig through with a pickaxe. Once they reached the end of the tunnel system there was a massive ocean which the uncle named “The Central Sea” Their adventure ends with them blowing up a tunnel and almost dying. Things went pretty well for the uncle since he earned awards and married his sweetheart.

Gerhard Groote was born in 1340 and grew up in the Netherlands. Groote had rich parents and got basically what ever he wanted which made him very spoiled. He grew up during the black plague where his parents both died. At just 10 years old he became insanely rich with the money he inherited from his father. Groote turned his life around when he was converted to christianity by an Augustinian monk.

Groote was a changed man and this was around when the black plague hit for a second time so he really wanted to help other young men who were in the same position that he was in. He would give them food and shelter as well as keeping them busy by instructing them in the Gospel. Groote ended up starting a school for young boys and girls with all of the money he inherited. These schools went unnoticed for some time but grew more popular when Groote started traveling and opening more schools around the world. A little while after the plague returned for a third time killing Groote. Even though he passed away these schools lasted for another 150 years and many famous reformers learned there such as Martin Luther, John Knox, Thomas a Kempis and many others. Groote is still remembered to this because of how much his knowledge and kindness impacted the world.

Lion of the North is about a 16 year old Scottish boy who volunteers to fight in the 30 years war (which lasted from 1618 – 1648). He was raised by his uncle and when a few of his uncles old friends show up asking for men to fight with them in the war he volunteers and moves up in the ranks pretty fast.

Malcom is a nice kind hearted boy and was at first scared to hurt anyone in the war but quickly learns he has to step up and fight especially when soldiers are attacking his village. Things move pretty fast in this book but that is kinda common in Henty’s books. I enjoyed reading this book although his books can be very similar because the main character is always a male and always falls in love during his main adventure in the story. This doesn’t mean Malcom is a bad character I did enjoy how he starts off shy and gains his confidence but I did recognize how similar the story lines are.

Malcom was very nervous when he first joined the army and was intimidated by the way the higher ranked soldiers so often times he would talk and act like a veteran to help him fit in with everyone. This did help him move up in the ranks faster which helped in the long run because the other soldiers respected him more. Malcom did deserve to move up in the ranks fast because of how smart he was and was a quick thinker. He started in the army at the age of 16 and had a lot of mercy for everyone but learns he has to fight back early in the book when him and his soldiers are captured and killed by a group of Catholic soldiers. He took revenge by killing around 30 of them.

Malcoms personality can be hard for some people to like just because some times he can be painfully nice and comes up with some interesting ideas. I think why he was always trying to be nice and act like a veteran was because he felt a tiny bit pressured to join the war just because everyone else was joining including his uncle. There are a few things about this book that I particularly didn’t like but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t recommend it to a kid or adult.