Month: December 2023

I would love to be principal for a day! If I was chosen to be principal for a day. The first thing I would do is plant more vegetation around the school, like trees, and bushes, and get rid of the caution tape around the grass, to make it look less ugly. The second thing I would do is make so that students can go to the bathroom during class at any time because I never work, or focus well when I have to go to the bathroom. The third thing I would do is create fundraisers for healthier, higher quality school food. The fourth thing I would do is take one minute from every period, and put it into lunch, and snack so we have more time to eat, and socialize. The final fifth thing I would do is make HMS a gradeless school, to make school less about making numbers go up, and more about learning. These are the things I would do to make our school better.

This month I read an amazing indie fantasy adventure novel called Umbra Tales the Lightcasters by Janelle McCurdy.

Umbra Tales the Lightcasters tells the amazing story of Mia. Mia is a normal girl who lives in the city of Nubis which is covered in darkness where the sun does not rise. It’s a city where people tame shadow creatures called Umbra, Mia has to go start training to become an Umbra tamer. Yet Mia doesn’t want to become an Umbra tamer because she encounter a rabid Umbra as a young girl, Mia is going about her day when a loud sound draws her teacher away. The children decide that the teacher has been gone too long, and they decide to check it out. The friends split up to find their parents, she finds them in a cage surrounded by reapers who serve the reaper king with the other umbra tamers. They discuss what to do, and they leave the city, and travel to Stella to meet with their grandparents . They meet back up with an umbra teacher named Jada, who helps them on their journey to Stella. On the way they run into more reapers, but they get away. Jada decides that they need to become Umbra tamers to make sure that they’re safe. Mia succeeds, and gets two Umbra named lux, and nox. On there way to Stella they discover that Mia is a lightcaster, the only people that can stop the reaper king, who are supposed to only be royalty. They reach Stella to discover that Mia’s grand parents are in the hospital, and they meet with queen. She reveals that for a while she hasn’t been been able to use her lightcaster abilities, and cannot help personally in the fight, but she can lend a few things. They travel back to Nubis to fight the reapers, and take back their town and parents.

I love the Umbra Tales the Lightcasters because of, one the Umbra. The Umbra are my favorite part of the book because of how cool they are, first of they look amazing. They look like combinations of animals like deer, and foxes. Another thing awesome about Umbra, is that they are amazing for transportation anywhere. My other favorite part of Umbra Tales the Lightcasters is the world, I love how all the city’s names are related to light of outer space, with Nubis, Nexus, Astaroth, Lunavile, Stella, and Ignis. If you’re looking for a fantasy book that spices things up, I’d strongly recommend Umbra Tales the Lightcasters by Janelle McCurdy.

My favorite character is Mia’s Umbra Lux because of one of his charcter traits, he is snarky. An example of this on page 157 where he says, “Fine, calm down. You’re loud and bossy for such a little thing. We know we’re better than you humans at everything,” this proves that Lux is snarky because of the way he says it. He is saying this in a mocking, and irreverent way, that is meant to anger the listener.

My favorite quote is on page 151 where Mia’s little brother states, “ What’s your name, horsey-foxey” this is my favorite quote because of how adorable it is. It shows how naiv he is, and it’s nice to see the optimism.