Kelpie

Inspired by the capaill uisce of The Scorpio Races

THE SCORPIO RACES!!!!

 

This book was recommended to me numerous times, but it was just now that I finally decided to read it. Based on the description from the back cover, I figured it would be yet another semi-hunger-games failed dystopian romance-  but it isn't.

In The Scorpio Races, water horses- based on kelpies from Celtic mythology- compete in a deadly race that truly puts the rider's skill to the test. Water horses (capaill uisce) are not your regular horses.True kelpies, from Irish and Scottish mythology, are faery horses that live in lakes and sometimes the ocean. They lure people- usually children- into their home and eat them. The Scorpio Races modifies this myth slightly to fit the story- they live in the ocean off the coast of a small island and occasionally come on land searching for food.

Puck is a feisty girl- and a brave one. The first girl to ride in the races, she even enters on her island pony instead of one of the capaill uisce, all to save her home.

Sean belongs to the sea and has a fierce connection with a capall uisce named Corr. In a desperate act, he vows to win the races and earn the money to buy Corr and save the horse from its owner's vengeful son.

Together, they win the races- and create a very memorable story that's hard to forget, with a wonderful ending.

Rating: 9/10

The CA Capitol Building

We went to visit our state capitol building today as a field trip and I thought it was pretty cool. Here were some of my favorite parts.

• I found out that the CA government is based on English parliament. The carpeting in the Senate is red, to show the British "House of Lords" and the carpet in the Assembly room is red because of the "House of Commons", because the commoners had to sit on the grass.
• The people who built the building wanted to be recognized, so they found secret ways to be recognized. One put a tile in the floor on backwards, and another one carved his wife's name (Rita) in the plaster.
• Both the Assembly and the Senate were dominated by Democrats (Which Assembly member Connie Conway, who we met on the trip, seemed pretty ticked about.) I found it interesting that the microphones they use have stickers on them to represent their political party- Republicans are red and Democrats are blue.
• The Senate is more traditional. They vote and do roll call by voice, while the Assembly uses technology.
• The Senate is half the size of the assembly.
• The Assembly members feel very strongly about wrestling.

The Hunger Games Word Cloud

I used this as part of a project my class did when we read the Hunger Games.