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Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie: a book review by Tyler L.

A fantastic murder mystery by Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express is very well written and leaves plenty of tricky clues to help solve the mystery. The end is unexpected but very logical when you look back. This is a fantastic book for anyone who enjoys a good detective case. The characters are well crafted with distinctive personalities that contribute to the clues. This book is fast paced and fun to solve. If you read this, I suggest you try and solve the mystery yourself before you finish.

"Snowflake" by Tyler L.

dancing

glimmering

crystals

gently

falling

to

the ground

sporcle.com: A Website Review by Sam W.

The first thing that most people think when they hear about Sporcle is: What does Sporcle mean? After extensive research, I have discovered it. The site’s founder, Matt Ramme, says that he based the name “Sporcle” off of the word oracle. The icon of Sporcle is a crystal ball, used by oracles. Now you may wonder, what is the use of Sporcle? Sporcle.com is a quiz website with a mission. Their mission statement is “We actively and methodically search out new and innovative ways to prevent our users from getting any work done whatsoever.” Sporcle is the #1 tool for procrastination, but also it’s fun, and incredibly addicting. About 4 games are published each day, and the quizzes range from educational to just for fun. The top ten games include the Countries of the World quiz, the US States quiz, Corporate Logos quiz, Commonest Words in the English Language, and more. Sporcle is a good and fun quiz site for everyone that is allowed to go on the computer and can read.

Concord Equestrian Team Review

Hi, I’m Annie B. and I’m on the Concord Equestrian Team (CET). The CET practices at Verrill Farm Stables in Concord and competes in a series of horse shows that go from September to April. The shows can be as far as Georgia! What you do is you go to someone else’s barn, but instead of riding your own horses, you pick a horse’s name from another barn out of a hat. Then that would be the horse you would ride in the class you signed up for.

The first stage in the season is Zone-1 (which is held Rhode Island, Maine, and Connecticut, etc.). There are five horse shows that go until February. The next stage, Zone finals, is a really big show which all of New England participates in. After Zone Finals, there are Nationals and Regionals. In April, your whole team packs up and goes to Atlanta, Georgia for the final show.

I’ve seen my friend Chloe H. go through all of this, and it does NOT look easy. This year, i hope to go to finals. Below is a little video of how hard doing all of this is, but eventually, it all gets easier. Thanks for reading!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xtAxxkwJAg

Watch the WHOLE thing!!!!!!!!!!!

Its AWESOME!!

WINNER OF THE HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE IS...

The runner up of the Halloween Challenge is Taylor W.

One day, there was a Jack o’ Lantern. The lantern was very sweet, but it’s voice was blood-curdling. Even it’s luminous glow couldn’t distract people from the hideous sound he made. People considering listening to him a “thrill”. Only felines could listen to him without screaming in agony. To try to meet people, the Jack o’ Lantern, masqueraded himself as a witch and tried to make a conversation with some trick or treaters. The people looked like they had seen a specter and ran away. The Jack o’ Lantern slipped off into the shadows. From then on, the Lantern only talked to nocturnal cats.

The winning challenge was submitted by Grace O. Even though it's a little past Oct. 31, we hope you enjoy this spooky story!

The thrill came to George as he looked out from the jack ‘o’ lantern. The small mouse sniffed around. He stuck his head out the eye hole. His fur crawled when he heard a blood-curdling scream. In his surprise George fell, landing on top of his baby sister. They had run away when they were attacked viciously by raccoons. Now all they had left was this pumpkin, on Hallowe’en night.

The shadow of a giant loomed over the small home. This was the first Hallowe’en the mice had ever lived in. Batty, the bat, soared over. They were friends. Batty had helped George and Lily survive. Suddenly, a small shiny package fell from the sky. George wandered out from the the pumpkin sanctuary into the world of monsters.

When George finally reached the mystery package, Lily wandered out. Lily didn’t know that George would be back soon. She thought that he had left her for the night, she was scared. In her wanderings she felt a small chill trickled down her back. The Clouds swirled, and the gloomy trees ruffled. A small child masqueraded, he pretended to be a small dragon. The luminous pumpkin cried out to Lily with her light, warning her not to go any further. Just as Lily turned around she was swept off her feet.

George turned around after eating chocolate, his memory of the taste like a specter in the chilly evening air. The feline dropped Lily down into the melting chocolate bar. Nocturnal animals started to come out. Their noises frightened George as he hauled Lily to safety.

How to Judge a Book by its Cover by Taylor W.

So many people say, “don’t judge a book by its cover”. By now, it is a cliché, and quite honestly, it is false. We will be teaching you, how to judge a book by its cover.

We will start with the book, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”. The first thing you notice about this seemingly innocent book is the smiley boy with a scar and spiky black hair. He is holding onto a bird, which looks like it would rather not be there. Some snakes are crawling out through cracks, and one snake is suspended in mid air. There is also a sword hanging out of nothing. Judging by this cover, I would say this book is about a crazy kid who tries to escape the asylum by hanging onto a bird while being followed by snakes. Would I recommend this book? No.

Next, we will be reviewing “Frindle”. So from what we have gathered so far, it appears it is about a ginger who has a sacred pen that everyone idolizes. His wire frame glasses give us the impression that he is stuck in the 80’s, perhaps a time traveling plot will unfold later on? The words in the background seem to give the definition of pen. So unless you enjoy reading dictionaries in your freetime, then I would strongly suggest that you steer clear of this book.

"November" by Tyler L.

November
Eleventh month of the year
Bare skeleton trees dancing in the wind
Mushy pumpkins on the step
Thanksgiving and turkeys near
Curling smoke in the air
November

The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney: Review by Caroline H.

What would you do if you saw your face titled as “MISSING” on a milk carton? For Janie Johnson, it would be to tell her boyfriend Reeve Shields. In The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline Cooney, Janie recognizes herself in five year old form on a milk carton from her best friend, Sarah Charlotte. The carton calls her Jennie Spring, who lives in New Jersey and was kidnapped almost twelve years ago. Janie begins to have flashbacks, remembering random tidbits of what she believes to be her former life. The dress she wears in the picture, the shopping mall where she was taken. But her parents are nice and kind, a little on the old side maybe, but she could never picture them coldheartedly stealing a child. Finally she can’t take it anymore and gets Reeve, in the grade above her, to drive her down to her former parents house. She arrives just in time to see four kids, with the same thick, red hair as herself, get off a school bus and walk into a house. Janie is scared as more and more of the memories haunt her, and she realizes the Johnson’s have no pictures of her from five years and younger. As she explores the attic in search for pictures of herself, she finds a trunk marked “Hannah”, she looks in and sees a baptismal gown and pictures of a blond girl. This awakens new fears that her parents had stolen her in order to cope with the loss of another child. Unable to stand it any longer she asks her parents, Frank and Miranda Johnson, about Hannah. This exciting page turner will keep up at night, and the answer to Janie’s question will completely blow you away. If you like this book, I would recommend the sequels, Whatever Happened to Janie?, and The Voice on the Radio. Caroline Cooney is a well known and accredited author writing many other books, with suspense romance, horror, and mystery for teenage readers.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM CMS!!

People Are Awesome.

Enough said. You should seriously watch this video. It's...awesome.

PEOPLE ARE AWESOME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvFjHTWzJrc

Important Announcement

Shadow a student day. Some like to refer to it as “Stalk a Student Day”. But I consider it as a fun* time for parents to live the “school-kid dream”. In otherwords, I think “Shadow a Student Day” is a great day. Remember, this coming Tuesday is the day, so prepare to be stal…erhmmm…”shadowed” by your parents.

-This news brought to you by J.T. Corp. (Jay and Taylor)


*any reference to “fun” in this article is purely sarcastic

MysteryGuitarMan: YouTube Find of the Week!

Guitar: Impossible -- check it out!

found by lit mag staffer Taylor W.

"Merrowvista" by Tyler L.

The long dusty road that led to fun
Was a winding one under the sun
Once there we got our group
With really nice leaders to boot

The first day there we climbed the wedge
Later on we found the cabins
And learned the dinner route

Day two was fun with an option block
Up the mountain we went for a walk
Breathtaking views at the top

We did team building on the elements
They were very hard
Involvement was key
Now we were on to day three

Up nice and early ready for fun
Off to build bridges
Blindfolded none the less

Bus rides away back to school
Merrowvista was very cool.

new year...new challenge!

With the dawn of a new September (actually, October, but that's ok) the Lit Mag is starting up again! We are welcoming back all our staff members and new rookies, too. We're still recruiting, so if you show up at a meeting, you're more than welcome. :)

Literary people often engage in word games, so we thought we'd start off this year with a challenge. We're going to list a bunch of words, and it's your job to create a poem or paragraph or piece of art involving all these words. By you, we mean anyone who reads this blogs: students, teachers, parents, and anyone else in the CMS community. Submissions should be emailed to cmslitmag@gmail.com, and in by Halloween. (hint: maybe a spooky theme?) We will publish some selected work on the blog. Happy creating!

Word List:
-jack 'o' lantern
-specter
-thrill
-shadow
-nocturnal
-feline
-luminous
-masquerade
-blood-curdling
-sweet

Hehe. Have fun, no pressure :)

China! by Madeline G.

I'm going to attempt to condense 12 days (and one extensively detailed, long journal!) into a single piece- which may be interesting, so here goes! We woke up bright and early Thursday morning to meet a school bus at Sanborn. I was sad but excited as I said good-bye to my family. Following a short plane ride to Newark, we had a 13 hour one to Beijing! It was long, but it definitely helped that there were about 300 free movies on the plane! Finally, we landed. As we stepped off the plane, we were still processing that we were in China! After a long international line, we found our tour bus and main guide (Cool) and his assistant for just Beijing (Ashley). We went straight to dinner- our first one in China, but it unfortunately was only decent, not spectacular- then walked around a park. We went to a kung fu show which was a slightly bizarre mix of singing, dancing, and kung fu (obviously!), and elaborate costumes, all with a plot. It definitely wasn't Broadway, and could have been seriously condensed. The fact that I fell asleep kind of proves my point. Then again, it had been a 40-hour day.

The next day, we left the hotel and immediately went to the Summer Palace, which is basically the imperial family's vacation house: but very, very, very big!! It was amazing, elaborately beautiful and obviously ancient. It had the longest corridor in the world! But I don't remember how long it was. At this point, I was beginning to become an expert at refusing vendors, who can be very persistent. You have to say "Bu Yao!" (I don't want) in a very firm voice with no eye contact. The prices are cheap to match cheap goods. We then went to a cloisonné factory where we also had lunch. Cloisonné is beautiful and very cool. After that, we went to the Great Wall! It was extremely fun though it was very misty and chilly. It was on the wall that I think I finally began to process that I was in China! It was really cool. We then went to Olympic Park, where we saw the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest. I had no idea how big they are, especially the Bird's Nest, which is actually much larger than the Water Cube. After that, we had a duck dinner (I discovered that I really dislike duck!) Several people on the trip are a vegetarian which sometimes is easy but sometimes is difficult.

On day two, we checked out then went to the morning exercises at the Temple of Heaven (really interesting) then the Temple of Heaven itself. It’s amazing and very beautiful, with 9 brilliantly colored layers stacked on top of each other. All the Chinese people wanted pictures of us! We then got to go to the pearl factory, which was very fun. It had gorgeous, expensive pearls and gorgeous, inexpensive pearls- but was insanely well priced. After lunch, we went to the Forbidden City. My main impression is that it is huge! There are 999,999 rooms- a baby could sleep in a room for every night of his life, and would finish when he was 27! We then saw an older, poorer part of Beijing, a part that is beginning to be replaced by big modern buildings. We then went to dinner, which was disgusting mainly because we were right next to a room with smoking allowed. We went to the train station next, ready to board a soft sleeper train (overnight) to Xi’an. The train was very cramped but actually fairly easy to sleep on.

After leaving the train on day three, we had breakfast then went to a museum that is a little like a lesser known, smaller terra cotta warriors place. Next, we went to the school. The lunch there was amazing! They have their own noodle chef, and I got to try stretching noodles. After hanging out on the playground area, we got our host students. My girl's name is Yang Chen, and I also met her mother. Their apartment was very small but clean- it had a little kitchen, a bathroom with a Western toilet (Chinese ones are holes in the ground) two bedrooms, and a living/tv room where we ate dinner. Yang Chen also had two other people she didn't tell me about (grandmother and aunt?) and I was a little intimidated by their fast Chinese as they jabbered on and on to each other. This was the first time that I felt homesick, and I was pretty sad when I went to sleep.

The next day, I walked to school with Yang Chen, because she lives very close to the school, which is called Sunshine Middle School. She went to class, and I met up with the other people from the trip to visit some classrooms. We went to an art classroom where they were learning Chinese calligraphy and an English classroom where they were learning about describing people in English. We then went to the factory where they make the genuine reproduction terra cotta soldiers (that weirdly means the real fake ones). It was cool, and we were still thinking about it when we went to the genuine terra cotta warriors museum and pits after lunch. It was absolutely huge, and I was astounded when we got to actually look at the main pit. It was so cool and I was very impressed, not to mention being amazed that I was seeing this in person. After visiting a nice, relaxing tea shop, we went to a dumpling dinner and Tang Dynasty show. The dinner was, for the most part, delicious (though I accidentally had a bite of shark fin dumpling) and the show was interesting and, I must say, a little odd. I fell asleep (like the majority of our group) towards the end of the show but I did enjoy what I saw- though it was all a bit repetitive. I then met Yang Chen at the school and went home to her house for the night.

After walking to school, we started day five at the jade factory. It was very cool and the jade was all beautiful and well priced, like everything in China! We went to an art museum, which was interesting, but not spectacular. Two girls from our group stayed on the bus to sleep because they were feeling sick- we were all fairly worried and hoped nothing too bad would spread. Lunch was very good, and after it we went to a mosque. It was very ancient-feeling and beautifully old. We then went to the much-anticipated bazaar. I must say, it lived up to all my expectations and more! Bargaining was insanely fun, and I think I got pretty good at it. Most of the stuff was pretty cheap, but it was still really fun to buy. We then went back to Sunshine, weighing several pounds heavier with our many new items. This night, we had dinner with the host families, which was pretty good. After dinner, Yang Chen took me to the park around the Wild Goose Pagoda, where we met up with some of her friends and their American homestays- so I was able to enjoy speaking English while also interacting with the Chinese students. We were planning to see the water show, but it was canceled because people were mourning due to the earthquake: so we made plans to go the next night! Back at the apartment, I saw Yang Chen's mother again and a few other family members. I'm still not sure who lived where in her family, and I think she might live only with her father because I only saw her mother the first night and that night.

Day six had okay breakfast, but not spectacular. We didn't leave the school, and instead went to what I think was a gym class. It was pretty fun, and we did a long series of exercises that I'm pretty sure were some type of martial art. I wasn't very good at it! We then visited a math class. It was really confusing, but I think they were learning about probability, maybe. The teaching style is very different in China- the teacher just talks loudly and the students listen. After briefly watching morning exercises, we went to the auditorium to rehearse our show. Every year, the students use the once a week classes after school before the trip to develop a performance for the students at Sunshine. Our show was pretty complex: lots of dancing (including a tap number and a jazz number), singing (in English, in Chinese, in South African!, and assorted miscellaneous performances (from piano solos to skits in Chinese). We had a delicious lunch at the school then performed! I think they really like us, but they have an odd habit of randomly clapping in the middle of performances- this became more than slightly annoying, especially as I'd expected everyone to be very quiet and perfect. After watching their performance, we hung out before heading back with our host families. My homestay (host family) is friends with some of my friends’ homestays, so we all went out together to KFC (2nd time in my life) and then the Wild Goose Pagoda water Show. The show was an astounding display of various fountains shooting up into the air with jets of water and glowing colored lights. The whole time, music was playing. The effect was Disney but free (and in Chinese!). We then went back to our homestays and fell asleep.

Day seven started with (after walking to the school) a half an hour bus drive to Pangliu, which is a very small farming village outside of Xi'an. It was so different from the city- everything was small and shabby and old looking, without much technology or anything. At the small school, all the young children lined up and clapped and sang to us as we walked through- I felt very famous! They performed for us, and were absolutely precious. Unlike the Sunshine students, they didn't clap in the middle of our performance! After teaching some classes (I played a bunch of simple games with very young children, who adored it) we split into three groups and went to different farmers' houses for the most delicious lunch of the entire trip! Back in Xi’an, we went bicycling on the Xi'an city wall. It was very fun, but the 9 miles of uneven, bumpy, ancient stone was very difficult to bike on with such bad quality bikes! We went back to Sunshine, and then I went to my homestay's house. Before falling asleep, I gave her and her father my gifts for them, which they loved. They especially loved my photo scrapbook I made, and where overcome with joy when I gave it to them. In return, they gave me a book of papercuts for my mom and a HUGE gorgeous wall of cherry blossoms.

The next morning, I woke up early to a delicious noodle breakfast before heading off to Sunshine. I was really sad to say good bye to Yang Chen and her father, and it was weird to think that I might never see them again (though I don't know whether or not Yang Chen is coming to America in the fall). We went to the airport and had a short flight and then we arrived in Shang Hai! We went to a very fun but overwhelming museum, then a very fun boat ride around a river canal. We could see lots of incredibly tall buildings, including the second tallest in the world! After dinner (which was one the 18th floor of a nice hotel) we went to an acrobatics show. It was absolutely amazing, though it hurt me to watch the acrobats stretch in seemingly impossible ways! We went back to the hotel, where my roommates and I watched animated Cinderella on the hotel TV (in Chinese, which was very interesting) before going to bed.

A wake up call woke us up the next day, and we rolled out of bed. After a nice breakfast buffet, we went to the Shanghai Zoo. We saw TEN new young pandas! They were absolutely adorable, and I literally could have stared at them all day! But we were dragged away to go to the silk factory, which was also extremely fun. Learning how the silk was made was fascinating, and the gift shop was huge and amazing. We went to a cool embroidery place and then lunch. After that, we visited the Shanghai Jewish museum, which was about Jews who went to Shanghai during World War Two. It was small, but very interesting. After that, we went to an ancient garden which was very pretty and interesting. We then went to the Oriental Pearl Tower, which was incredibly tall and thoroughly awesome. We lay down on a glass floor which was exhilarating, because cars looked smaller than ants! We then bought gelato (surprisingly delicious!) before walking around the city, which was fun because there were many lights. Shanghai is so green! It's really clean and modern- I really liked it a lot. We then went to a late dinner- our last! It was sad, but we quickly fell asleep when we went back to the hotel.

We had an early start the last day, and I felt really disoriented about the fact that we were actually leaving. Before the airport, we had some last minute shopping which was really fun. We had an incredibly emotional lunch- it was our last meal- and I started getting really sad but excited. At the airport, we said good bye to our guides then boarded the plane. We arrived at the right time for our flight and it went smoothly: we arrived in Newark right on time. It was nice but weird to hear English that wasn't accented, and to see signs that had no Chinese! Our flight to Boston was quick, but we were some of the only people in the airport as we got back very late. I was so excited to see my family, and one of my friends had her dad bring us all pizza- it was so good!

On that note, I will end this article. Overall, China was incredibly fun, and I eventually recovered from the jet lag. I had a great time, and, even though I was happy to come home, I really miss being there and having fun with the chaperones and my friends. It was a really awesome experience and I'm glad I got to share it with you- however belated that may be!

nirrimi photography

Wouldn't it be great to be seventeen and already have a career? Nirimi Hakanson is a blossoming photographer who started off taking pictures of her sister and "never stopped." Visit her website at http://nirrimiphotography.carbonmade.com/. Here's one of her pictures.

Six Flags by Sophie J.

Last weekend the 7^th and 8^th grade chorus, along with the orchestra, Treble Chorus, and Acapella Chorus from CMS went to Six Flags for Music in the Parks. It was a very eventful trip, complete with two sixth graders getting “lost” and a bus hitting a truck! One of the chaperones got confused and forgot that she told two girls to go on a different roller coaster than the other people in the group. She started panicking and her group searched the park for the two girls, only to find out that it was just a misunderstanding. But all in all, it was a ton of fun. Concord won 5 trophies and a medal, and the Acapella Chorus won best chorus of the day! At 6 Flags everyone had a great time riding roller coasters like Batman and Bizarro. At the end of the long day was the award ceremony where one of the members of the 7^th and 8^th grade chorus, Mickey V-H, won a medal for best soloist of the day. On the bus ride home, when the busses were still in the Six Flags parking lot, bus number two backed into a pick-up truck, but nobody was hurt. By the end of the day everyone was exhausted, but we all had a great day.

Annie Review by Isabel F. with help from Sarena S.

The overture may have lasted a little long, but the CMS production of Annie was nothing if not amazing. I saw opening night and the closing Sunday matinee, and both were equally impressive. Vocals were strong, dancing was exciting and the actors did a great job of tying the audience into the emotional aspect of the show. This could sound cheesy, but I think people will understand when I say I felt chills when the orphans sang “It’s a Hard-Knock Life.” Their faces were animated and you felt like this privileged group of Concord kids transformed into plaintive and deprived orphans. It was kind of ironic, how convincing the orphans and the Hooverville-ites (hobos) were in their “Depressed” states.

The ensemble worked hard to create the mood and pulsing background of this production, while the leads brought feeling and skill to every detail. Annie was played by Ana F-C, who showed us that a 6^th grader can do just as much as any older kid with a main role. She was spunky and tender at the same time, and really seemed to connect with the other characters, especially Warbucks, who was played by Joe V-H. He was the soul of the show, rotating from singing to dancing to acting to carrying Annie around. The original show didn’t have as many dance numbers, in fact, the only original dance number was Hard-Knock Life. Mr. Shancady and Jen Jarvis (the choreographer) changed the show a lot by adding a Rockette tap-dancing in N.Y.C.

Almost every song had some choreography, which definitely helped the scenes a lot. Elana I. was perfectly preposterous as Miss Hannigan, the evil orphanage lady who with her criminal brother and his equally immoral girlfriend, Lily St. Regis (played by Jeremy S. and Hannah S-D). Before intermission, they performed their fantastic number, “Easy Street.” In the song, this sneaky group of characters announced their plan of how to become rich. Towards the end of the play, there were several very touching scenes and songs. The audience was enamored by the heartfelt acting by Warbucks and Annie, and the comical impersonations of Lily and Rooster. When the curtain closed for the final time, there was a collective sigh as the audience and cast alike savored the last moments of Annie, CMS’ fabulous production that blew the roof off of every performance.

NJ 6th grader kills "Paparazzi"

So there's this kid named Greyson and he's insane on the piano and at singing. Watch this cover of the Lady Gaga song! WOW...

PAPARAZZI