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The Hole in the Sky is the debut novel by Barbara A. Mahler. This young-adult fantasy story is the first in trilogy.

The novel follows Kaela and her cousin Shawn as they travel to a magical world by way of “the hole in the sky.” In Muratenland, Kaela learns about the royal family’s strife: their baby has been kidnapped by Gulig, an evil man who seeks control of the land. Kaela must break the family curse and rescue the baby before Gulig causes him any harm.

Battle of the Bands

We’ve got two more Rock Band/Guitar Hero games this week, according to this here news post I just wrote. That’s added onto Beatles Rock Band, DJ Hero, Guitar Hero 5, Rock Band Unplugged, and Guitar Hero Smash Hits already over the past couple of months, and then we’ve still got Guitar Hero: Van Halen set for later this year. Time for them to battle, I’ve decided, in my own little tournament, to see which game is most likely to garner the most purchases.

1st Matchup: Guitar Hero 5 v. Rock Band Unplugged

GH5 moves on. I’m glad there’s a portable Rock Band now, and at least it’s original, but it’s still no contest.

2nd Matchup: Beatles Rock Band v. Guitar Hero: Van Halen

Well, let’s compare the album sales of the bands each game is using. Van Halen: 200,000,000 albums sold. Wow, that’s a lot. The Beatles: 200,000,000 albums sold… in the US alone. Beatles Rock Band moves on.

3rd Matchup: DJ Hero v. Band Hero

Two “Hero” games? Which will sell more? I have no idea. But DJ Hero is more interesting to me, so I’ll give it the edge.

4th Matchup: LEGO Rock Band v. Guitar Hero Smash Hits

Guitar Hero Smash Hits was basically just all the old Guitar Hero songs, but allowing you to play them with any instrument. Not a horrible idea, but it’s just an expansion, so LEGO Rock Band has to win.

2nd Round, 1st Matchup: Guitar Hero 5 v. DJ Hero

Guitar Hero 5. It’s the main series, and DJ Hero is just getting off the ground with its new turntable peripheral. GH5 will sell more than twice as many copies, I’m afraid.

2nd Round, 2nd Matchup: Beatles Rock Band v. LEGO Rock Band

Not even close, slightly modified Beatles will beat LEGO David Bowie any day of the week.

FINAL MATCHUP: Guitar Hero 5 v. Beatles Rock Band

Well, in the US Beatles Rock Band has sold more so far, and almost paradoxically, Guitar Hero 5 won in the UK. Is it a tie? Yes, but I’m not going to let that happen. Beatles Rock Band is the winner, by a coin flip. It landed tails.

Astro Boy has always been a bit of a cult sensation–he got his start in a Japanese comic book way back in 1952, so it’s about time he hit the big screen. Astro Boy the movie is a fun, vibrant movie filled with action and heart that stays true to the original. Astro Boy is being released by Summit, the same company that promotes the Twilight trilogy, but I’m afraid Metro City is devoid of vampires–probably too many bright lights for Edward and his sparkling complexion to compete with

FInd out more about DVD reviews on Kidzworld.

Scooby-Doo and the gang are back at it in another volume of episodes. Scooby-Doo: Hello Mummy is a Halloween-styled offering, although big fans of the original 60’s show might want to just pick up the whole first season of Scooby-Doo Where Are You! instead of these four measly episodes.

Land Of The Lost is another 70’s-inspired output that got its release on DVD this week, though only die-hard Ferrell fans need to pick up this tedious summer flop. A scattered storyline, disappointing jokes and phone-in acting on Ferrell’s part adds up to an hour and a half you’ll never get back. It’s pretty bad when you’re outacted by Sleestaks.

FInd out more about DVD reviews on Kidzworld.

This week was all about the spooky, the terrifying and the ghostly. I’ve read tons of books about ghosts, and most aren’t worth remembering. It’s a typical topic, making it hard for authors to put a new spin on it. The Haunting of Derek Stone #4: The Ghost Road by Tony Abbott and Rebel Stone and the Ghost Whisperers by Walter Rouzer were just that–typical. The Ghost Road was decent, assuming you start by reading the other books in the series. It was high-action, but in my opinion it’s a story that is more interesting for boys than girls.

Rebel Stone and the Ghost Whisperers mixed ghosts and aliens, which I’ve never seen before. But the writing sounded amateur. The constant flaws and overuse of metaphors made it hard to read.

Malice, on the other hand, was fantastic. While it wasn’t about ghosts, it was definitely spooky. The story was about a comic book called Malice. Kids who perform a ritual and summon Tall Jake (like Bloody Mary), are stolen from their homes and brought to the dangerous world of Malice–the world inside the comic book. The writing is easy to follow, the characters are relatable and the concept of part-novel, part-comic book is very unique.

Alright, FIFA 10 is finally here.  If you missed the last post, what I’m doing here is taking the big-name sports games and simming seasons in them to see how close they are to real-life results. Now, the soccer season isn’t even a fourth complete in most places, but we need to establish results now before tricky old FIFA updates the rosters later on in the year. Without further ado, let’s see just how it thinks two of this year’s major soccer (football) leagues are gonna turn out!

England’s Premier League: The top four in-game: Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool. Chelsea came next. We’ll see how that turns out, but one important error between real-life and the game here: Tottenham Hotspur came in 18th in the game, and they’re currently third in real life. Something’s up, there.

Italy’s Serie A: The league table came out to be Inter, Sampdoria, Juventus, then Roma in the game. The current real-life table is Inter, Sampdoria, Juventus, then Fiorentina, but Roma’s definitely coming up to higher spot in the future. In other words, FIFA was scary accurate on this one.

Wow, what a wonderful week of books! The two sequels to The Book of Time by Guillaume Prevost are even better than the first. In The Gate of Days, Sam finally rescues his father from his six month lockdown in the dungeons of dracula’s castle. But his trip through time left him in a coma. In The Circle of Gold, Sam knows that in order to wake his dad up from his coma, his must once again travel back in time and save his mother from dying. But evil forces are at work. Sam’s crush, Alicia, is kidnapped and trapped somewhere in history. Before Sam can even think of altering the past, he needs to deal with more pressing issues…like getting Alicia back!

Last but absolutely, 100% not least — The Hunger Games. Wow. That pretty much sums it up. Suzanne Collins is unbelievable. When I first learned the plot of this book — a sci-fi novel about mandatory competition forcing teenagers to fight to the death — I really wasn’t interested in reading it. But boy, am I glad I did. I was reassured by Stephenie Meyer’s quote on the cover calling the book “amazing.” And she was definitely right. The Hunger Games was risky, edgy, barbaric, and so gripping I just couldn’t put it down. Could this series become the next Twilight? Quite possibly.

I saw a movie called 500 days of summer this morning. To be honest, I had a lot of expectations from the movie. I thought it’ll be one of those movies that cheer you up and make you realize something great about life. Well, did it sort of make me realize something but..That was just…I didn’t need it. Anyway, what exactly this movie did to me was upset me, made me wanna murder the girl in it and even gave me a headache. The concept and the story and everything was fabulous but, I don’t know why I just don’t like the movie. Here’s a little idea of the story: Tom, the main character falls in love at first with a girl named Summer. And everything keeps going normal; she’s new administrative assistant at a greeting card company where he works. They become friends and she mentions about how she doesn’t believe in love, boyfriends or relationships and thinks that life will always come in between it. However, soon they become more than just friends and Tom realizes that he’s crazy in love with her BUT Summer, hah, is not. So basically the two characters are complete different from each other and the movie is about him looking back at the time he spent with Summer. I know the story sounds interesting and all but for some reason I kept getting irritated while watching the movie. I wanted to go inside the screen and grab the girl and shake her and like yell “what’s wrong with you?!” but…that’s just me. If you’ve been reading my blogs, you should know by now that I can be really weird.

Although the movie really annoyed me and made me really angry I also gained something from it. Well, sort of. The Smiths. Yes, the rock band. I knew about them and had a couple of their songs but never really paid much attention to their music, and after this movie I have started liking their songs a lot. So I’m going to download their songs and listen to them. I guess 500 days of summer wasn’t a bad idea, but seriously…I don’t like the girl in the movie one bit.

Alright now, I haven’t written anything in a while, I’m very busy…being confused I guess. It’s like…I don’t know what it is. I don’t feel like doing a lot of things. But I will definitely write more sometime soon.

With love,
Asmi.

Snow White gets its eighth release since Disney’s first fully-animated film came to theaters way back in 1937. This time the groundbreaking story is being released on a Disney Blu-Ray DVD that’s bursting with extras and comes packaged as Diamond Edition Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. If the classic story doesn’t satisfy your desires for all things dwarf-related, you can mine the DVD extras:

FInd out more about DVD reviews on Kidzworld.

In this week’s gaming news post, we talked about the new FIFA. I’d like to announce that I am taking the realism of sports video games to task! I’m going to run through one season in whichever sports game I’m covering, then tell you how close it came to getting it right. Now, FIFA doesn’t come out until the 20th, so I’m sorry if I can’t tell you who’s going to win the Scottish Premier League just yet (it’ll totally be Hibernian, though).  I do have MLB 09: The Show sitting right here with me, though, and the MLB playoffs are in full swing, so here’s the way Sony’s baseball title thought the season would go:

In the playoffs, names in bold if team made playoffs in real life: Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers

So, I guess four out of eight ain’t bad. The AL was only off by one team, and the Tigers were about an out away from making it to the playoffs in real life. Unfortunately, MLB 09’s NL guess was terrible. The computer inside my alarm clock could have guessed the Dodgers would win their division, and the other three who made it in the game were pretty terrible in real life.

Who won the world series in my sim, you ask? Why, the CHICAGO CUBS did, for the first time in over a hundred years. That would have been a lot more exciting than how this postseason is turning out in real life. Check back next week for my FIFA sim results!