Week 3 4.18-4.22.11

Be sure to include quote and page number!!)

You must use at LEAST 2 quotes from the book.

Understanding your character is a good way for you to really get into your book and see from another person's perspective. In your response this week, describe your character. Think about and discuss:

-1. your main character's personality

- 2. how they act/behave

- 3. what they look like

- 4. how old they are

- 5 what sort of education do you think that they have

- 6 who their friends and family are

- 7 what their financial (money) situation is

- 8 and what their job is (if they have one).


I am still reading My Rotten Life by David Lubar. My main character is really a dramatic dork. He sits at the “Second Besters Table”, he is a lier who tries to impress other kids, and is a video idiot or “vidiot loser” as another student on page 26 calls him. Nathan acts like a nervous boy when he lies to impress his classmates. In Art class the teacher had to leave and all the students pulled out hand held games, except Nathan and Abigail (a girl in the class). Nathan wants to play another student’s, Caleb’s, game and lies and says he knows how. But he doesn’t – he loses his first man in 3 seconds and his second man 4 seconds after that. Caleb says, “Nathan’s setting a record…for fastest looser” (pg 26). When all the kids crowd him he says, in his mind, he felt closed in like he couldn’t breathe.

On page 14, my character is described as, “The second skinnest kid.” He has asthma very bad, especially when he runs or works out. I think that he is a very pale looking boy because he doesn’t sound like the type of boy to play outside. Nathan says in the book that after school him and his BF, Mookie, hang out at Mookie’s to play video games. Nathan is a bad runner and poor athlete, because of his asthma, but he is good at chin ups.

Nathan goes to Belgosi Upper Elementary in East Carven, NJ. He is a 5th grade student who is probably 10 or 11 years old (all 5th graders I know are 10 or 11). I have no idea what his financial situation is because we haven’t met his mom and dad. He just says that, “my mom thought video games are violent and my dad thinks they are a bad investment”, pg 27.

Week 2 4.7.11

Review the book description found on the back cover of your book. Using the information, and this information alone, construct two alternate titles for the book that appeal to you.Pick one of the two titles and create a catch phrase and movie poster. Describe (using language that will explain what you are talking about so that we can "see" it) the movie poster to sell the new titled novel.

I am still enjoying Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie book 1: My Rotten Life by David Lubar. Wow, create two alternative titles? Better than the original? Hmm... okay:
Alternative 1. My Life as a Zombie?! What... Life? The Doom of Nathan Abercrombie Book 1

Alternative 2. You know being a Zombie ain't so bad : Nathan Abercrombie book 1

For a catch phrase for the movie poster I would use : Wouldn't you want to stay up late, rock at video games, be infamous, and get the girl?

If I had to create a movie poster for Nathan Abercrombie: My Rotten Life by David Lubar, I would have to work hard to make it better than the cover of the actual book. The back cover talks about how Nathan's life sucks until this freak accident that turns him into a zombie, then talks about the positive side to being able to stay up late, get good at videos, and become popular. He questions whether he wants to remain a zombie or if he can even undo the experiment.

Therefore, on the peachy orange movie poster I would have a geeky but cute, blond, short boy bumping in to a mad scientist table (the tablewould look wobbly). Your eye would be drawn to a beaker of green smelly goo (vapor rising up) splattering onto the kid's hand and you would see his left, broken, green thumb falling. Faded in the background you would see the face of an insane scientist with blazing yellow hair standing straight up, wide eyes with huge "bug eye" glasses, and a wicked smile. In the forefront, would be Nathan. The boy's face would have a line down the middle. On the left side he would look shocked with a solid conversation bubble with the words : OMG, I'm a rotting zombie! done in shadowed italics. Like he was screaming! But the right side of his face would look sly and sneaky with a dotted (indicating he is thinking) conversation bubble by his mouth. In it would be the words from the catch phrase done in fluorescent green. The title would be done in dark orange with dripping green border.

I can't decide between my two choices though. Maybe the first title choice.?? What do YOU think? This was more fun than I thought it would be, to "create" the poster with words. Hard, but fun.