Book Trailer

Scrap Dragon

By Naomi Kritzer

P

I really like the perspective you wrote this story from Naomi! I especially enjoy how instead of having it just as a normal fairy tale, you chose to write it from the point of view of someone telling a story to a child and having the child change things in the story whenever they didn’t like where it was going. When they start off and they start talking about how an evil wizard is going to erupt a volcano unless a kingdom gives him their gold, the child cuts in and says something like, “I like dragons more than volcanos. Can it be a dragon?” Of course the child never says please, after all he is just a child. I also like how you hinted that the child was old enough to not have stories read to them. But I do have some questions about your story too.

Q

I am just wondering why you decided to write it like you did, so that the storyteller was telling a fairy tale that would have been wonderful if it was just left as it was originally, but then the child jumps in and gives their two cents. Why did you go down that route? Did you just come up with the idea in your sleep or were you inspired by other stories like this? Is this story based on something that happened in your own life? I am guessing that the title is because the story was ad-libbed by the story teller and the child, but I want to be sure. Is that why you chose the title? Now that I have asked my questions, I just have a couple of tips to give you on your story.

P

If you could just make your story a bit longer, and make it so that the child says a little bit less in the story that might make it better. You could make it longer so that then you could actually have more meat in the story than you do right now, which will attract people who like a longer story. If you made it so that the child would speak less, then over the entire story it would seem like the child didn’t know what was going to happen just that little bit less, because right now it seems like the child can guess what is going to happen for the most part. Great story Naomi but if you could just answer those questions and add those suggestions, I would be very happy with you. Thank you for letting me interview you Naomi and goodbye.

Car Donuts and Percy's Sandwich

Car Donuts 1

As I walked to school I felt exhilarated, nervous, and a little bit squeamish because of what I was going to tell my friends and what had happened to me over the weekend. What had happened is I had wrecked my parents’ car in the parking lot of the old motel by doing donuts in the middle of winter. As I walked into the library I saw my friend, Jorge, sitting at one of the tables reading a book. When he noticed me he gave a small wave and motioned for me to go over to him. Apparently my mouth can get away from me at times because, as I started to say hello I had also started my story.

“Jorge! You will not believe what happened to me last Saturday!” I exclaimed turning to Jorge.

“What happened on the weekend then?” Jorge groans from behind his book, which just so happens to be about how to make your car in hijack -able. Jorge isn’t very talkative when he is reading, or jogging, on his computer, or even when he isn’t doing anything at all.

“Well.” I said happy to see that he was paying attention “You know how my parents let me take my driving test and I passed? Well they thought that I had done such a good job on it that they let me take their car for a spin and I kind of wrecked in in the motel parking lot…”

“What!” he whispers, well says, because apparently this is more important than giving someone your full attention from the start, “How did you manage to do that?!”

“Well” I say, also lowering my voice, “You know Percy right? Okay. Well Percy wanted to go with me because he doesn’t have his license yet and he said he wanted to know me better. I didn’t believe him but he sounded sincere in the way he said it. He asked if we could go to the local sandwich shop, which we both know should be shut down for health code violations, and then he said that we should eat them outside of the motel. By now I’m thinking that Percy is a nut job so I start driving out of the parking lot so that I can drop him off, but as I do so he grabs the steering wheel and makes us do donuts! I start wrestling him for control of the car but just as I grab the wheel we hit a lamp post, wrecking the side of the trunk. After that I had to drive home and tell my parents and by then Percy had run off, and so all of this was for nothing except a wrecked car and a disgusting sandwich.”

I look around to see the look on Jorge’s face but he’s gone, I had missed the bell.

Car Donut 2

As I pulled into the driveway I felt terrible. The car was wrecked all because of the fact me and this weirdo were fighting over the steering wheel. I played out how things would happen in my head. I would walk in and say hello to my parents, everything would be fine until I mentioned the car and then, wham! They would start drilling me for what had happened and I would say that I had crashed into a lamppost because this other guy that I was giving a ride to had tried to kill us. This would be followed by them screaming and subsequently killing me. On second thought maybe not, but I have to so I walk in and start talking to my parents.

“Hey guys. How was both of your days so far?” I ask them to which they reply.

“Fine how was yours?”

At this I break down and start whimpering and sobbing muttering;

“I broke the car! I broke the car! I broke the car! I’m sorry! So sorry!”

“Well then. You realize that you won’t be able to drive the car for a while now at least.”

They say surprisingly calmly, “How exactly did it happen?”

I then go into detail about how I went out to test the car and how I was thinking of going to McDonalds but I didn’t want to go alone, but Jorge was busy, Tommy was out sick, and the only person left was Percy the guy I barely knew. Now when I asked him if he wanted to go out to McDonalds with me he said that he would rather go to the old sandwich shop down the road. Now I had never been there before so I didn’t know just how bad the food was where they made it. After we had bought our sandwiches Percy suggests that we park out in front of the motel so that we can see the entirety of the people walk in and out. The only reason I agreed to this was because I thought it was like watching the birds or something. When we got there however Percy had something else in mind. When I had pulled into the parking lot Percy suddenly grabbed the wheel and twisted it to the right and we started doing donuts. I tried to twist it back around but when I did we smacked into a lamppost.

After relaying my story to them I waited for the screaming to begin. It never came though, because my parents just said that I would have to help pay for the repair and that I couldn’t drive the car anymore without them being in the car with me. This was fine because now I had a story to tell Jorge on Monday. I just knew that he would listen!

Sumerian Numbering
System

Creation:

One version says that they used this counting method that only goes up to sixty because you can count up to that number if you count all of your finger bones as well as all three thumb bones. All fingers/toes/thumbs have three bones.

Enduring Contribution:
This numbering system allowed people to keep systematic records of items
traded, in storage, crops killed, a worker’s pay, and many other things.