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Monday, July 29, 2013

(Some of) My Favorite Books

One afternoon seven years ago, I sat on my bed holding a book. A novel, to be exact. It was Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. I sighed, wishing that, like my mom and older brother, I could read it. I opened the book, expecting the words to be a semi-incomprehensible jumble, as usual. But they weren't. To my amazement, I discovered I could read.
I was seven years old, and there was no going back. From that day forward, I was never far from a book or two. Or three. Or over a hundred, living in our house.
Here are some of my favorite books (of which there are too many to list in one blog post), listed in no particular order:

The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale
Shannon Hale is undeniably one of my favorite authors. I've loved fairy tales for as long as I can remember, and I love it when I find a retelling that is as good or better than the original. Actually, my mom found this one. So thanks, Mom.
The Goose Girl is a retelling of the Grimm Brothers fairy tale called, well, The Goose Girl. It's about a princess, called Ani, who is sent away from her homeland of Kildenree because she has a strange gift. She can talk to birds and her horse, Falada. Her mother is afraid of her gift, and sends Ani to a neighboring country to be married off to the prince of that country. But on the journey there, Ani is betrayed. Stripped of her identity and everything she has, Ani has to prove that she is the true princess of Kildenree.
I devoured this book in a day. Trust me, it's awesome.

Pretty Much Anything by Rick Riordan
No, that isn't the title of a book. I mean literally pretty much anything by Rick Riordan. Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Kane Chronicles, Heroes of Olympus...I love them all. If you haven't read them, then what could you possibly be waiting for?

The Inkheart Series, by Cornelia Funke
I love Cornelia Funke. I love her writing style, her worlds, her characters. Inkheart just barely beats Reckless in my list of favorite books. It's about a girl named Meggie and her father, Mo, who discover the world of books in a completely different way. There are worlds inside books, worlds with dragons and magic and buried treasure. When Mo, called the 'Silvertongue', reads a book aloud, he can make characters come out of it. Unfortunately, someone must go into the book for each person who comes out. In the case of a book named Inkheart, it's Mo's wife, Meggie's mother.
I've read this book at least three times and enjoyed it more every time.

The Leviathan Series, by Scott Westerfeld
Yay, steampunk! That's what I thought the first time I saw these books, and it's what I thought while reading them. My brother recommended them to me, and I am forever grateful to him for it.
Leviathan takes place during an alternate World War I, when Alek, the prince of Austria, and Deryn, a British girl disguised as a boy working on an airship that happens to be giant flying whale, cross paths in a, as Deryn would say, most peculiar way. Though on opposite sides, Alek and Deryn have to work together to stop the war from destroying everything they know.
In this case, World War I + whale-airships + undercover royalty = possibly one of the best steampunk books ever.

That's all for now, folks! I hope you enjoyed it.




Saturday, July 27, 2013

Greetings, Reader(s)!

Hello and welcome to my brand-new, hopefully successful blog! I'm Katie (or Katydid, as I'm sometimes called), a homeschooled writer, photographer, bird-watcher, singer/musician, and 9th grader. This blog, 'Bigger On The Inside', will be my blog for recording my thoughts on writing, books, movies, music, and life in general. But probably I'll mostly be posting about writing and books.
I have another blog that you might want to check out if you're into nature and photography and birds, or anything along those lines, really. Here's the link.
I am a participant in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and Camp NaNoWriMo, so I may blog about that, too. If you don't know what they are, I suggest you click both the links I posted. You won't regret it, I guarantee that. On NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program site, I am known by the username Katie B.
I mostly write fantasy and science-fiction, but I enjoy other genres as well, especially historical fiction and steampunk. I've been writing since I was about 7 years old, but I've never finished a story, not even a short one. I recently cleaned out my nightstand drawers, and I found about six unfinished stories. I have a short attention span, as it turns out.
Before I finish this post, I'll answer a question you might have. Then again, you might not have it, but I'm going to answer it anyway. That question is: What's with the title?
I chose the title 'Bigger On The Inside' partly as a tribute to Doctor Who, which happens to be my favorite TV show, but it also has a slightly deeper meaning. Often when I get an idea for a story, I think, "Oh, I'll just write this for fun, as a break from my other novels." But then the story grows, the characters begin to write themselves, and I find myself getting really excited about it. The story, it turns out, is 'bigger on the inside'.

I hope you enjoy this humble blog of mine, and I'll do my best to maintain it. Thanks so much for checking it out!