The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors by Drew Daywalt

Preschool and Kindergarten

The epic tale of the classic game Rock, Paper, Scissors.

You’ve played the game. Now read the legend of how it all began…

I found this book at Barnes and Nobles and it is just hilarious. It might not be as hilarious as ‘Walter the Farting Dog’ but just as amusing. I definitely recommend this book for story time at elementary schools. I still don’t get how Paper beats Rock but whatever.

Since this is my blog and I can talk about whatever I want I decided to take the opportunity to introduce you to a difference version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. It’s called…

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock

This is a version of the tradition game created by some guy on the Internet and talked about on The Big Bang Theory.

Here are the rules:

Scissors cuts Paper

Paper covers Rock

Rock crushes Lizard

Lizard poisons Spock

Spock smashes Scissors

Scissors decapitates Lizard

Lizard eats Paper

Paper disproves Spock

Spock vaporizes Rock

…And as it always has Rock crushes Scissors

Now I would like to sidetrack to talk about something important. While on YouTube, I found a boy named Ethan who has leukemia who does a book vlog. He has a video that explains what he’s doing so below is a link to his YouTube channel and his website:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzk7x84DQi01lA0trr7ZZ3Q/featured

https://ethanandchocosbookclub.com

In a nutshell, Ethan wants to build a SUPER library at the CHOC hospital so all the kids at the hospital will have books to read. He also wants to start a read-aloud program in patient rooms and common spaces where kids spend time.

I immediately like this kid because he’s a fellow book lover like me. I read a lot of books when I was younger but not as many as this kid. I’m watching all of his book reviews and there are 366 of them. I’m hoping to review as many books as he has but it might take awhile since I only update my blog every Saturday and in 2016 Ethan reviewed a different book every day for his Daily Book Look Challenge. The books Ethan reviews are books that he hopes to get donated to his hospital library.

After learning about Ethan and Choco’s Book Club (ECBC) I decided to donate to the CHOC hospital library. It’s not hard to do. They’ve created a Wish List on Amazon where books can be purchased, donated, and sent directly to ECBC. See link below:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/BLD7UEVPPPO/ref=cm_sw_su_w

And since this book is on Ethan’s Wish List I’m donating this one. I’m hoping to donate more in the future but it’s hard to decide which books because there are hundreds of books on his Wish List. Anyone reading this, please consider donating to this wonderful cause.

Fuzzy by Tom Angleberger and Paul Dellinger

5^th Grade and Up

It’s the first day at Vanguard One Middle School for a new student: Fuzzy, a state-of-the-art robot! When Fuzzy arrives at the school as part of the Robot Integration Program, 7^th grader Max is thrilled. She loves robots. The two become fast friends, and Max teaches her new classmate everything he needs to know about how to survive 7^th grade.

When the two friends discover the super-secret purpose behind the Robot Integration Program, they realize they’ll have to combine Fuzzy’s super smarts with Max’s super savvy to outwit the adults…and an even trickier foe: a digital student evaluation system named BARBARA that might be taking its mission to shape the perfect student to extremes.

It wasn’t until the first page that I wondered why a robot would have to go to middle school in the first place (ironically the same question is asked on the second page). There is a reason why Fuzzy is attending school, I just can’t tell you.

Once again, a story about a near future that’s very possible. Computers and machines are becoming more advanced and doing more tasks each year. I pray that technology won’t take over the school systems, for future kids sakes. What ever happened to teachers who can actually teach?

The government apparently wanted a robot that could think for itself, because that’s not a dangerous idea. Luckily this book’s more ‘Short Circuit’ then ‘Terminator’. One thing that the robot has to learn is how to walk through a crowded hallway. As someone whose high school was extremely over-crowded, this is a very hard thing to do. Personally if I saw a robot walking down the halls I would get out of the way.

I think the most horrifying thing about this future scenario is that most people don’t even know what a book is. Everything is being read on electronic tablets. I might spend a lot of time writing and reading on a screen but I can’t imagine not reading from a physical book. For one thing, books don’t crash like machines do.

What really made me mad was how unreasonable Max’s mom was being. She kept going on an on about how robots and computers aren’t reliable and how people are too dependent on technology while she trusts a computerized grading system over her own daughter.

It’s never said what specific year this story is taking place in; I’m guessing sometime around 2040 to 2050.