Book Recommendation

  A book that I recommend that people should read is "No Easy Day" by Mark Owen.  The book is about the largest manhunt in U.S history, where a group of people spent 10 years tracking Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.  The book also is about everything that the Navy Seals went through like months of training to kill 1 man.  Everything was planned out for years with good intel, a 3D model of the base and they had to work until they could actually complete the mission, and end Bin Laden's life.

  At first before I read this book I was a little skeptical because I didn't think the book was going to be that exciting but I was completely wrong.  It was very informative and gave firsthand accounts of every person's point of view during the raid.  I liked learning about all the intel people had to gather and everything everyone involved had to do to complete one of the most important and biggest assassination missions in the United State's history.

This is the cover of "No Easy Day," by Mark Owen.

Update 2

  The Waitrose kids and the Morrisons banded together to leave in the morning and to make it to the palace by night.  Their group of kids in total equaled 80 with the small kids in the middle, and the bigger and better fighters making a ring around them.  They started marching from Waitrose to a new beginning at the palace.  The group with Arran and Blue at the front marched for awhile until they ran into a massive army of grown ups at the top of the hill ready to charge.  Before the grown ups were always stupid and dumb and could never organize a real attack.  But they some how evolved and started to charged the group.

  Arran and the best fighters move to the front in a fighting position but Arran was was after his bite in the neck started to make him sick and it slowed the group down.  Lewis and some other fighters protected the little kids in the corner and had to stop them from running around in panic, they had to hope the main fighting force would hold out.  Meanwhile Arran looked around and saw that his fighters were being overrun and slowly being picked off one by one in the large numbers of the grown ups.  But his team was able to fend off the grown ups and send them running away.

  Arran was angry and wanted to chase them down to kill every last one of them when he was shot by an arrow through his lung and collapsed.  A girl named Sophie  and her survivors came across from the hill as Arran was slowly dying.  Everyone was weighing the options on what they should do , when Achilleus became impatient and pulled the arrow out of his lung.  Arran then couldn't fight anymore and died.  They lost many other kids and decided to burn them in honor and to not let the grown ups eat them.

  Small Sam left from Waitrose with food and water that Callum gave him and headed on until he hit got a flat tire on his bike and some grown ups chased him into the subway station.  It was dark and Sam was alone.  He traveled everywhere underground hoping to find a way out and evading grown ups, until a man named Nick saved him and brought him to his home in a train with his wife Rachael.  They somehow survived the apocalypse and took care of him giving food and a bed to sleep in.  But they are not who they seem when Sam is asleep they handcuff him to the bed.

  Maxie's group presses on into the night when they travel through a park and were ambushed by creatures  from the trees.  They fended them off but it wasn't enough after they lost 5 more kids who laid dead in the tall grass.  They spent the night in a garden and were down to 53 kids left in all 3 groups together.  They pressed on not seeing many grown ups when they stopped at some clothing stores to go shopping.

This is Oxford Circus in London.  Maxie and the group go shopping in this area to get nice clothes for the palace.

Predictions and Questions

Arran and Blue's groups have now started there journey to Buckingham Palace in their total amount of kids at 80. They project the journey will take 1 day but my first prediction is that they will encounter many grown ups along the way and have to fight them off to defend the little kids in the middle.

  Prediction 2: Small Sam will have to fend for his life as he is alone and cannot find the group and doesn't not know where they are headed.

Prediction 3: Many kids will die on the long journey to the palace.

Prediction 4: Arran and Blue might have fights and arguments about what they think is best for the group's safety.

 My final prediction is: Small Sam will die either by grown ups eating him or not finding food and water.

Now I have some questions to ask about the story. Question 1: How did the disease outbreak start? Was there some new virus that infected everyone above the age of 16?
Question 2: Why are kids immune to the virus? If it was a world wide epidemic you would think that everyone would be infected. Right?
Question 3: How does Arran not know if Jester is lying about the safety of Buckingham Palace? Maybe they are being lead into a trap?
Question 4: I wonder how Small Sam will do on scavenging for supplies like food and water to survive on his own in a dangerous world? My final question is why haven't the kids found any guns or real weapons instead of wrenches and lead pipes to defend themselves?

A text to self connection for this book is when I played an iPhone game called plague inc. where you are a plague and you must evolve it to kill the world.  So one of the viruses I played as was a virus that turned people into zombies like in my book.  After awhile I turned every person into a zombie.

A text to text connection for this book is to the T.V. show The Walking Dead.  The Walking Dead also takes place in a post apocalyptic world where a disease turned people into half living and half dead creatures that want to eat meet.  In both stories there are protagonists who try to survive by any means necessary and lose many people they love on the way.

A text to world connection for this book could be a worldwide disease like Aids.  In my book a worldwide disease infected every adult in the world and was not preventable.  Aids is also a worldwide disease in our lives today where anybody can get it and it is not avoidable.


This is a picture of what a grown up zombie could look like in the book.

The Enemy Update 1

After I left off Arran and his scavenger group were ambushed at the pool. Deke was taken and killed and also Small Sam was taken by the grown ups. Arran was bitten by a woman at the pool and his neck needs medical attention or it will get infected. As Arran and his scavenger party returned back Maxie was afraid to break the news to Arran about Sam but Arran had to get bandaged by the group nurse. That night all of the kids in the group met on the roof while Arran broke the news to everyone about Deke and Maxie about Small Sam. Arran as the leader of the group, had to show bravery and leadership to calm everyone down to boost morale. During the meeting they hear a voice screaming and banging on the walls. With there spotlights Arran decides to help the boy in need and he gathered his best fighters and went out to get the kid to safety. They were being overrun when the Morrison's crew came in for backup and they all hid inside. The kid was from Buckingham pallace and was named Jester. Arran and Blue the leaders, asked him question on why he was here. Jester was sent with 4 others to travel across London to find survivors and bring them back. Jester was the only one to survive, he told Arran that life was great at the pallace with most of the grown ups gone and leaving the kids to do whatever they want there. Jester and the others didn't know there were more grown ups further away. Arran and Blue decided that their groups would join together and make a trip to Buckingham Pallace. Small Sam was not dead, but was able to escape the grownups at the stadium and made it back to Waitrose only to find nobody there.

Character Profiles

The Enemy Is Real

       In "The Enemy" by Charlie Higson, the first 15 pages have had a lot of action.  The book started off in a post Apoplectic London after an outbreak turned any person above the age of 16 into zombies.  Small Sam was playing oust side with some other young children without a guard.  3 zombies flanked Sam and stuffed him into a sack and carried him away over the wall before any other children could arrive to help.  It is a dangerous adult zombie infested world where strong zombies are slow, smart zombies are weak and fast zombies are stupid. 

       Arran is the leader of a group of over 20 kids trying to survive and a girl named Maxie is his second in command.  Every person in their group has different skills and are all different ages.  By the time Maxie and her group arrived to Small Sam he was already gone, they were to late.  Maxie is now mad at herself that they couldn't do anything to save him.  Josh and Callum comforted Maxie as she began to cry, she knew it was all her fault that another kid was taken.

       Arran was out leading a scavenger party to find food and supplies to bring back to camp.  Before the world became infested with zombies Arran was the captain of his soccer team and now leads a survival group.  In his scavenger group is Freak and Deak, they were best friends and a team.  Freak and Deke never go anywhere without each other.  Arran was the leader of the group but Achilleus was the best fighter and has saved them countless times.  Finally there was Ollie who was small but the cleverest of them all.

     As they are walking down the street they here howling of a pack of dogs.  They take defensive stances with Achilleus in the front with a spear, Freak had an axe and Deke has a sledgehammer.  Soon a pack of many dogs stood 20 feet away from them and started barking.  Arran and the group started making racket to scare some off.  But the brave dogs stayed and inched closer but Ollie used his slingshot shoot a metal ball into the leader killing it.  Achilleus took down a German Shepard and the rest of the pack ran away.  They took the leader and carried it back to camp to cook for food, lately the children were very hungry.

Who Is the Enemy?

  The book I will be reading is "The Enemy", by Charlie Higson.  I chose this book because I wanted an exciting action book with many setbacks and breakthroughs.  I also chose it because it is a life or death kind of book, where the protagonists will do there best to survive in this post Apocalyptic future.  I have never heard of Charlie Higson but this book and many of his other books have gotten very good reviews and I wanted to read a book I haven't read before. 

  My book takes place in London in the post apocalyptic future after an outbreak disease that turned every person on earth above the age of 16 to zombies or death.  Anyone under the age of 16 is left alone in a zombie infested world to fend for themselves in groups to survive.  Adults zombies roam the streets looking for children to kill.  The main characters are 2 teens Arran and Maxie who have been promised food and medicine at Buckingham Palace, but must travel a long distance in a dangerous world using makeshift weapons to defend themselves.  Their group is full of many ages of kids and most struggle to survive.  Many are lost along the way, the only safe place for them is at Buckingham Palace.

http://www.readingteen.net/2011/02/book-review-enemy-by-charlie-higson.html