I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: “TNT” – A Minecraft Parody of Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” (2011).

How do you top Clark’s favorite song?  By making a parody of it in the style of his favorite game!  This song and video are based on the game Minecraft, Clark’s most recent obsession.  The song is funny, mostly.  It’s got to be hard to think up a full songs worth of parody material–one verse is easy, Sarah and I do that all the time.  But the chorus is a good one: “I shoot my arrows in the air sometimes/saying ay-oh, creeper’s KO’d.”

The music is pretty good (although the vocals aren’t quite as strong as the original).  But the video is really quite funny, and well crafted.

So, enjoy the video:

By the way, Clark hasn’t seen this yet…I’m kind of afraid he’ll never leave the computer if he does.

[READ: mid-June 2012] The Secrets of Droon: SE8

After 44 books the saga has ended.

Will the kids rescue Eric?  Will the kids stop Gethwing?  Will the kids stop Ko?  And what will happen to the kids if they do save Droon?  Does this mean their quest, and their adventures in Droon, are at an end?

As this book opens we are reminded of the ancient prophecy that Gethwing is immortal.  Gethwing has even told of the prophecy himself:

Five shall pass away, four shall wear the crown, three shall fall, two shall rise together and one…

What about the one?

What can this prophecy mean?  Gethwing knows: The five are the cycles of Droon’s millennial calendar.  The four are  the Crown of Wizards–Sparr, Neffu, Ungast and Gethwing; The three include Ko (who has fallen to his death) and Zara (long dead).  And the two are Eric (as Ungast) and Gethwing, rising together.  But the funny thing about prophecies is that they can be read different ways (and there’s a wonderful payoff to the prophecy at the end of the book).

The beginning of the book mostly sees Eric as Ungast (and, suspicious to the end, Gethwing gave Eric a bracelet that connects him to the dragon).  Eric is trying to get through to Sparr (who is still evil).  Sparr holds a strange power over Eric, but they seem to be in synch with their ideas.  Eric isn’t sure but he thinks that he and Sparr are on the same time–they are both “collecting the magics.”  There is an amusing scene where Sparr, trying to show off his power to Eric tries to move stone, but it is really Eric doing it.  And maybe Sparr knows that….

By mid way through the book, all of the kids are reunited at last.

And that’s when pieces start falling into place.  We learn an amazing fact about Meredith (the weird girl from their class who keeps spying on them).  Sparr and Demither settle their differences.  We get to see the sand-cycle again (cool!).  There’s even the return of Twee and Woot and the other monkeys of the Bangledorn forest (where the Hakoth-Mal have taken over).  There’s even the return of Jabbo and his transforming pies!  And yes, we finally lean the meaning behind Reki-ur-set.

And of course, the biggest piece falling into place is the history of Urik (which I won’t give away).  However, I was thrilled to see Clark guess it about two pages before it was all put together.

And there’s time travel (headache inducing, at least for Neal).  And there’s also a lot of excitement–the kids manage to save their town (in the Upper World) with magic.  And the Upper World means that Mr and Mrs Hinkle are involved too (with hilarious mistaken names said by the parents).

The children are eventually reunited with Galen (a very happy scene), but  the celebration is short when they learn that Salamandra has saved Ko from certain death and brought him back.  Just whose side is Salamandra on, anyhow?

By the end of the book, things look hopeless, but the sides are evenly matched–all of the good guys are together (Galen, Sparr, Urik and Zara reunited at last, along with all of the kids) but the bad guys are very strong too–Gethwing and Ko are at full strength and they have goblins and beasts on their side,

The end of the long saga is handled very well.  The group has to work together–even Max gets in on the action, but they also know that they must not kill their foes or that would make them just like the beasts.  It’s an exciting and emotional conclusion.

When we finished the book (which,if you’re paying attention, we did not finish before Clark ended school–we missed that arbitrary deadline by about a week) Clark was so exited he ran down to tell his mom.  And he more or less insisted that we have a cake to celebrate.

So Sarah made an awesome Droon cake.She wrote a post about the experience.  And to top off the coolness factor, Tony Abbott himself wrote some very nice things to her on the post (click the link to see).  Tony Abbott also wrote some super nice things on my posts as well (in the comments here).

Droon has been a wonderful experience.  I loved spending time with Clark and I loved getting into the fantasy aspect of everything.  His enjoyment made it all the better (and Tony Abbott’s notes were like the icing on top of the snow-capped mountain on top of the Droon cake).