Who wouldn't want to visit this park??
Charles Dickens theme park set to open in England.
Ok, I'm not being sarcastic here. I'd love to visit. I really enjoy Charles Dickens. What a cool experience. Does this not sound fun:
The indoor attraction includes a central square of cobbled streets and crooked buildings, where staff dressed as pickpockets and wenches will mingle with the crowds. Visitors who pay the $25 admission charge - $15 for children - will have the chance to see the Ghost of Christmas Past in Ebeneezer Scrooge's haunted house, be hectored by a schoolmaster at Dotheboys Hall - the dismal school from "Nicholas Nickleby" - and peer into the fetid cells of notorious Newgate Prison.
Tourists can also have a meal in the cafeteria, which has resisted the temptation to offer "Please, sir can I have some more?" 2-for-1 specials. The little ones can play in Fagin's Den, an area for preschoolers named - alarmingly, some might think - after the gangmaster of the band of thieves in "Oliver Twist."
I'm not a big amusement park person but this park I find really intriguing.
Let's see, went to Barnes and Noble today as a romance book came out this week I wanted to pick up. But I also found A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly, which is a 2004 release and I've never heard of it but it sounds really interesting. The clerk who rang me up highly recommended it. Here's amazon's blurb on it:
It's 1906 and 16-year-old Mattie Gokey is at a crossroads in her life. She's escaped the overwhelming responsibilities of helping to run her father's brokedown farm in exchange for a paid summer job as a serving girl at a fancy hotel in the Adirondacks. She's saving as much of her salary as she can, but she's having trouble deciding how she's going to use the money at the end of the summer. Mattie's gift is for writing and she's been accepted to Barnard College in New York City, but she's held back by her sense of responsibility to her family--and by her budding romance with handsome-but-dull Royal Loomis. Royal awakens feelings in Mattie that she doesn't want to ignore, but she can't deny her passion for words and her desire to write.
At the hotel, Mattie gets caught up in the disappearance of a young couple who had gone out together in a rowboat. Mattie spoke with the young woman, Grace Brown, just before the fateful boating trip, when Grace gave her a packet of love letters and asked her to burn them. When Grace is found drowned, Mattie reads the letters and finds that she holds the key to unraveling the girl's death and her beau's mysterious disappearance. Grace Brown's story is a true one (it's the same story told in Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy and in the film adaptation, A Place in the Sun), and author Jennifer Donnelly masterfully interweaves the real-life story with Mattie's, making her seem even more real.
Mattie's frank voice reveals much about poverty, racism, and feminism at the turn of the twentieth century. She witnesses illness and death at a range far closer than most teens do today, and she's there when her best friend Minnie gives birth to twins. Mattie describes Minnie's harrowing labor with gut-wrenching clarity, and a visit with Minnie and the twins a few weeks later dispels any romance from the reality of young motherhood (and marriage). Overall, readers will get a taste of how bitter--and how sweet--ordinary life in the early 1900s could be. Despite the wide variety of troubles Mattie describes, the book never feels melodramatic, just heartbreakingly real.
Ok, a) I love YA/teen fiction, b) I love historical set mysteries and c) the turn of the century is an amazing time to write about so I'm pretty thrilled. And with school being out in less than a week I will have some time to read it before new classes kick in.
It's gorgeous out again today! I'm loving spring. I wish temps would always stay in low 60s with no humidity. That is my ideal temperature all summer long. Unfortunately, I'll have to work today but after my book buying spree, well, I need some money, lol.
Hope you are all having a wonderful day! I know it's been a tough week all around, at least for me, so I hope the end of the week finds you all in better spirits.
Ok, I'm not being sarcastic here. I'd love to visit. I really enjoy Charles Dickens. What a cool experience. Does this not sound fun:
The indoor attraction includes a central square of cobbled streets and crooked buildings, where staff dressed as pickpockets and wenches will mingle with the crowds. Visitors who pay the $25 admission charge - $15 for children - will have the chance to see the Ghost of Christmas Past in Ebeneezer Scrooge's haunted house, be hectored by a schoolmaster at Dotheboys Hall - the dismal school from "Nicholas Nickleby" - and peer into the fetid cells of notorious Newgate Prison.
Tourists can also have a meal in the cafeteria, which has resisted the temptation to offer "Please, sir can I have some more?" 2-for-1 specials. The little ones can play in Fagin's Den, an area for preschoolers named - alarmingly, some might think - after the gangmaster of the band of thieves in "Oliver Twist."
I'm not a big amusement park person but this park I find really intriguing.
Let's see, went to Barnes and Noble today as a romance book came out this week I wanted to pick up. But I also found A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly, which is a 2004 release and I've never heard of it but it sounds really interesting. The clerk who rang me up highly recommended it. Here's amazon's blurb on it:
It's 1906 and 16-year-old Mattie Gokey is at a crossroads in her life. She's escaped the overwhelming responsibilities of helping to run her father's brokedown farm in exchange for a paid summer job as a serving girl at a fancy hotel in the Adirondacks. She's saving as much of her salary as she can, but she's having trouble deciding how she's going to use the money at the end of the summer. Mattie's gift is for writing and she's been accepted to Barnard College in New York City, but she's held back by her sense of responsibility to her family--and by her budding romance with handsome-but-dull Royal Loomis. Royal awakens feelings in Mattie that she doesn't want to ignore, but she can't deny her passion for words and her desire to write.
At the hotel, Mattie gets caught up in the disappearance of a young couple who had gone out together in a rowboat. Mattie spoke with the young woman, Grace Brown, just before the fateful boating trip, when Grace gave her a packet of love letters and asked her to burn them. When Grace is found drowned, Mattie reads the letters and finds that she holds the key to unraveling the girl's death and her beau's mysterious disappearance. Grace Brown's story is a true one (it's the same story told in Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy and in the film adaptation, A Place in the Sun), and author Jennifer Donnelly masterfully interweaves the real-life story with Mattie's, making her seem even more real.
Mattie's frank voice reveals much about poverty, racism, and feminism at the turn of the twentieth century. She witnesses illness and death at a range far closer than most teens do today, and she's there when her best friend Minnie gives birth to twins. Mattie describes Minnie's harrowing labor with gut-wrenching clarity, and a visit with Minnie and the twins a few weeks later dispels any romance from the reality of young motherhood (and marriage). Overall, readers will get a taste of how bitter--and how sweet--ordinary life in the early 1900s could be. Despite the wide variety of troubles Mattie describes, the book never feels melodramatic, just heartbreakingly real.
Ok, a) I love YA/teen fiction, b) I love historical set mysteries and c) the turn of the century is an amazing time to write about so I'm pretty thrilled. And with school being out in less than a week I will have some time to read it before new classes kick in.
It's gorgeous out again today! I'm loving spring. I wish temps would always stay in low 60s with no humidity. That is my ideal temperature all summer long. Unfortunately, I'll have to work today but after my book buying spree, well, I need some money, lol.
Hope you are all having a wonderful day! I know it's been a tough week all around, at least for me, so I hope the end of the week finds you all in better spirits.