King James I

I like King James the First of England.  So I got this book at my grandma's house and this is one thing it said.  The book is called "VI of Scotland King James I of England" by Antonia Fraser.

"When James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603 he had reigned in his native land almost as long as had the great Elizabeth herself. His eventful but highly successful rule in Scotland is often neglected by historians who see his main significance only in terms of his English experience. But not only was he a  'good, almost a great' king of Scotland : he was in England very far from the royal pedant of popular imagination. He showed both vision and determination in pursuing his political goals: he believed in the concept of a united Britain- the unification of the two kingdoms- and a foreign policy based on peace rather than bellicose chauvinism. As for his learning, the King James Bible- the Authorised Version- represents a lasting monument to his enthusiasm for scholarship and literature. Of course, the picture has it's darker side. James's addiction to parasitical Court favourites, although rooted in his pathetic love- starved childhood, gave rise to understandable resentment : and in an age which saw growing opposition in Parliament (not to say underneath it at the time of the Gunpowder Plot), he would need all his celebrated wisdom to prevent disunity from deteriorating into open conflict."

The Moon: A Fossil Planet

Since I love space and think space stuff is cool, I wanted to post something about the moon.  I got this from "Atlas of the World" by Reader's Digest.

"Unlike the earth - a dynamic planet where weather has eroded the shifting surface and erased the record of early history - the moon has hardly changed. Its main features  have been fossilized in time. Its gravitational force - only a sixth of that of the earth - is not great enough to grasp or retain an atmosphere. As a result, there is no water, no weather, and no wind. Until recently three competing theories attempted to explain the origin of the moon, some 4.5 billion years ago. The "fission" theory claimed that the early earth was rotating so fast that a chunk of it broke away and was flung out into space to form the moon - leaving, it was even suggested, a scar on the earth's surface in the form of the Pacific Ocean. The "double planet" theory contended that the twin bodies of earth and moon formed independently from the same primordial cloud of dust and gas. And the "capture" theory proposed that the moon formed elsewhere in the solar system and was pulled into orbit by the earth's gravity as it flew past the earth. None of these theories, however, was confirmed by the Apollo missions of the late 1960's and early 1970's. The Apollo findings showed that the chemical compositions of the earth and moon are very different - that, for example, there is little or no iron, water, or sodium on the moon. These discoveries raised more questions than they answered."

Lego Bricks

Lego's are very fun, but complicated sometimes. Lots of Lego's are different shapes and sizes and different colors. Lego's come with instructions with the set. Now, Lego's are building blocks. You stack them on top of each other, but you can't just look at the blocks on the instructions and stack them wherever you want to and say you finished.You have to FOLLOW the instructions exactly.

Lego's are good for building because, if you've seen Lego's, on top of it there's dots that stick out a little, and then there's holes on the bottom of the brick (which is another name for the Lego block). Lets say you have two bricks, and you want to put them together. So you grab them and stick them together on top of each other, but you don't always have to stick them on top of each other, too. You can do it any way you want! In the instructions, when you build, you have to look at it closely sometimes because they don't show you the image really close, so you have to look close. 

Whenever I finish building a Lego set, I look back and think of all the hard work I did to build it, and now I get to play with it. 

This is what you need to remember,though. Don't get upset with the Lego's! Like I said: Lego's are fun, but complicated sometimes.