Team Info: Challenge #2 Bain Elementary School (Team A)
- Bain “Smarties” Team
- Mrs. Blackmon
- Jackson C., Abby F., Mariah P., Montana H., Tristan B., and Lilly A.
Summary for “The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles”
In the book, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles you meet three lovely children named Benjamin, Thomas, and Melinda Potter. Also known as Ben, Tom, and Lindy. The book starts out when the Potter kids are at the zoo and they meet Professor Savant, two days before Halloween. On the bus ride home her brothers dare her to go up to the big stone house that everybody is afraid of. All the school children think that there is a big ogre with yellow teeth that inhabits and haunts the big, ghastly looking stone house. But when she walks up to the house on halloween she meets … Professor Savant and Mrs. Primrose! It is a funny coincidence because they think a frightening ghost like figure would come out but it was a very kind and imaginative man and a sweet little old lady.
They had a conversation about how Professor Savant created a rumor about how the house was haunted so he would get some peace and quiet. He explains how wondrous DNA and RNA are. The professor tells them of a great adventure to a heavenly place, this place has all sorts of wonderful creatures like the Oink and the Gazook, but they have to use their imagination to get there. The kids accept and start training with him to hone their imagination so they can go to Whangdoodleland and see the ruler of the land, the last Whangdoodle, and visit his marvelous palace.
Then the research began Professor Savant teaches the kids about noticing things around them. Looking at the world from a more observant perspective. Before the kids might of said that it is just a flower but Savant taught them to see all of the tiny details and life on that one little plant, like the many colors that are on this one flower. This prepares them for the wondrous and dangerous adventures that lie ahead. Then he talked to them about scrappy caps, and how they would help their imagination, which would in turn help them travel to Whangdoodleland and visit the Whangdoodle.
Now there adventures begin. In their first adventure the Prock makes the Side Windhgfders chase them away.
But they don’t give up. The Prock does not want them to go. So he targets the youngest of the Potters, Lindy. He tries to scare her into not going again. But she stays brave and courageous. This makes professor very irritated because the prock messed with Lindy, who is a little girl. Professor goes on to say how Prock went to far and how it is very cruel and horrible of the prock to mess with Lindy.
But they go back nonetheless. Lindy was a little bit hesitant at first but they went. They found the Jolly Boat and rode down the river. While they were on the Jolly Boat they feasted on delightful sweets such as the “Whiffle Bird Delight” which was raspberry ice cream, blackberry sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry on top. On they way they face many creatures that the Prock sent to them from there real mission, like when the Splinter Cat lured Lindy right into her trap by pretending to be a lonely cat, then he kidnapped Lindy. Tom and Ben and the professor figured out that the Splinter Cat took Lindy and they lured the Splinter Cat with the Whiffle Bird and then saved Lindy and ran to the top of the mountain with the Splinter cat behind her but when the Splinter cat misses and then tumbles down the mountain.
Finally they get the palace but the professor did not have a strong enough imagination to see the bridge.He could not see his imagination but of the real world. He tells the kids to leave him behind and when they come back, describe their experience. The kids go on but and a Gyascutus chases them so they cannot enter, but they still fight there way across and get in. Then Lindy with her crying persuades Prock to let them see the whangdoodle. They meet the whangdoodle and tell him about the professor. The whangdoodle wants to see the professor because he might be able to make the whangdoodle a wife. They pretend to hold the kids hostage so that the professor will have the determination to come in, than Lindy goes out and tells the professor that they are being held hostage and the professor finally makes it. Then the whangdoodle explains how he is lonely and wants another whangdoodle to the professor. So he asks the professor to make him a whangdoodle. The professor made one and then at a party the great hall was turned into a banquet hall and when the doors opened there stood a beautiful lady whangdoodle and from then on the whangdoodle was joyful because now his kind would not go extinct.. The kids were sad when they left but professor Savant said that they could visit any time that want. That they had been fully trained now. They in the end had seen the whangdoodle and had an adventure they would never forget.
Summary for The Invention of Hugo Cabret
In Paris, France 1931, you meet a boy named Hugo Cabret who is poor and lives in the clock towers in a train station. He is a thief and steals toy parts from a toy shop in the station. One day the toy shop owner named Georges Méliés catches him stealing a blue mouse and takes his notebook. But let’s back up, he and his father loved each other and the father one day while, looking around in the museum attic he found a machine called the automaton. Curious about how it works his father worked day and night committed to remake it’s missing pieces to repair this wondrous machine though tragedy awaited him. One night after he started to repair automaton with the gears he created with the gears in his clock shop that he made with sketches in the notebook he was locked in by the security guard after he assumes that everyone is out. Tragically a fire started the same night and nobody knows how it occurred.
Hugo finds his book and he continues in his father’s steps and he keeps building the automaton. One day finds his uncle is now taking care of him since his father’s death. But again his uncle never comes back and later it turns out he died.Okay, back to Hugo, Georges Méliés flips through Hugo’s notebook and finds sketches of the automaton. The drawings catch his eye and he starts to question Hugo about the sketches, but Hugo remains silent. When Hugo finally gets out of the old man’s clutches he returns to his “bedroom” in the clock towers. Later, at night he followed the man to his home there to find the girl he met at the toy shop earlier promising him that she will make sure Georges won’t burn his notebook.
The girl’s name was Isabelle. She acts just like her godfather and started to question Hugo on why he was there. Hugo this time responds, Hugo explained that the book was from his dead father and that it was important and he needed it. But still Isabelle asked why it was so important, but Hugo refuses to tell, so Isabelle runs off, and does not give Hugo his notebook back. George Méliés claims that he burned Hugo’s notebook, but little Hugo knows that George Méliés is was bluffing and the ashes that George Méliés claimed were Hugo’s notebook were not actually Hugo’s notebook’s ashes.
He worked on the automaton for quite awhile now and is now ready to see what it spells or draws. But then he noticed that he needed to unlock it for it to start with a key. Hugo didn’t know were the key was. Suddenly Isabelle stopped by. Hugo quickly understood that the key necklace that Isabelle wore all the time was the key to unlock the automaton. After reading a magic book he got from the library. He wanted to try magic after seeing George Méliés do it at the shop. Then on his way to his “house”, Isabelle finds the automaton and the are now both curious about it, but Isabelle is still mad at Hugo so she storms of to her house, but hugo follows behind.
Now more enraged then ever she slams the door on hugo and breaks his hand. Hugo cried out in pain and then the godmother brings Hugo to Isabelle’s room with an ice pack anxious about waking Georges Méliés but then hugo realize that the dresser has a secret compartment full of Georges Méliés drawings but he has alzheimer’s so if he sees them he freaks out because he doesn’t remember.
When they finally calm him down the next day he tells the story, “I made all sorts of movies” he said and explained that he was a filmmaker and loved to make movies he made one of a train and even made one of a rocket crashing into the man on the moon. Hugo loves that movie. Him and his father would always go to that movies on his birthday, but one day, a sad day Georges Méliés most trusted workers died in a car crash and he stopped making movies forever. They were Isabelle’s parents.
On a happy note they were friends with someone that wanted to meet Georges Méliés, thinking he was dead. He was thrilled and was given one of his films and an invitation to a party in his honor and a t the same time… Hugo was adopted!
That is the story of Hugo Cabret, or should I say invention!
Great work summarizing the books. I like the idea of creating an awareness campaign.
~Dr. Doss