NEWS ABOUT THE READATHON

I'm so excited! I'm in the newspaper!

Not the regular newspaper, but the special newspaper they're handing out on the picket lines, called, "Writers: On The Line."

The article from that newspaper is also online at United Hollywood, which is a website for people to know what writers think about the strike. The online article does not have the picture of me that the newsletter has, so my mom will try to put it in here.

I was also in my school newsletter on Friday. They talked about the readathon.

Welcome to my new supporters, Nancy, Jeff and Cherie. Jeff and Cherie have written some books that I am going to read. And Nancy says she is doing her own readathon. I hope Nancy will write and let me know how much money she has raised.

I just started reading a new book. It is good. It is called Fever 1793, and it is about a girl named Maddie who lives in Philadelphia in the year 1793. Suddenly yellow fever sweeps through the town and she is forced to leave with her grandfather. But she soon learns that the disease is everywhere, and she needs to learn to survive in a world gone mad from disease. It'll probably take me 3 days to finish it if I read avidly.

Thank you to all my supporters! I will e-mail when I finish this book.

TWO MORE BOOKS

I have read two more books. They are both in the same series as Backstage Pass. The second book is called Double Booked (ironic, isn't it?). And the third book is called Unplugged.

In Double Booked, one girl becomes the band's manager and messes up a concert. Also, she thinks that one of the other band members wants to join the "popular" girls and she thinks this is betrayal.

In the third book, one of the girls suggests that the band go on tour in Russia, and they get the chance to do it because one of the girls' dad has a business trip in Russia for a few weeks.

Double Booked is 123 pages and Unplugged is 127 pages. So that is a total of 950 pages that I have read.

So if you have been keeping track, you will know how much to send in to the Writers Guild Foundation or the Actors Fund. You can find their address over on the side. If you have pledged a penny a page, then you should have sent in $9.50 total, right?

Welcome and thank you to my new supporters, Lynn and Sharon (I would usually call them by Mrs. and their last names, but my mom doesn't want me to use any last names here), and also to "The Wileyman," who posted a comment. I still don't know what his real name is.

I am now going back to the Time Quintet by Madeleine L'Engle. I am on the last book, which is An Acceptable Time. It is a longer book so it will probably be a longer time till I finish my next book.

By the way, thank you again to all of you, and you should know we have now raised over $1000 for people who are out of work because of the strike. (Make sure you send in all your checks!) Thank you!

MY THIRD BOOK

The third book I have read so far for my readathon is called Backstage Pass by Cheryl Crouch. It is about two girls named Melody and Harmony who are absolute best friends, and then a girl named Trinity moves to L.A. and Harmony starts to spend more time with her than with Melody. Melody gets jealous. Then Trinity and Harmony think of starting a band with all three of them in it, for a music video contest. It ends with them winning, and Melody and Trinity become friends.

It's a very biblical book because the band's name, which is the "Chosen Girls," is derived from John 15:16. I thought it was actually a very good book, although quite short.

Speaking of how short it was, this book was 134 pages. So if you're supporting my readathon, that is $1.34 that you should send to the Writers Guild Foundation or the Actors Fund.

If you add up all the pages I've read so far, it's 700 pages even (566 plus 134). So if you are supporting me at a penny a page, and you haven't sent in any checks yet, you can send in $7.00 even. And if you're supporting me at more than a penny a page, it should be very easy to figure out how much to send in.

Thank you to my new supporter Erin, and to my other supporters who have been there from the beginning. They have already been listed in another post.

I will keep reading until the strike is over.

STILL READING

Recently I have had a cold, so I might not finish my next book for a while.

Right now I am reading the sequel to Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle. It is called An Acceptable Time. I might start also reading a few littler books that my mom wants me to read called the Chosen Girls series. She wants to know what I think about them.

So I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you all in a while, but I am happy that I have raised $599.52 so far. I really want to get to $600 -- do you think I will do it?

I'll come back as soon as I've read more.

P.S. Oh, by the way, I know it says "posted by Janet" on here. That is my mom. But she is doing the typing and watching the comments to make sure there is nothing inappropriate. But it is me doing the posting.

I FINISHED MY SECOND BOOK

As I have written before, I went to Winter Camp this weekend. While I was there, I finished my second book, Many Waters, also by Madeleine L'Engle.

Many Waters is a very biblical book about twins named Sandy and Dennis who are looking for Dutch cocoa when they accidentally get sent back to the time right before the big flood. In the story there are nephilim and seraphim to add to the biblical aspect. Sandy and Dennis get back to their own time by transporting themselves on unicorns.

This book was 310 pages. That means at a penny a page, my supporters should send $3.10 to the Writers Guild Foundation Industry Support Fund or the Actors Fund. If you didn't send in anything for the first book, then I have now read 566 pages, and you should send in $5.66. If you pledged more than a penny a page, then use a calculator to figure out what to send in.

Thank you to my new supporters, Dawn, Jim, Pat, Derrick, Karen, Jim, Christopher and Cameron.. I am now up to 72 cents a page total, and other people have pledged like $20 at a time (all the way up to $150!), and stuff like that.

I would once again like to say thank you to every single person who is supporting me. In supporting me, you are supporting the people who are out of work. So thank you.

THANK YOU

Thank you soooooo much for supporting my readathon. I was gone all weekend, and it was a very busy weekend, but I always found time to read. I haven't finished my next book, but I'm getting very, very close.

Thank you to Vickie, Scott, Jack, Sarah, Sean, Catherine, Stel, Haynes, Allison, Romell, Pete, Marion, Lisa, Hayley, Katharine, Arlene, Ocean, David, Chris, Dave, Bobette, R.O., Mindy, and Elizabeth (so far!), and my mom and dad, for supporting this readathon. I will post more tomorrow, but now I have to go take a bath.

MY FIRST BOOK DOWN

Yesterday I finished my first book for the Readathon. I read A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle.

This book is a sequel to A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door. I've read both of them also, but I read them before I thought of the Readathon idea.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet is about a boy named Charles Wallace who is a 16-year-old in this book. He goes on an adventure with the unicorn Gaudior back in time to stop a might-have-been nuclear war. It was a spectacular book.

Getting back to the subject of the Readathon, this book was 256 pages. That means if you pledged a penny per page, you should send $2.56 to the Writers Guild Foundation Industry Support Fund or the Actors Fund. (If you want to wait till I read a little more and send a bigger check, that is fine, too.)

I will only alert you when I finish a book. Next I am reading the sequel to A Swiftly Tilting Planet, which is called Many Waters.

Even though I will probably finish the book over the weekend, I will not be able to post about it immediately, because I am going to Winter Camp with my church group this weekend, and I will not be able to call my mom so she can help me add it to my blog.

Thank you for supporting me, and especially for supporting the people who are out of work because of the strike.

WELCOME TO MY READATHON

Lots of people have been affected by the Writers' Strike. Some of them are writers, but some of them are not. I would like to raise money to help those who are not writers, so I am having this Readathon.

Here's how it works. I will read lots of books. I read every day. I will count how many pages I read each day. If you would like to help people who are affected by the strike, you can contributed based on how much I read.

I would like to ask for a penny a page. But feel free to pledge more than a penny a page!

You can e-mail me at StrikeReadathon@aol.com and let me know if you're going to support me. Or you can leave a comment here. Make sure you give me your e-mail address.

When I finish a book, I will let you know what book I read, and how many pages the book was. You can then send a check made out to either The Writers Guild Foundation, or to The Actors Fund. Whichever one you choose, mark "Industry Support Fund" on the check. The Writers Guild Foundation and the Actors Fund are coordinating getting the money to people who need it.

You can mail the check to 7000 W. Third St. / Los Angeles CA 90048.

I am almost done reading my first readathon book already, so hurry up and sign up to help. Thank you.