THE CURIOUS BOOKCASE

This week, our 4th year students were asked to write a composition. The only thing I provided them with was the title. Just three words. THE CURIOUS BOOKCASE. 

All they had to do was free their imagination and tell a great story. It could be fiction, it could be an anecdote, it could be anything they wanted.

It turns out that some of our boys and girls wrote pretty awesome stories...and we decided to share them with you.

ENJOY! 

This is the story of a boy that loved to study. He knew all historical characters, from Plato to Goethe. He was new in the neighborhood. His mother told him that there was a library, a few blocks away from his new house, called ‘The Curious One’. 

He didn’t know that going to that place would change his life forever. 

The library was divided in sections: History, Fiction, Poetry, and Politics… What the boy didn’t know was that when you were reading a book, you actually entered it and lived the story as the protagonist. 

The boy preferred History, so he went to that section. He took a World War II book from the bookcase and started reading. He fell in the story as a soldier, but when he died shot by a German soldier, he exited the book and returned to the library. 

Afterwards, he felt like reading a Science Fiction book, so he grabbed ‘Star Wars: Episode IV’. When he fell in a galaxy far, far away, he became Luke and had Jedi powers. He fought Darth Vader and won. 

Finally, he chose ‘Maze Runner’. Even though in real life only two minutes went by, he stayed in the book for two days. He ended up getting in the maze to find a way out. The thing was that he couldn’t find a way out nor return to where he came from. 

After a few days, he died of hunger. 

It is a mystery why the boy didn’t leave the book that time. Nobody ever found him. 

Bárbara Levato and Lucas Figueras 

My name is John and I’m going to tell a story that happened when I was eleven years old. 

It was a rainy day in England and I was in Highland College, near Scotland. I was going downstairs when I saw a friend who was going to the library, like me. 

We were looking for information when my friend Scott found a forbidden section. We immediately went there and found a lot of books of black magic. 

It was half past seven when we began reading those books and the sun was going down. 

We opened an old book but the pages were empty. Five seconds later, appeared a sentence out of nowhere that said ‘The person who reads this sentence will die within the next 24 hours, unless he or she does two important things: first, out a venomous cockroach in Professor Harmly’s soup during lunch. Then, kill your friend Scott tonight. At twelve o’clock’. 

When I finished reading this, Scott asked me what I was looking for and I told him that we should leave and have dinner. 

After dinner, when we were getting ready to go to bed, I put some poison in his glass of water and went to sleep. He never woke up again. 

The following day, when the students were going to lunch, I put a cockroach in my professor’s soup. At two o’clock, she was dead. 

That evening I went to the library and opened the old book. It told me: ‘Well done, little boy. You are now a professional murderer’. 

Mariano Dib and Julián Lovito Guevara

This is the story of a curious bookcase. The bookcase was at the Paris Museum and it was removed and taken somewhere in the Bermuda’s Triangle. It was the secret bookcase of Attila the Hun.

Now, I’m going to tell you how I found it. I was a sailor before everything happened, of course. The last thing I remember is that I was on my ship in the Caribbean Sea, near the Bahamas, which was my destination. But something went horribly wrong. I don’t know what happened. I think I reached that infamous zone, The Bermuda’s Triangle.

When I woke up, everything that was around me were pieces of what used to be my ship; all those pieces are now my house. I was in an island in the middle of nowhere.

After building my house, I went to explore the place and I found an ancient construction. I decided to enter, even knowing that lots of things could happen. But I had sunk and I was alone, so nothing else mattered.

I had never seen something like that in my whole life. It was wonderful, full of rooms and secrets. In one of the rooms I found a crate and there were a few inscriptions on it and a big one that said ‘CIA. The content of this crate was removed of the Paris Museum because it’s DANGEROUS. Please, DO NOT open it’.

As I said, I had sunk and was alone, so I decided to open it anyways.

Inside it was that bookcase, Attila’s bookcase. It was a sort of Chinese wooden bookcase, obviously stolen by the Huns, probably from a Chinese village.

I think the Huns never knew about the bookcase. Attila had hidden the most secret books of his time in that place.

Since I found it, I’ve learned a lot about Ancient Asia.

If you read this, send a rescue team, please, SOS!!!

(A message in a vodka bottle from an unknown sailor) 

Ara Fermadjian and Andrés Ísola

It was an early winter of 1992. A family had a car accident. The father and sister died, leaving a widowed mother and an orphan son. 

After that terrible accident the mother, as she was not feeling well living in the family house alone with a boy and a missing husband and daughter, she decided to move and start a new life. 

They moved to a remote house near a city, where there was peace and tranquility. When John and Elizabeth arrived to the new house, they rested for a while and then began organizing their things. 

When they finished, John took a tour around the house and found a large door at the end of a corridor. 

He tried to open it and couldn’t. He thought it was no big deal and left. 

Days went by and one evening, after returning from school, John slept for an hour. When he got up, he was hungry and went to the kitchen to get something to eat and go back to his room. 

Suddenly, he heard noises from the door that he could not open before. He phoned his mother and told her: ‘Where did you put the key to that room?’ ‘Which room are you talking about, John?’ ‘The key to the door at the end of the hall’, said John. ‘There is no room there, honey’, replied Elizabeth. ‘Well, maybe I’m confused’. 

When John hung up the phone he started thinking about what had happened. Then, he reacted: he went to get an axe and broke the door. When he entered, he saw there was a bookcase, with many dusty old books. 

At the end of a shelf, he found a brilliant book and took it. When he opened it, the door closed shut. He threw the book, scared. He went to the door and tried to open it…but there was no door…

(To be continued)

Micaela Rolle, Belén Rivera Tola and Fernández Camila

DEAR DIARY: FEAR CONDITIONS US

Dear diary,

Did you ever feel you wanted to run away and scream for a long time? Shouting. Feeling your soul escaping from your body, through your mouth. A shout of liberation; not to die in silence. It happens to me, and I can’t do anything about it. 

If you never felt this way, it’s easy to imagine. Suppose you are a cage. Inside you, there is a bird, longing to fly away. The doors are open and it’s still there, locked. It feels afraid and it’s alone. The outside looks scary. 

It’s difficult to say what we think without fearing society. 

I think being different shouldn’t be a problem, but rather something unusual. 

Live it. Don’t live it as a prejudice or something bad for you. Live it as a blessing. We are all different, yes, and despite our differences, I’d like all of us to look into a mirror. Don’t focus on the aesthetic aspect. Look deeply. We are made of body and soul. Nothing is worth more than a feeling, a desire or a thought; but it’s very easy to shut up and pass as indifferent (even when you know how different you feel). 

What I want to say is: have you ever thought how much damage you can do to a person just by calling them ‘weird’? 

Yes, such a simple word. Just five letters to many people. But, maybe, for some people, it’s one of the reasons why they don’t express their feelings. It pushes them away. They feel alone, and that’s worse. 

The only thing people want is to be accepted. They don’t expect to be congratulated; they just want to be noticed, because differences fade away when we recognize other people. 

Someone did it for me once. I thought I’d never say this, but that caressed my soul. And things changed. I fear no more.

See you soon, dear diary.

MIA-

DO TEENAGERS READ?

It's not strange to hear adults saying that 'the habit of reading is lost' and that 'teenagers are always using computers and mobile phones but NEVER pick up a book'. We bet you know what we are talking about, whether you are a teen or a grown up. 

But, is this really true?

To find out, we asked students in our school if they ever read. If that was the case, we asked what they read and how or where. 

Here's what we came up with.

What do teenagers read?

According to our questionnaire, most adolescents read these four genres:

Horror

Horror novels are genres of literature, which are intended to, or have the capacity to frighten, scare, or startle their readers by inducing feelings of horror and terror.

It's usually supernatural, though it can be non-supernatural. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society. 

The genre of horror has ancient origins with roots in folklore and religious tradition focusing on death, the after life, evil, the demonic and the principle of ‘the thing’ embodied in the person. These were manifested in stories of beings such as witches, vampires, werewolves and ghosts.

Fan-fiction

The term fanfiction or fan fiction, often abbreviated to fanfic or fic, refers to works of fiction written by fans of a literary or dramatic work (film, novel, tv show, video game, anime...). In these stories the character, situations and environments described in the original of the author's own creation are used and new roles for these are developed. 

This kind of reading, often leads to writing: it's one of the most important sources of inspiration for teenagers to start writing their own stories. 

Romance

The romance novel or romantic novel is a literary genre. Novels of this type of genre fiction place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an 'emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending'. There are many subgenres of the romance novel including fantasy, historical, science fiction and paranormal.

According to the Romance Writers of America, the main plot of a romance novel must revolve about the two people as they develop romantic love for each other and the work to build a relationship. Both the conflict and the climax of the novel should be directly related to that core theme of developing a romantic relationship, although the novel can also contain subplots that do not specifically relate to the main characters` romantic love.

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginative content such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. It usually eschews the supernatural, and unlike the related genre of fantasy, its imaginary elements are largely plausible within the scientifically established context of the story. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a 'literature of ideas'.

Where do teenagers read?

When people say we don't read, they may be actually wrong. Teenagers are used to reading in a very different way, far from traditional books. We might be reading in a bus, right next to you, but you think we are checking our phones or social networks. 

PDF

If you are looking for a particular book, all you have to do is Google the title up, generally followed by 'PDF'. When the results appear, you click on the site chosen and download the file. You can do this in your tablet, mobile phone, ipod and laptop -among others-. 

Wattpad

You must log in to an account in Wattpad via Internet or by downloading the application. Once done, you can follow your favourite writers to see all their publications. All novels or stories you find here are adaptations, none will be original except the stories created by users (you can also do it) and add to 'your library' what you want to read. In each text you have the option to rate and comment freely.

Facebook

This might be news for a lot of people, but you can also read books on Facebook. There are lots of FB pages that upload fanfics and stories written by several users. All you have to do is click on the album and you will find the consecutive chapters under the pictures. 

So, next time you hear someone say that 'teenagers don't read anymore', remember our words...WE STILL READ!!

Brisa Gómez and Florencia Migliavacca - 3rd Year

DEAR DIARY: CHANGES

I write because I need someone out there, reading. I’m not the only one that is lost in this life, but I may be the only one going public. 

I am not alone, we are four. Please, don’t try to discover who we are because, then, you could discover who I am. 

We will refer to ourselves using a common name, because –again- we don’t want to be identified. 

My name is MIA. I’m a regular teenager, with a regular diary…and a story to tell. 

Are you ready?

Dear Diary,

Sometimes I wonder if dreaming is good or bad. After a lot of thinking, I came to a conclusion: what if we dream so much that we end up believing those dreams, confusing illusion and reality? 

It’s frustrating to realize that these are just repressed desires, constantly fighting to emerge out of our subconscious. More frustrating is doing nothing to change things. But, are we guilty for not having the life we desire?

Yes, believe me. I’m not talking about poverty or lack of resources. This is the work of fate and some luck, I think. 

I’m talking about basic things, like our welfare. I’m talking about feelings, and if you think this is corny, then wait for the end of this publication. 

I will talk about me. As in any case, if you give examples, you must begin with yourself. 

What I wanted throughout my life has changed. Sometimes it was clear, sometimes it wasn’t. 

But deeply inside, thinking it over, I always arrive to the same place. That’s the point. What I want or wanted are pure fantasies. I invent stories. Love stories with happy endings that are not similar to my reality. 

I always knew something was wrong. 

I started blaming everyone. It’s clear now that I’ve been mistaken for a long time. Because, why would people expect me not to have what I wanted? 

It was always me. I am my own obstacle and, on time or not, I realized it. I’m the reason why things don’t turn out as I hoped. I’m taking the wrong roads, with the wrong people, at the wrong time. I’m my own stone in my shoe. 

Instead of stopping to get it out, I’ve been ignoring it. The difference between knowing what you want and ignoring it; and knowing what you want and doing something about it, is a blister on your foot. 

But I’m not here to talk about podiatry, maybe some other time. 

This is the key moment. I’m walking on the edge. I know what I have to do, my head is spinning. Part of it wants to continue dreaming; the other one wants to end this eternal nightmare. 

What I didn’t know is that you can’t live out of fantasies and, whether you like it or not, that has to stop. 

Time to change. It’s time to close stages in my life. Minutes run fast and I haven’t got seconds to loose. 

I wish a long and happy life to who could have been a great love. I loved you with every part of my body and I remember you that way. 

But life goes on…

See you soon, dear diary.

MIA.-