The Denver Post • 1

CK Reporter of the WeekTalia Schanman, Cherry Hills Village

We’ve all heard the mantra “follow your dreams.” But what happens when you’re told the opposite?

11-year-old Félicie Milliner has been always told that dreams are not meant to be followed.

She escapes from an orphanage in Brittany, France to go to Paris with her best friend Victor.

She then takes a leap of faith that lands her in the Opera Ballet School, but will she be able to make it with no former training?

“Leap!” is the story of two orphans who were left at an orphanage on the same day.

Victor is a stereotypical klutzy, misunderstood genius. Félicie is the well-used character of an indestructible feisty ginger. The fi lm fast-forwards several years and past more than 400 escape plans to

1884, with Félicie and Victor on the rooftop of the orphanage with some wings inspired by a chicken.

And off to Paris they go!The animation is practically fl awless, aside from a few moments where the ballet

looks choppy and like a more modern form of dance. Each and every character has their own individual physical personality, including

their posture and how they dress. The clothing seems mostly accurate for the 1880’s, except for the ballet students,

whose skirts could have been a bit fuller.The plot is generally very interesting and upbeat, although some of the concepts

border on being cliché. For example, Félicie’s unspoken motto of “follow your dreams” has been used

over and over again in both everyday life and in the entertainment industry. The storyline is fi ctional, but the only thing that is not physically possible is

Victor’s invention of the “chicken wings,” which he creates to fl y.Despite the few faults in the movie, “Leap!” is a very enjoyable experience and a

good movie to bring the whole family to.

August 29 , 2017

Punishment camp brings friends together

Journey into the world of “Ruby and Olivia,” by Rachel Hawkins, where the two girls meet the Live Oak House and Camp

Chrysalis.Ruby is eccentric and adventurous. Olivia is

organized and a good girl. When both girls get sent to Camp Chrysalis

and get involved with cleaning a abandoned creepy old house in their town, what could go wrong?

Olivia is a twin and it’s always been “EmmaandOlivia,” but when she takes the fall for her sister’s shoplifting, her good girl reputation is tarnished, so for her summer going into seventh grade she has to go three times a week to Camp Chrysalis, a camp for delinquents.

Ruby has always been adventurous and causing trouble, and she used to be best friends with Emma.

Ruby is defi nitely not friends with Olivia, but when she gets involved with a glitter prank, she also has to go to Camp Chrysalis.

On the fi rst day of camp, they get way too bright pink shirts with creepy smiley faces.

That’s also when they fi nd out the mission of the summer will be cleaning and cataloging Live Oak House.

Live Oak House is a old mansion on the edge of town with a big live oak in the middle of it.

As they tour the house on the fi rst day Ruby and Olivia hear a sad sounding music box coming from a tiny door.

They think they are just hearing things so they don’t think much of it.

As they keep cleaning and making a list of the things they fi nd, they actually start to have fun in the mansion.

There is everything there from creepy dolls to taxidermy animals.

As camp goes on, though, both girls keep hearing and seeing creepy things in the house.

They decide they will have to put their grudges aside and work together to solve the big mystery of Live Oak House.

Will they become friends and work together to solve the mystery or will it all fall apart?

Apply to be a Colorado Kids Reporter!It’s fun and there are cool perks

Love to Write?Get all the details at ColoradoNIE.com today!

Or email dplewka@denverpost.com

Taking a Leap! of faith in dreams

By Ariana Bates-Erlich,11, a CK Reporter from Arvada

By Maria Ciobanu,12, a CK Reporter from Denver

The Denver Post • 2

“Jake the Fake,” a hybrid novel by Craig Robinson and Adam Mansbach, with 160 illustrations by Keith Knight, is perfect for the age group of 10-12.

It has a lot of comedy with a mix of a great learning experience. Jake is just beginning middle school.

His older sister is very smart and attends a gifted and talented school so Jake applied, too.

Sadly, Jake doesn’t really make it into the school and fakes it for a very long time and it causes him a bundle of conflict and struggles.

Jake fakes being able to play the piano more than anything else.

He tries to fit in multiple times yet fails; It’s simply not his thing.

But Jake is smart in his own way: He finds a way to cheat and take the easy way out of everything and somehow it continues to work in most cases.

And when Jake gets to do a garbage sculpture and fails again, he still has fun and starts to find his real interest.

Eventually Jake has to come clean, but you’ll have to read the book to find out how that goes!

This book is a very empowering story for young readers and teaches them the life lesson that, if you just be yourself, things work out for the better.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is just starting middle school because it gives them good advice to get through the big transition.

My brother, who is in the 6th grade, also read the book and enjoyed much more than I could.

“Jake the Fake” is an enjoyable comedy for young readers ready for that transition into middle school!

Jake shows how to fake it ‘til you make it

Drones will deliver emergency medicine in TanzaniaDelivery of blood, medicines

and other medical supplies in rural Africa has been a problem for many years.

Isolated medical centers simply can’t keep large supplies of whole blood for transfusions or rarely-used medicines that need to be kept refrigerated and that go bad quickly if they aren’t used.

But Zipline, a robotics company based in California, has been using drones to deliver blood to

clinics in Rwanda and is now plan-ning to expand into neighboring Tanzania, a much larger nation.

They also plan to offer more than just whole blood, though that has been a life-saving service in Rwanda.

When people need whole blood for transfusions, it’s usually an emergency, and being able to get it there in a few minutes instead of a few days has been the differ-ence between life and death.

Now Zipline will also be deliv-ering things like antivenins for snake bites or medications for ra-bies in Tanzania, as well as blood and more basic medical supplies that are hard to store and ship in a rural country with bad roads and not a lot of refrigeration.

The drones are fixed-wing planes that drop their deliveries on targets near the clinics before turning and going back to their base in the city. photo/Zipline

Seventh grade girl, Beatrix Lee, has an interesting year in “The Way to Bea,” by Kat Yeh.

Bea is a poet who really likes to write haikus. Both of her parents are very creative. Bea’s mom is an

artist and her dad is a comic book writer and artist. At the beginning of the school year Beatrix loses her

best friend , Sammie to three other girls and ends up having no one to hang out with during the day.

When she doesn’t have anyone to eat lunch with she finds the Broadside office where the school newspaper kids meet and she tries to hide in there where no one will see her.

She finds out she’s not the only one with that idea. The office is where she meets new people who change her experiences and the things she does at school.

After going to the newspaper office multiple times, Bea starts to go there for lunch everyday to hang out and see if she can find a place to fit it.

When you read, “The Way to Bea,” you will realize it is

a challenging story to follow and is probably better for middle schoolers to read and is more relatable for them.

Author Kat Yeh does a good job of writing about realistic characters and telling stories about discovering the kinds of relationships you might have as you get older.

In the spirit of something Beatrix Lee would write, here is a review Haiku:

Friends, school, poetryMiddle school friends come and go

Will she find her place?

A poetic approach to finding your way in life

By Sadie Perry,9, a CK Reporter from Aurora

By Abigail Morris,13, a CK Reporter from Aurora

The Denver Post • 3

That once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse is over now, but you’ve still got a pair of once-in-a-lifetime

solar eclipse glasses. Now what good are they?The answer to that begins, fi rst of all, with how

good they were in the beginning. Look to see if they say “ISO 12312-2” on them somewhere.

That shows they met top safety standards, and it also means that, if you took good care of them and didn’t let them get scratched, they’ll be good in April, 2024, when another total solar eclipse comes to the United States.

Except that you won’t see that eclipse unless you go down to Texas or up to New England; it’s not going to be very interesting in Colorado.

However, there’s another once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse coming in just two years, if you happen to live in the right parts of Asia or South America.

Which you don’t, but a lot of other kids do, and Astronomers Without Borders is collecting eclipse glasses to hand out to kids there so that they can enjoy learning about and seeing the eclipse even if their schools can’t aff ord top science programs.

If you live on the Front Range, the easiest way to donate your glasses is to take them to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which will be collecting eclipse glasses through the end of September and giving a $2 per person discount on entrance when you donate.

The eclipse is over. Now what should you do with those glasses?

Bishop Archibald Cole called it “another sad chapter in the history of our beloved na-tion, Sierra Leone,” as he wrote about the

massive mudslide that buried homes and killed perhaps 400 people.

The West African nation has long had a sad history: It was one of the main points where slave ships left Africa for the Americas with their cargoes of captive people.

And yet it owes its modern history to the fact that much of the world turned its back on the slave trade: The nation was formed by freed slaves in 1787, which gave the nation’s capital its name, “Freetown,” and explains why English is the offi cial language of the British colony.

Great Britain left in 1961, making Sierra Leone an independent nation, but there were still troubles ahead: A civil war raged on for 10 years in the 1990s, and Sierra Leone was one of the nations in that region hit by the deadly disease ebola a few years ago.

But the nation had rebuilt itself, become a true democracy and was making strides towards having a solid economy.

Then, on August 14, rains let loose a huge mudslide overlooking a poor neighborhood in a town just east of Freetown.

The neighborhood had no protection against fl ooding and houses there were not sturdy. The mud buried the houses, and the people in them, as it went down the hillside.

As other nations off er aid and workers con-tinue to dig through the mud to recover bodies, many in Sierra Leone are blaming poor planning and a lack of safe housing rules for the tragedy.

In an article in the Sierra Leone Telegraph, Bishop Cole said that people desperate to fi nd homes were being allowed to build in areas that were not safe.

The soil in these areas was not tested, he said, and there were no rules about safe building or to make sure there were sturdy roads leading in and out of these poor neighborhoods.

Nigeria and other neighbors are helping Sierra Leone with aid for the survivors and to rebuild the damaged town.

But Bishop Cole warns that the nation must make changes to prevent future disasters.

Sierra Leone mourns hundreds in mud slide

Recently, Play Doh Brand Modeling Compounds released a new series of Play Doh called the “Shape and Learn”

kits.There are currently six sets out, including

“Letters and Language,” “Shape a Story,” “Make and Measure,” “Colors and Shapes,” “Numbers and Counting,” and “Textures and Tools” sets.

These kits are intended to help younger audiences ages two to six with hands-on discovery and building key foundational skills.

In the “Letters and Language” set there are six cans of Play Doh in red, blue, green, yellow, orange and purple, as well as a sty-lus, rolling pin, two double-sided play mats and twenty six letter stamps.

This kit encourages toddlers to explore letter identification and recognition as well as pre-reading and pre-writing skills.

Also, the various activities help with practicing letter sounds which encourages sensory-motor development.

However, even though the kit comes with many fun-sounding games, it can quickly become boring for a toddler.

Most toddlers probably would just want to play with the Play Doh instead of go-ing through the extensive tasks.

Plus going through the whole set takes a very long time and requires a lot of adult help for children who can’t read the instructions yet.

On the other hand, the activities, including matching letters to pictures using Play Doh stamps, recognizing emotions on faces (self-expression), writing words with Play Doh and more, seem to help kids with learning the alphabet and con-necting it to pictures and words as well as writing and spelling.

As kids use the set more often, it could really increase their language skills and help with school in the future.

Another Shape and Learn set is the “Numbers and Counting” kit. It comes with three cans of Play Doh in red, green, and yellow as well as eight sea ani-mal stamps, two double sided playmats and ten number cards.

The sea animals help to add fun to the set and en-courage counting.

The double-sided playmats and number cards aug-ments a child’s number identification skills, comparing and contrasting between numbers and animals, and counting.

Much like the other sets, these activities help encour-age sensory-motor development but can lose a child’s attention very quickly as, again, they would much rather just play with the Play Doh.

The games do, however, greatly strengthen a child’s number sense and counting.

Play Doh’s new Shape and Learn sets are a great gift idea for a child first going into school to help them with reading, counting, etc. but sometimes the kits seem more like actual school than just a fun activity.

If an educational Play Doh set with a lot of activities is what you’re looking for, then the Play Doh Shape and

Learn sets are the kits for you.

Toddlers may fi nd Play Doh kits like school, not play

photo/Eclipsesafety.com

Rules: Every row across, every column down and each of the six smaller boxes must contain numerals 1,2,3,4,5 and 6, one time and one time only.

The solution to this week’s puzzle is on Page 4.

On this date in 1958, the United States Air Force Academy opened in Colorado Springs, so our answers this week will begin with “F” for “Falcons.”

1. Helsinki is the capital of this European nation.

2. The crime of making fake money or of creating paintings and pretending that they are the work of famous artists

3. Douglas Country community on Route 83 between Parker and Black Forest

4. Another name for a lightning bug

5. Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Thing

6. A type of sugar found in fruit

7. Australian author of the “Rangers Apprentice” and “Brotherband” series of novels

8. Though called a mountain, it’s actually only a large foothill near Boulder, which features picnic areas, bike trails and a scenic view of the city below.

9. Small, seed-eating birds similar to sparrows, which not only include many wild varieties but domestic canaries as well

10. Your dentist would like you to use this between your teeth.(answers on Page Four)

A mudslide buried a poor neighborhood inRegent, a town near Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown.

(AP Photo/ Manika Kamara)

5

1

5

1 4

1

3

4

6

6

3

2

By Kayla Mitchiner,12, a CK Reporter from Golden

The Denver Post • 4

is produced by Denver Post Educational Services

Executive Editor: Dana Plewkadplewka@denverpost.com

CK Editor: Mike Petersoncoloradokidseditor@gmail.com

We welcome your comments.

For tools to extend the learning in this feature, look under “Youth Content” at:

www.ColoradoNIE.com

eEditions of the Post arefree of charge for classroom use.Contact us for information on all

our programs.

Denver Post Educational Services101 W. Colfax Ave.Denver CO 80202

(303) 954-3974(800) 336-7678

Stories without bylines were written by the editor.

(see Page Three)

10 right - Wow!

7 right - Great!

5 right - Good

3 right - See you next time!

1. Finland 2. forgery 3. Franktown 4. fi refl y 5. the Fantastic Four 6. fructose 7. (John) Flanagan 8. Flagstaff Mountain 9. fi nch 10. fl oss

Hot Links to Cool Sites!

NASA’s Space Placehttp://tinyurl.com/ckspace

NIE Special Reporthttp://tinyurl.com/ckniereport

Headline Geographyhttp://tinyurl.com/ckgeography

Pulse of the Planethttp://tinyurl.com/ckpulseplanet

How to become a NextGen Reporter!http://tinyurl.com/colokidsreporter

To read the sources for these storiesDrones in Tanzania

Mudslide in Sierra Leone

Recycling Eclipse Glasses

go to http://www.tinyurl.com/ckstorylinks

Chapter Seven: The First Battle of Saratoga(Luke and Sylvie Van Gelder have gone with the local militia to help the Americans stop General

Burgoyne’s invasion. Now the two armies have become face-to-face on the hillside over the Hudson River near the town of Saratoga.)

“I filed the edges of his hoof and put some grease on it, to keep it from splitting,”

the young rifleman said, as he came into the circle, sat on a log and took a dish of peas and salt pork from Sylvie.

“Thank you, Miss,” he said to her, then continued to talk to Luke. “I smeared some grease on his cuts, too, to keep out the flies. We’ll get a farrier to replace that shoe as soon as things quiet down a little.”

It had been a day and a half since the battle, a bloody clash that went throughout the day until it became too dark for the soldiers to see each other. Burgoyne had not won, but his redcoats were now on the hillside, sticking to the positions where they had been when the fighting ended.

Morgan’s men had stayed on the battlefield the whole next day, ready for a second fight with the British, thinking they’d attack again once it was light and the fog had lifted.

But nothing had happened and now the Americans had begun to repair equipment and bury their dead, still keeping an eye out for the enemy.

Of the half dozen riflemen most often at Sylvie’s fire, two were missing, killed when the group had crossed a field and been surprised by British forces hidden by the thick brush.

Meanwhile, Luke blamed himself for poor Jonathan’s injuries. The wagoners were nowhere near the fighting, but the sounds of gunfire shook the entire

area.Luke had staked out the horses in a meadow near the camp, close enough to each other

that they could touch noses, but not so close that they would get tangled in each other’s ropes.

It worked well enough through the musketry early on, when the British first attacked. The battle was far down the hill from their campsite, and Jonathan shivered at the sounds but kept close to David, whose calmness seemed to help control his fear.

But when the cannons began to fire that afternoon, Jonathan panicked and bolted, pulling his stake from the ground and disappearing into the woods at the far edge of the clearing.

Luke had been watching; He put David on a lead line and the two of them followed Jonathan’s trail of crushed bushes and deep hoof prints until it was nearly too dark to see. Finally, they found him standing, shivering, in a small pond of water, his rope tangled around a tree.

Somewhere, he had lost a shoe, and he had small tears in his skin from running through the branches of the forest, but with the gunfire far behind them and beginning to die down with the evening, David’s presence calmed him again and Luke was able to lead the pair back to camp.

Tim, who had been a blacksmith in Virginia before the war, volunteered to do some doctoring on the still-shaken horse, once he was no longer required to stand guard.

Now he reached for a sourdough biscuit to go with his pease porridge. “Miss Sylvie, you are a wonder!” he said. “I swear, we eat better on this battlefield than we ever did at home!”

The other three riflemen grunted their agreement, and Seth Baker spoke up, pointing at Luke to emphasize his point.

“You need to keep those horses close by,” he said. “Artillery lost nearly all theirs yesterday and they’ll be looking to get more. They come poking around here, you just let us know. Those two are too good a pair to be taken off and shot for just hauling cannons around.”

“That’s right,” Tim agreed. “Nobody’s taking Jonny and Davey while we’re around, especially not the artillery.”

Seth cleared his throat before asking a difficult question. “Have you heard from your pa yet?”

Sylvie smiled. “He sent word he’s all right. I don’t know what he’s getting to eat or when he’ll get back to camp, but he got through the fighting.”

“Yorker regulars are still on patrol,” Seth said, “But I don’t think they’ll keep their militia out much longer.”

“Don’t you worry about him, Missy,” one of the other men said. “If they have him standing watch, it means he’s healthy. He’ll come home soon as he can.”

When their meal was finished, Morgan’s men began casting bullets for their rifles. Unlike muskets, each rifle needed its own bullets, cast from the custom mold that the gunsmith had made with it.

Meanwhile, Luke joined the other wagoners, workers and many of the women on the battlefield, gathering up ammunition pouches and powder horns from the dead soldiers who had still not been buried.

Both sides were short of powder and shot, and it wouldn’t do to let anything go to waste. Some were also picking up muskets that were not too badly damaged, and Luke thought how much easier it would be to load them into a cart, but he used Jonathan’s hoof as an excuse to keep the horses safely in camp, not down where they could be taken from him by either side.

And so the day ended, and the day after that.There were quick skirmishes, and Morgan’s men were sent out in small groups to keep the

British from moving any closer, firing at the redcoat guards nearest the American lines.But the armies had nearly two weeks to prepare before the second battle at Saratoga.

Text copyright 2017, Mike Peterson – Illustration copyright 2017 Christopher Baldwin

For a teaching guide, go to http://tinyurl.com/ckserial

The Path to Freedom

2

3

4

1

5

6

1

5

6

3

2

4

6

4

2

5

3

1

4

6

5

2

1

3

5

1

3

4

6

2

3

2

1

6

4

5