Kaitlynn C Author Study on Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl are the brilliant authors of the Beautiful Creatures series. This series consists of 4 main books Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness, Beautiful Chaos, and Beautiful Redemption. They then decided to go into more detail with their Beautiful Creatures story and made a few spin off books such as Dream Dark, Dangerous Creatures and Mortal Heart. These books go into the lives of other characters in the original story. I love these book series. I have read this series multiple times since they were released. The authors incorporate many different creatures such as incubi, light and dark casters, and seer's. They put so much personality in each character they bring into their books. They also add a lot of detail in almost everything they mention for example the different powers some of the characters have or what the main character, Ethan Wate, sees or hears.


I am curious how they got the idea for the Beautiful Creatures series. Where did the characters come from? I also want to know why they decided the story was going to take place in North Carolina. Where did the idea for the caster tunnels come from? How did they create the character Ridley? I am wondering if they had any part in the making of the movie for this book as well because they put things in the movie that don't make any sense from what they said in the book. Finally I want to know where the idea of the claiming came from.   

Aaron M's Author Study on Richard Preston

I decided to research Richard Preston for my author study because I read his book The Hot Zone in my Introduction to Ag Science class in ninth grade. The Hot Zone is about cases of Marburg and Ebola viruses which broke out in Africa. He turns the notes into a story and he publishes it for readers to learn about new things. I have learned a lot about DNA sequencing and the Human Genome Project from reading his work Panic in Level 4.

I would like to know what inspires Richard Preston to write the books so I can get a better understanding of his writing styles. I would like to read more of Preston's works because I am learning about various topics which have come to interest me, such as the Chudnovsky brothers' work towards the calculation of pi, the history of the Human Genome Project, and woven unicorn tapestries. I plan to research these topics in-depth on my own time.

Brandon Cruz's Author Study on James Paterson

The author I selected goes by the name, James Paterson. This author is an extraordinary author in which creates books and takes real life events and translates them into his works. Sometimes the real life events he thoroughly explains in his stories are too explicit. The explicit events create such revolutionary and mysterious concepts and makes a person too attached to the book, which leads them to not putting it down. You feel as if you're the book. James Paterson is a king at making the human eye hooked to the book.
I really want to know how James Paterson gets the ideas he does to write his stories. The climax's that are brought upon in the books are very deep for human brain to collect. If I get to know where he does get his ideas, I will be able to create an even broader connection with his books. This is basically what I hope to learn.
The occurrence that is arising in my book called I, Alex Cross talks about a detective called Alex Cross who goes through a serious of events which are very bloody and murderous. He goes through files and evidence to do justice to the community and find the murderers. What I want to know more about this book is background of his family and his childhood which made him play a role to work for the government.

Morgan B Author Study on Jody Picoult

I selected Jodi Picoult as an author for the author study because I have heard about some of her books before, but have never actually read one.  A lot of my friends last year were reading her books for a class, and they said that they liked it, so I then decided to read one of her books, too.  I think that this author’s writing is unique because instead of just focusing on one person’s point of view, she puts each chapters into a different characters point of view.  That way the reader gets a better idea as to what is going on in everyone’s mind.

                I would like to know why the author chose to write her book in different point of views.  Maybe she is doing it because it makes sense to the story, or she just wanted the reader to understand other people’s thoughts.  Also when I first started reading this book, Vanishing Acts, I did not quite understand what was happening which made me question a lot.  However, once I continues to read I got the main idea of the book and the authors writing style, so now I like it so far.

Damir Alejandro Romano Tuas Author Study on Stephen King

     I chose to study Stephen King because I enjoy reading his books. I like Stephen King novels because they are full of suspense and horror. I also like how King adds multiple plot-twist in his stories. "He had fired the gun empty... and then stopped to reload so he could shoot each of them again!" This quote comes form King's book Different Seasons and is an example of how King uses suspense and horror in his books.


     There are a couple things I would like to learn about the author. One question I have is: what education did the author have? I am interested in knowing about King's education because it might reflect why he is such a good author. Another question I have is: did the author have a troubled / unfortunate childhood? The reason I ask this question is because maybe something tragic happened to King in his past and this potentially could have influenced Kings dark style of writing.

Lauren W's Author Study on Anna Quindlen

I chose Anna Quindlen because I'm not a big reader, so I asked Mrs. Byma for suggestions. She recommended Anna to me and ended up giving me a quick overview of the plot of one of Anna's novels entitled Black and Blue. I never heard of Anna Quindlen or the book before, but based off of Mrs. Byma's description, I was intrigued. What interested me about the book was that it seemed to be the type that'd keep me on my toes. Typically, I would rather read books that are more uplifting; however, the whole anticipation aspect that Mrs. Byma portrayed the book to have is what really drew me in. 

Considering one of the main topics about the book seems to be the effects of abusive relationships, it makes me wonder why Anna chose to write about that. Has she been involved in an abusive relationship? If not, how was she able to get inside the mind of someone who was abused? She wrote from the abused woman's perspective, so I wonder how she was able to put herself in the shoes of the woman in her book if she never was abused herself.

JGonzalez Author Study on S. E. Hinton

I selected this Author because the first book was very interesting The Outsiders. The book is very descriptive and made you care for the characters, and you want them to do good things.

S E Hinton wrote The Outsiders in her teenage years, which blows my mind.

If I could ask S E Hinton some questions I would ask why she wrote this book. Did this have any real life experiences that she put into the book? What interested her, and why she started at such a young age? Did she think she would see big things from one of her first books?

Samuel H. - Author study on William C. Dietz

I chose to read this authors work because of its relation to my childhood and because of how descriptive and in depth his work is. The whole Halo book series of his reminds me of the summer days and nights of when I was a child, staying up for nights on end playing with friends and my brothers. The Resistance series I am currently reading reminds me of all the times when I we would play dumb games outside like manhunt or air soft, making sure not to be seen whilst hiding from everyone. This author creates books out of some of the best video games I’ve ever played, recreating the worlds in your mind with more description of your surroundings than you’ve ever experienced within the video game. It gives resolve to all the unanswered questions of the video games. The description within the video game resistance is supremely enhanced when it comes to the amazingly crafted books giving you images of blood, death, gore, survival, struggle, and so many more things including love and romance. This is an all-around amazing book.

Within his many works he switches perspectives a lot, giving you a look at everyone’s view of the story and creating a more in depth storyline giving each person a different mission which is ultimately going to achieve the same goal of saving the world. But I’d love to know why he doesn’t switch between as many peoples perspectives in his book Resistance: The Gathering Storm like he does within his Halo series and the other Resistance book. It just seems like its only switched between three people in this book instead of a lot more which would create a whole labyrinth of story lines making the book a lot longer and even more interesting (if that’s possible, its already amazing) than it is now.  

Kennedy Lutz's Author Study on Nicholas Sparks

I picked Nicholas Sparks because I've read a few of his books before and really enjoy his type of writing. I have not read one book written by him that I have not liked. The love stories he writes are very heart-touching and really pull you into the book. It is very hard to put any of his books down once you start reading them.


I'm very interested in knowing if there is a reason why Nicholas Sparks writes love stories. I've always wondered what inspired him to choose that type of writing. I also wonder if any of his stories are inspired by someone in his life.

Cutter H's Author Study on Veronica Roth

I chose to do my author study on Veronica Roth because I recently saw the movie Divergent, which is based on a book that she wrote.  This is actually the book I'm reading by her because I wanted to get a better understanding of some of the things I was confused about while watching the movie.  Along with that reason, I wanted to see how much of the story was left out of the movie.  Since our class has to read more than one book by our selected authors, I thought choosing Veronica was a good idea because Divergent is part of a series that I could read.


From seeing the movie, and now reading the book, I've come up with a few questions I'd ask her.  The first question would be where she came up with the idea for the book.  To go along with that, I'm wondering where she came up with the idea of the factions.  I'd want to know where the names of each faction came from and the ideals of each came from.  Finally, I'd like to know which faction she would have picked and why.  Since it's her own book, I'd be curious to see if she ever thought about it.

Jocelyn Reese author study on Nicholas Sparks

I chose Nicholas Sparks because I have read a couple of his books already and I wanted to read more. I like his style of writing and the way that he writes. For example, my favorite book of his is The Wedding. I read that book twice and I learned more about it each time. I also chose Nicholas Sparks because I love watching his movies.
I hope to learn more about his life and why he chose to write romance novels. In the books that I've already read, I've learned a little more about his life growing up just by reading the back inside covers of the books.

Chasey O's Author Study on Walter Dean Myers

Walter Dean Myer’s book Fallen Angel initially intrigued me because of the cover and the picture of the soldier on it.  I am very interested in different wars that have happened in history and how they have helped shape us as to how we are today.  As I started reading the text I noticed how his characters portrays extremely close to personal accounts of actually soldiers and also to what historians have said happened.  The truth of all the accounts were the things that really stuck out to me.

                 

            The first question I would have to Walter would be if he was really in the war because of his age it fit perfectly in the Vietnam era.  Another question is if any of his family were active military members because that can really affect a kid’s mentality as he was growing up.  The last question I would have is if the characters were based on real people.  I would not be surprised because of how real the story feels when you are reading it.