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     In a move reminiscent of the mid-eighties Lakers, the Morrisville Tome Raiders repeated their place ranking during the 2022 Reading Olympics competition.

    Led by team captain Aisha Moundir, the Tome Raiders cemented their place in annals of Reading Olympics' history.

    "She is pretty much the James Worthy of the team," said co-advisor Ken Kelman.

     The team competed in a Kahoot style question format, vanquishing their opponents, like the Lakers smashed the Celtics in 1984.

     "It was a total team victory," said co-advisor, Traci Coley. "The students knew their stuff."

     The students hope to earn a Three-peat next year under the leadership of new captain, Olvia Bielawski.

 

       On Wednesday, June 8 and Thurday June 9,, all students 5-11 grades of Morrisville were given the opportunity to select their own book for this year’s summer reading assignment.

      A book fair was set up in the media center with various donated books for the students to pick from. While students are permitted to keep their book permanently, returning their summer reading book for future students will get them extra credit on the summer reading assignment next year, making a great way to start off the year with a head start!

       Many students had positive things to say about the book fair. 

       Haris Qazi said “The book fair is a very inspiring place.”. 

      “I think the book fair is very helpful because we get to pick what we read.” Casandra Ulysse said when asked her opinion on the book fair.

      While the book fair idea was generally well received by students, it was not without its critics. According to Amya Pathirana, “[The book fair] is the most ridiculous thing ever, we are too old for this.”

      Eric Sewell also had more to add, “The book fair was like rain: once you go in it doesn’t get better.”

     "It is a nice thing to do," said Kaylee Searle 

     Jon Gilkeson added that the book fair was very delicious. 

      The book fair offered students with a lot of freedom of choice over what they read for the summer, and the book fair assignment itself is even more open, giving the students several options as to what assignment they can complete about their chosen book. 

     From writing a rap about their book, to illustrating a comic of key scenes, the students of Morrisville Middle/Senior High School are given the choice to select the assignment that works best for them. Many students are sure to enjoy their newfound freedom of choice in this year’s summer reading project

Plutoids are a subcategory of dwarf planets. Plutoids are dwarf planets that are farther than Neptune in the solar system. Ceres is in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, so Ceres fits the criteria for being a dwarf planet, but not the one for being a plutoid

You’ve probably heard of a shoe’s soles and tongues or maybe even it’s eyelets. From a shoe’s collar to it’s eyestay, every part of a shoe’s anatomy has a nam

There’s different categories for scents you apply to yourself based on its concentration. These categories are Eau Fraiche, Eau de Cologne, Eau de Toilette, Eau de Parfum, and Perfume (or parfum) with Eau Fraiche being the least concentrated and Perfume being the most concentrated. The amount of time the scent lasts is determined by its concentration.

Fun fact: There are different tiers of Barbies.

arbies are categorized into “Labels”. First, there are the dolls meant for play. These dolls do not have limited numbers and they are not labeled. Next, there’s the pink and black label Barbies. They also do not have limited numbers. Pink label barbies are keepsake barbies, like Holiday or Birthday Barbies. Black label Barbies are meant for older collectors. Next, there’s the Silver and Gold labels. Silver Label barbies are limited to only 50,000 dolls, and Gold Label Barbies are limited to just 25,000 Barbies made. Platinum Label Barbies are the rarest of them all. The Platinum Label limits each Barbie to less than 1000 dolls made. Platinum Label Barbies can go from anywhere between $200 to $2000. Official One-of-a-kind Barbies are included in the Platinum label like Barbie by Stefano Canturi, a doll with multiple real diamonds on it, which sold for $302,500.

Fun fact: Some dog breeds don’t exist anymore.

Lots of dog breeds like the Blue Paul Terrier and the Cumberland Sheepdog have stopped existing. They could’ve gone extinct for some factors that aren’t related to humans or simply because they weren’t very popular.

The creator of bubble gum only had red food colouring on hand. When added to the gum, it became pink.

Cranberries grow on vines in places called cranberry bogs.

Lots of artists use crayons in their work. The crayons artists use are different from kid’s crayons because of their formula. Artist’s crayons are more expensive and they’re made to be able to blend colours evenly.

Fun fact: The world’s smallest flowering plant is the size of a sprinkle.

The Wolffia Globosa, also known as duckweed, is the world’s smallest flowering plant.

The Times New Roman font was specifically designed for a newspaper. It was later adapted to suit longer texts like books.

     In 1955, two African-American women famously refused to give up their seats to white passengers in Montgomery, Alabama. 

     One of those women was Rosa Parks, a name everyone recognizes as one of the most influential leaders of the civil rights movement, and for her significant role in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. 

     The other name is lesser known: Claudette Colvin.

     Wordle is the new word puzzle game taking the world by storm.

     What’s a Wordle? 

     The basic premise of the game is you have to find the five letter word of the day by typing in words of the same length. When you type a word that shares a character with the word of the day, it will be yellow or green. 

     Yellow means you have found a letter but it is in the wrong spot, and green means that the letter is in the right spot. You have six chances to get the word right. The game is simple, yet addictive.

     “Wordle stimulates the brain and is a fantastic way to start the day," said Nick K., local Wordle enthusiast.

      “Wordle is a daily competition between me and my husband; my current streak is 27.” Mrs. Kloc. said. 

     Wordle has completely enthralled the public with its simplistic game style. 

     According to the New York Times, Wordle has over 300,000 daily users, and the numbers only continue to grow!

     What’s the best part of all this? Wordle is completely free to play! 

     You can play on the main site once a day, but if you want to play more than once a day you can check out the Wordle archive site which hosts over 200 previous Wordles, just don’t catch the Wordle fever!

 By Jade Perry

     If I were to ask you what the most dangerous animal in the sea was, you would probably say sharks. But what if I told you the iconicity of a bloodthirsty shark was nothing more than a misconception?

      Many people believe that sharks have a natural hunger for human meat, but that simply isn’t true. Sharks are marine animals, meaning that their prey would consist of fish and other sea creatures, not land animals like humans. In fact, Sharks have no interest in eating humans at all. “If a shark sees a human splashing in the water, it may try to investigate, leading to an accidental attack. Still, sharks have more to fear from humans than we do of them.” Writes the National Ocean Service. Unprovoked shark attacks are often caused by the shark mistaking the human for a seal or another natural prey to sharks, and they typically stop after realizing their prey is not a marine animal as they have no desire to feast on humans. On average in America, there is only one fatality to an unprovoked shark attack every two years. You are over 4x as likely to die to a vending machine than a shark. So, Sharks are no more dangerous than a brown bear, but how did the many misconceptions even start?

     In 1974, a novel about sharks called Jaws came out, and was soon adapted into the popular film. This novel/movie iconically featured a great white shark that found its prey on a small beach town, painting the shark as a monster. Before the release of the novel, sharks were seen as harmless, but Jaws instilled a new fear in people of sharks causing sharks to be seen as a threat. This would have devastating consequences for the shark population.

     Since the release of Jaws, the shark population has seen an estimated 70% decline in population around the world. While overfishing does have a part to play in this decline, many people also sought after sharks to kill as trophies. Not much was done for the shark population, as many people only saw them as bloodthirsty monsters thanks to Jaws. The shark population continues to decline even today with 100 million sharks being killed each year.

     Despite sharks being less dangerous than a vending machine, many people still fear them. The misconceptions spawned from Jaws, and similar movies to release since, have instilled a fear in the general population that resulted in 70% of a harmless species to be wiped from the planet. While conservation efforts are in effect, the number of sharks continues to decline steadily each passing year. It is crucial that we work to get rid of these harmful misconceptions through educating the public on the true nature of sharks. Sharks are critical to the marine ecosystem, and their extinction may bring drastic consequences to the oceans as we know them.

     From writing essays about the symbolism in The Good Earth, to picking Shakespeare apart to the very last syllable, English class is not exactly the favorite among some students. As a result, writing is something that many students have come to find boring and tedious; 

     They tend to see it as nothing more than long-winded essays about books they don’t have much interest in. The truth is that writing is so much more than that. Writing is an art, an expression of oneself and a vessel to communicate your thoughts and feelings on paper. If you don’t necessarily enjoy writing essays, that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy other forms of writing. Creative writing is the form of writing where instead of analysis of an existing work, you form your own with your imagination. Fiction novels, poetry, screenwriting, and even music are considered creative writing.       Anyone can get into creative writing, it isn’t all about technical skill, there are no limits except your own creativity. Creative writing starts with thinking outside of already existing ideas, and branching out to create something new. Believe it or not, most famous authors are famous because their work broke the bounds of writing conventions. So yes, writing is more than just Shakespeare analysis. 

     Why not try creative writing yourself? You might like it!