Thursday, 31 December 2015

The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire - AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY (2nd entry)

© Copyright Material

In my last post, I wrote a full biography on Philip Lester, the other author to The Amazing Book is Not on Fire. All information in the biography below comes from Wikipedia, YouTube, YouTube Wikia, and Tumblr. 


Dan Howell Biography ~ Samantha Sharp 


On June 11 1991, in Wokingham, Berkshire, Daniel James Howell was delivered into this world. Dan is best known for being a YouTube star from his channel, danisnotonfire, as well as being a radio personality on BBC Radio 1, and an author to the #1 New York Bestseller, The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire. 

Dan had a rather happy childhood, mostly consisting of smiling and laughing, until he reached pre-school (or 'reception'), where he encountered the first negativity in his entire life because of meeting other children who enjoyed bullying Dan. 

At the age of 5, Dan expressed a love for acting when he was cast as Santa Claus for his school play. When his parents noticed the joy that theatre brought to Dan, they immediately registered him in to a local theatre school, where he attended classes on Sundays. 

Secondary school was a challenge for Daniel. He noticed that the other students looked down on happiness and joy, and used various homophobic slurs towards Dan to emphasise how much they despised seeing other individual's content. However, Dan decided to remain silent while he was being bullied, because he was open-minded enough to understand where the bullies' rage was coming from; whether it was rejection, or family issues. On a lighter note, Dan eventually managed to attain a small group of friends, and favourite teachers, which led to procrastination during exams. Dan enjoyed visiting a popular website, MySpace, where he began to look at photos of 'emos' and aspire to be like them. In addition to this, Dan frequently listened to music from bands such as My Chemical Romance and Muse.

After encouragement from friends at school, and Phil Lester (whom he met on Twitter), Dan uploaded his first video blog to YouTube which he titled, 'Hello Internet' on his main channel, danisnotonfire, on October 16th 2009.

After high school, Dan attended the University of Manchester in 2010, where he studied law, and occasionally made video blogs on YouTube. Upon realising that law is not what Dan wanted to pursue  for the rest of his life, Dan dropped out of university to pursue his dream of becoming a video blogger. Dan lived with his best friend and fellow YouTuber, AmazingPhil (Phil Lester), and the pair moved to London together in July 2012, both channels continuously growing.

Dan reached 1,000,000 subscribers in 2013, and as of December 2015, has gained over 4 million more subscribers. On the 12th of September 2014, Dan and Phil created a joint gaming channel named, DanandPhilGAMES, where they upload videos of them playing popular video games together. 

On 26th March, 2015, Dan and Phil announced the creation of their book, The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire, which was later released in the UK on October 8th 2015, and to the rest of the world on the 15th of October. The book managed to top the General Hardbacks Sunday Times, after over 26.7 thousand copies were sold in the UK in the first week of its release. It also became a #1 New York Bestseller in the young adult cover list of 2015. 



Tuesday, 29 December 2015

The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire ~ Author Biography (1st entry)

Philip Lester Biography

On the 30th of January, 1987, Philip (Phil) Michael Lester was born. He is best-known for his YouTube channel, AmazingPhil, and his latest book, The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire, which he wrote with his best friend and co-worker Daniel James Howell. 


Phil was raised in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, United Kingdom with his elder brother, Martyn Lester. Although the two brothers constantly fought during Phil's childhood, they now maintain a stable, normal, and loving fraternal relationship. He attended Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School from age 11-18, which he shared with just over 1,200 other students (which is actually not much compared to other schools in the United Kingdom). After graduating from BRGS, he moved on to the University of York where he studied English language and linguistics where he obtained a degree. In addition to that, he became a post graduate in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television, as well as achieving a Master of Arts in Video Postproduction with Specialisation and Visual Effects.


During his time in University, at age 19, on the 27th of March 2006, Phil posted his first video to YouTube, titled "Phil's Video Blog", on his main channel, AmazingPhil. Phil occassionally uploaded vlogs (video blogs) until he earned a small group of subscribers, which motivated Phil to upload regularly. 


As Phil's channel grew, going from 100 subscribers to 1000, and 1000 to 10,000, Phil grew a mutual friendship with Dan Howell on Twitter. After noticing that they shared a lot in common, Dan and Phil exchanged Skype accounts and eventually managed to meet up in London. From there, in July 2012, they decided to move in with each other in an apartment in Islington, London. 


In November 2012, Dan and Phil were offered to present the Sunday Night Entertainment and Request Show for the UK Radio station BBC Radio 1, and started broadcasting in January 2013, the next year. 


On December 12, 2014, Phil and Dan uploaded their first video to their new gaming channel, "DanandPhilGAMES", which reached one million subscribers on 8 March 2015, making it the fastest growing channel on YouTube.

Dan Howell, Phil Lester (left to right)

As the popularity of their channels increased, Howell and Lester took this as an opportunity to write their own book, The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire, and released the book trailer on Dan's channel on 26 March 2015. It was later released on 8 October 2015 in the UK, and worldwide on 15 October 2015. Upon the release of the book, which sold like wildfire and became a #1 New York Bestseller, the pair went on a tour between October and November 2015, which they named, The Amazing Tour Is Not on Fire, in which they travelled all ohi ver the United Kingdom meeting their subscribers and fans. 


Dan and Phil frequently appear in each other's videos, and are (more than) financially stable due to their millions of subscribers; Phil currently with over 3.2 million subscribers and over 290 million views, and Dan with over 5.5 million subscribers with over 464 million views. Their estimated income in total for both of them is over 1 million US dollars every year, resulting in their overwhelming success. 

Sunday, 13 December 2015

Weedflower - Cynthia Kodahata (WORD SEARCH)

R  Y  G  N  P  O  X  P  F  H  K  T
Q  T  U  A  M  J  J  E  F  Q  T  C
S  A  E  H  W  R  W  A  W  H  A  H
A  K  W  C  J  B  W  R  A  G  K  V
N  U  N  I  E  K  D  L  J  Z  F  J
M  T  N  I  J  N  L  H  A  L  T  Q
M  A  I  J  O  A  Y  A  P  U  A  C
J  K  J  U  K  R  H  R  A  K  K  O
H  N  U  V  I  F  N  B  N  C  P  N
A  C  K  C  M  X  Z  O  B  X  G  E
H  K  A  R  U  A  H  U  B  I  B  R
L  O  H  E  S  K  J  R  T  E  S  O
FRANK
HAJI
HAKUJIN
JAPAN
JIICHAN
PEARL HARBOUR
SUMIKO
TAK-TAK 
 Enjoy! :)

Tuesday, 8 December 2015

Weedflower - Cynthia Kodahata

15. Make a crossword puzzle from your book

t               
a               
k               
-      jiichan  
t      a        
a      p        
kodahata        
       n      p 
      weedflower
       s      a 
 melrose      r 
      u       l 
      m         
      i         
      k         
      o         
Across
  1. 2. Protagonist's grandfather
  2. 3. Last name of the author
  3. 5. Name of the book
  4. 6. Surname of the girl who invited the protagonist to a party at the beginning of the novel
Down
  1. 1. Main character's little brother
  2. 2. Nationality of the main character's parents
  3. 4. HARBOUR The _____ ______ attack was an attack by the Japanese to the United States that occured in Hawaii
  4. 7. Protagonist