First Challenge Winner!

Well, I waited as long as I could for Serpent's Storm to get 77 reviews...sadly this was not to be...so there will be no singing.  BUT I have crowned a winner for the First Challenge - the best use of the word CHICKEN in a Serpent's Storm review.

Drum roll, please.

And the winner is: TRAVIS HERRICK

For his lovely rendition of that old classic: THE CHICKEN AND THE RACCOON

But don't take it from me.  Here is Travis, in his own words:

"I read this book over the last several days and I have to say, it really reminds me of the old folk tale of the Chicken and the Raccoon.

Once, a long time ago, in the American Heartlands, there lived a Chicken and Raccoon, and they were the best of friends.  The Chicken was very industrious, and worked very hard each and every day.  The raccoon did the minimal amount of work he needed to get by, and spent his days listening to hipster music and lounging around wearing sunglasses.

But even thought there were very different, the Chicken and Raccoon were close friends, and they shared the love of books.

One Day, the Chicken came up to his good friend Raccoon.  “Raccoon, I have been feeling down.  I feel that I’ve spent all my time at the office without doing any of the important things in life.  Part of me wants to be like you, because you’re always so happy and seem like deep down, you’re satisfied with life.  But all you do is slack off and listen to annoying music and wear sunglasses all day.”

Raccoon took off his headphones and thought for a long time.  He looked at Chicken and said “Well, you work hard.  You’d hate my life; what you have to realize is that all you have to do is be yourself to be happy.  You don’t need to change yourself to be satisfied.”

Well the years passed, and Chicken never became more satisfied with his life, whereas Raccoon always was.  Raccoon was unable to help his friend, because he didn’t realize what the problem was.  Of course, as readers of The Serpent’s Storm will surely know by this point, Raccoon had read it while Chicken didn’t.  The Chicken was never able to appreciate the snarkiness of Amber Benson’s writing, the cleverness of her world, her engaging characters.  Chicken will never know the plight of Callie and how she grows as a person to be less insecure and more willing to take over her responsibilities.  He will never know the turmoil of Callie not knowing who to trust, or the catharsis of her victory.  And without knowing about The Serpent’s Storm, how could he possibly have experienced the beauty and wonder the world has to offer?  Sadly, Raccoon had assumed that he had read this book, as who wouldn’t, so he said nothing, and Chicken went his whole life never knowing.

The moral of the fable, as always, is to not be like Chicken.  Buy Amber Benson’s book."

Travis will not be picking a song for me to sing.  Instead, I will be writing a personal poem for Travis and then putting it up on my youtube page.

Congrats, Travis!!