A Day to Celebrate Earth

Earth Day is the largest, most widely celebrated
international environmental event. Earth Day helps celebrate Earth’s
unique place in the universe. It is the only planet in our solar
system teeming with incredible biodiversity.
Learning about and protecting this biodiversity is what Earth Day is all about.
People all over the world celebrate our efforts to protect plants and animals and
to clean up the world we live in. Most people celebrate Earth Day on April
22nd each year. In some countries, it is celebrated a month earlier on the vernal
equinox.

The First Earth Day

Senator Gaylord
Nelson of the United States founded Earth Day. Earth Day was first celebrated
on April 22, 1970 in the United States. Across the United States, 20 million
people and thousands of local schools and communities participated in the first
Earth Day. The huge turnout for the first Earth Day made it the largest organized
celebration in the history of the United States. Earth Day’s success
helped influence the government of the United States to create stronger laws
to protect the environment.

Earth Day Goes International

On March 21, 1971, United
Nations (UN) Secretary-General U Thant made Earth Day an international
celebration. He spoke about it at a Peace Bell Ceremony at the United Nations
in New York City. The United Nations Earth Day ceremony continues each year
on the day of the vernal equinox (March 20th or 21st), with the ringing of
the UN Peace Bell at the very moment of the equinox.

A Turnout of 200 Million!

In 1990, the first official International Earth Day was celebrated. About
200 million people from 141 nations took part in a celebration of environmental
conservation. In many countries, the global event reminded presidents and other
national leaders how important protecting Earth is to people.

A Summit to Save the Planet

Many of these leaders later took part in the first United
Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. At the summit,
global problems such as climate
change and the worldwide loss of indigenous cultures
and wild species were
discussed.

Why Celebrate Earth Day?

Earth Day reminds us we all share the same
planet. Sharing Earth means taking responsibility for what we use and how we
use it. It is a day to think of the environmental challenges we face and how
to solve them. Protecting Earth is every person’s and every country’s
responsibility.

Parties All Around the Globe

People traditionally celebrate Earth Day
with the ringing of bells, often bells of peace. The tradition of bell ringing
is practiced all over the world on Earth Day. Representatives from Palestine,
Austria, and Russia have all rung a Peace Bell in a ceremony celebrating the
protection of the environment and
of Earth’s many species.

A Rally in India

In India, one Earth Day was celebrated by approximately 1,200 kids. They held
a rally during which they carried signs with slogans and messages about preserving
all of nature. The children also performed skits about the environment. The
India Habitat Center held painting and quiz competitions. At other events,
kids presented a “Children’s Clean Air Manifesto” to the
president’s wife. Then they held a Children’s Bicycle Rally to
promote nonpolluting forms of transportation.

More Trees for Kenya

In Kenya, distinguished guests and schoolchildren planted 1,000 trees in Nairobi’s endangered Karura
forest. The plantings were in honor of Earth Day and Kenya’s National
Tree Planting Day on April 21.

Theme Parties in China

China celebrates
Earth Day each year with a theme. One year the theme was Protection of Geographic
Relics and Scientific Development. This theme highlighted the importance of
preserving cultural history and artifacts.
Another year the theme focused on sustainable use
of natural
resources in China and all over the world.

Earth Day Down Under

In Australia, a group dressed in animal costumes held a parade in which they
carried flags and banners in support of protecting Yellabinna (yell-uh-BEE-nah),
the world’s largest stretch of mallee wilderness.
Another Earth Day celebration drew attention to air pollution by
organizing a large “car-less” day. Many central Sydney streets
were blocked off to cars. These car-free streets became the site of an Earth
Day festival with music, theater, and educational exhibits.

Join the Earth Day Party

Come join the party with millions of other
kids and celebrate your Earth! Earth Day celebrations provide a chance to remember
what an amazing planet we live on.

How have you celebrated Earth Day in the past? If you or your class has a
great story, tell GLOBIO so that your story can be shared with kids around
the world on Earth
Day Everyday.

Making Earth-friendly Choices

There are many different things each of us can do to help protect species,
keep Earth clean, and fix damage that has been done. For example, using fewer
natural resources will help make sure there are enough resources to go around.
It will also help make sure that future generations won’t
run out of the things we all need, like clean water, air, and soil.

A Hole in Our Safety Zone

When we don’t use resources in a responsible
way, we may create pollution that can damage water, soil, air, and other parts
of the environment. For instance, certain types of air pollution have already
created a hole in our planet’s ozone
layer. The ozone layer is part of the atmosphere.
It is made up of a special gas called ozone.
The ozone layer helps keep us safe from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.

Most scientists believe that as more air pollution is made, the ozone layer
will become thinner and more holes will develop. This will allow even more
ultraviolet rays to reach Earth. A thinner ozone layer may result in harm to
people, animals, and plants.

Protecting Endangered Species

Along with pollution, things like habitat destruction
and poaching are
causing some species to become endangered. Finding ways to
protect and save endangered species is a primary goal of conservation groups.
Earth Day celebrations are a great opportunity for these groups to teach us
all about the planet and how every person can make a difference.

Think Globally, Act Locally

Earth Day isn’t the only day when the
world can and should celebrate the planet we all share. In fact, at GLOBIO
we believe Earth
Day Everyday should be theway to live.

Here are a few ways you can help Earth every day.

• Walk or ride a bicycle to school, the park, or the store. Encourage your
  parents to walk or ride to work, too. This is a great way to help reduce
  the pollution created by cars, trucks, buses, trains, and airplanes.
• Plant trees. Trees help keep the air clean.
• Do not litter. Pick up litter on the sidewalk, street, beach, or riverbank.
  This will help keep the environment free of contaminants.
• Create a compost pile
  for food scraps and plant waste from the garden. This is a good way to cut
  down on the amount of trash that goes into a landfill. As a bonus, compost
  helps create rich soil for gardening.
• Recycle! Recycling is
  an important part of keeping Earth clean. It is very easy to do. By giving
  old things a new life we put less pressure on important resources all of
  us will need in the future to survive.

Rethink, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Understanding how long something takes to
decompose in a garbage dump or landfill can help motivate all of us to reuse
and recycle everything we can. The best thing any of us can do for the environment
is to rethink the way we use things and to use less. The fewer resources and
products we use, the less stuff there is to throw away and recycle. Can you
guess how long it takes the things we use everyday to turn into soil in a landfill?

Most things that are thrown away in an average bag of trash can be recycled.
Open this picture and move your mouse around the sorted piles of trash to learn
what can be recycled instead of thrown away.

Valuable lessons from preternatural wealth builders.

American philosopher Eric Hoffer said, “If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must know how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, attitudes, values and fantasies on everyday life.” Too bad Hoffer never met Jamie Murray Wells.

In 2004 while studying for final exams at University of the West of England, Wells, then age 21, went shopping for a pair of prescription glasses. Nonplussed by the $150 pound ($300) price tag, Wells decided to funnel his $2,000 student loan into what would become Glasses Direct, a London-based online retailer that now generates $5 million in annual revenue.

Wells is part of an elite club of preternatural wealth builders who managed to cobble million-dollar enterprises before they graduated from college. The “million-dollar” measure refers to either total revenue generated or the value of the enterprise built (as opposed to the size of the total profit pile). That’s no mean feat for any entrepreneur, let alone one who can barely buy a drink legally in the States.

The nine entrepreneurs featured in our slideshow — six from the U.S. and three from the U.K. — started launching businesses by the tender age of 15, and one before he broke double-digits. Some of these wunderkinds, like Wells, identified problems and created companies to solve them; others turned their hobbies into money-making ventures. Some teamed up with friends, siblings and mentors; others plowed ahead on their own. Their common thread: singular focus, preternatural financial savvy and the optimism and confidence to wrest financing from seasoned investors.

Here’s a look at how a few of them pulled it off.

Smelling Opportunity: Jamie Murray Wells

When Wells was bemoaning the price of his lenses, four retailers dominated the U.K. prescription glasses market; all relied on pricey retail stores to move their merchandise.

Wells figured he could move the entire purchasing process online. All he needed was a factory to make the lenses, assemble them with frames and package them. He would then ship them to shoppers, who would simply e-mail or mail in their prescriptions and pay for their glasses online. Without the costly infrastructure, Wells could sell glasses for about one-tenth the price of the established brick-and-mortar players.

Getting Started

A nifty new business model isn’t nearly enough to launch a thriving company, let alone when you’re 21 and have no track record. “I was knocking on the door of an industry, saying, ‘The way that you’re selling glasses is wrong, and I’ve got a better idea,’” says Wells.

Luckily he had friends and family members who agreed to put up a few thousand pounds to help him get started. Wells didn’t disappoint: In the first year, Glasses Direct’s revenue topped $2 million. And unlike many zealous entrepreneurs, Wells figured out how to manage his cash flow to bootstrap the business. The company took credit card payments upfront but didn’t pay suppliers for another month. Wells used part of the float to hire a public relations firm to hype his low-cost strategy.

The next year Wells turned to professional angel investors. “With some investors, I simply walked in to a meeting with a sales graph and let that speak for itself,” says Wells. As demand grew, Wells raised $34 million in venture capital from the likes of Highland Capital, Index Ventures, and Munich-based Acton Capital Partners. That should tide Wells over until he turns his first profit.

Asking for Help

Wells believes his age and inexperience helped him. “Having a young founder helps to add a lot of personality to a business,” he says. Still, you can’t cover payroll with personality.

Recognizing his limitations (yet another challenge for many entrepreneurs), Wells sought out mentors, including ophthalmologist Dr. David Spalton, and David Magliana, a marketing guru who helped bag the 2012 summer Olympic games for London. While Spalton lent credibility with the eye-care community, Magliana worked with Wells on getting the word out about Glasses Direct.

“As an entrepreneur, it’s a lot easier than you’d think to reach out to people,” says Wells. On the flipside, “entrepreneurs love to be written to and asked for their advice,” he adds. “If your question is appropriate for them and they’re emotionally interested in you, you will get a letter back, and you will get to meet them for coffee.”

Running on Empty: Michael Furdyk

In 1996, as the dot-com boom started to simmer, Michael Furdyk started a Web site, called MyDesktop.com, an online computer magazine, in the basement of his parents’ home in suburban Toronto. Furdyk was 16 and a bona fide computer geek. His site was filled with tips and advice Furdyk gleaned in online chat rooms, where he also came across fellow teenager Michael Hayman in Australia. The twosome figured they could turn their passion for technology into a paying business. Hayman was so convinced that he moved to Toronto to get things started.

Just one problem: Their only source of income was Furdyk’s paper route. Solution: barter. In exchange for Web site storage space, they ran their host’s ads on MyDesktop.com. They negotiated cheap rent on their modest office by designing their landlord’s Web site.

Soon MyDesktop.com was bringing in $60,000 a month in advertising revenue from blue-chip clients like Microsoft and IBM. Furdyk and Hayman used some of their excess cash to scoop up smaller technology sites for $5,000 to $10,000 apiece. By 1999 the company was attracting 1 million unique visitors a month (serious numbers back then). Furdyk, Hayman and a third partner sold the company to Internet.com for “over $1 million,” says Furdyk.

Absorbing the Blows

As part of the MyDesktop sale, Furdyk and company received a small amount of venture capital funding for their next project, a product review site called Buybuddy.com. They raised an additional $5 million and brought on an outside management team. But the good times were short-lived. In 2001 the tech bubble burst; Buybuddy suffered and shut down within three years.

Furdyk hasn’t soured on entrepreneurship; indeed, he is promoting it via TakingITglobal.com, a nonprofit social networking site he launched for youngsters and educators interested in using technology to solve global problems. “Never be afraid of failure,” says Furdyk. “Just learn from it. When you’re young you have even less to lose.”

Going With the Flow: Fraser Doherty

While his fellow mini-moguls were making a mint on the Internet, Fraser Doherty was doing things the old-fashioned way. In 2002 at the age of 14, Doherty started making jams from his grandmother’s recipes in his parents’ kitchen in Edinburgh, Scotland. Neighbors and church friends loved them. As word spread Doherty received orders faster than he could fill them, so he leased space at a 200-person food processing factory several days a month.

By age 16 Doherty left school to work on his jams full time. In early 2007 Waitrose, a high-end supermarket in the U.K., came knocking, and within months there were SuperJam jars on the shelves of 184 Waitrose stores. Doherty borrowed $10,000 from a bank to cover general expenses and more factory time to produce three flavors: Blueberry & Black Currant, Rhubarb & Ginger and Cranberry & Raspberry.

Spreading the Word

Last year Doherty ramped up the company’s marketing efforts, printing 50 million coupons in newspapers across the U.K. He also ran a promotion in the Sun newspaper offering readers a free jar of jam. Good moves: SuperJam’s revenue hit $1.2 million in 2009, flat from the prior year. Doherty’s retailers now include U.K. chains Asda Wal-Mart, Morrisons and Tesco. This year he plans to introduce three new flavors.

Doherty remains the company’s only full-time employee, although he hired three part-time staffers to hand out samples in grocery stores. Within the next four months, he hopes to produce mini jars for airlines, hotels and gift boxes. Based on a reasonable valuation multiple of one time revenue (jelly maker J.M. Smucker generally trades between 1 and 1.5 times revenue), Doherty’s debt-free stake is worth between $1 million and $2 million.

As for taking SuperJam up a notch, Doherty asserts that his supply chain and operations can safely scale to meet heavier demand. “We’re sticking with what works,” says the entrepreneur, now a seasoned 21 years old.

MyYearbook.com: Catherine Cook

In 2005 Catherine Cook, 15, and her brother Dave, 17, were flipping through their high school yearbook and came up with the idea to develop a free interactive version online. The Cooks soon merged their social networking site with Zenhex.com, an ad-supported site where users post homemade quizzes, more than doubling traffic to their site. By 2006 MyYearbook had raised $4.1 million from the likes of U.S. Venture Partners and First Round Capital. The business attracted advertisers such as Neutrogena, Disney and ABC, grew to 3 million members worldwide and raked in annual sales in the “seven figures,” says Catherine.

Whateverlife.com: Ashley Qualls

Conceived by 14-year-old Detroit native Ashley Qualls as a personal portfolio with pictures and graphics, the ad-supported site evolved to offer free MySpace layouts and tutorials for teens who wanted to learn how to do their own graphic designs and coding. Whateverlife.com, which Qualls owns outright, claims to nab 7 million unique visitors a month and counts Verizon Communications as an advertiser. In March 2006 Qualls reportedly received an offer (from an undisclosed buyer) for $1.5 million, but turned it down.

Glasses Direct
When 21-year-old university student Jamie Murray Wells attempted to buy a pair of prescription glasses in 2004, he had a vision for a new type of business. Nonplussed by the $150 pound ($300) price tag, Wells decided to leave school and funnel his $2,000 student loan into what would become Glasses Direct, a London-based online retailer. In the first year the company’s revenue topped $2 million. Today the company pulls in $5 million in sales, employs 70 people and has raked in $34 million in venture funding. (That should tide Wells over until he turns his first profit.)

MyDesktop.com

In 1996 Michael Furdyk, 16, started MyDesktop.com, an online computer magazine, in the basement of his parents’ home in suburban Toronto. His site was filled with tips and advice Furdyk gleaned in online chat rooms, where he came across fellow teenager Michael Hayman. Hayman, an Australian, moved to Toronto to build the business. Running lean, the pair bartered for Web site storage and office rent. Soon MyDesktop.com was bringing in $60,000 a month in ad revenue from blue-chip clients like Microsoft and IBM. In 1999 Furdyk, Hayman and a third partner sold it to Internet.com for “over $1 million,” says Furdyk.

SuperJam

In 2002 at the age of 14, Fraser Doherty started making jams in his parents’ kitchen in Edinburgh, Scotland. By age 16, Doherty left school to work on his jams full time. SuperJam’s revenue hit $1.2 million in 2009. Doherty remains the company’s only full-time employee. Based on a reasonable valuation multiple of one time revenue (jelly maker J.M. Smucker trades between 1 and 1.5 times revenue), Doherty’s debt-free stake is worth between $1 million and $2 million. Doherty asserts that his supply chain and operations can safely scale to meet heavier demand. “We’re sticking with what works,” he says.

Videogame Design

Ephren Taylor began his first business at the age of 12, making videogames for his Super Nintendo console. Every day after school he trekked to the local Borders in Overland Park, Kan., to read How To Make A Video Game In 21 Days by Andre LaMothe. A few months later he had coded his first game. Its premise was to shoot bad guys who were trying to kidnap the president. He sold about 30 copies to his friends for $10 a pop.

In a few words, if they can do it,you can do it too.Money are easy to make,but finding the right person to spend it with might be the challenge of your life.Many people struggle their entire life to make bilions, milions or at least thousands of dollars,and while some of them succeed becoming rich and most likely unhappy,others don’t make tons of money,but they never forget to put up a smile everyday for their friends and families.

At least once in your life – maybe even once a week or once a day for that matter – you have fantasized about coming into a lot of money. What would you do if you were worth millions or even billions? Believe it or not there are millionaires and billionaires among us who masquerade as relatively normal, run-of-the-mill people. Take a peek at some of the most frugal wealthy people in the world.

Warren Buffett

Associated Press

Millions of people read Buffett’s books and follow his firm, Berkshire Hathaway’s, every move. But the real secret to Buffett’s personal fortune may be his penchant for frugality. Buffett, who is worth an estimated $47 billion, eschews opulent homes and luxury items. He and his wife still live in their modest home in Omaha, Nebraska which they purchased for just $31,500 more than 50 years ago.

Although he’s dined in the best restaurants around the globe, given the choice he would opt for a good burger and fries accompanied by a cold cherry Coke. When asked why he doesn’t own a yacht he responded “Most toys are just a pain in the neck.” (Find out how he went from selling soft drinks to buying up companies and making billions of dollars.

Carlos Slim

Associated Press

While most of the world is very familiar with Bill Gates, the name Carlos Slim rarely rings a bell. But it’s a name worth knowing. Slim, who is a native of Mexico, was just named the world’s richest billionaire – that’s right, richer than the uber-famous Microsoft founder. Slim is worth more than $53 billion and while he could afford the world’s most extravagant luxuries he rarely indulges. He, like Buffett, doesn’t own a yacht or plane and he has lived in the same home for over 40 years.

Ingvar Kamprad

Associated Press

The founder of the Swedish furniture phenomenon Ikea struck success with affordable, assemble-it-yourself furniture. For Kamprad, figuring out how to save money isn’t just for his customers, it’s a high personal value. He’s been quoted as saying “Ikea people do not drive flashy cars or stay at luxury hotels.” That goes for the founder as well. He flies coach for business and when he needs to get around town locally he either takes the bus or will head out in his 15-year-old Volvo 240 GL.

Chuck Feeney

Growing up in the wake of The Depression as an Irish-American probably has something to do with Feeney’s frugality. With a personal motto of “I set out to work hard, not get rich,” the co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers has quietly become a billionaire but even more secretively given almost all of it away through his foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies. In addition to giving more than $600 million to his alma mater Cornell University, he has given billions to schools, research departments and hospitals.

Loath to spend if he doesn’t have to, Feeney beats both Buffett and Kamprad in the donation category, giving out less grants than only Ford and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations. A frequent user of public transportation, Mr. Feeney flies economy class, buys clothes from retail stores, and does not wast money on an extensive shoes closet, stating “you can only wear one pair of shoes at a time”. He raised his children in the same way; making them work the same normal summer jobs as most teens.

Frederik Meijer

If you live in the Midwest chances are good that you shop at Meijer’s chain of grocery stores. Meijer is worth more than $5 billion and nearly half of that was amassed when everyone else was watching their net worth drop in 2009. Like Buffett he buys reasonably-priced cars and drives them until they die, and like Kamprad he chooses affordable motels when on travel for work. Also, like Chuck Feeney, rather than carelessly spending his wealth Mr. Meijer is focused on the good that it can provide to the community.

The Bottom Line

The dirty little secret of some of the world’s wealthiest people is that they rarely act like it. Instead of over-the-top spending, they’re busy figuring out how to save and invest to have that much more in the future. It’s a habit you might want to consider in order to build up your own little storehouse of cash.

It’s official — playing Farmville and tagging friends in photos (and consequently untagging embarrassing photos of yourself from your friends’ photos) has become more popular than actually trying to find things on the internet, as a new report shows Facebook edged out Google as the most-visited site on the internet last week.

According to Hitwise, Facebook accounted for 7.07% of all web traffic for the week ending March 13. That barely edges out Google’s 7.03%.

This is huge news for Facebook, who only a year ago accounted for around 2% of U.S. web traffic.

Does this news herald in the new age of Facebook? Or is that bubble due to burst once something new comes along?

Nights in Rodanthe, by Nicholas Sparks

The novel opens with Adrienne, a mother in her fifties and Amy, her daughter. Adrienne, trying to help Amy cope with the death of her husband, decides to tell her about a story long ago, her story of loss. Adrienne’s story begins at an inn in Rodanthe, North Carolina where her and Paul Flanner, both divorcees, find each other. Both reeling from the pain of their divorces, they find an outlet within one another. The novel takes you through the tumultuous relationship the two share in a weekend at the oceanfront town. At the end of the stay the two must part, planning to meet again, never knowing if it will truly happen. Through the telling of her own love loss, Adrienne hopes that she may help her daugher go on living without her beloved.

The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks

The Notebook takes place in New Bern, North Carolina as do all of Nicholas Spark’s books. The story starts out with Noah and Allie as teenagers when they spend the summer together and fall inlove. Their love is forbidden by Allies parents and after the summer they do not see each other for 14 years. During this time, Noah sent Allie letters, one every day for a whole year, before he gave up. After Allie is engaged, and she sees Noahs’s picture in a newspaper she goes to visit him. Once they spent time together they fall in love all over again and Allie breaks off the engagment with her husband and they spend the rest of their lives together. The stories comes to an end with Noah and Allie in a home. Allie has alzheimers and she doesn’t remember Noah anymore. However, earlier she told Noah to write their love story in a book and read it to her where she would remember and come back to him.

The Legion of the Damned, by Sven Hassel

Even if you like or not reading books about war,you will like this book from the very first word you will read,because this author doesn’t just tell stories about war,he tells us about his emotions,his personal life,with every pinch of salt that World War II brought.

Sven Hassel joined the German Army in the late 30’s ,hypnotized by the image of 3 meals/day , clean sheets and a so promised future.But his dreams are ruined by the invasion of Poland when the German soldier starts to understand what a war means and how many sacrifices come with the duty of carrying a weapon.He can’t face the reality and runs from the camp,not knowing that he can never escape the chaos of those times.

Nobody could hide from the German Army,absolutely nobody,so after a short time he finds himself facing the High Court.His luck comes from his girlfriend, Eva,who risks her life so that Sven can receive only 15 years in concentration camp.His life is soon transformed to hell,having to defuse bombs and see his comrades being thorn apart by the explosives.As it wasn’t enough,luck strikes Sven again and he is given a rare opportunity to enroll himself in a legion, risking his life but taking his freedom back.He joins Sonderabteilung 27th Panzers,where he makes a few loyal friends,and are sent together in a suicidal mission leading the fronts into battle.He falls into the arms of the Russian army soon,and decides to serve them for the price of his life.

He meets with his friends again and they make a hell of a team all the way on the way to survival.Sven and the rest of the gang have a great sense of humor which keeps the book light hearted even when describing some of the more gruesome aspects of war.

Lord of the flies, by William Golding

In the midst of a nuclear war, a group of British boys find themselves stranded without adult supervision on a tropical island. The group is roughly divided into the “littluns,” boys around the age of six, and the “biguns,” who are between the ages of ten and twelve. Initially, the boys attempt to form a culture similar to the one they left behind. They elect a leader, Ralph, who, with the advice and support of Piggy (the intellectual of the group), strives to establish rules for housing and sanitation. Ralph also makes a signal fire the group’s first priority, hoping that a passing ship will see the smoke signal and rescue them. A major challenge to Ralph’s leadership is Jack, who also wants to lead. Jack commands a group of boys who hunt. Jack draws the other boys slowly away from Ralph’s influence because of their natural attraction to and inclination toward the adventurous hunting activities.

The conflict between Jack and Ralph—and the forces of savagery and civilization that they represent—is exacerbated by the boys’ literal fear of a mythical beast roaming the island. One night, an aerial battle occurs above the island, and a casualty of the battle floats down with his opened parachute, ultimately coming to rest on the mountaintop. Breezes occasionally inflate the parachute, making the body appear to sit up and then sink forward again. This sight panics the boys as they mistake the dead body for the beast they fear. In a reaction to this panic, Jack forms a splinter group that is eventually joined by all but a few of the boys. The boys who join Jack are enticed by the protection Jack’s ferocity seems to provide, as well as by the prospect of playing the role of savages: putting on camouflaging face paint, hunting, and performing tribal dances. Eventually, Jack’s group actually slaughters a sow and, as an offering to the beast, puts the sow’s head on a stick.

Of all the boys, only the mystic Simon has the courage to discover the true identity of the beast sighted on the mountain. After witnessing the death of the sow and the gift made of her head to the beast, Simon begins to hallucinate, and the staked sow’s head becomes the Lord of the Flies, imparting to Simon what he has already suspected: The beast is not an animal on the loose but is hidden in each boy’s psyche. Weakened by his horrific vision, Simon loses consciousness. Recovering later that evening, he struggles to the mountaintop and finds that the beast is only a dead pilot/soldier. Attempting to bring the news to the other boys, he stumbles into the tribal frenzy of their dance. Perceiving him as the beast, the boys beat him to death.

Soon only three of the older boys, including Piggy, are still in Ralph’s camp. Jack’s group steals Piggy’s glasses to start its cooking fires, leaving Ralph unable to maintain his signal fire. When Ralph and his small group approach Jack’s tribe to request the return of the glasses, one of Jack’s hunters releases a huge boulder on Piggy, killing him. The tribe captures the other two biguns prisoners, leaving Ralph on his own.

The tribe undertakes a manhunt to track down and hurt/kill Ralph, and they start a fire to smoke him out of one of his hiding places, creating an island-wide forest fire. A ship sees the smoke from the fire, and a British naval officer arrives on the beach just in time to save Ralph from certain death at the hands of the schoolboys turned savages.

A walk to remember,by Nicholas Sparks

One of the Main Characters named Landon becomes in love with his ministers Daughter and starts going out with her not knowing that she has Cancer. He falls in love with her as the time she has left progresses he helps her to be more comfortable, as he is fighting with his own emotional problems over the whole situation. He eventually exhausts his self as he tries to make the last month they have together last, but, he makes one more push to find out what more he can give to her.