Hunger Games

Katniss lives in District 12. She is soon to be known as the Girl of Fire.
Every year, the Capital puts on the Hunger Games. It is basically a way to punish people for rebelling. Kids 12-18 have their name entered in a drawing, and if their name is picked, they go into an arena and fight the other kids until death from hunger, murder, or other. Katniss ends up in the Hunger Games. Katniss misses her friends, Gale, while she has to put up with Peeta, who she doesn’t know how she feels about him. Her hunting and plant skills come in handy to keep her alive, as they did in District 12, a very poor district.

I thought the Hunger Games was very good. I loved the way the author made up a complete political system and portrayed different feelings among the characters. I liked how she created the events in the Hunger Games in Hunger Games and the other character’s personalities.

I would recommend this to young adults that like survival/adventure stories.

I think I can compare this book to Molly Fyde because they are both in the future and so different than many books. They are both great sci-fi adventures (although Hunger Games is more adventurous and less sci-fi).

The Healing Spell

This book was really sad. It was definetively a low reading level, but I still enjoyed it.

This book is about a young girl whose mother is in a coma. The girl "knows" she's the reason behind it. Can she reunited her family, and save her mother, before the guil eats her alive?

This book I'd say are for 3rd-maybe 7th graders. It's not really like anytihng else I can think of

~Dana

All the Broken Pieces

I'm not a huge poem fan but I really enjoyed this book. It had good content, was eay to understand, and really showed emotions.

"My name is Matt Pin
and her name, I remember,
is Phang My.
His name
I will never say....."
~All the Broken Pieces

This book is about a young boy who was airlifted away from is home in Vietnam during the Vietnam war, by American soilders. When he reached his new family in America he sees a different side of life, but being Vietnamess leads to lots of challenges for Matt. Matt attends a group of veterans who are talking about experinces in the war, but once he faces the memories there is no going back.

Through out the book Matt deals with racism and more then his share of blame

"...Because of you, Matt-the-rat,
there's no place for me.

Becayse of you, my wife left.

Because of you, my brother died.

Because of you, I have stumpps instead of legs...."

~Dana

Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets

Harry Potter is an orphaned boy. He is taken in by his mean Aunt and Uncle, the Dursleys. When he turns eleven a giant man knocks down the door ands states, "Yer a wizard 'Arry,''. Harry goes to Hogwarts, a school which teaches magic. His two best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger go on a fantastic adventure.

I really enjoyed the way the book was written. It flows so well. Also I love the way J.K. Rowling doesnt give you exact detail of each character. It lets you imagine some. The only thing I don't like is Hermione's name because I couldn't pronounce it till a year ago.

I would recommend this book to all young readers, boys and girls because it tells a great story. I compare it to Lord Of The Rings because its both World Stories. They both have a different world within their book.

The Gardener

SPOLIER WARNING!

The Gardener is about the shady experiments of a company called TroDyn. The company plans on making a new type of human that can produce energy from the sun. These people are called autrophs.
A boy called Mason ends up involved in the less than moral dealings of TroDyn. He and a girl invlved in the experiment, Laila, run away together. As they get farther away from the rest of the subjects in the experiment, Laila becomes ill.
They meet up with a former TroDyn employee. Dr. Emerson, the ex-employee, informs them that Laila has to be near other autotrophs to stay alive. This is because of the fact that the experiment is not yet complete and the kinks in the system haven't been worked out yet.
Mason takes Laila back to TroDyn, and gets a tour of the buliding from a woman named Eve. The woman says that he will ba able to meet the head of the experiment, who is known as the Gardener.
When Mason meets the Gardener, he is shocked. The Gardener is his father, who he thought had just left his family or died.
Eve trys to kill Soloman, the Gardener, because she wants to sell the autotrophs to the government, but Mason stops her. Laila and the other autotrophs have to be moved to a new holding facility, but Soloman promises Mason that he will see her again.
The story picks up again, and Mason is going to Stanford. He sees Laila, and the book ends.

In my opinion, this is not a worthwhile read. Not only is the plot decidedly unoriginal, NOTHING happens until page 120 of 230. 130 pages is not enough space to create an nteresting and deep plot. I would not recommend this book to anyone, seeing as it was a huge disappiontment. I would compare this book to the first Molly Fyde book. Both books took forever to pick up, but Molly Fyde actually managed to capture my attention, unlike the Gardener.

The Surrender Tree

I know a lot of people who really enjoyed this book but I HATED it. It might be beacuse I'm not a big poem person.

This book is about a nurse in the battle for Cuban independence. It was all poems, and had different points of view.

This book is simialr in style to All the Broken Pieces, but it was way, way, way, worse. It'd say it's for kids 10-14

~Dana

Impossible

This book is extremly weird. I think it was good, although all the riddles made it confusing. There was alos some adult content in the book. I'd recommend it for mature middle schoolers and high schoolers, maybe a lower reading level collage student, due to the rape in the book.

This book is about a girl Lucy, she has everything she's ever wanted. She lives with her foster parents, as nobody knows who her real father is and her mother went crazy after having Lucy, due to rape. Lucy is excited for her school prom, although at points leading up to prom, including the actual, it looks like her crazy real mother, Miranda is going to ruin it. Sadly Lucy's prom date rapes her then dies in a car crash! *SPOILER ALERT* They later find out that Lucy's date was being controled by an evil spirt, elf, thingy, who has cursed Lucy's family, to be raped, have a little girl, then go crazy *END SPOILER ALERT* In order to break the curse Lucy must complete three impossible tasks - To make a shirt with no seams, or needlework, to find an acre of land between salt water and sea strand, which she has to plow with just a goats horn, and to sow it all over again with just a grain of corn. Will she succeed or will she fail?

This book is similar to the Hugh Howey books with the levels of weirdness, similar to Speak in the rape content, but it's really not similar to anything.

~ Dana

Wings

The book WINGS was very good. It did take a little wait to get to the good part but over all it was very good. It's definitively for more mature reads as there was a lot of language and some sexual content.

This book is a realistic fiction book about a girl flying for WASP,Sally, in WWII. Over the course of the book she faces lots ofchallenges from the men hoping to disband WASP. In the end these
people with all their power and sextets ideas manage to shut down WASP before Sally has a chance to prove herself as more then a trainee witha lot of potential.

This book was luckily way better then the book FLYGIRL though theywere about the same to topic. Where FLYGIRL was dry, confusing, andboring, WINGS was exciting, suspenseful, and for the most part easy to understand.

~Dana

The Dreamer

The Dreamer was a really strange book. It was about Neftali and his “journey.” Neftali’s dad was very stern. He didn’t like it when Neftali wrote or collected cool things like leaves, rocks, or anything else. When Neftali’s family takes a trip to the beach, his father abuses him and his sister. Back home, he takes a job with his uncle where he wrote articles.

There wasn’t much to The Dreamer. It was interesting, but I felt like it didn’t have much of a plot. It also doesn’t match the description. It says that he hears voices and “cannot ignore the call,” but he only hears a voice once in the beginning and once very briefly in the end. It has nothing to do with it.

Honestly, I don’t recommend this book to anyone.

I don’t think I can compare it to anything. It’s just so weird.

Matched review

I read the book Matched by Ally Condie. I’m excited for the book Crossed to come out, and the movie Matched to come out!
The book was about a city/place in the future that has a society that pretty much controls everything, from who you marry, to when you die. Cassia (the main character) was matched with one of her best guy friends, but one night when she was looking for her match on a screen, another face pops up. She has to choose between Xander(The original match), or Ky.
I really liked how this book was romantic but not cheesy, like most romance books. The book really made me appreciate that we can choose who we marry, what job we have, and how we live. There were many parts of the book that made me think hard about if I was in Cassia’s place what I would do. It would be hard to choose to live your life that’s controlled by the society, or not listening to what they say, but risking loosing your life. I didn’t like the end of the book.
I think this book is similar to the Hunger Games, because its about someone choosing between loving their best friend, or a charming stranger they don’t know very well. It’s also like twilight, because the girl main character has to choose if she loves one person, or another. I would recommend this book to 7th grade- high school. I think you have to have a certain aount of maturity to understand events in this book and to learn something from it.
Overall I loved this book, and it’s the best romantic book I’ve ever read. I enjoyed everything about it.J

Ps. I wish I had the dress Cassia wore to the matching banquet!!

~Emily

Someone Named Eva

Milada lives in Lidice, a town in Czechoslovakia. Suddenly, Hitler’s soldiers come and raid the town of all of the people. Men are sent to a “work camp.” Women and girls are taken to a gym and moved around. When Milada fits the description Ayran, she is taken a camp with other girls that had blond hair and light eyes. They learned German, got new German names (Eva), and were trained to be a German. Many were upset. Milada had trouble remembering who she was before and sometimes even forgets her name: Milada. Milada/Eva was sent to a German household where they would reside. After Hitler was killed, Milada/Eva is ready to find her family and go back to who she was.

I loved this book! It is amazing! It has become one of my favorites. It is about something that few people know about. Plus, I like reading about history.

The only thing I can compare this book to is The Rock and the River because they are both about something that isn’t often written about. It is also similar to Anne Frank because it was also about Hitler’s rule, just in a different perspective.

I’d recommend it to any young-adults who like to read about history. Although, it is told from a girl’s perspective and I don’t really think boys would enjoy this.

The dream of Night

This book was very good since I am not a very big horse person. This book is mainly about how a little girl and how she finds this abused horse and calls it her own. Through out the book it talks about how she trains it to be a race horse and maybe a chance for both to find hope. I liked the book but it was a little confusing at the begginning because of the way the writer wrote her book, but i think it has a very good story behind it. I would recommened this book to someone who likes horses or animals. This book reminds me of Secret of Night Ponies. Which I read the first 8 chapters and gave up on it.

A Little Piece of Ground

Karim lives in Palestine while in the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s when it’s under the Israeli rule. There are strict curfews and weeks at a time where the citizens are not allowed outside. All Karim wants is to play soccer with his friend, Joni. He wants to escape the cramped apartment where he lives with his brother, his parents, and his two little sisters who annoy him greatly. When he meets brave Hopper, a Palestinian refugee, things change. Karim, Hopper, and Joni clear an area for a soccer field during the times they are allowed outside. When Karim gets stuck outside when the curfew is called, he cannot go out of hiding to get home because he might get shot by a gun or even a tank. Can his brother, that he doesn’t get along with, save him?

A Little Piece of Ground was well-written. I liked it. The author portrayed the fear of the people at the time well. It gave you a look at someone’s (fictional) story of what that time was like. Although, I thought it focused too much on soccer. I feel like that was the only thing that made Karim want to do anything.

This book compares to Time of the Angels only in the way that the main characters both felt trapped at home. For Karim, it was the curfew and the Israeli tanks. For Hannah, it was the threat of influenza.

I would recommend this book to young-adults who like sports or survival stories.

The Other Side of the Island

The Other Side of the Island is extremley different. While I thought it was good it was confusing at many points. This book is definetivley a lesson based book, if you read it the way I did. I think though depending on the person, and what they know or have read it could be taken way different then I did.

In this book, the world is contorlled by Earth Mother, who has protected the world with enclousure, and has taken away all freedom. When Honor and her family are forced away from there home in the north to island 365. School fills her head with fake ideas and memories. As life changes, danger approches and nothing will ever be the same again.

This book is similar to MATCHED and The Giver as they all deal with controling governments. I think this book is better The Giver but not as good as MATCHED.

~Dana

Review of “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”

The book, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” is an extremely well done book, even though, even though it is limited in words.

The story is about a Timekeeper named Hugo Cabret, who steals and fixes clocks for a living, and the only thing that he ever wants to accomplish in life is fix an old automaton that belonged to his now deceased father. Everyday he steals from an old toy shop owner, but one day he gets caught, and it changes his life forever. This is only the beginning, but the story is one of the best that I have seen this year so far.

Along with an excellent story, Brian Selznick has an extraordinary way of telling the story. Along with his text, in the book there are 284 original drawing that help the story, pushing the line between book and graphic novel. The images help show the surroundings, the words show you sound, touch, and everything else, it is a truly amazing experience. Though the images help the story in so many ways, they also take away the amount of time it will take you to read it, for me it took right at three hours, but this was with many stops, and being away from it. Also with less text you might expect a less detailed story, but the images and text combo for fill this very well. I can not really compare this to ant other books, because the fact that this book is written and told so differently. Also there is the fact that it has a brand new type of story.

So over all I very much enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to teenagers, or even adults, because it is such a well rounded story that I think anyone will enjoy.