Hi Falcon Readers!
A couple of you have already posted summaries, and I'd love to see some more! Perhaps you have been reading so many books you don't want to take time out to post? I can understand that feeling! However, I'd love to hear more of what you've been reading, so please take a moment to catch us all up on the wonderful books you've begun.
Click on the "comments" button below and summarize away!
Holes
ReplyDeleteLouis Sachar
Stanley "Caveman" Yelnats IV is a middle school-aged boy that gets sent to Camp Green Lake because he was wrongly accused of stealing Clyde Livingston's shoes. There, Stanley is forced to dig one Five foot by Five foot hole every day. He makes friends in tent D with Black-skiined Zero, X-Ray, Armpit and Squid. Zero and Caveman run away from the unguarded, not fenced-in Camp Green Lake and go on an adventure to the top of a very tall hill and find the big thumb, lots and lots of onions and jarred spiced peaches. Eventually, Stanley and Zero return to Camp Green Lake and hide in a hole, waiting to get back into their Tent. They then learn that they're not alone in the hole, that there are bunches of deadly, 11-yellow-spotted lizard in the hole too, crawling all over their bodies. They sit and wait for 5 hours and then Mr. Sir and the Warden come to rescue them. The next day, Stanley's father's attorney comes and rescues Stanley and Zero. The two boys discover that they have each made a little less than one million dollars.
The morale for me in this book is that Black people and White people can get along.
3 out of 5 stars
Darren
In Hoot, by Carl Hiaasen, the main character, Roy, has gone to eight different schools in the last eight years. Roy’s dad’s work has transferred the family to eight different cities. At Roy’s new school, Trace Middle, his friends are Mullet Fingers, Beatrice, and Garret. Garret is the class joker. Together with Roy’s friends, they try to save some innocent burrowing owls from being killed by a Mother Paula’s All - American Pancake House. My favorite part of the book is when Roy punches Dana Matherson in the nose which breaks it. Dana is the leader of the school bullies and she had his face smashed into the seat in front of him on the bus.
ReplyDeleteI would rate this book a 3 ½ because it has a bit of action between the kids, grown-ups, and the pancake company.
The Wednesday Wars
ReplyDeleteby Gary D Schmidt
This book is about a boy in the 1960s that lives in New York during the Vietnam War. His name is Holling Hoodhood his father owns a company named Hoodhood and Associates, which Holling is going to inherit. Holling is in seventh grade and has a teacher, Ms. Baker who he thinks hates his guts. He thinks she hates him because he is Presbyterian and then she has to give him extra classes on Wednesday afternoons because all the other kids have classes at their churches. So there goes his Wednesdays. During those Wednesday classes, Ms. Baker introduces him to Shakespeare, and he goes on to do a play. Then comes February and it is almost Valentine’s Day and Holling still has no one to go with, but the he asks Meryl Lee to go with him and she says yes. First they go see a Shakespeare play and have burgers and a coke, and it turns out afterward they really like each other. Which turns into a problem because Meryl Lee’s dad has a company named Kowalski and Associates which creates a problem between them, but they do get over it and end up still liking each other. The school’s gym Coach wants to start a track team and all boys in seventh an eighth grade have to tryout, so Ms. Baker teaches Holling how to run like Jesse Owens because she had won big races in women’s track. Holling ends up making varsity with all of the eighth graders but the rest of the seventh grade was junior varsity. Holling wins the race and after that he goes to his friend Danny’s bar mitzvah, and things get even better and Ms. Baker’s husband who was missing in action gets miraculously saved and will return home. Holling and his classmates go with Ms. Baker to go see Mr. Baker as he returns home, and so in the end Ms. Baker ends up being a huge mentor and helps and inspires Holling Hoodhood.
I would rate this book 3 and a half stars.
Hatchet
ReplyDeleteBy Gary Paulsen
This book is about a 13- year old boy named Brian Robeson. He is on his way to visit is Dad and the engine suddenly stopped then the single engine plane started to drop really, really fast. A lot later that day the plane crashed into a lake. Then Brian went out into the Canadian wilderness to find, food and shelter. Then eventually he found the perfect place. A week or so later he found a nice rock shelf to keep some stuff away from bears. But he did not think it was a good idea because, birds would poop on the stuff he would put there. Then he got another good plan, he covered the shelf and then he did use it for lots of stuff. Later he wanted some meat so he killed an animal and the first bite it was………awesome. He only took one bite and loved it so much that he wanted a lot more. At the end, the pilot of the plane found Brian in his shelter. Brian was having an orange drink he made from oranges Brian had found. The pilot was wearing sunglasses then he took them off to stare at Brian. A few minutes later the stew he made was ready and he asked the pilot if he wanted to eat some stew with him.
I would rate this book 3 ½ stars, because it was not what I though it would be, but it was still pretty good.
The Graveyard Book
ReplyDeleteBy: Neil Gaiman
Somewhere near London, a man named Jack hunted down and killed a family--all but the toddler, who escaped. The toddler was taken in by the Owens family, a family of ghosts. The toddler, now called Nobody Owens, or Bod for short, grew up in a graveyard. Bod was given the gift of the graveyard, so Bod could see as the dead see. The gift of the graveyard proved to be very vital later in the book. Bod went on many adventures, in and out of the graveyard, where his guardian, Silas, had to get him out of trouble. One time, Silas got hit by a car so Bod would be protected from the man named Jack. Silas, Bod’s Guardian, neither dead or alive, vowed to protect Bod when Bod was a baby. Silas had to go on a few missions to protect Bod, and when he went on these missions, a woman by the name of Ms. Lupescu protected him. Bod who rarely came in contact with humans, was happy when his childhood friend, Scarlet moved back to Bod’s town. The man Jack continued to hunt down Bod and found him by luring Bod with Bod’s curiosity of his parents death. After Bod and the jack of all trades have their encounter, Bod gradually starts to lose the gift of the graveyard. Bod confronts Silas and finds out that, now that the threat of the man named Jack is gone, he has to live life outside of the graveyard.
4/5 Stars
Nothing but the truth by Avi is an ok book it is easy to read because the naration of the story is like a play script. Philip Malloy is a runner but when he was failing English the track team coach would not let him run. Philip thinks that his english teacher Miss Narwin is purposly making him feel bad. Everyday at Philips school they play the National Anthem over the intercom and one day philip hummed the National Anthem. Miss Narwin ordered him out of the class. But Philip and Miss Narwin did not know this minor incident turned into a huge interest for america and the media.
ReplyDeletei give this booke a 3 out of 5 stars
Chandler
-chanchanthemonkeyman
Pictures of Hollis Woods
ReplyDeleteThis book is about a girl who kept on running away from all of her adoption homes but they always end up catching her. She stopped running away once she meets the Regan family. One day she and the Regan’s son Steven had a terrible hiking accident and after she got out of the hospital she ran away again. She thought the accident was her fault. When they caught her she was put with and elderly women named Josie whose cousin Beatrice lived close by but traveled a lot. Soon Hollis knew that Josie was developing Alzheimer’s and began forgetting long-term memories. Hollis also knew that if the agency found out that they would take Hollis away and she liked it with Josie. Hollis remembered that the Regans had a house in the mountains that they went to in the summer. Since it was winter they could stay for a while. A little while into the trip she meets Steven, the Regan’s son again. Then later she ends up going to live with the Regan’s again, and Beatrice moves in with Josie to help her out. Even after she moves away Hollis still visits Josie.
I would rate this book 4 and a half stars, everything was great but the ending I felt had something missing.
The Golden Compass
ReplyDeleteBy: Philip Pullman
The Golden Compass follows the ever-expanding adventures of Lyra Bacquela and her daemon Pantalaimon, as she has lives her life at the famous Jordan College. She enjoys spending her days playing with her friend Roger. One day while snooping around the Retirement Room for the Jordan College seniors only Lyra discover Dust, a strange substance that has many magic-like abilities. One day a group that captures children and cuts them away from they're daemon's show up in the area surrounding Jordan College. Unfortunetly they capture Roger after a short time. Lyra must now go on an adventure to the north to save Roger, in which she meet new friends such as Witches, Aeronauts, and Armored Bears!
I give this book a 4 and a 1/2 stars outt of 5
Lindsay Bonner
Gossamer
ReplyDeleteLois lowry
Gossamer is a novel about a race of beings called dream-givers. Dream givers are small creatures that blend with shadows as they sneak into the houses of human beings to imbue dreams upon them in there sleep. The dream giver this novel follows is named Little One or playfully called Littlest. She lives in a small sub colony of dream-givers and is assigned to a house where a aging woman lives. The aging woman,who has raised two children of her own, finds that she feels somethings missing from her life as she spends them caring for her house. This leads her to agree to foster care a young boy who has a troubled past. This boys mother is struggling with him being taken away from her and so she resolves to clean up her act and try to get a job. The little boy who is also struggling with his separation from his mother and the memories of his abusive father fuels a anger inside him that the dream-giver Littlest and her mentor work hard to repair through the dreams they hope to help calm him. As Littlest works her mentor observers how Littlest expertly gathers fragments, the material that makes up dreams, from the items that hold good memories for the boy and weaves them together to create soothing and strengthening dreams. Meanwhile his mom has cleaned her apartment, and gone to school where she finds people enjoy how hard working she is. She starts to hope she may get her child back again and starts to try to contact the agency that took him. Meanwhile the boy is getting stronger but a new horrible enemy is sensed by the dream-givers, sinisteeds, who are dream-givers that delved to deeply into the fragments they collect and find the hate and suffering that is present everywhere, even if it is buried deep down. The sinisteeds come in a horde and damage the boy by giving him nightmares. After the horde has passed the boy becomes very weak and Littlest works very hard to calm him again with fragments from a seashell from a beach his mother and him went to and the old woman's dog who he has a great deal of affection for. As the book comes to a close the mother and the child are starting to be allowed to stay together on the weekends and the boy is very happy. Littlest and her mentor also return to the heap, the home of her colony and find that the ancients have started calling a new dream-giver Little One and her mentor tells her she is now called gossamer for her gentle and perfect touch with dream fragments.
Jesse Higgins
Hatchet is a fast pace exciting book.It all starts when Brian Robeson is in a plane heading through the Alaskan wilderness to his fathers house,when the pilot has a heart attack Brian quickly unstraps the pilot and tries to steer the plane but it crashes in a clearing with a L shaped lake.He awakes to find him self still strapped in the plane which is slowly going under water after a month or so he goes back to the plane to get the survival pack.When he gets it out of the plane he finds food a .22 survival rifle and a emergency transmitter which he does not think works and accidentally left on so a fur buyer finds him and brings him home.
ReplyDeleteToby Covert
The Graveyard Book
ReplyDeleteBy: Neil Gaiman
The Graveyard Book follows the adventures of "Bod" Through the graveyard after his devastating childhood. A man named Jack has Killed everyone in the house except for the child, the child however has found it's way to the graveyard across the street and through the gate right up to two ghosts. The man Jack has by now realized that the child was missing and had begun searching for the missing child, the Ghosts now realizing that the man was trying to harm the child quickly brought the child to safety. So now Bod has the freedom of the graveyard and will go on many adventures, and will meet many things to defeat the man Jack!
Lindsay Bonner I give this book 4 out of 5 stars
Holes by Louis Sachar
ReplyDeleteSatchel Hendrix
Stanley Yelnats was a young teenage boy who was accused of a crime he did not commit. He was blamed for stealing a pair of sneakers that belonged to a famous baseball player. The shoes were going to be auctioned off to raise money for a homeless shelter. Stanley’s family did not have any money for a lawyer. The judge sentenced Stanley to go Camp Green Lake. This was in place of juvenile detention. There was no lake at Camp Green Lake, but there was a lake when Stanley’s great -great grandfather was a young man. The boys were sentenced to dig holes 5x5 feet each day. The warden was in search of something valuable, so she used the boys as labor. The camp was in the middle of the dessert, and it was extremely hot and dry and water had to be earned. Stanley had good friends at camp, like Armpit, Zig Zag, Magnet, and Stanley’s favorite Zero. Zero was the one who stole the shoes, but Stanley never knew that. Stanley taught Zero how to read and write. Zero never went to school his mother left his when he was around eight years old in a park.
A few weeks late Mr. Pendanski (a counselor at camp) was teasing Zero about how he couldn’t read so Zero ran away from camp with no food or water. Stanley went to go find Zero. Stanley found Zero under a boat. Stanley told Zero to go back to camp but Zero would not listen. Stanley told Zero that they should climb a mountain that was a shape of a thumb because he was sure they would find water. When they reached the top of the mountain they found water and an onion patch. After a while they traveled down the mountain to search for the treasure that the warden was after.
The history of the treasure went back to when Stanley’s great- great grandfather lived near Camp Green Lake. At that time a women named kissing Kate Barlow was infamous for being wild, dangerous, and a thief. She wasn’t always like this. She had a true love, named Sam. Sam sold onions right across from her school house. There was a day when she went over to see Sam, it was raining so no one was outside. She went to Sam and kissed him, their was a women that walked out of a store and saw them. The next day Sam was killed because he was a black man kissing a white women and that was illegal at that time. After Sam was killed, Kissing Kate Barlow became an outlaw. She stole a treasure box that belonged to Stanley’s great great grandfather, and buried the box in the territory of Camp Green Lake. The warden’s family owned this land, and she knew that the treasure was nearby.
Earlier, Stanley found a lipstick tube with letter K.B. engraved on it, so he figured that the treasure was near the lipstick. They began to dig, and Stanley struck something with a shovel, it was hard to get out of the hole. They finally got it out but they though they were done. Then yellow spotted lizards came out of the hole and the warden showed up. She was exited that they got the treasure but she didn’t know it had Stanley Yelnats’ name printed on the box. In the end, Stanley’s family got the treasures of gold, and money and were no longer poor. Stanley gave half of the treasure to Zero, and Zero used the money to find his mother. The warden was placed in jail for mistreating the boys at the camp.
Four Stars
Al Capone Does my Shirts
ReplyDeleteBy Gennifer Choldenko
Moose Flanagan is a regular boy who lives in Los Angeles, close to Alcatraz. He has a sister with severe autism named Natalie who moose, his friends and parents have trying to help save. His are Piper, Theresa, Annie, and Scout. One day Piper gathers Annie and Moose so they can gather up laundry from schoolmates at school, for a nickel each kid, and give it to Al Capone, so he can wash it. Moose decides it’s a bad idea so he doesn’t help and gets no pay. Then the warden ketches Piper and Annie and Piper says that Theresa and Moose helped when they didn’t. They all get in huge trouble. About a week or two later, (in the book), when Natalie can’t get in to a mental high school Moose asks the warden to tell the principal to let Natalie in and the warden says no. What Moose doesn’t know is the warden does it overnight and Natalie gets in.
Reid McLean
Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry is a well written book about Mafatu who almost drowned at see and never since stepped foot in water.The other boys tease him.He will show he has courage by going to sea on a sailing canoe with company from his dog Uri.He gets wiped out and wakes up on an island the rest you will have find out for your self.
ReplyDeleteI would rate this book 4 1/2
Jonathan
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning of Hatchet, Brian is going to his father's house in Canada. Just before his plane takes off, Brian's mom gives him a hatchet. During the flight the pilot has a heart attack, leaving Brian to fly the plane. The plane ends up crashing into a lake shaped like an L. The first food that Brian finds he calls gut berries, because they made him sick. Over the next few days Brian builds a shelter, makes a bow out of a stick and one of his shoelaces, and starts a fire that he keeps going constantly. He learned how to aim the bow so that you can hit a fish and found a patch of raspberries. After over a month had passed, a tornado came and ripped up the shelter. Brian rebuilt the shelter making it stronger than it was before. The tornado also brought the tail of the plane up from the bottom of the lake, and Brian had a vision of the survival pack in the tail. Over the next few days Brian biult a raft so that he could retrieve the pack from the plane. After getting the pack and looking at it's contents, Brian did not feel good about the rifle, the fire starter and a few other things that made his life simpler. One thing that puzzled Brian was a emergency transmitter, because he did not know what it was. After tinkering with it a bit he looked at the freeze dried food. He was exited about it and had a feast. At the end Brian heard a plane land on the lake. The pilot said that he had heard the transmitter and come to see what it was. By the time Brian got home, the shelter had become an exibit.
I give Hatchet five stars.
Jonathan
ReplyDeleteNothing But The Truth starts with Philip Malloy going into nineth grade. Philip is a good runner and loves talking to people. The track couch had come up to him saying that he hoped that Philip would tryout for track. Everything seems to be going great for him this year. The only thing that seems to be going wrong is that his English teacher, Miss Narwin, is "so uptight she must have been put together with super glue." He thinks that Jack London is bland and boring. On an exam he puts a funny, but stupid answer. Later the track couch says that Philip may not tryout for the team because he has a D in English. Then when Philip gets Miss Narwin for a homeroom teacher he starts to hum the national anthem wile it is played over the sound system. The first day he stops, the second day he gets sent to the assistant principal's office, and this happens on the third day as well. Philip gets suspended for two days and the story ends up in the newspaper. Over the weeked the sory gets spread throughout the nation. Most of the people side with Philip and he gets put in a new English class and a new homeroom. Miss Narwin takes a day off because there are so many telegrams saying that she should be fired; after that she goes to Florida to visit her sister. Philip starts refusing to go to school, and transfers to Washington Academy and is asked to join in singing the national anthem. Then Philip says "I don't know the words."
I give Nothing But The Truth, two and a half stars because the ending doesn't wrap up everything; and because the ending makes no sense whatsoever.
Bird Lake Moon is about a boy who lives with his mother and his grandparents at their house by Bird Lake. In his neighbor hood there is only one other house in which Mitch thinks no one else lives and believes that some day he will own- until someone moves in and Mitch goes crazy thinking they are intruders and does things
ReplyDeleteto lead Spencer the "Intruders" son to believe that there is a ghost of his little brother who drowned. After a long period of time Mitch and Spencer become friends along with Spencer's annoying little sister Lolly. Mitch is happy to have new friends but is also sad because his parents are getting a divorce.
half a star because to be honest i didn't even like the story by itself
The Graveyard Book
ReplyDeleteNow bod lives in the world by himself but it wasn't always this way. Once many years ago Bod had a normal family but that all changed one day when "the Man Jack" came and MURDERED Bod's family, Bod was the only one to survive. He survived by getting out of his crib and crawled down the stairs and walked out the door, you might ask where would a one year old walk off to? Well he would walk off to the Graveyard. So while he was going up the hill to the graveyard "the Man Jack" was killing his family. When he got to the graveyard he met a lot of ghosts and they ended up raising him and teaching him, as he got older he met more and more of the ghosts. He met ghosts like Caius Pompeius, Mistress Owens, a young witch (that bod becomes good friends with), a poet, and who seems to be Bod's favorite Silas who is not alive but is not dead. As Bod gets older he starts wanting to go to a human school and eventually Silas let him. At the school Bod sort of meets two friends and he eventually scares them away by vanishing all the sudden into the shadows and they run off. He dream walks into the Boy's mind while they are sleeping to tell them to stop picking on him. Bod was fourteen years old when the Jacks found him. Bod's real person friend Scarlett had a friend named Jack Frost who was one of the Jacks after Bod. So the Jacks found Bod and they chased him all over in the dark in the graveyard and Bod ditched them all until there was one Jack left. Bod tricked the Jack into saying that he was the snake things master then the snake like thing came out of the wall and sucked the Jack into the wall to keep him safe from the outside world, since he was it's master after all. Silas leaves the graveyard because Bod is old enough to fend for himself. Silas goes back to his original home. Bod is not allowed to know where Silas lives and does not know if he will ever see Silas again. Bod leaves the graveyard and goes out into the world.
5 stars because it was a fun book to read.
Hoot
ReplyDeleteRoy just moved to florida from Montana and is getting beat up by a bully named Dana Matherson. One day Roy notices that there is a boy running away from something, he decides to follow but can't. Later on in the book he finds out about and ends up in a crusade for Owls. Him, a girl named Beatrice Leap, and her brother Napoleon Leap/ running boy save the Owls from being ran over by the people making a pancake house, called Mother Paulas pancake house.
4 1/2 It was good but it just wasn't exactly my thing
Mocking Bird
ReplyDeleteKathryn Erskine
Caitlin is a ten year old girl with Asperger's Syndrome. After a shooting at her brother's school, her father cries a lot. Devon would always tell her it's going to be alright. But now Devin is dead, and Caitlin wants to help her father every way she can. She reads her dictionary, and finds the word closure in it. After reading the definition, she figures out that this is what she, her father, and the whole community need. Along the way to find closure, she meets Micheal, and becomes friends with him. She runs into Josh, the school bully, and figures out that not all bully's are pure evil.
Overall I give this book 4 stars.
The Wednesday Wars
ReplyDeleteGary D Schmidt
It's 1967-68 and Holling Hoodhood has just started 7th grade with Mrs. Baker, a teacher who he thinks is out to get him. Since half the class goes to one church and the other half another, that leaves Holling, the only Presbyterian in class, with Mrs. Baker. Mrs. Baker makes him do chores, like clean the windows and chalkboards, and cleaning the cage of the scabby-skinned, yellow-toothed rats. But after they get loose, the asbestos ceiling tiles start to bulge, and fall later in the year. She also makes him read Shakespeare, outside of class! But Holling has more things to worry about than Mrs. Baker. His father owns Hoodhood and Associate's, a company Holling would soon inherit. February has neared, and Holling doesn't have a date for Valentines Day! He ends up taking Meryl Lee to a Shakespeare play and then for burgers and Coke. In gym, the coach wants every boy to try out for the track team, and Holling gets on varsity! But the coach made them run their buts off in practice. It all payed off in the race, because Holling won! And it's a happy ending from there.
It deserves 4 stars but it was still a good book.
The story of Maniac Magee is about an orphaned boy, who moves in with his aunt and uncle. They did not get along, so Maniac decides to run away. He runs to Two Mills, a segregated town where black families live, in the East End and white families live in the West End. In the East End Maniac meets a girl named Amanda Beale. They become friends. Later he moves in with the Beale family. Maniac encounters many challenges with the people in Two Mills. I enjoyed reading about Maniac’s adventures. In the end, no matter what color you are can still be friends.
ReplyDeleteNumber the Stars is about a young girl named Annemarie. She has a Jewish friend who lives next door and the Nazis come and take her friend's parents away, but just before they do, their daughter goes over to Annemarie's house. They disguise her as Annemarie's sister. Annemarie already has a sister but when she was much younger she had a much younger sister that died. Annemarie's neighbor has the same hair color so when the Nazis break into Annemarie's house in the middle of the night they show the Nazi soldiers a family picture and she blends in as another sister. Eventually they all move to Annemarie's uncle's house to try and get away from the soldiers but they are there too. Later the parents are returned safely and Annemarie's neighbor is reunited with them.
ReplyDeleteI would rate this book 2 stars.
Nothing but the Truth is about Phillip Malloy during one of his high school years. Phillip is an exceptional runner and is asked to try out for the track team by the head coach but is not able to try out due to a D grade in his English class. He dislikes the teacher and thinks that the teacher (Mrs. Narwin) does not like him and is going after him. One morning when they played the national anthem over the speakers he started humming and was asked to stop. Later that night he was depressed about not being able to try out for the track team. His parents asked him why he is depressed and he won't tell them but he does say that he got in trouble for humming the national anthem. His parents tell him to stand up for what is right and to keep doing it no matter what. The next morning he hummed the national anthem and was asked to leave the classroom, and the same thing happened the next day. His dad later goes over to Ted Griffin's house who is their neighbor and is running for school board. Ted talks about what happened to Phillip in his next speech. The issue spreads across the country. Phillip was faced with suspension for humming the national anthem and is nervous to come back to school thinking the other kids won't like him and he eventually switches schools.
ReplyDeleteI rate this book 4 stars.
The Hatchet is about Brian Robeson flying to his Dad's house. His parents are divorced. He was flying in a small 2 person plane. The pilot has a heart attack while they are flying and dies right in front of Brain. He recognized it was a heart attack because many years ago he was in a mall with his mother and a man walking in front of him had a heart attack. He thinks about just crashing the plane and ending it but he decides to find the nearest lake, nose dive down, and just before hitting the water pulling up, which he does and he survives with some injuries. He builds a shelter and is forced to survive with almost nothing. The one thing he has besides clothes is a hatchet that his mother gave him. Brian is starving and eats anything he can find like berries, and remembers he is on a lake, and fishes. About a month later no one has found him and he remembers that there is an emergency kit in the plane so he dives down into the lake and after a few unsuccessful tries he gets the kit. There is an emergency transmitter in the kit. He flips the switch a few times and it seems nothing happens but about an hour later a plane lands to rescue him. Brian asks the man how he found him and he said "I heard your emergency transmitter call."
ReplyDeleteI rate this book 3.5 stars.
Al Capone Does My shirts
ReplyDeleteThis book is about a kid named Matthew, but everybody calls him Moose. Then there is his little sister Natalie who is sometimes very whiny. They live in Santa Monica, CA, until their dad gets a job as a prison guard at Alcatraz, home of the famous Al Capone. Now Moose and Natalie will have to live there now.
I rate this book 4 stars
The Wednesday Wars is a very good book by Gary D. Schmidt, it is about a new student named Holling Hoodhood at Camillo Junior High. it is in the 1960s and during the Vietnam War, which his teacher ,Mrs.Baker's, husband is. At the begining of the book, Holling has the feeling Mrs. Baker hates his guts. Holling is a Presbyterian so every Wednesday afternoon he has to stay at school with Mrs. Baker while all of the other kids go to their churches. During every Wednesday he has to do work for Mrs. Baker such as cleaning everything. One day he has to clean the rat cages in the back of the room. The rats escape and go up into the space above the ceiling. Later on during the Wednesdays Mrs. Baker and Holling start to read Shakespeare and Holling is offered a job in a Shakespeare play to get money. In the play he has to wear yellow tights and Mrs. Baker announces the play to the whole class. Three students attend the play and when he sees them he is embarrassed to go on stage. In gym his gym teacher wants him to run track for his school. He practices really hard he gets into the varsity team during tryouts because he gets chased by both of the rats and it makes him run faster. He was the only 7th grader on the varsity team and the rest were 8th graders. During the race he beats all of the other kids and wins the race, first place and Mrs. Baker receives a letter from the military saying her husband is missing in action. And then she gets a letter saying he was found. The whole restof the book she is happy. Later on Mrs Baker takes the whole class on a camping trip even though she hates camping but her husband loves it. i give it a 5 out of 5, very good
ReplyDeleteEvan Wade
ReplyDeleteNothing But The Truth
ReplyDeleteBy Avi
Phillip Malloy is a ninth grader who is failing English and he really wants to play on the track team. His English teacher is named Margaret Narwin. One day in her class he hummed during the playing of the National Anthem and he was sent to the principal’s office. Phillip wanted to get kicked out of the class. Phillip did not want to go to Harrison School anymore because he was getting teased. He ended up going to Washington Academy and in one of his classes he was asked to start out singing the National Anthem and he said he didn’t know the words.
3 and a half stars
Bo Izard
Johnny Tremain
ReplyDeleteBy Ester Forbes
Johnny Tremain is a boy who lives in Boston and who is working at a silversmith shop. One day he burned one of his hands and he could no longer use it so he has to find something else to do. Johnny begins to work for the Boston Observer, a newspaper company. Johnny starts to have a relationship with a girl named Cilla. They exchange their first kiss at the end of the book.
3 Stars
Hoot
ReplyDeleteBy Carl Hiaasen
Hoot is about a boy named Roy who is getting bullied by Dana Matherson, the class bully. One day on the bus, Dana tries to strangle Roy, so Roy punches Dana and breaks his nose. Roy gets sent to the principal because everyone thinks he punched Dana on purpose. The Principal sees that there are strangle marks on Roy’s neck so then the Principal knew that Roy was trying to defend himself.
A pancake house company was planning on building a restaurant where owls are burrowing. So Roy and his friends try to save the owls. The owls get saved in the end of the story and the pancake house isn’t built.
4 stars
My Side of the Mountain
ReplyDeleteBy Jean Craighead George
Sam Gribley had eight siblings and he lived in a small apartment. He was too crowded so he left and went to the Catskill Mountains in search of his Grandfather’s farm. When he found the farm it was destroyed and had plants surrounding it. He left the farm and went to find a home in the valley so he could be near the water and fish. He found a tree to live in that he burned out. He set up traps to get food and he fished in the river. He made fire by using flint and steel. He had a pet falcon named Frightful. The falcon got him food and was a loyal companion. After three seasons of living in the woods Sam met a boy named Matt. Matt was in training to be a recorder and he came to the Catskill Mountains in search of a by who living by himself in the woods. Matt found Sam in the meadow where he was looking for his traps. Matt figured out that Sam was the boy who was living on his own and he went back to tell Sam’s family that Sam was in the Catskills Mountains. Sam’s family came looking for him and when they found him they bought home to him. Sam’s parents and his siblings brought hammocks and food to him and Sam taught his brothers how to catch food.
Three Stars
Ship Breaker
ReplyDeleteBy: Paolo Bacigalupi
Ship Breaker is a book about a boy named Nailer. Nailer works on the light crew, scavenging for copper wires, that were left in old oil tankers. Nailer and his friend, Prima found a clipper boat, after the boat washed up after a hurricane. Nailer was in awe when he found the clipper boat, while Prima saw scavenge. Nailer and Prima climb aboard the boat, and saw a girl, the girl had gold rings around her fingers. Nailer and Prima saved the girl, and nickname her, Lucky Girl. Nailer, Prima and, Lucky Girl go on an adventure to find Lucky Girls family, all the while Nailers dad Richard Lopez, a ruthless killer, is on their tail trying to capture Lucky Girl for ransom. Ship Breaker is full of excitement.
4/5 Stars
maniac magee by jerry spineli is a ok book by my opinion. the book is about a boy named jeffrey Lionel magee who's parents die in a trolley accedent driven by a drunk man who crashed it. Because of the accedent, he is forced to live with his aunt and uncle, who fight all the time and dont share anything, but unforotunately, are both strict catholics so they cannot get a divorce. One day, jeffrey gets sick of it so at a school play, he goes up on the stage and yelled to his aunt and uncle "Talk! Talk! Will ya! Talk! Talk! Talk!" andthen sprinted out the door and kept runing until he came to the next city. The city he came to was to mills, which was divided into two sections, the east end, and the west end. The east end was were white families lived and the west end was were the black famailies lived. when he cameto the town, he came to the west end, he met a girl named amanda beales, who was going to school with a large book case. He was curious what was in the book case so he stopped her and asked why she needed a book case for school. she told him she had books in it and he asked her if he could borrow one if hepromised to give it back and she gave it to him and he spent everyday reading and them, returned the book to the address amanda gave him. when he got to the house, he was invited in and eventually offered to live therein amandas room and amanda would sleep in her litle sibblings room. later on, he became freinds with many people in two mills but also a few enimies and some challenges, i enjoyed reading the book, i thought it was very exciting, i give it 4 out of 5
ReplyDeleteEvan Wade
I read The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. It is about a guy named Sam Westing and his 16 nieces and nephews. Sam “died” and his nieces and nephews went to his funeral. In the will there was a game. The nieces and nephews paired up and had to figure out who killed Sam. In the end, Turtle found the third waxed body of Sam Westing and Turtle won the money. I rate this book a 4 star because at the beginning it was plain, but then it got more interesting.
ReplyDeleteAndrew M.
"Hoot" by Carl Hiassen
ReplyDeleteThe main character is a boy named Roy Eberhardt. He's moved to Coconut Cove, Florida. On his first day of school, he is on the bus. Out the window he sees a boy running barefoot alongside the bus on the sidewalk. He is intrigued. Meanwhile, Roy is being bullied by Dana Matherson who pushes his face into the bus window, and on the second day, tries to strangle him. In the lunchroom on the second day, Roy meets a girl named Beatrice Leep who is mad at him for a reason Roy does not understand. But he figures out that she is the sister of the running boy. That morning, after his run-in on the bus with the class bully, Dana, Roy jumped off the bus and chased the running boy until they reached a golf course where Roy is hit in the head with a golf ball. Four! Head! At the same time, a cop named Officer David Delinko is called by a man named Curly to a construction site to investigate some vandalism. All the survey stakes have been ripped out and thrown in a pile, but Delinko says that this isn't really vandalism. At the site, Officer Delinko trips in a hole and asks what lives there. Curly says, "Ah, just some Burrow Owls who will probably be bulldozed when we build the new Pancake House." Later Roy discovers that the running boy and his sister, Beatrice, purposely pulled out the stakes to delay the Pancake House new construction. When Roy is finally introduced to the running boy, nicknamed Mullet Fingers, they become good friends and team up with the rest of the school/soccer team to end construction of the Pancake House and protect the owls from being bulldozed. This story is about how Roy learns respect for nature. Even though Roy was not very psyched about moving to a new home, school, and state (he moved from Minnesota), he learns that change can be good, and making friends with running boy turned out to be an adventure. Roy also finds a way to get even with the bully, Dana Matherson. Mullet Fingers gets sent to a detention house, but that is not the last of him.
The Cow-Tail Switch
ReplyDeleteThe Cow-Tail Switch is a bunch of African folk stories. The first story is all I’m going to talk about. It is about a hunter who goes out on a hunting trip and gets killed by a jaguar. His wife has six children. The youngest one, when he gets old enough to talk, the first thing he says, is “Where’s my Daddy,” and all the children but the youngest go and look for the hunter. All they find is some bones and some rusty weapons. Then each of the children do something special to revive the hunter. Then the hunter makes a big feast and gives a cow-tail switch to the son who did the most. The hunter then gives it to the youngest son.
Reid McLean
"Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen
ReplyDeleteThe main character, Brian Robeson, is alone after a horrific plane crash. He wakes up two days later on the beach of a lake in the Canadian wilderness. All he has is a hatchet, a bottle cap, and a $20 bill that he uses to make a fire because what else could he do with a dollar? I liked "Hatchet" because it is interesting how he has to survive and what he has to do to take on the wilderness. My favorite part is probably when he is trying to get the survival kit from the sunken plane at the end of the book, but he drops his hatchet to the bottom of the lake. The book is called "Hatchet" because it is his tool to help him make fires and to cut through the tin plane to get to the survival kit. After he found the kit, he really only paid attention to the radio transmitter and the food pellets. He thinks the radio transmitter is broken but 10 minutes later a helicopter comes down to save him right when his food pellets are done. He learns that life isn't as easy as he thought it was. I can't wait to read the sequel, "The River," same kid. I would give "Hatchet" three stars out of five.
The Trump