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by Theodore B. Morrison, age 13
The Book of Three
is a novel written by Lloyd Alexander. The story is set in a fantasy world where a union of kingdoms has been established to defend against Arawn, the lord of death. The book tells the tale of an Assistant-Pig Keeper named Taran and his introduction to the world of heroics. Now without delay, let’s delve into this tale of heroes.
The book starts by introducing the reader to Taran, a young boy who is eager to enter a life of a hero instead of his current job as a helping hand on the farm. After getting promoted to Assistant-Pig Keeper to Hen-Wen, the only oracular pig in Prydain, he attempts to stop the pig from escaping as the animals get startled by an attempted assault on the farm by a caravan of the forces of death, championed by a mysterious man labeled the Horned King. When Hen-Wen escapes, Taran chases her into the forest, far from the boundaries of the farm. Then, after some time, he loses her and then meets a man he has admired from the union of kingdoms, called the Sons of Don.
The book follows the quest of Taran to warn the Sons of Don of the Horned King and smoothly introduces the main supporting characters of the book and the proceeding books. They face relentless challenges that constantly test the characters and their strength and willpower. They work to accomplish the quest as a team. The book perfectly introduces the reader to the protagonist and his supporting characters, who complement Taran in a way that makes the story a lot more dynamic.
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reviewed by Theodore B. Morrison, age 13
Artemis Fowl
is the first book in the Artemis Fowl book series written by Eoin Colfer. The fantasy novel follows Artemis Fowl, a twelve-year-old boy prodigy who lives in a fantasy Earth where magical creatures, known as fairies, live underground.
The plot begins when Fowl kidnaps a Lower Elements Police (LEP) recon officer in hopes of obtaining a ransom of a one-ton of 24-karat gold. The story describes how the kidnapping plays out for Fowl and his personal bodyguard nicknamed “Butler.”
Artemis Fowl
is such a unique book as it has a young, highly intelligent, and villainous protagonist whose story will keep you at the edge of your seat.
This book takes a unique approach to the good-guy. bad-guy formula by telling the story of the bad guy (Fowl), the anti-hero. The story displays how ruthlessly far Fowl is willing to go to achieve his goals, which he does in a cold and emotionless manner. Fowl makes questionable moral decisions that will send shivers down your spine.
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Reviewed by Sarah Thomson, age 13
Don't Shoot the Dog
by Karen Pryor describes big ideas in training everything from rodents to people. Pryor, an expert in animal training and behavior, writes about many of her own experiences with the subject.
Pryor talks about multiple concepts used in training. She discusses the merits of various methods such as punishment, positive and negative reinforcement, letting a bad behavior die out, and much more. Her biggest focus, however, is positive reinforcement and the different ways to utilize it. She gives many examples of good and bad training in the form of stories, which are engaging and often funny. The examples are from her personal experiences or experiences of people she knows. Pryor clearly explains when to use different methods of training with pets, kids, bosses and teachers. She goes as far as teaching people how to improve their own behavior.
I really enjoyed reading
Don't Shoot the Dog
because of how informative yet entertaining it was. I learned a lot from the book and I will try to use the good training methods it taught me in my everyday life.
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Reviewed by Leilani McNeal, age 13
The Sun and Her Flowers
by Rupi Kaur is a tender poetic book that signifies the author journey to self-empowerment. This is the sequel to
Milk and Honey
, and is currently a #1
New York Times
Bestseller. She explores multifarious themes such as love, loss, trauma, healing, migration, and revolution — all of which connect to the chapter titles.
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reviewed by Levi Burris, age 13
By far, one of my favorite series is The Lunar Chronicles. It consists of four books, and I would say that
Cinder
has to be the most memorable. These books are all based on fairy tales, with each book having its own unique twist. For instance, how Cinder (Cinderella) is a cyborg, or how Cress (Rapunzel) lives in a satellite. And what makes the stories so great, is that they take a subtle approach to the plot line, and makes a story that has small and sometimes unnoticeable references to the original fairytales, without necessarily having a happily-ever-after ending.
Cinder
takes place in the year 126 T.E. (Third Era) 126 years after the end of World War IV, in the city of New Beijing (old Beijing having been destroyed in WWIV). The main protagonist of the story is 16-year-old Cinder. For as long as she can remember, she has lived in New Beijing as a cyborg. Unfortunately, the world looks down on cyborgs because people who are “enhanced” should not be treated as equally as people without cybernetic enhancements. This is what the general population thinks, including Cinder's stepmother and stepsisters. They are fine with putting Cinder and her best friend Iko, an android who has a programming glitch that gives her a personality, to work as mechanics in a booth. She has earned the title of “best mechanic in New Beijing” which is somewhat helped by her unlimited access to most all information. Even with her title, Adri (Cinder's stepmother) treats her like she is nothing but a machine. Besides Iko, the only other person who treats Cinder like a person is Peony, Cinder's other stepsister.
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by Abigail Comerford, age 13
Jason Reynolds’ novel
Long Way Down
starts with the three rules of a troubled neighborhood: no crying, no snitching, and always get revenge. After somebody shoots Will’s brother, Shawn, Will, 15, follows the third and most important rule. He sets off to kill the man who shot his brother because he knows who did it. Or does he?
After taking a gun out of Shawn's dresser and tiptoeing out the door onto the building elevator, Will comes face to face with Buck, the person who had given Shawn the gun, now in Will’s waistband. Will checks to see if the gun is loaded and discovers 15 of 16 bullets in its barrel. Of course, Will thinks, Shawn is the only person who could have shot his own gun.
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Artemis Fowl
is the first book in the Artemis Fowl book series written by Eoin Colfer. The fantasy novel follows Artemis Fowl, a twelve-year-old boy prodigy who lives in a fantasy Earth where magical creatures, known as fairies, live underground.
[read more...]
Don't Shoot the Dog
by Karen Pryor describes big ideas in training everything from rodents to people. Pryor, an expert in animal training and behavior, writes about many of her own experiences with the subject.
[read more...]
The Book of Three
is a novel written by Lloyd Alexander. The story is set in a fantasy world where a union of kingdoms has been established to defend against Arawn, the lord of death. The book tells the tale of an Assistant-Pig Keeper named Taran and his introduction to the world of heroics. Now without delay, let’s delve into this tale of heroes.
[read more...]
The Sun and Her Flowers
by Rupi Kaur is a tender poetic book that signifies the author journey to self-empowerment. This is the sequel to
Milk and Honey
, and is currently a #1
New York Times
Bestseller. She explores multifarious themes such as love, loss, trauma, healing, migration, and revolution —all of which connect to the chapter titles.
[read more...]
Cinder takes place in the year 126 T.E. (Third Era) 126 years after the end of World War IV, in the city of New Beijing (old Beijing having been destroyed in WWIV). The main protagonist of the story is 16-year-old Cinder. For as long as she can remember, she has lived in New Beijing as a cyborg. Unfortunately, the world looks down on cyborgs because people who are “enhanced” should not be treated as equally as people without cybernetic enhancements. This is what the general population thinks, including Cinder's stepmother and stepsisters. They are fine with putting Cinder and her best friend Iko, an android who has a programming glitch that gives her a personality, to work as mechanics in a booth. She has earned the title of “best mechanic in New Beijing” which is somewhat helped by her unlimited access to most all information. Even with her title, Adri (Cinder's stepmother) treats her like she is nothing but a machine. Besides Iko, the only other person who treats Cinder like a person is Peony, Cinder's other stepsister.
[read more...]
Jason Reynolds’ novel Long Way Down starts with the three rules of a troubled neighborhood: no crying, no snitching, and always get revenge. After somebody shoots Will’s brother, Shawn, Will, 15, follows the third and most important rule. He sets off to kill the man who shot his brother because he knows who did it. Or does he?
[read more...]
The term ‘I’ is not singular. Hundreds of thousands of microbes live in our bodies at all times. These microbes make it so thinking of yourself as a singular being is absurd. You can’t be a singular being if everything you think and do is controlled by living things inside your body. At least this is what Aza thinks.
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Greg Gaines thinks he knows it all. He has officially figured out how to survive high school. He decides that all he has to do is remain unanimously unimportant to everyone at his school except Earl, his sort-of-friend. He thinks this is what he must do to answer the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad?
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“There is no bigger illusion in the world than the idea that a woman will bring dishonor into a home if she tries to keep her heart and her body safe,” Rupi Kaur writes in
Milk and Honey
. Kaur’s raw work of art is an all-time favorite book, articulating the experiences of abusive relationships, violence, love, and loss. For me, this collection of poetry paints an insightful portrait to female empowerment.
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Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children
tells the intriguing story of 16-year-old Jacob Portman. Jacob grew up listening to stories told by his grandfather, Abe, with whom he had a very strong relationship with. This changes when Jacob’s dad declares that Abe is mentally disturbed due to his past. Abe would tell Jacob story upon story about a wonderful place called Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children. Miss Peregrine’s home housed many children with abilities that were unheard of, such as creating fire with their bare hands and being able to fly. Abe also showed pictures of these mysterious children, which Jacob would later find fascinating.
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So B. It
is a novel that centers on twelve-year-old Heidi It, who is eager to find out more about who she is. Living with her mentally disabled mother, So B. It, and her neighbor, Bernadette, Heidi feels as though a puzzle piece is missing. She ventures out to find that missing piece.
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Lies My Teacher Told Me
is a thought-provoking book which reveals just a few of the most common lies and misconceptions taught in today's history classrooms. Professor James Loewen studies not one, not two, but 12 of the most used American history textbooks and concludes that not one of them does a semi-decent job of making history memorable or interesting. As a student, I am outraged that I am only just now learning the other side of the story that I have been learning about my entire academic career: American History.
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Have you ever had a wish you always wanted to have granted? Was it something silly like wishing for a flying skateboard? Or was it something more serious and meaningful like world peace? This particular story focuses on a simple wish to have a friend.
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I recently read
Nailed
by Patrick Jones, a fictional book which takes place in Flint, Michigan and focuses on Bret Hendricks, a junior at Southwestern High School. He, like many teenagers, faces challenges such as heartbreak, toxic friendships, bullying, and home issues.
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“Janae works every day at her Granny’s Strange Goods Superstore, selling lucky rabbits’ feet and other useless junk. And every night, after closing up shop, she dominates the courts with her boys,” summarized a reviewer from Kirkus Reviews of Black Top: Janae.
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Written by Julie Kagawa, New York bestselling author,
Talon
is a retelling of the classic war between knights and dragons. It is written through the perspectives of the individual characters. Her story shows both sides of the war and the disagreements in-between.
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“Thou shalt kill.” With those words, Citra's and Rowan's lives changed forever.
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Out of My Mind
by Sharon M. Draper is a very deep and thought-provoking book about an 11-year-old girl named Melody who has Cerebral Palsy. Melody isn't able to walk, talk, or write. However, she has a photographic memory: her brain remembers everything she hears and sees.
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Poison
by Bridget Zinn is an intriguing book. It is set in a fantasy world with castles, magic, no-good princes, and best friend princesses.
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In the book The Girl Who Writes and the Boy Who Likes Her by Sandra Corton, a boy must find a way to get a shy girl out of her shell.
Emily has been traumatized by her father's death. Even after many years, she still considers his death her fault and therefore thinks that she doesn’t deserve any kindness or love. To escape her sad world, she turns to writing which helps her relax. Emily's life changes forever, however when her mom's childhood friend goes on vacation and leaves her son Zach at Emily's house for a week.
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A long time ago, before even newspapers existed, there lived a group of people called the Ancient Greeks. They shared news in the form of myths; which were often passed on through word-of-mouth. These myths represented a set of beliefs and are now collectively called Greek Mythology. One of my personal favorite Greet myths is “Lost At Sea”.
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Loki's Wolves
, by Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr, is the first in a five book series based on a Norse myth called “Ragnaroc.” In the myth, the Norse gods battle to stop the end of the world. But in this retelling of the story, the gods have already died off because of their foolishness, so it's up to their teenage descendants to save the world.
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Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment, the first book of a nine part series by James Patterson, is truly amazing!
Maximum Ride is about a girl named Max and her “Flock.” There is something special about those in the flock – they can fly! The Flock has been experimented on since birth, at a place known as “The School.” People called “White Coats” changed the Flock's DNA; so, instead of being 100 percent human, they are only 98 percent human and two percent avian, or bird.
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Slam!
, a realistic work of fiction by Walter Dean Myers, is set in present-day Harlem. Told from the perspective of a Harlem high school student, the tale details the experiences of “Slam” a teenager who loves basketball and has a close friend named Ice.
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I recently read
The Breadwinner
by Deborah Ellis. This book is about a resilient girl who overcomes many obstacles in Afghanistan.
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The Giver is a celebrated book by Lois Lowery. It melds dystopian fiction with action and drama to make a great combination. In fact, The Giver paved the way for the entire genre with help from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451; together, these texts started a movement for this once unrecognized and even unpopular part of science fiction writing.
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Even before the renovation, when the Goodman Library was just another block in the strip mall, my family and I have gone there to do everything from participating in movie nights, to finding a quiet corner and reading.
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Julie Ann Peter's heart-warming novel Luna, was named a 2014 National Book Award finalist. While the book did not win the award, it presents an interesting and important narrative.
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Ellen Kages' historical fiction novel,
The Green Glass Sea
, takes place on a secret military base during World War I and World War II. Dewey, the protagonist, is a unique and intelligent nine-year old girl.
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Ancient Rome was not only a place of power and wealth, but also home to a unique form of entertainment. In
Gladiators Battling in the Arena
, Katherine Frew introduces us to the history of gladiators and their importance in Roman entertainment.
[read more...]
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