This is a beautiful book. It won the Caldecott Medal, so that's saying something. The artwork is fantastic. The book tells the story of Jean-Michel Basquiat's life in a free form jazz-inspired style. I'm not familiar with Jean-Michel Basquiat's work and now I want to see it for myself. There's a biography in the back. I only read this book once to my daughter. If I had read it more than once, I'd probably give it 5 stars.
This is a beautiful book. It won the Caldecott Medal, so that's saying something. The artwork is fantastic. The book tells the story of Jean-Michel Basquiat's life in a free form jazz-inspired style. I'm not familiar with Jean-Michel Basquiat's work and now I want to see it for myself. There's a biography in the back. I only read this book once to my daughter. If I had read it more than once, I'd probably give it 5 stars.
There are a crap ton of holocaust books out there. That said, this is a good one. The author interviews a survivor and recounts his horrible tenure in the death camps. The result is riveting. This book is classified as juvenile, but it's best for upper elementary and older, including adults.
The Martian tells a tale of a man named Mark Watney who is abandoned on Mars. Watney was one of the first people to walk on Mars in the Ares III spacecraft. After a dust storm nearly kills Watney and leaves his crew members no choice but to evacuate the planet, Mark is left all alone on an unknown planet with no contact to the Earth world. With his humorous personality, will Watney survive the harsh conditions that Mars has to offer?
This book is absolutely incredible. Completely accurate facts about Mars, humor, and all around just amazing to read. The Martian is definitely one of my favorite reads.
Reviewer grade: 8
The Martian tells a tale of a man named Mark Watney who is abandoned on Mars. Watney was one of the first people to walk on Mars in the Ares III spacecraft. After a dust storm nearly kills Watney and leaves his crew members no choice but to evacuate the planet, Mark is left all alone on an unknown planet with no contact to the Earth world. With his humorous personality, will Watney survive the harsh conditions that Mars has to offer?
This book is absolutely incredible. Completely accurate facts about Mars, humor, and all around just amazing to read. The Martian is definitely one of my favorite reads.
Reviewer grade: 8
Steelheart is an amazing book with vivid details, vigorous action,and real emotions. I heard about this book from school but only just recently read the book. While it has similar aspects of other teen dystopian novels it is still entirely different. The book is worthy of five stars because of the enjoyment I found reading it. Some books are good but you may not enjoy them.
The author took me into the world of Steelheart and showcases a different side of being human through the power of fear. However Steelheart shows a hopeless world humans are no longer strong. Many dystopian novels are about hope of a cure(etc). The book shows a world which there is no hope for the hero to come. David Charleston saw it, the death of his father. From that day on he searches to avenge his father's death. David Charleston spends all his time researching the Epics for one of them killed his father.
The Epics were the super humans who over power the world with brutal cruelty.
Not only are the epics cruel they also have superpowers. The only people still fighting Epics are the Reckoners and David may have to join them.
Reviewer Grade: 6
Steelheart is an amazing book with vivid details, vigorous action,and real emotions. I heard about this book from school but only just recently read the book. While it has similar aspects of other teen dystopian novels it is still entirely different. The book is worthy of five stars because of the enjoyment I found reading it. Some books are good but you may not enjoy them.
The author took me into the world of Steelheart and showcases a different side of being human through the power of fear. However Steelheart shows a hopeless world humans are no longer strong. Many dystopian novels are about hope of a cure(etc). The book shows a world which there is no hope for the hero to come. David Charleston saw it, the death of his father. From that day on he searches to avenge his father's death. David Charleston spends all his time researching the Epics for one of them killed his father.
The Epics were the super humans who over power the world with brutal cruelty.
Not only are the epics cruel they also have superpowers. The only people still fighting Epics are the Reckoners and David may have to join them.
Reviewer Grade: 6
Steelheart is an amazing book with vivid details, vigorous action,and real emotions. I heard about this book from school but only just recently read the book. While it has similar aspects of other teen dystopian novels it is still entirely different. The book is worthy of five stars because of the enjoyment I found reading it. Some books are good but you may not enjoy them.
The author took me into the world of Steelheart and showcases a different side of being human through the power of fear. However Steelheart shows a hopeless world humans are no longer strong. Many dystopian novels are about hope of a cure(etc). The book shows a world which there is no hope for the hero to come. David Charleston saw it, the death of his father. From that day on he searches to avenge his father's death. David Charleston spends all his time researching the Epics for one of them killed his father.
The Epics were the super humans who over power the world with brutal cruelty.
Not only are the epics cruel they also have superpowers. The only people still fighting Epics are the Reckoners and David may have to join them.
Reviewer Grade: 6
In Poland in 1939, seven year old Anna's father went to work one day, never to return. As such, she finds herself learning to survive under the care of a stranger that she knows only as "the swallow man". Together, they escape Russian and German soldiers and travel the Eastern European countryside as they try to survive and make sense of the world that seems to be crumbling around them.
As this won the Odyssey Award (excellence in audio production) last year, I decided to give it a listen and I'm so glad that I did. The narration was excellent, but it would've been great even with a lesser narrator. This is a brilliantly written book that covers so much ground physically, metaphysically and metaphorically. Many things the Swallow man says or that Anna thinks are steeped in rich allegory and open for interpretation. Some of the things said are merely simple truths. Almost all of it feels somehow important and relevant. For example:
“The world as it exists is a very, very dangerous place.”
and
“Human beings are the best hope in the world of other human beings to survive.”
and
“Normally, her mind was like a busy beach - all day long she would run back and forth, leaving footprints, building small mounds and castles, writing out ideas and diagrams with her fingers in the sand, but when the night tide came in, she would close her eyes and allow each wave of rhythmic breath to wash in and out over her day's accumulation, and before long the beach would be clear and empty, and she would drift off to sleep.”
That, folks, is how you write prose. Insert clapping emoji here.
Plotting takes the background as this book is all about character development and parables and life lessons. It's about the importance of language, and people, and what it takes to stay alive when there's a war on. It's about being human and growing up. It's about family and love and necessity. It's about war. It's brutal and human and tender all at same time. And it's very, very good. 4 stars.
This book tells three intertwining stories and spans decades, centering on an immortal line of human cells, taken from an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks in the 1950’s. She was afflicted with an aggressive form of cervical cancer, and through deception, gave her consent for the doctor to take cell samples. Her cell sample was coded as HeLa, and her real identity was not known. This event starts a fascinating, disturbing tale of medical ethics gone awry, capitalism in medicine, investigative journalism, and the contrasting lives of Lacks descendants.
The discovery of Henrietta’s immortal cancer cells, laid the foundation for most of the scientific discoveries we have made, and created a multi-billion dollar industry where her cells were sold all over the world as an infinite supply of scientific testing material. At the same time companies and hospitals were selling the HeLa cells, the Lacks family were living in extreme poverty, with no medical care. Author Rebecca Skloot bounces back and forth between Henrietta’s final days, and the present day, as she attempts to gain the trust of the Lacks family, discover who HeLa was, and how medical ethics were not always a reality. For a non-fiction book about cellular biology, it is a riveting detective story that also exposes medicines sordid past, and makes the reader question whether advancement of medicine is worth it at any cost.
This book tells three intertwining stories and spans decades, centering on an immortal line of human cells, taken from an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks in the 1950’s. She was afflicted with an aggressive form of cervical cancer, and through deception, gave her consent for the doctor to take cell samples. Her cell sample was coded as HeLa, and her real identity was not known. This event starts a fascinating, disturbing tale of medical ethics gone awry, capitalism in medicine, investigative journalism, and the contrasting lives of Lacks descendants.
The discovery of Henrietta’s immortal cancer cells, laid the foundation for most of the scientific discoveries we have made, and created a multi-billion dollar industry where her cells were sold all over the world as an infinite supply of scientific testing material. At the same time companies and hospitals were selling the HeLa cells, the Lacks family were living in extreme poverty, with no medical care. Author Rebecca Skloot bounces back and forth between Henrietta’s final days, and the present day, as she attempts to gain the trust of the Lacks family, discover who HeLa was, and how medical ethics were not always a reality. For a non-fiction book about cellular biology, it is a riveting detective story that also exposes medicines sordid past, and makes the reader question whether advancement of medicine is worth it at any cost.
A metafiction novel documenting the struggles of a young misinformed thirteen year old, Atonement by Ian McEwan provides an intense glimpse into the power of lying and the consequences resulting from deception. Briony, a British girl in the early twentieth century witnesses a crime she twists in order to fuel her intense jealousy. Her eagerness to fulfill her own desires corrupts and destroys her sister Cecilia and Robbie’s romantic life and Robbie is whisked away into World War II. Within the last chapter of the book, current Briony reveals the truth about her manipulation of the book in order to immortalize the love between Cecilia and Robbie, both who die as a direct result of Briony’s lies. I would recommend the book to anyone willing to read deeper and not take everything written on page as the truth.
Those who enjoy deep, complex, twisted plots would be captivated by Atonement. The seriousness of the crime and depiction of the same scene from multiple perspectives limits the prospective audience to those high school and older. Despite the book’s intriguing start, the ending infuriates many as Briony lifts the curtain to reveal her distorted depiction in order to repent for her guilt. Atonement fortifies the pang of a guilty conscious and the powerful repercussions that result from lying.
Reviewer Grade: 11
A metafiction novel documenting the struggles of a young misinformed thirteen year old, Atonement by Ian McEwan provides an intense glimpse into the power of lying and the consequences resulting from deception. Briony, a British girl in the early twentieth century witnesses a crime she twists in order to fuel her intense jealousy. Her eagerness to fulfill her own desires corrupts and destroys her sister Cecilia and Robbie’s romantic life and Robbie is whisked away into World War II. Within the last chapter of the book, current Briony reveals the truth about her manipulation of the book in order to immortalize the love between Cecilia and Robbie, both who die as a direct result of Briony’s lies. I would recommend the book to anyone willing to read deeper and not take everything written on page as the truth.
Those who enjoy deep, complex, twisted plots would be captivated by Atonement. The seriousness of the crime and depiction of the same scene from multiple perspectives limits the prospective audience to those high school and older. Despite the book’s intriguing start, the ending infuriates many as Briony lifts the curtain to reveal her distorted depiction in order to repent for her guilt. Atonement fortifies the pang of a guilty conscious and the powerful repercussions that result from lying.
Reviewer Grade: 11
The third book to the Lunar Chronicles is long, but totally worth reading!
This book takes Rapunzel and twists it in with the Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella from the first two books. There is tons of action in this novel and a whole lot of planning. They still have to stop Kai's wedding and the risks they are willing to take to get there make the whole book one riveting adventure! I loved it so much and can't wait to read it again! If you enjoyed Meyer's first two books then you'll absolutely fall in love with this one.
This book takes Little Red Riding Hood and twists it with a unique Cinderella story. It's a bit confusing at first they way it jumps around between characters, but once you get the hang of it, its hard to put the book down!
There is plenty of action and just enough romance that nobody can resist. I have read this book several times and I still never get bored of it! There is so much information that you discover in this book after reading Cinder, the first book in the Lunar Chronicles, that reading this one is a must!!
Review Grade: 8
This book takes Little Red Riding Hood and twists it with a unique Cinderella story. It's a bit confusing at first they way it jumps around between characters, but once you get the hang of it, its hard to put the book down!
There is plenty of action and just enough romance that nobody can resist. I have read this book several times and I still never get bored of it! There is so much information that you discover in this book after reading Cinder, the first book in the Lunar Chronicles, that reading this one is a must!!
Review Grade: 8
I have read this book multiple times and it never gets old! There are plenty of Cinderella stories out there, but do they have Lunar cyborgs who can manipulate your thoughts at the drop of a hat? Do they have flying cars and a deadly virus set out on killing every human that contracted it? Cinder is a riveting and unique tale that Meyers wrote incredibly well! She managed to take an ordinary story and turn it into something so unique and amazing. I would 100% recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fantasy!
Batman: The Long Halloween is a New York Times Best-Selling Classic written and drawn by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. This story is one of the best Batman stories, it will keep you reading with cliffhangers at the end of every chapter. Batman: The Long Halloween tells the story of Batman’s fight against a serial killer named “Holiday.” This enemy kills mostly members of the Falcone family, a wealthy family led by a crimelord trying to hold on to a crumbling empire. The Holiday Killer commits his crimes on every holiday, starting on Halloween and ending on Halloween a year later. The book is action packed, the art is great, and the story is a classic and must read for any Batman fan.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a book that was assigned for my literature class, meaning I had low expectations and thought I would hate the book. However, the opposite was true, and the author actually uses a humorous outlook to portray a witty teenage character in this novel. The book follows one school year in the life of Junior, a fourteen-year-old boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation near Wellpinit, Washington.
It is told in a diary style, moving from the start of the school year, through the major holidays, and ending with the beginning of summer. It includes both Junior's written record of his life and his cartoon drawings, some of them comically commenting on his situations, and others more seriously depicting important people in his life. The story, as a whole, is entertaining, funny, and is still able to discuss darker issues such as abuse, alcoholism, and poverty. Overall, I thought this novel was fantastic, and was an easy and casual read. I would recommend this book to practically anyone looking for a fun, entertaining story.
Reviewer Grade: 11
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a book that was assigned for my literature class, meaning I had low expectations and thought I would hate the book. However, the opposite was true, and the author actually uses a humorous outlook to portray a witty teenage character in this novel. The book follows one school year in the life of Junior, a fourteen-year-old boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation near Wellpinit, Washington.
It is told in a diary style, moving from the start of the school year, through the major holidays, and ending with the beginning of summer. It includes both Junior's written record of his life and his cartoon drawings, some of them comically commenting on his situations, and others more seriously depicting important people in his life. The story, as a whole, is entertaining, funny, and is still able to discuss darker issues such as abuse, alcoholism, and poverty. Overall, I thought this novel was fantastic, and was an easy and casual read. I would recommend this book to practically anyone looking for a fun, entertaining story.
Reviewer Grade: 11