Flush

Even though I read Flush quite awhile ago I never got around to writing a review. When I went to the Maud Hart Lovelace web site to see who won the 2009 awards and saw that Carl Hiaasen's book had won, I felt bad I didn't have a review published. Flush is a book I recommend along with Hiaasen's other children's novel, Hoot because I enjoyed reading both of them. Hoot won the Newbery Honor in 2003. They are great mysteries and in both, the protagonist takes on a cause for the environment. In Hoot, I wish that Roy would have solicited the help of his classmates earlier on in his campaign to save the habitat of the endangered burrowing owl. (It could have been a really awesome Public Achievement project!)
In Flush, many of the adults in the story are so corrupt it gives Noah and his sister Abbey more of a challenge to help their father's cause. It is pretty scary stuff. The father is in jail (intentionally) for trying to deliver his own kind of justice to a casino on a boat business that is dumping their sewage in the Florida keys, Noah feels he needs to help him. And Noah has a very complicated and clever way to catch the law-breakers. You will not be putting this book down until you've finished!

Savvy

Who wouldn't want their own savvy? Mibs'(short for Mississippi) oldest brother Rocket's savvy is electrifying and her other brother, Fish has a water problem but what will Mibs' savvy be? She waits for her all important thirteenth birthday to find out. But things don't go as planned, her father is in a serious car accident and all that Mibs can think about is getting to her father to help him get well. Her siblings and children of a pastor and his wife (who are caring for them in her parents' absence) have quite the adventure. You will never look at a pink bus in the same way again!
This book written by Ingrid Law was one of those awarded a 2009 Newbery Honor. Hey SJV kids—do you know what person on staff at our school has read all of the Newbery Medal books? Let me know who you think she or he is.

The Graveyard Book

I think everyone should be given a "Stay Home and Read Pass" every once and awhile. Let's say you are in the middle of a really good book, but you have to go to school or work and can't read until you get back home. But if you have this pass, you can say, I'll be staying home to read today and everyone will understand. How many of these should we pass out?
I would have used mine to read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. The book is so engaging. Adults and children (no younger than 10) will love this book. It starts out with the child's family getting killed but this youngster does survive. He actually is living in the nearby cemetery and the characters he meets and skills he learns are incredibly fascinating. You will have affection for his new family and his guardian. My favorite part was when he empowers some children to stop themselves from being bullied. Let me know what you think of this 2009 Newbery Medal Award Winner.

Elephant Run

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to live on a teak plantation in Burma and harvest teak while sitting on an elephant with your feet tucked under his ears? In this book, you may get a chance to find out. This story takes place during World War II and Nick's mother sends the 14 year-old to live with his father in Burma to get away from the bombing in London. Nick gets to know some amazing people including a very special monk who happens to be in the right place at the right time and a Japanese soldier who facilitates Nick's learning the language and culture of Japan. Roland Smith, the author of this historical fiction has written quite the adventure and you will find Nick doing some things that make you very nervous for his safety.

Habibi

The author, Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Palestinian father and an American mother. This young-adult novel called Habibi is somewhat of an autobiographical story of her life as an Arab-American teenager who moves to Jerusalem from the US in the 1990s. Habibi means darling in Arabic and is used by her grandmother in another book Naomi wrote titled Sitti's Secret. Sitti is Arabic for grandmother and Sitti's Secret is a picture book of a young girl going with her dad to visit his family in Palestine. Both of these books won the Jane Addams Children's Peace Book Award. Habibi is a good book and I recommend it because it is fun learning about life in another country by reading someone's personal story.

Yes We Can

A Biography of President Barack Obama by Garen Thomas. I really enjoyed reading this summary of Obama's life starting with his father coming to the United States and meeting his mother at the University of Hawaii. The book includes many photographs and words of President Obama both verbal and written throughout his career, each is cited for its reference. The book includes a bibliography and web sites for further investigation. I felt after reading this biography that I knew this man better and could understand why people voted for him for president. This was a historical event, electing our first multi-racial man. Someday I hope to see a woman elected to the presidency.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

You have no idea what the book is about from the cover. It's a page-turner because Hugo finds the key to the auto-man. It is exciting to see what he does to stay alive. Everyday he shows bravery and gentleness and at the same time he is a thief!
Thanks to SJV student Thomas, grade 5, for this post.

Readers can add to their knowledge of the illustrations and what went into making of this book at the web site by Brian Selznick, the author, who was awarded the Caldecott Medal for this book last year. Even though The Invention of Hugo Cabret has over 500 pages, it won't take you long to read it because almost 300 of its pages are just illustrations!

Inkheart

"Look. (Grown-ups skip this paragraph.) I'm not about to tell you this book has a tragic ending, I already said in the very first line how it was my favorite in all the world. But there's a lot of bad stuff coming." William Goldman, The Princess Bride

Each chapter of Inkheart begins with a quote from a book that you may or may not recognize but will appreciate. It gives a little clue about what the chapter is about. It seems that all the SJV students who have read this book by Cornelia Funke have said to me "You should read this book —you would really like it". Well, I've finally gotten around to reading this adventurous book and yes I am really enjoying it. It is full of magic and interesting characters and it is about books, storytelling, villains, trickery and a family of book-lovers! What more could one want?

Twelve-year old Meggie has lived an usual life since her mother left and her dad has been hiding the mystery of her disappearance. Now he can't keep it a secret because Meggie and an eccentric aunt are swept up (literally) in the story (literally again) with Mortimer (her dad, who she calls Mo) and must use their ingenuity to escape this frightful fantasy they are in.

One of my favorite quotes from the actual story—"She usually found it so easy to escape somewhere else, to get right inside the minds of people and animals who existed only on paper, so why not now? "Because fear kills everything, " Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination."

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

As Chris entered the library today he said "I looked online and I saw that the next Percy Jackson book won't be out until May of 2009! I started jumping up and down because it just can't end like that."
Pepperwolf - "End like what?"
Chris - "I won't give out too much information but it ended when a character named Nico came to Percy's house to tell him something very important. I can't wait for the story to continue."
Pepperwolf - "You've read all four books in such a short amount of time, why were the books so good?"
Chris - "The books are about a boy named Percy Jackson who found out his dad was an Olympian god and his dad's father named Kronos is getting an army and rebuilding himself because the Olympians cut him up with his own scythe and he wants to destroy the Olympians. There is so much adventure and excitement and action all that in four books."
The series: The Lightening Thief, Sea of Monsters, Titan's Curse and The Battle of the Labyrinth. If you've read any of these good books, feel free to post your own comment for the blog.

The Summer Birds

The Summer Birds is an interesting tale about kids who meet a strange boy. When the boy teaches the kids to fly, some of the children question his talent and end up going into a full out war. The Summer Birds is written by Penelope Farmer.
Review by Alli

A Haitian Family

I am reading Tracy Kidder's book, Mountains Beyond Mountains about Paul Farmer, an amazing doctor who cures people in Haiti of infectious diseases. My women's book club was going to discuss the book and I wanted to know more about Haiti.
I found this book, A Haitian Family as part of a Journey Between Two Worlds series. The story part of the book focuses on nine year old Gregory who came to the United States as a refugee. That means he immigrated to our country because he was escaping persecution in his own country or rather his father was. Gregory's family arrived in New York by plane but that is not how they started their journey here. They left Haiti on a very crowded flimsy boat and ended up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after being picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard. They lived in a refugee camp for several months awaiting for permission to continue on to the U.S.
This book also explains the history of Haiti. It begins the story in 1492 when Christopher Columbus arrived in Hispaniola, which is what the island was named before, and continues to 1996 when René Préval became president. Now Haiti occupies about one-third of the island on the west and the country of Dominican Republic is on the eastern side.
You'll find out why Gregory's family was being persecuted and learn a lot about the struggles and culture of the people who live very close to our southern state of Florida.

Whatcha Mean, What's a Zine?

Yeah, what's a zine? This arty book explains the art of making zines and mini-comics with contributions by more than 20 creators of Indie Comics and Magazines. Written by Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson, this manual will get you motivated and off the ground running. I guarantee you will have your own zine started before you even finish this book. Actually you don't even have to finish the book at all - just read all the pictures and flip through the pages and you'll know what a zine is and how to make your own. Aren't you excited? I am, in fact I am going to stop blogging right now and start another zine. Bye.

Regarding the Trees

Did you ever read Regarding the Fountain or Regarding the Sink? This book by Kate Klise is just as clever as the others and has our favorite entrepreneur, Florence Waters assisting the Geyser Creek Middle School and principal Wally Russ again. This time she is called with a tree trimming proposal and now Mr N's class has a special interest in the trees. Goldie Fisch and Tad Poll and Walter Russ have new friends in this book, see if you can figure out their names. I especially like Jeannie Ologee. The illustrations by the author's sister, Sarah Klise contributes smartly to the book's unique format.

Go Big or Go Home!

A meteorite falls from the sky and goes right through Brady's roof, ceiling and bed—good thing he wasn't in it! Brady and his cousin Quinn spend the last few weeks of their summer vacation doing extreme sports in their South Dakota state. These two fourteen-year-olds bike, boat, fish, camp, explore caves and avoid a confrontation with their annoying neighbors. Even the neighbors' dog is coming over and taking rocks from his mom's garden. You will find out why the dog is collecting them for the bullies next door. This Will Hobbs book will have you flying through the pages.

Punished!

Do you know what a pun is? Reading this book, you will get your fill of puns very quickly and I wonder if any of you will be talking in puns before this book is finished. The setting for this story begins in the library! What could be better? Actually the two boys visit the library reluctantly - they much rather play baseball. Logan's favorite section is 796.357. The place in the sports section where the baseball books are. You will love following Logan as he tries to get rid of his punny language. But the curse doesn't stop there— Professor Wordsworth has another challenge for him. Punished by David Lubar is a short and entertaining book you will definitely enjoy.