Blog Entries
Conditions of Use
|
|
The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 04:06 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 998
|
|
I really enjoyed reading this book after I read Walter Dean Myers book, Sunrise Over Fallujah. It reflects the frustration a family goes through after their son returns home from a war overseas. Seventeen year old, Levi is distressed over his older brother’s actions when he stays in his room for days and hardly speaks to anyone. He tries desperately to communicate with him. When his brother announces to the family that he is going to walk the Appalachian Trail, Levi knows his brother is lying and locates him on his way to Washington, DC. Then the mysteries begin to be answered. This is a beautiful reflection on the dynamics of the brothers’ relationship and the unseen wounds occurring to our servicemen and women and their families.
|
|
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 04:06 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 998
|
|
Bruiser by Neal Shusterman
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 04:01 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 263
|
|
How would you like it if every time you liked a person, you physically took on their pains? That’s what happens to Brewster (Bruiser). He has no control over this condition and tries to stay away from other kids at school until he meets Bronte. She and her twin brother make friends with Brew and notice strange things happening to him. This is a great book about sacrifices, family and friendship.
|
|
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 04:01 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 263
|
|
Marked by P.C. Cast
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:59 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 252
|
|
Another vampire book only this one reads like a Harry Potter book for high school students. The world is full of vampyres and you become one when you are “marked”. If you don’t report to Vampyre School within days, you will die. Once there, you take courses on how to be an effective vampyre. (And no I’m not misspelling the word vampire). This book is filled with the usual high school drama with cliques and nerds and the most popular groups. It is quite an adventure for Zoey who appears to have exceptional powers. You know, jealousies and power struggles, etc. This is the first in a series of 8.
|
|
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:59 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 252
|
|
Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:58 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 277
|
|
This book is one of my favorites this year. This is a real insight into the realities of war in the Mideast. The characters are so well developed. A young man joins the army and gets sent to Iraq His group is supposed to interact with the Iraqi people but things change very quickly when they find themselves in constant danger.
|
|
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:58 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 277
|
|
Feathered by Laura Kasischke
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:50 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 297
|
|
Every high school girl should read this if she is going away from home on spring break. Three girls from the mid-west go to Cancun for fun and parties but things don’t go as planned when two of the girls plan an excursion with a stranger. This is a lesson in trusting strangers that involves date-rape drugs and abduction. You can’t be too careful.
|
|
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:50 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 297
|
|
The Murderer’s Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:48 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 271
|
|
This is an awesome book about a horrific crime and how two young sisters try to deal with it to survive. Imagine feeling responsible for your mother’s death because you let your father in the house only to lose his temper and stab her to death and stab your younger sister. He goes to jail and relatives don’t and/or can’t take care of the girls. They end up in a group home and each deal with this tragedy in different ways. How does the girl who was stabbed by her father visit him in jail regularly? The other sister won’t even acknowledge his existence. This book will tug at your emotions until the end.
|
|
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:48 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 271
|
|
Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:46 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 261
|
|
Reese comes from the streets of NYC. At 14, he gets in with the wrong crowd and ends up in a juvenile facility with the kids who are even more trouble than he is. Somehow he has good morals despite his mother’s drug problems and his father’s history of beating him. He is chosen to work in a retirement home and meets an interesting man who teaches him some valuable life lessons. He still has a terrible temper and wants to help a young kid who is being picked on. If he acts up one more time, he will go to a harder facility and may never recover. Can he survive?
|
|
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:46 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 261
|
|
Half a Life by Darin Strauss
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:44 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 306
|
|
Twenty years ago, Darin hit a girl on a bike with his car and killed her. Darin writes his memoir of the incident when he was about to graduate from high school until his thirties. He wrestles with the guilt, the “what if’s” and all the questions surrounding the tragedy. How his classmates reacted, his friends and the parents of the girl. Why would they sue him for a million dollars if he was found not at fault in the police report? Strauss delves deep into the meaning and consequences of that fateful day. I enjoyed this insight into both sides of an accident.
|
|
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:44 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 306
|
|
Hog Wild by Cathy Pickens
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:42 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 265
|
|
I enjoyed this short southern murder mystery about a lawyer who returns to her hometown and discovers the many changes that have occurred in her absence. Along time friend of her mother’s visits her as she is unpacking and tells her about her husband’s will which accuses her of murdering him. There is real estate trouble and another dead body that is discovered. This is a good hometown whodunit.
|
|
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:42 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 265
|
|
Nory Ryan’s Song by Patricia Reilly Giff
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:40 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 269
|
|
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to go hungry, this book would do it for you. It is the story of a brave young girl in Ireland during the great potato famine in 1845. Her family is going through difficult times and becomes separated; the neighbors are being starved out by an unscrupulous landlord who wants to take over all their land and young Nory has to take on impossible responsibilities. Good historical fiction reading.
|
|
Article posted March 31, 2011 at 03:40 PM GMT0 •
comment • Reads 269
|
|
|