The World Without Us

By Alan Weisman

       This book was totally different than I expected. I was expecting  a fictional story about how the animals react to humans suddenly disappearing and what they do with all of our man made structures. It is a lot more about how long it would take for the entire human civilization to collapse including buildings. It talks about a timeline and breaks down how  a New York type city would collapse and eventually go back to how it was before we were here. The only difference it that there would be new plants that we brought from all over the world. I would recommend this book to anybody who likes to learn about nature and likes a good non fiction book.

Screwtape Letters

By C. S. Lewis

          Screwtape letters is a book of a lot of letters from Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood. This book is nothing like what I expected. Screwtape works for the devil and he is sending letters to Wormwood who is trying to get his "patient" to do bad things and not fall into "the enemies" hands. All the letters are from Screwtape  but you can tell what Wormwood is asking because each letter is molded around the question. This book is pretty short and it is about 200 pages but it is a pretty big font. I would recommend this book to anybody because it shows a really cool perspective that I had never thought of before and I think it would be the same for others who read this.

Slice Of Life

Finding a Christmas Tree

"Waist deep snow?" I hear my dad say into the phone.

Every year on Thanksgiving weekend we go to find Christmas tree. Last year we went to find a tree in shorts and ran through the forest looking for the perfect tree. This year we went to the same place on the same day but in totally different conditions. We  had snow boots and pants on with heavy coats. When we got there it looked like there was only about a foot of snow. We started hiking off the road and down a small trail. Soon the trail disappeared and we were on our own. My friends and I tried to run up ahead but I quickly learned it would not be that easy. I fell through the snow and it went up past my hips. This surprised everybody, especially me. My friends had snow shoes on so they did not fall through but from then on everybody took careful steps so they did not fall through the snow did just like me.

The Graveyard Book

This book is about a kid named Bod. One night he wakes up and climbs out of his crib. He crawls out the front door and towards the graveyard, unaware of the fact that his family was being murdered and the murderer was coming after him. Two souls that had been in the graveyard for over a hundred years took him in and promises the child's mom's spirit to keep him safe from the killer. The graveyard votes for him to have freedom of the graveyard allowing him to go into places that most humans cannot. He grows up learning bout his family and staying in the graveyard. Every once in a while he makes a friend or two. He cannot take any chances or else he risks his life.

Colfax Walk Connection

I was walking down Colfax with my class

When I see a person looking at me

I was picking up trash and so was he

I was at a bus stop picking up a Doritos bag

He was picking up a two liter bottle and throwing it away

I wondered why he was picking up trash

I bet he was wondering the same for us

I think he was doing the same as us

Just trying to make a difference

READY PLAYER 1

By Ernest Cline

Genre Science Fiction

       Ready Player One is about a futuristic world that has major global problems. People don't like to be out in the real world because it is an ugly place. Almost everybody in the real world owns an OASIS, a virtual utopia. The creator had died but before he died, he created a quest. The first person to complete the quest won all of the creator's fortune. The main character(Wade Watts) decided to devote his life to completing all three gates and completing the quest. Along the way he makes friends, and plenty of enemies. His largest enemy is IOI. They are a large group that want to take over IOSIS and change it. Along the way IOI tries to kill Wade, and not just in the virtual world.

       I really liked this books and it is one of my favorite books of all time. The plot was amazing along with the writing. Ernest Cline(author) made me feel everything that Wade felt. The description in the book was great, and every description reminded me of a character in a video game I have played. I could not stop reading this book and I had a few late nights reading. This book has some adult language and uses the f-word a lot.

Favorite Books
THIS ONE!!
The Martian
Armada
Mr. Michelangelo's Library
When You Reach Me

Crossover

by Kwame Alexander 

             "With a bolt of lightning on my kicks . . .The court is SIZZLING. My sweat is DRIZZLING. Stop all that quivering. Cuz tonight I’m delivering," wraps teenage Josh Bell. Josh has played basketball for a long time with his twin brother. They look exactly the same but Josh has dread-lox. They both have a love for the game and they know each other super well but when Jordan(Josh's brother) gets a girlfriend he starts to drift away from Josh. Josh does not know how to react so he decides to react with anger. During the game he passes the  ball into Jordan's face but not for him to shoot, he did it out of pure anger. His parents take him out of the game even though he is the star of the team. They are on the way to winning nationals but Josh's dad is starting to have health troubles but he still refuses to go to the doctor. This book was a short book and I would recommend this book to anybody, even if you don't know basketball.

The Curious Incedent of The Dog in The Night Time

            This is the second part of this book because it is my book group book. I like this book because it is a mystery and so I am always trying to figure out what is happening. It made this book really fly by and so I read it really quickly.  This book is a pretty quick read and I think anybody in the class would enjoy reading it.

            It was interesting to see how much the dad was hurt after Chris loses all trust in him. He was obviously hurt and all he wanted was to gain trust back but Chris was very stubborn about it and thought he was not safe.

The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-Time

By Mark Haddon

           This book is about a kid named Chris who has autism. He finds his neighbors dog with a pitch fork through the middle of it. He goes up to the dog, removes the pitchfork and hugs the dog. When his neighbors find him in the middle of the night holding the dead dog they immediately call the police. When he realizes that everybody thinks he did it and nobody knows who really killed the dog, he wants to find out who killed him.

          Chris lives with his dad because his mom died of a heart attack a few years earlier. Mrs. Shear was the one who's dog got killed. Mr. Shear had left Mrs. Shear at the same time Chris's mother died. When Chris's dad got really mad when he said Mr. Shear I started to realize what is happening. It takes Chris a lot longer.

Out of my Mind

By Sharon m Draper

Rating 4/5 Stars

         This book is about a 13 year old girl named Melody, who is not able talk or move anything besides her head and thumbs. It creates a lot of challenges for her. On top of all of that she also has a photographic memory. She uses a board and points to the word so she can communicate. She is in a class with some other kids that have disabilities and completely separated from the rest of the school. In 5th grade the school started inclusion classes so that kids like her could join the rest of the school. One day in one of the classes a girl brought in a new computer. Melody said that she wanted a computer that was designed just for her. The next day she is given a chance to research it in one of the classes. Just a little bit later she gets it. After some practice she is able to use it. Later one of the teachers starts talking about Whiz Kids Team that answers questions and goes to competitions. Melody's goal is to get on the team even when everybody in the school is doubting her.

       I think this would be a good movie because it would be really cool to see how the emotion was showed even though Melody cannot talk and how she deals with it. It would also be really hard for the producer to show emotion and feeling in Melody.

Uglies

By Scott Westerfeld

Genre: Young Adult

 

       Uglies is about a girl named Tally. This book takes place in the future after everything has gone wrong. The government created a surgery that makes you pretty. Almost everybody has this surgery once they turn sixteen. Tally has looked forward to becoming pretty her entire life. Her best friend turned pretty just a months before Tally. That meant they would not see each other in tell Tally tuned pretty. For Tally, the months dragged by slowly. She ends up making friends with Shay. Shay teaches tally to hover board and eventually tells tally that she is going to run off to a place called Smoke. Tally chooses not to go along and to turn pretty. When tally goes to the hospital to have the operation, she is sent to another place called Special Circumstances. She meets a person named Dr. Cable. Dr. Cable threatens that if she does not go after Shay and find the place called Smoke, she will never turn pretty.

 

       I really liked this book. The book was not super descriptive but it still gave me a very vivid image of what this world looked like and everything that happened in the book. I also liked the plot of the book. It seemed so unreal but at the same time I was thinking, "What if this ends up happening? How? and Why?" It was also fun to both try to predict what the choice would lead to (I was never right) and would I have make that decision? I think that this book is not a quick read but I would definitely recommend this book to anybody and everybody.

Code Talkers

By Joseph Bruchac

       This book is about Navajos who joined the marines to fight in World War II. In World War II they used there native language to speak to each other over radios as code. The code could not be broken by anyone and so when the Germans and Japanese intercepted the radio talk they would not be able to decode the secret messages that they held. This was a huge part of World War II and those who knew about it were not allowed to talk about it for many years. When Navajos joined the marines they would be taken off to a boot camp with everyone who was joining the military. After they graduated the boot camp most of them would be sent to a camp where they would learn a code. The code used their language and then it would be translated into English.

        I really liked this book. The author was really good at describing how Ned Begay(the main character) felt in every moment of the book. It made it really easy to relate to him because I could easily understand what he was feeling. I also like the descriptiveness of the setting wherever he went.

Unbroken Part 2

By Laura Hllenbrand

Genre True Story

       Unbroken is about a bombardier  named Louis. He was a trouble maker as a kid but once he reached high school he started to run. He trained to be a runner and went to the Olympics in Germany. He was later drafted by the army and he joined the air force. He flew a B-24 called the Super Man. In battles they had a few close calls but one of the closest was when they were fired upon by the enemies and then they had to fly all the way back to base with 9 inch holes in the walls. One of the crew was hit by shrapnel and he did not make it. The plane would never fly again. Because of this they had to take a new plane with a few new crew members on a plane called the green hornet. It was a weird plane and Louis was not sure he would make it to his destination. He was correct and when one of the engines stalled they ended up going down. Only 3 of the 11 people on the boat were able to escape the wreckage and make it to the life rafts. With only a few chocolate bars and few jugs of clean water their chances of survival crept away as the days passed.

Unbroken Part 1

By Laura Hillenbrand

Genre: Non Fiction

       I am only through half of this book but it is really sucking me in. It is about a runner named Louis. He was a trouble maker as a kid but running saves him. He started to train for the Olympics. He participated in the 1936 Olympics. There he meets Hitler. After the Olympics he started training for the next one. He wanted to win. Then he gets drafted into the army and he becomes a bombardier. He encounters a few life or death experiences and a few of his friends die in combat. Times become hard for him and started to resort to drinking.

       I really am liking this book. I like how well the author describes feelings and characters. It draws me into the book and makes it nearly impossible put down. It describes feelings that I feel every day but on a much higher and impossible level. I would recommend this book to anybody even in you do not think you like non fiction.

Enders Game

By Orson Scott Card

Genre Dystopian

       Ender's Game is about a kid named Ender who is being trained in a military school. He started at a very young age and was put through many very hard challenges. Earth has been under attack from an alien species for a very long time. A new commander was needed who was a tactical genius. When he was pulled out of the military academy, he became very angry because he was born to become a tactical genius that could defeat the aliens. Then he is told it was another test and he had passed, he was sent up to a space station where his genius really showed.

       I really liked reading this book. It was a relatively easy read because once I started it I could never put it down. I really liked how the author described every little event and how he described all off the characters. Because the description was so good it made all of the feelings come to life. It also had a lot of topics that were very easy to relate to.

Armada

By Ernest Cline

Genre: Science Fiction

       Armada is about a kid named named Zack. One day at school he sees a spaceship from a video game that he played every night for the past few years. He thinks he might be going crazy like his dad who had seen the same things before he died in a tragic explosion at work. Then the day afterward a ship lands in front of his school looking for him. He had no idea of what was going on but he knew that the ship they were taking him away in was from the game Armada. He soon found out aliens were attacking earth and they were only hours away from earth. His dad was still alive and had been taken away by the government because he was catching onto what was happening. When Zack and his dad reunite they start to figure out that something is fishy and that it is up to them to figure it out. 

       This is a great book for anybody. Armada and Ready Player One (Ernest Cline published both) are now two of my all time favorite books. This book has a little bit of everything and it also relates to some of what is happening in the world right now. Part of what made this book so good is that it is very easy to relate to.