Press Start to Play

By Daniel H. Wilson, Charles Yu, Hiroshi Sakurazaka, S.R. Mastrantone, Charlie Jane Anders, Holly Black, Seanan McGuire, Django Wexler, Nicole Feldringer, Chris Avellone, David Barr Kirtley,T.C.

Forward by Ernest Cline

         This is a book of a lot of short stories by writers from around the globe. Each short story is slightly longer than a chapter and stands alone from the test of the book. Each of the short stories are about video games in science fiction. I really liked this book because each story was different. This made my full attention always be on the book because there was never any room for unneeded material in any of the stories. I would recommend this book to almost anybody, especially if you liked Ready Player One or Armada.

The Complete Guide to Pitching

By Derek Johnson

Forward By David Price

        This book is a non-fiction book about pitching. It is written by Derek Johnson who is the pitching coach at Vanderbilt. He knows a TON about baseball and pitching. This book talks about the strategies of baseball and the smallest details. I really liked this book because it is filled with tons of facts about baseball that I never think about. It comes with a dvd where he goes over the basics of pitching. I also really like this book because it has drills that allowed me to use the information in this book in my actual pitching. I would recommend this book to anybody who really likes baseball and also likes to pitch.

Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe

By Benjamin Alire Saenz

 

             This book is about two teenagers named Dante and Aristotle. They are both Mexican-American and loners. They met each other at the pool when they were both 15 and when it seemed like they had nothing in common, but they got along. Dante had a different perspective on the world and Aristotle had a father who had been in Vietnam and a brother and jail. Their friendship kept them alive and the power of their friendship helped them get through some rough times. Their friendship turns into more and Aristotle starts to learn more about himself that he had been fighting unconsciously. This is a good book and I would recommend this book to anybody who likes a story about two boys growing up.

I kill The Mockingbird

By Paul Acampora

           I Kill a Mockingbird is about a girl named Lucy and two of her friends Michael and Elena. They are just finishing their 8th grad year. The teacher gives them a summer reading list. One of the books on it is To Kill a Mocking Bird. When they are leaving school they hear some of the kids talking about how they are not going to read the book. Lucy remembers her old teacher, Fat Bob who had said that he would only assign To Kill a Mockingbird. Lucy wanted to do something that would make everyone want to read the book. They hide To Kill A Mockingbird in all of the stores so it cannot be found. In it's place they left a poster that said I KILL THE MOCKINGBIRD. When it starts to get out of hand and other people start hiding the book in bookstores all over the country, they have to find a way to stop it.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

By Robin Sloan

Genre- Mystery

       This book is about a guy named Clay who is a programmer and lives in San Francisco. He was broke so when he wandered  into Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and found that they were looking for employees so he then started to work there. He noticed that they had very few customers yet they stayed open all of the time. When there was a customer, he had to write all about the customer in a special book. All of the customers wanted books from the shelves that he was not allowed to touch or look into. One day he finally decided to open it and was surprised to see the book was in code and he could not read it. The next day a girl from google named Kat walks in and they start to talk. Clay was making a 3D model of the store on his computer and Kat walked in. She suggested to make it so that Clay could see when the books were taken and when they were returned. This lead to scanning a book at google and when you watched the animation of books going in and out a face formed. When Clay shows Mr. Penumbra he gets excited but the next day he was gone. From rumors he found out he was going to New York and Clay decided to follow Mr. Penumbra and that is where the real adventure began.

Grandmaster

By David Klass

Genre-young adult

                Grandmaster is about a kid named Daniel who plays chess. He was invited to a father-son chess tournament but he did not understand why. He was not a great chess player and Daniel did not think his dad even played chess. He found out that his father was a grandmaster and that he was one of the best chess player when he was a kid. Daniel finds out that his dad had quit chess because there was just to much pressure. He eventually faces off against one of his old nemeses. Daniel learns things about the game of chess and his father that he never expected to learn.

                Grandmaster was a very intense and a great book. I liked it because it was one of those books where I just could not put the book down. I liked the plot because it was intense and there were parts in the book when a character would make a decision that completely changed my views on certain people. The story was good but the writing and descriptions made the book so much better.

 

The Island of Dr. Libris

By Chris Grabenstein
      This book was a short and fun read. It is about a kid named Billy who is spending the summer in a cabin that they were renting. It was in the middle of no where and he did not have anything fun to do, like video games. After getting board he goes to the library and finds a clue to the key that unlocks the book cases. After getting a book and starting to read it, he hears the story that he is reading, happening outside. After checking it out, he thinks that he sees the giant in his book on the island, After getting curious he uses a boat to get to the island and check it out. He sees the story he was reading early taking place. This book is about how he deals with it and how others react to it. This author also wrote Mr. Limencello's Library.

Maximum Ride

By James Patterson
       This book was recommended to me by Sam and Noah. It is not a book I would usually read but it because I thought it was going to be a fantasy type of book. After a little bit of reading I realized it was more of a science fiction type of book. While this book looks pretty long, the font is big and it was a very quick read for me. It is about a couple of kids who had escaped from a lab where they were tested on and eventually given wings so they could fly. Another group of kids who were from the same lab had found them and came to take them back to the lab. After only successfully kidnapping one of the kids, they come up with a plan to rescue her and this is the story of how it happened.

Ungifted

By Gordon Korman

        This is a very quick read about being "Gifted." It is about a kid named Donavan Curtis. He was a trouble maker at his school and one day he made a mistake that was to big. He hit the statue in front of the school with a stick, it broke and part of it rolled down a hill and shattered the GYM doors. He was caught by the super intendant of the school district he went to. After a few mistakes of his name getting mixed up he was transferred to the "Gifted" school system. This book is all about him being in a classroom with kids much smarter than him and how he deals with trying to stay out of trouble. I would recommend this book to anybody who needs a good quick read.

The True Meaning of Smekday

By Adam Rex

           The True Meaning of Smekday is about not one but two alien invasions. First aliens called the Boov arrive and try to join in and live with the humans. After lots of fighting the Boov decided to move all of humans in the US to Arizona. It is told in an essay format and entered in to a competition. Gratuity (the main character) wrote the essay as an assignment for school and then it would be entered into a competition. The winning essay would be put in a time capsule that would pen up in 100 years. Gratuity writes about her experience as she goes through the invasions and makes unusual friends to help her save the day. If you have ever seen the kids movie Home, you will realize quickly that Home was based off of this book. It is very similar, but as the book goes on you notice it drifts away from the plot of Home.

The Secret Life of Bees

Sue Monk Kidd
       This book is about a girl named Lily. It is set in the 60s in South Carolina. Lily runs away because her father, T. Ray is abusive and very mean. She runs away with Rosaleen who was her stand in mother and was one of T. Ray's slaves. The two of them are taken in by three black bee keeping sisters who take care of them. It is very interesting, especially looking at how each of the girls is treated differently by  different people. This is a really good book that I would recommend to anybody.  This is a book almost all about girls but the book group I am in is all boys who chose to join it and everybody has liked this book.

The Secret Life of Bees

       This book is about a girl named Lily. It is set in 1864 in South Carolina. Lily runs away because her father, T. Ray is abusive and very mean. She runs away with Rosaleen who was her stand in mother and was one of T. Ray's slaves. The two of them are taken in by three black bee keeping sisters who take care of them. It is very interesting to look at how people treated each other, especially depending on the race of the person. I would recommend this book to anybody even though it is mostly about girls(I still really like it)

Poem

Limerick (AABBA)

My brother is dramatic

So we send him to the attic

He pretends to have fallen
And he really starts Bawl'n
But really it is anti climatic

The 5th Wave

By Rick Yancey
This is one of my favorite books that I have ever read. It is about a character named Cassie who is trying to survive an alien invasion from "The Others." It also goes from the perspective of Ben Parish who is a boy that Cassie used to have a crush on before the invasion. And Cassie's younger brother Sammy. It goes through what is happening in each of their lives and how the invasion from the others has changed everything and everyone. I would recommend this book to anyone but this book is also a really long (about 450 pg)  and takes about two weeks.