Counting By 7s reviewed by Leo F

Counting By 7s

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Counting By 7s is a very sad book. It is about a girl named Willow Chance. She loves to garden. And when she's bored, she counts by 7s. (Hence the book title.) Willow is going into middle school. Her class has to take a test that the whole US is taking. When she's done, and she handed it in, the teacher calls her over. The teacher says, "You got an 100% on this test, no ones ever done that before. Did you cheat?" Willow gets sent to the principal, then has to go to a man named Dell Duke. Later, something tragic happens.

My Review

I would give this book 5 stars (Out of 5). It was sad, but I liked it. This book would be good for boys and girls, but if you can't handle tragedies, don't read it. I really liked this book. It's long, but it's good. I would recommend this book.

The Phantom Limb, book review by Judea W

The book I read is called The Phantom Limb. It is an action adventure book and kind of creepy. I personally liked it, I thought it was a brilliant book. It was recommended by my family. It all starts out with a boy named Isaac that goes through a hard time in his life. His dad dies and his mom went into deep depression and started to have seizures. His grandma died and his grandpa is in deep depression and is unresponsive. He moves from his nice house and moves to a stinky apartment in the city, because his mom has to get to a hospital close enough for biking distance.

A mysterious box comes to Isaac's door. It said it was a mirror box. It has two holes for two arms. When he puts one of his hands into the box, whatever he does with his right hand feels the same on his left hand, even though his left hand isn't moving. The next day he went to the mirror box and he saw a hand in the mirror on the box and it was not his hand. It was holding a smiley face on it, but the smile wasn't happy it was an evil smile.

Chomp Reviewed by Leila I

This is a book told from the view of a tough young boy, Wahoo, and his desperate father, Mickey. In search of money for the family, they come across a reality show for an "explorer" named Derek Badger. Along the way, they meet an abandoned girl, Tuna, who's drunk father is nowhere to be seen. Derek Badger is finally in search of a real mission, but as Wahoo expected, he gets himself lost in the wilderness, forcing everyone to try to find him.
This book really inspired me to be grateful person and never give up. It has a positive message in it, which you have to figure out. I would give it a 10 out of 10!

Emma S's book review on My One Hundred Adventures

My book is about a girl named Jane Fielding and she wants to be able to have one hundred adventures during the summer. One day in church, she prays for one hundred adventures to happen, and she actually receives some adventures. During the summer she only has 14 adventures in all but she tells herself that if any happen during the school year she will not avoid them.
I thought this book was really good and exciting and I would rate it for boys and girls who like books that have problems that lead to more problems and lead to explanations and mysteries. I would also rate this book a 9 out of 10 because it got a bit dull to read at times.

The Lost Hero reviewed by Daniel S

I read the Lost Hero, it is part of the sequel series to the Percy Jackson series. It is about a boy named Jason who lost all his memories, but one name he remembered Thalia Grace. He is a half-blood but something is different he has marks on his arm and the letters SPQR burned on his arm; Jason remembers his name also and he really wants to get his memory back so he is willing to do anything for it.

I would rate this book a 7 out of 10 because the plot was very interesting, but the characters were a little dull that is why I rated it a 7 because it held my attention but it didn't want to make me read it non stop.

Hugh S book report on The Hardy Boys

The book I read was Hardy Boys, The Tower Treasure. It is written by Franklin W. Dixon. The tower treasure starts out with the hardy friend's car getting stolen so they have to find the car. It takes them awhile to find it and finally they do, but they find a wig in the car. They go around the whole city of Bay port to all the wig shops and none of them seem to have sold the wig to anyone. Later in the week they hear that they had a robbery at the mansion on the hill so the hardy boys have to figure out who did it. I think this is a good book and I think if you like detective books, then this is the book for you.

A Wrinkle in Time reviewed by Leila I

A Wrinkle In Time reviewed by Leila 

     This is the story of awkward, little Meg, and her genius 5 year old brother, Charles Wallace. They're on a quest to rescue her father from another world, in another dimension. Along the way, Meg meets an older boy named Calvin O'Keefe, and of course, the Mrs. W's, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which.
     I really enjoyed this book. The writing was fantastic and it was so hard to put down. Many of my friends have read and enjoyed this book. The only reason I waited for so long to read it is because I'm normally not a big fan of the fantasy genre, but clearly I was wrong. I would give this book an 11 out of 10 for anyone who wants to get lost in a story.

Heir Apparent reviewed by Daniel S

     The book that I read is called Heir Apparent. It is about a girl Giannine who gets a gift certificate to Rasmussem Enterprises, a virtual reality game simulator where you go inside the game and you are the character (for example you are Mario in Super Mario Galaxy). She is looking for a game to play. After looking for the right game she finds Heir Apparent a game where she is the princess and she is the daughter of the king who died and the king chooses her to be the heir to the throne. After trying the game many times to try and beat it, but she keeps dying. One life when she is sitting in her bedroom, Nigel Rasmussem (the maker of Rassmussem enterprises) comes to her and tells her that if she doesn't beat the game within 5 hours (five hours in real time is 10 days of game time) she will suffer major brain damage and possibly get killed. Nigel also tells her that if she needs to get the ring for her to be successful. When she dies next time instead of leaving for the castle as she normally does without waiting for her father, she decided to wait for her father and ask him about the ring(by the way she is with an adopted family who she thinks is her real parents). Her adopted father tells her that the ring is with a warrior poet. Giannine goes to the warrior poet and the poet tells her that if the warrior poet doesn't like her poem she gets killed. She tells a good poem and gets the ring and she goes to meet the royal family as she does every time.
     The royal family wants to kill her as always but one of the brothers gets her out of  it and she goes and tries to figure out what she can do. She wins the game by killing the dragon and getting the kings old crown and give it to a band of barbarians. After persuading and fighting she makes her way to the dragon where she has to get the crown back. She defeats the dragon and gets the crown back. She then goes back to the castle where she is having a feast for saving everyone. When she sips the soup she starts feeling drowsy like she has been poisoned she starts blanking out. She is thinking that she is going to die now because she ran out of tries and she lost. Will she have defeated the game for nothing or will she survive? Read the book to find out.

     I would rate this book a 9 because the characters were likeable and the story was really really good and interesting. I would rate it that because the plot is so different from most of these genre of books because it's doesn't say if you lose you die the book says if you don't do well you die. Also the characters and so we thought of and you really feel like you know them. I hope you read Heir Apparent.

Sent from my iPad

Sent from my iPad

Leviathan review by Alejandro S.

Alejandro
Leviathan is about a boy named Aleck and a girl named Deryn. Now this is set at the start of World War I, the two sides the Clankers and the Darwinists.  Deryn and Aleck are not on the same side... Aleck is the heir of the Austro Hungarian thrown. Deryn is a commoner girl who is dying to get into the British Air Force so she disguised herself as a boy. It works; she gets on to a ship called the Leviathan and while she is doing that Aleck's parents are killed so he is on the run. They meet up in Switzerland and their adventure begins.

This book is extremely good. I recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy and adventure and non fiction. I would give this book :) :) :) :) :) smiley faces.

My Life As A Book reviewed by Leo Flora

My Life As A Book Review

Genre: comedy, mystery and realistic fiction

My Life As A Book is about a kid named Derek. Derek's mom is a veterinarian, and his dad is a cartoonist. School's over and it's summer break! He finds a newspaper in his attic about a girl who died at Martha's Vineyard. Derek wants to find out why his mom has this during summer break, with learning camps, teacher's pets, grandmas, helper monkeys, and answers.

     Rating: 4 stars

It was very funny and interesting. If you ever read My Life As A Daredevil, and you liked it, you will like this one too. This book has a lot of animals in it, and drawings. It has some downsides, but, overall it's a good book.

Long Walk for Water by Hugh S

The book I read was a Long Walk for Water. It is written by Linda Sue Park. The book is about a boy named Salva and a girl named Nya. The way the book is written is weird because it only tells Nya's story at the beginning of every chapter and then Salva's for the rest.

2008 Sudan
Nya is a girl who lives in Sudan and has to walk to water every day. The only problem is the water is not clean. So they need to get clean water. One day a group of men come with a drill and start making a pump for their village. Read the book to find out who is the man who builds the well.

Sudan 1985
Salva is a boy who lives in Sudan when the war is going on. His school gets bombed one day and he runs away from the town he's in and has to get out of Sudan. So he has a very adventurous journey and gets to a refugee camp on the border of Sudan and gets picked to go to America. So he goes to America and meets his new family. Read the book to find out what he does

Welcome to our blog

This is where we will place our book reviews. I look forward to creating a useful tool for all of us.

Mr. McDonnell

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Alex McDonnell

Summer Programs Director

5th Grade Language Arts/Social Studies