Monthly Archives: May 2015

May 31, 2015 · 8:03 am

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling is a collection of stories about wild animals. There are several stories about Mowgli, the man cub who is adopted by a wolf, a story about a white seal, the story of the mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a story about elephant workers, and more. Most of the stories are kind of random and a bit strange, interspersed with vaguely related poem/songs. I did not find the book to be very enjoyable.

2 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2015: 49
Pages Read in 2015: 13,124
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May 28, 2015 · 7:33 am

Bambi: A Life in the Woods by Felix Salten

Bambi: A Life in the Woods by Felix Salten follows deer named Bambi from his birth through adulthood. Bambi experiences many adventures and learns about all the creatures of the forest as well as the dreaded Him (hunters) as he struggles to survive. Bambi is a good, albeit depressing, book.

3 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2015: 48
Pages Read in 2015: 12,990
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May 23, 2015 · 6:20 pm

King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green

King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green is a retelling of the King Arthur stories for children. The stories follow many years in the course of the Kingdom of Logres from Merlin’s creation of the round table to the downfall of the kingdom due to the relationship between Launcelot and Guinevere (which is dealt with very appropriately for child readers). The epilogue leaves the reader wondering if King Arthur is truly dead or not and whether, one day, Logres will return. Sometimes the stories are a little graphic, but for the most part this is a great collection of stories.

4 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2015: 47
Pages Read in 2015: 12,716
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May 23, 2015 · 5:36 pm

Snake Oil by T. Ford

Third grader Justin Calloway has a big problem. He has some major test anxiety and keeps doing poorly on his tests. He discovers the solution to his problem on the back of a Rubberband Man comic: Snake Oil, guaranteed to increase your test scores. He orders it and it seems to work. Meanwhile, Justin is trying to find out if the rumor that the old lady down the street has a stuffed dead cat is true. Little does he know the old lady down the street holds the key to some crazy side effects from the snake oil.

In the book it very clearly states that Justin is in the 3rd grade, which would be 8 or 9 years old. In other places, however, blurbs about the book say he is 11 or 12 (his behavior is consistent with a 3rd grader). This is just one of the problems with this book. Right at the beginning it says he has a math test and then suddenly he took a science test instead and did well enough on it that his friend could come spend the night. I read the book out loud to my boys and they liked the story. It was cute, albeit a bit weird. But it is not a book I could just hand to my kid to read. The whole time I had to edit just to make it coherent. There were quotation marks out of place, tenses would change randomly, point of view changed a few times, the same thing would be repeated slightly differently over and over and over in a conversation. It was a mess. I felt like I was reading a rough draft of a book that could be very good. The way it is currently, I simply cannot recommend Snake Oil by T. Ford.

1 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2015: 46
Pages Read in 2015: 12,331
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May 16, 2015 · 5:36 pm

Dangerous by Shannon Hale

Maisie Brown’s middle name literally is Danger, but she’s not Dangerous. Not until astronaut boot camp that is. Maisie’s a half-Latina, one-armed, homeschooled girl living a quiet life in Salt Lake City. She wants to be an astronaut and when the chance to win three weeks at space camp comes in a cereal box, she enters the contest. At astronaut boot camp she meets Wilder, a super rich hot guy with a sinister father, Mi-Sun, an 11-year-old, Jacques, a whiz at Name That Tune, and Ruth, who is no fan of Maisie. The five of them get the chance to go up a space elevator where they are infected with alien tokens that change them in very specific ways. One becomes a thinker and leader of the fireteam, one develops brute strength, one can build his own body armor with his skin, one can shoot anything faster and harder than a gun, and one can suddenly understand the inner workings of technology. Suddenly, Maisie’s life is a bit too exciting and dangerous, particularly when it becomes her job to save the world. Literally.

Dangerous by Shannon Hale is an amazing book. The romance between Maisie and Wilder is perfect and the non-romance between Maisie and her best friend Luther is hilarious. It’s nice that she is homeschooled but is a normal person. Homeschooling is just how she happens to be educated (like the vast majority of real life homeshoolers). As always, Shannon Hale describes things vividly bringing the story to life in the mind. I found myself thinking more than once that the book would make a pretty good movie. I could barely put the book down (which does get a bit annoying when reading at night… “just one more chapter” turns into 10 or 12). I highly recommend this book!

5 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2015: 44
Pages Read in 2015: 12,013
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Applied to Category for Special Reading Challenge: A book by a female author

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May 11, 2015 · 2:37 pm

Psych’s Guide to Crime Fighting for the Totally Unqualified by Shawn Spencer with Burton Guster

Become a fake detective (the psychic part, fake or not, is up to you) just by reading Psych’s Guide to Crime Fighting for the Totally Unqualified by Shawn Spencer with Burton Guster (who don’t actually exist outside of a TV show). Actually, you only have to read page 1 to become a detective because Shawn says so. Topics include setting up shop, picking your sidekick (who is definitely not a partner), working with cops and coroners of all kinds, and wrapping up your case with an awesome breakdown. There are recipes by Harry Spencer (bath salts) and Mr. Yang (twice baked potatoes) and magazine articles about/by such annoyances as Declan Rand and Cameron Luntz and an illuminating interview with Chief Vick and her sister, Commander Dunlap. Sprinkled throughout are very important quizzes (you must pass to be a detective… or not since you became a detective on page 1) and thumbprint doodles from the creative brain (and thumb) of Juliet O’Hara. This book is, as one would expect, hilarious. A must read for Psychos and fans of delicious flavor.

5 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2015: 43
Pages Read in 2015: 11,605
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Applied to Category for Special Reading Challenge: A book based on or turned into a TV show

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May 9, 2015 · 8:01 pm

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley

Alec and a giant black stallion are shipwrecked on a small island. Slowly, the two become friends and the wild horse allows Alec to ride him. Once they get home, Alec’s neighbor encourages Alec to learn to race the Black. After a while, a reporter learns about the Black and Alec finds himself invited to race the two best horses in horseracing.

The Black Stallion was a fine book, but I didn’t love it. It was just okay. There wasn’t anything wrong with the book. I was just not interested in the subject matter. It would be an excellent book for anyone who loves horses.

3 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2015: 42
Pages Read in 2015: 11,315
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Applied to Category for Special Reading Challenge: A book with a color in the title

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May 7, 2015 · 1:38 pm

Homecoming by Kass Morgan

Homecoming by Kass Morgan, the final book of The Hundred trilogy, opens with dropships full of people from the Colony crash landing on Earth. Unfortunately, Vice Chancellor Rhodes has survived and jumps right in to running things exactly how they were run on the ship. This includes immediately sentencing Bellamy to death. Bellamy, Wells, and Clarke decide to move in with Sasha and the friendly Earthborns and Glass and Luke head out on their own to escape Rhodes’s dictatorship.

As with the other books, Homecoming is written in alternating focus on Wells, Bellamy, Clarke, and Glass. It is the strongest of the three books in the trilogy. There are fewer flashbacks needed (though the Kindle formatting of the flashbacks is awful this time – in the first book they were obvious because they were in italics, in the second book they were are little more difficult because they were just a smaller font size, but in this third book they were terrible because they were barely a smaller font at all so, nearly every time, I had to stop and go back once I realized it was a flashback). I read the entire trilogy in three days because I really didn’t want to put the books down, they were that good. With about 13% left in this last book, I didn’t know how the author was going to tie it all up satisfactorily, but she most definitely did. The ending is perfect, though it was a bit sad getting there. Highly recommended!

5 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2015: 41
Pages Read in 2015: 11,089
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Applied to Category for Special Reading Challenge: A trilogy (book 3)

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May 7, 2015 · 1:17 pm

Day 21 by Kass Morgan

In the second book of The Hundred series, Day 21 by Kass Morgan, the kids on earth are figuring out how to survive while in space the ship is breaking apart and running out of oxygen. Once again, the book is told from alternating focus on Wells, Clarke, Bellamy, and Glass. Wells follows in his father’s footsteps of being a great leader, Clarke discovers what she believes about her parents may not be true at all, Bellamy is focused on getting his sister back from the Earthborns, and Glass realizes almost too late that she needs to get off the dying ship.

Middle books of dystopian trilogies are often just not as good as the other two books, but this is not the case with Day 21. There are fewer flashbacks in this one than in the first book, but the ones included really help gain understanding of the characters’ motivations. I found myself barely able to put the book down because I really wanted to know what would happen next. The last two or three chapters are the best with, like in the first book, some pretty dramatic twists.

4 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2015: 40
Pages Read in 2015: 10,743
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Applied to Category for Special Reading Challenge: A trilogy (book 2)

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May 5, 2015 · 7:23 am

The 100 by Kass Morgan

Three-hundred years post-cataclysm, there are problems on the spaceship holding all of what is believed to be left of the human race. The ship is breaking down so one-hundred teenage inmates are chosen to be sent to earth to determine if the radiation levels have dropped and if it is once again inhabitable. The chapters alternate between following Bellamy, who forced his way onto the dropship to protect his younger sister, Glass, who escaped just before the dropship left and is still on the main ship, Wells, the Chancellor’s son, who committed a crime in order to be sent to earth with Clarke, and Clarke, who, because she was Confined because of a secret Wells shared, wants nothing to do with him.

Though the writing sometimes leaves something to be desired, The 100 by Kass Morgan is extremely engaging. Sometimes I could not put it down because I wanted to know why the characters did what they did and what got them sent to Confinement and then to earth. The alternating close third person format with flashbacks in many of the chapters works extremely well. This is an excellent start to the trilogy with an incredible cliffhanger in the very last line that makes you want to read the second book immediately!

4 (out of 5) Stars

Books Read in 2015: 39
Pages Read in 2015: 10,426
Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks (more book reviews!)
Applied to Category for Special Reading Challenge: A trilogy (book 1)

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