8             ÙÙÙÙÙ

Moderately difficult            Marie

McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes.

Angela’s Ashes was the best book I’ve read this year. Frank McCourt did a great job telling his life story.  Frank and his family move back to Ireland from New York , hoping that their life would become better.  Rather than becoming better it gets worse. Frank’s dad drinks away the money every week and Frank and the rest of the family have to live on bread and tea, just making it by. Finally Frank gets sick of his life and starts saving money to go to America . He has many family members and friends die throughout the book, which makes it really hard to read.  I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read an amazing memoir, but if you can’t handle a sad book then I wouldn’t recommend it.

Scott Card, Orson. Enders Shadow.

ÙÙÙÙÙ Tymon, 9th grade 

Ender’s Shadow is Ender’s Game from a different person’s perspective.  I thought it was really good because it answered all of the questions that I had from Ender’s Game.  It was what some people might call a page turner because once you start reading it you can’t put it down.  The main character, Bean, is a very small compared to everyone else, but he is also very smart compared to all of the other kids.  He grew on the streets of Rotterdam and he had struggled to stay alive.  One day everything changed for Bean, he had the chance to go Battle School.  This book is definitely suitable for all high school students. 

Giff, Patricia Reilly. Pictures of Hollis Woods.  

 It is phenomenal to pick this book up and read it. The whole book is written in description of pictures. At first this book is a little hard to understand, it jumps back and forth in between it seems like two different lives, like what she has to what she could have or something, but then it all makes sense. She is having flashbacks and she is wishing that she didn’t do some of the things she did and how grateful for some other things she had done. She was abandoned as a child and was brought in by an adoption agency and was sent from home to home as a child. When she would decide that she had enough of a family she would pack her backpack and run away. After a few days of running the people from the agency would find her and bring her back and the whole thing would repeat. Then she found a family she really liked and they liked her too, but she broke there number one rule and because of it their was a very bad accident and she thought the family was going to hate her. She ran away again and continued moving from family to family. Will she ever have a true family to call her own?

Dickey, James.  Deliverance.  

                      Deliverance was a good book packed with action and suspense. The story begins when four men decide to take a camping trip and canoe downriver. Ed is the main character and there is also Lewis, Drew and Bobby. Lewis is the guy who puts the trip together and he knows the most about the outdoors. The four men drive to a hick town where they a couple guys to take their cars downriver for them. The trip starts off good until they run into a couple locals on their trip downriver. That’s when the action starts and some nasty stuff happens. After that the race is on, the four want to get out of there as soon as possible to survive. Ed takes things into his own hands when the locals come back for more.  

Feinstein, John.  The Last Shot.  

                   The Last Shot was a good book about a couple of teenagers who win a writing contest and get to go to the final four in New Orleans as reporters. Stevie and Susan Carol are the main characters and they overhear a conversation about blackmail during the championship game. The two try to figure things out but they are very short on time. They are both trying to write stories about the games and spend as much time with their dads as possible while trying to get to the bottom of the blackmail scheme. Then the day of the big game starts and that’s when the actions starts. The teens try as hard as possible to figure things out so Chip can hit the last shot.

London, Jack.  Call of the Wild 

The story of a dog that was stolen from his home and thrust into the Alaskan wilderness as a sled dog. He soon learns the law of club and fang. After ridding himself of several rivals he finds himself on top in one the sled dog teams in Alaska. The only problem with this book is that it is somewhat slow in the beginning. Other wise it isn’t bad.

Meyers, Walter Dean.  Bad Boy.  Scholastic.       

        Walter Dean Meyers was a young African American growing up during rough times, and in a bad town now known as Harlem.  Not knowing his own father and his mom struggling to support five kids, adoption was looking like a major issue.  Throughout, the book Walter explains his hard times with a sense of humor.  His style of writing turns everything around to make you view your life not so bad.  One example of his sense of humor is that while his moms at work he stayed home, and the food was scarce so all he ate was red freeze pops.  After weeks and weeks of red freeze pops his waste became pure red water and was easily mistaken for blood.  His mom rushed him to the hospital and turns out it was just the red food dye.  Having no food and starvation would be a serious matter to some but to Walter it was a joke, he explains through out the book that he never too anything for granted because it could always be worse.  I gave this book four out of five stars because it was cleverly written and funny form time to times.  I suggest this book to everyone with a sense of humor.