Archive for the ‘Conceptual: highly sophisticated’ Category
Friday, November 13th, 2009
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Suzanne Collins |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
I am not a fan of cliffhangers. I knew this one would be, and went to order the next one from the library and discovered that it will not be published for a WHOLE YEAR!
Anyway, I liked this one more than the first one. It had less scene by scene explanations of the horrible deaths of contestants entered in The Hunger Games.
|
The main character is attempting to start a rebellion against the evil Capitol, and gain freedom for the various districts. I could guess pretty early what was happening, but this is still a quick, fun, (if still going along with a very creepy idea) book.
I'd rate it at like a 3.5 or 3.75, or, maybe even a 4, out of 5.
-- Fizzy |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Catching Fire |
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Fiction, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Suzanne Collins |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2008 |
This sounds kinda negative, and I did enjoy it, but I do have a bit of a sour aftertaste after reading this:
I'm not sure how to rate this book. It was very disturbing: The whole point is that 24 teenagers all fight to the death. Yay. But it was also very gripping and exciting, and talked about the price of freedom. It definitely kept me up with vivid images in my head...
|
My biggest problem, though was the cliff-hanger ending. I ordered the second book before I had finished the first one because you can't just stop the story where the author does. A word of advice: the third one is not out yet, and the second one DOES NOT have a satisfying ending. If you like excitement, a bit of gore, and a little bit of mushy romance, this book is great.
-- Fizzy |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Hunger Games, The |
Tags:book review
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction, Sports | Comments Closed
Friday, September 18th, 2009
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Khaled Hosseini |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2008 |
An amazing book, but sooooo sad... I wish Hosseini could have given it a slightly happier ending. I think it is cool that we were able to see an up close and personal view of Afghanistan, even if it was not really a joyful thing to see. It shows how ignorant, I at least, am about the rest of the world.
|
I like how we get to see Amir's understanding of his life change as he grows up and figures out his needs and how to solve them (his need for forgiveness, of freedom of choice, and ideas, revenge...)
--Fizzy, age 14 |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Kite Runner, The |
Tags:afghanistan, book review, bullying, consequences of war, History, religion, suffering in war, war
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Fiction, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Markus Zusak |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2007 |
Good book. About a girl during the Holocaust, but on the side we don't usually hear: She is German, but suffering as well. In the very beginning of the book Liesel's brother dies, and she is shipped off to live with "scary" foster parents. And by the middle her family is trying to keep a Jew hidden, and still "Heil Hitler" everyone they see.
|
The story is told by Death, which is a little bit spooky sounding, but Zusak makes Death surprisingly compassionate. As Liesel has to face the terrors of WW2, Death adds his two cents every once in a while, giving the story an interesting edge, especially because he tells us the climax of the book in the beginning, and makes us read all the way through for an explanation.
-- Fiz, age 14
|
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Book Thief, The |
Tags:book review, Gifted, History, Holocaust, suffering in war
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Irving Stone |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Fiction, biography |
| Year of publication: | 1961 |
Reading this novelized biography of Michelangelo just now, after so recently reading the non-fictionalized Dancing To the Precipice was probably a mistake.
I did read The Agony and the Ecstasy to the end and found it mostly interesting, but -- so many unexplained wars, duplicate names, minor characters, changes of venue. Seems to me if you are going to fictionalize, you might want to streamline. If there are three characters named Ludovico, maybe rename one to be Vico?
I did learn a lot of facts, or at least I think they were facts, about Michelangelo's life and the history of the Papacy and the Italian city states. What I did not learn, and missed, was a bit more of an explanation about why this talented, obsessed artist allowed himself to be so taken advantage of? And why did the patrons who claimed to admire him so much abuse his gifts rather than help nurture them? I understand that they might need to use their enormous wealth to pay their armies, but -- Why the law suits? Why did so many popes ask the impossible when they clearly wanted Michelangelo to do great work for them?
|
The story felt to me like a history text, but because the text was labeled "fictionalized", I was never sure which parts were factual.
Seems like Irving Stone's message to us about Michelangelo is that his obsession with working marble led him to make foolish business decisions. But if he had not been so totally obsessed with working marble, would he have had the fortitude to keep on struggling given the financial strain he was under his entire life? On the other hand, maybe if he had refused to take on some projects until they were funded, he would have found himself under less financial strain?
|
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Agony and the Ecstasy, The: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo |
Tags:art, european history, Gifted, History, history of art, italian history, michaelangelo, papacy
Posted in Biography, Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Friday, August 28th, 2009
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Caroline Moorehead |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | non-fiction, history |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
Lucie de la Tour du Pin was born into an aristocratic family, served as lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette in her early adulthood, then went on to marry for love (not common in those days), birth and lose many children, and survive the treacherous political turmoils that began with the French Revolution.
After reading this book, I was not certain I understood much more than I did before about the French Revolution, but I did empathize a great deal more than I had before with the French aristocracy of that time. For example, Moorehead continually implies that Talleyrand was evil (and was he so terrible compared to the many other participants of the Terror??!!!) but never quite tells us what awful things he did.
|
Starting in mid-life, Lucie began a memoir, not published until long after she died, and I assume that Moorehead used this document as the basis for much of her narrative.
Which probably explains why the author flits between levels of detail; there are weeks of Lucie's life described down to the taste of the food she ate but then whole years pass without much information. I came away convinced not that history is written by the victors (a quote attributed, but not definitively assigned to Winston Churchill), but instead that history is written by those who write things down.
Not a book for the sensitive reader, but a fascinating description of an "ordinary", if upperclass, women who played a small part in history and lived to tell us about it. |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era |
Tags:American Revolution, consequences of war, French Revolution, suffering in war, Terror, war, women in history
Posted in Biography, Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Gifted, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Mario Livio |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Non-fiction, biography |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
I never thought I'd get my fill of non-fiction books about mathematicians. And this is not really a bad one. Maybe it was the silly title and the author's transition from that religious question to the more chicken-and-egg question: Do humans invent mathematics or do they discover mathematical principles? |
Guess my question is, "Why do I care?"
Anyway, I found Livio's discussion of the achievements and ideas of the Greeks, including Pythagoras, very interesting.
-- Emily |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Is God a Mathematician? |
Tags:academia, Biography, book review, Gifted, History, history of math, history of philosophy, mathematics, philosophy
Posted in Biography, Conceptual level, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Gifted, History, Math, Reading level, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science | Comments Closed
Sunday, July 19th, 2009
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Phillip Pullman |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
|
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
|
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1999 |
This book is really cool: it doesn't have very much big vocabulary but it really goes deeply into the ideas of what is human or not and how our souls manifest themselves.
It also approaches the question of faith versus science, and blindly following versus scoping out your paths.
-- Fizzy, age 14
|
As a parent, I have concerns about the themes and plot of this novel and the others in this series, which involve abuse and murder of children and other adult themes.
Please see The Golden Compass for my thoughts.
-- Emily |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Subtle Knife, The |
Tags:book review, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, religion
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Dickensian, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Marilynne Robinson |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2008 |
Beautifully written, desperately sad novel that seems to prove that love, family, friendship, faith, words, and circumstances sometimes collude to defeat well-meant efforts to escape the trap of alcoholism. |
The book traps readers too. It is not divided into chapters. So there you will be, at 2 in the morning, just waiting to get to the end of the chapter. And, an hour or two later, you realize -- there hasn't been one.
-- Emily Berk |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Home |
Tags:alcoholism, book review, novel
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Nikita Lalwani |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
|
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
|
| Genre: | Fiction, parenting |
Unless you have been through it yourself, it is probably impossible to understand how challenging it is to parent a gifted child.
The gifted child in this story, the daughter of two immigrants from India, is identified in kindergarten by a teacher who seems not to understand that being a gifted child might not be an unmitigated blessing and that raising a gifted child may not be as easy as it would seem.
Rumika Vasi's father determines to honor her giftedness by yanking her out of the public school and forcing her to concentrate almost entirely on mathematics. Her mother is overwhelmed and threatened by British culture and defers to her husband.
By the time Rumika lives up to her father's dream -- being accepted to Oxford at 14 -- Rumika feels isolated, deeply resentful of her intellectual gifts, almost -- determined to throw them away.
|
The book comes off, a bit, as an indictment of raising a gifted child as an immigrant parent. But I think that parenting a child who is smarter than you are is difficult in any culture. Being culturally displaced may make that even more difficult, perhaps. But being the parent of any child who is vastly different from his or her peers is always going to be hugely challenging.
My review of another incisive novel about parenting a gifted child can be found here: excerpt. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Gifted |
Tags:Gifted, immigration, mathematics
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: Sophisticated reader, School | Comments Closed
