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| Author: | Elizabeth Enright |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1957 |
Newbury Award winning novel. Kind of spooky adventure in which almost nothing happens but in an involving sort of way. | |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Gone-Away Lake | |
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| Author: | Michael Chabon |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 5 and under |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | Fantasy |
| Year of publication: | 2002 |
Very long tribute to the magical powers of baseball to heal divisions between people and damage to the Earth. Intense enough so that my daughter who is not exceptionally interested in baseball kept having to check back with me to reassure herself that the story really would end in a satisfactory way (happily, that is). It also kept her intensely interested, and it gave her a new -- awe for -- the concept of the "Coyote". | |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Summerland | |
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| Author: | Douglas Adams |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | Science fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1980 |
The book is pretty good but the audio recording of the BBC Radio production is our favorite. Once you read this the number 42 will take on a whole new meaning for you. Boy is it sad that Douglas Adams is no longer with us. | |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | |
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| Author: | Zilpha Keatly Snyder |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction, magic |
| Year of publication: | 1967 |
Realistic adventures of some children who think hard about their make-believe. The plot does involve a series of child murders, but these are not described in any detail. | |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Egypt Game | |
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| Author: | Alfred Rosa |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | College-prep |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | College-prep |
| Genre: | non-fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1997 |
by Alfred Rosa and Paul Eschholz Published by Bedford/St Martins Models for Writers seems to be very appropriate for the in-the-box sort of essay required on SATs and college applications. The target audience is a first year college student, yet the text does not pander or seem to assume the student can not think for him/herself. Also the text is not excessive on what I can best term to be "hip and cool": this being the attempt by the authors/publisher to appeal to some imagined college teen fixated upon MTV, fashion dictates, etc. The book also seems very appropriate for the younger teen. This is in contrast to many of the books that had essays dealing with the angst of teenhood to excess. There are many excellent samples of essays, many by well known authors, to illustrate the various points the book is trying to teach. | |
We are just beginning to use this book but to date, find the arrangement and presentation of the book very acceptable. The book clearly breaks down the elements of the essay and spends a full chapter (with outstanding examples), on this. Thesis, Unity, Organization, Beginnings and Endings, Paragraphs, Transistions, and Effective Sentences all merit separate chapters. A portion of the book is devoted to discussion and examples of the language of essays (Diction and Tone, Figurative Language). The balance of the text is devoted to different types of essays: Illustration; Narration; Description; Process Analysis; Definition; Division and Classification; Comparison and Contrast; Cause and Effect; and finally Argument. A nice plus of this text is the inclusion of a Thematic Contents which lists the essays used for example by theme: Family; Friends and Friendship; People and Personalities; Life and Death; Men and Women; The Minority Experience; Science and Technology; Observing Nature; Work and Play; Language and thought; Enduring Issues; Popular Culture; Education; The Urban Experience; Health and Medicine; Writers and Writing. | |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Models for Writers: Short Essays for Compostion, 8th ed | |
A review by a guest commentator
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| Author: | Alice McLerran |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2000 |
Smoothly told tale of a group of people who band together to raise a dragon. Confronts the reality of "scientists who would intervene" without making them out to be evil. | |
Contrasts nicely with Song of the Gargoyle -- Emily Berk | |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Dragonfly | |
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| Author: | Mark Helprin |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1983 |
New York-state-based magical realism. One of our favorite books. | |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Winter's Tale | |
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| Author: | Christopher Paolini |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2005 |
We found Eragon, the first book in this trilogy (as of Spring, 2006, the third is not yet published), so involving that we were not sure we would survive until we read Eldest. And, well, Eldest is ok. We are certainly going to read the next book in the series, just as soon as we can get our eyes on it.But Eldest, like many of the middle volumes of many trilogies, was much more of a chore and less of a pleasure to read than Eragon was. | |
Perhaps this is because Eldest intersperses the interesting tale of Eragon's formal education as a Dragonrider with the travails of Eragon's cousin, Roran. While Eragon gets to hang out with the beautiful, gentle, self-involved, enigmatic Elves, Roran faces the wrath of the evil Empire pretty much on his own. And poor Roran, unlike Eragon, lacks many of the advantages that make Eragon's struggles tolerable. For example, Eragon has a dragon who has endowed Eragon with super-human abilities. Roran would also have benefited from a mentor who could have explained why the Empire was inflicting atrocity after atrocity upon Roran and his village. Roran can rely only on his considerable mental, political, and physical talents, fueled by his passion for his love, Katrina, to empower him to save himself and his fellow villagers. Eldest is bleak, much, much bleaker than Eragon. In fact, so bleak that my daughter and I often found ourselves hard-pressed to keep reading. On the other hand, when, at one point, Roran finally managed to score one of his several victories over his oppressors, my daughter was surprised and impressed. "Way to go, Roran," she cried. And meant it. I mean, many of the characters are very interesting, likeable even, even some of the not-so-savory ones. We certainly did want to know what happened to them and wished them well.Many reviews of Paolini's books have mentioned how derivative they are of the Lord of the Ring books. Since I am not much of a fan of LOTR, I can't address this point by point. Eragon certainly borrows conventions and plot twists from earlier dragon-based fantasies. It's impossible to not notice Eragon's debts to Anne Mccaffrey's dragon books. Eldest steals from other conventions as well; it seems to incorporate some Star War-ish motifs, and not to its great benefit. However, I was not overly troubled by these borrowings; I think they happen often in fantasy. What I care about is how well a book immerses us in the lives of the characters and the lands in which they find themselves. Paolini has done a good job, I think, of describing the cultures of the Elves and the towns and villages through which Roran and his allies pass. For example, when Paolini documents the way Eragon finds himself helpless to stop in his romantic pursuit of Arya, an Elf who may be nearly a century older than he is -- well, it is embarrassing, heart-breaking, and, while my daughter and I kept hoping Eragon would just stop making Arya feel that she was being stalked, we felt it rang very, very true. We pitied Eragon and sympathized with Arya for having to (repeatedly) reject him. "She's HUNDREDS of years older than you, stupid," my daughter exclaimed at one point.And there are other very lovely touches here -- Paolini's explanation of how Eragon becomes a vegetarian, for example, and the complex rules he lays out governing the use and language of magic. On the other hand, beware of graphic violence and a pervasive sense of dread in the face of overwhelming, evil enemies determined to crush the life out of Eragon, Roran, and everyone they know. And know that this sense of overwhelming danger is not resolved by the end of this, the middle, of the trilogy.-- Emily Berk | |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Eldest (Book 2 of Paolini's Inheritance trilogy) | |