Archive for the ‘Reading level: age 12 and up’ Category
Monday, July 6th, 2009
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| Author: | Lynne Ewing |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Science fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2000 |
Very quick.
Unrealistic and puts the "high-school-girls-should-just-go-around-trying-to-get-a-boyfriend" spin on life. It's about this girl named Jennifer who discovers that she can turn invisible because she is a goddess.
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Not deep, but kinda fun and cute... maybe took me two or three hours to read.
--Fizzy, age 14 |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Goddess of The Night (Daughters of the Moon, Book 1) |
Tags:book review, Gifted, high school
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Sunday, July 5th, 2009
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| Author: | Terry Pratchett |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
As usual with Pratchett, this book is witty, often downright, funny, but it also has to do with real life problems.
The plot follows a girl who wants (and is destined) to be a wizard, but is not allowed to be because she is a girl. Wizarding is OBVIOUSLY only for boys. But as little kids do, she doesn't really understand the situation and so proves that she CAN be whatever she wants. |
Loved it.
-- Fizzy, age 14
Note: This novel is in Pratchett's Discworld series, which is not calibrated for young adult readers. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Equal Rites (Discworld #3) |
Tags:academia, book review, feminism, feminist literature, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, women in academia
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
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Many of the most gifted people I know have a tendency to get obsessed by things. Some suffer from serial obsessions. (See, for an extreme example, The Orchid Thief.) Others are less extreme.
But none of us/them seems to be able to say WHY/HOW their thing came to obsess them.
Which brings us to The Ramen Girl, a fascinating movie about a young American woman who is abandoned in Japan by her boyfriend and becomes obsessed with cooking ramen noodles.
One of the wonderful things about this movie is that the Japanese actors in it speak Japanese (there are subtitles) and the American actors speak English and very often they simply don’t understand each other and we don’t HAVE to read the subtitles, so we can put ourselves in their shoes.
Another thing that is simply wonderful about the movie is that it allows us to kind of understand how magical ramen is to Abby, our stranded American heroine, who is obviously a bit flighty otherwise. We see her realize that eating excellent ramen makes people cry, and makes them laugh, makes them share their emotions in ways they would otherwise never do. We see that this is silly, but we know that, to Abby, this is compelling.
This movie reminded me of the movie Tampopo, in that it is about a woman obsessed with cooking heavenly ramen. However, this film includes less sexual content and instead focuses on the cultural differences and similarities between Americans and Japanese.
We watched this movie with our 14 yr. old. There were some scenes we might have skipped over if we’d been on our toes, including an unnecessary few seconds of Abby in bed with her boyfriend when the movie begins. Also, one of Abby’s American friends claims to work as a call girl (she says \”geisha\”), but it’s not clear that she actually does.
Not a fast-paced adventure, but an adventure none-the-less. Highly recommended for mature teens and grown-ups.
— Emily
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this move: The Ramen Girl
Tags:American in Japan, cooking, film review, Japanese culture, Japanese/American cultural differences, movie review, obsession, ramen
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Sunday, June 21st, 2009
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| Author: | Terry Pratchett |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
Really cool book about a conspiracy to kill the Hogfather, who is like Santa Claus in Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
Death's granddaughter Susan, along with a toothfairy and the oh-god of hangovers have to save the world.
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The book is great because the people and places are almost like our own, but with a bit of a twist.
-- Fizzy, age 14
Note: This novel is in Pratchett's Discworld series, which is not calibrated for young adult readers. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Hogfather |
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Monday, May 25th, 2009
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| Author: | Daniel Tammet |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | Non-fiction: Science |
| Year of publication: | 2009 |
Daniel Tammet is autistic, intellectually gifted, and synesthesic. This book, a follow-on to his autobiography, is billed as a "...book about the mind -- its nature and abilities. It combines ... the latest neuroscientific research with [Tammet's] personal reflections and detailed descriptions of [his] abilities and experiences. [Tammet's] ... intention is to show that differently functioning brains ... are not so strange ... and that anyone can learn from them ... [and to] clear up many misconceptions about the nature of savant abilities and what it means to be intelligent or gifted."
Great intentions; I agree they are worthwhile. But, I fear, a disappointing execution. Or, perhaps, I am not gifted enough to understand the arguments. But, really, to use the outcome of the US Presidential Election of 2000 to "prove" that the Electoral College works? Without mentioning that this election was decided by the Supreme Court and not really by the Electoral College? Seems to me that using the ideas of one person, even one admittedly highly gifted person, as a model for the prototypical smart person from whom we can all learn to think is -- misguided? |
Well, anyway, I certainly admire and even envy many of Mr. Tammet's abilities and accomplishments. And, again, I sympathize deeply with his goal of helping others less gifted than he is learn to observe the world around them more intently and reason out their opinions rather than blindly accept "common wisdom", which is often not correct.
On the other hand, and this is something that both of my gifted daughters had figured out by the time they were 11, if not before, Just because someone is gifted, that doesn't mean they know all the answers.
Judging from the stated premise of this book and its execution, I am not sure that Tammet is actually as smart as my high school student. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind |
Tags:autism, book review, Gifted, synesthesia
Posted in Biography, Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science | Comments Closed
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
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| 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
Saturday, May 16th, 2009
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| Author: | Shannon Hale |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction, science fiction |
This book is based on the Grimm's fairy tale about a princess who was betrayed by her maid and forced to be a goose girl. In the fairy tale, in the end the maid gets killed in a coffin filled with nails as revenge... I don't know why, but i expected the author to write an alternate ending to this story.
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That all sounds very negative, but i did like this book, because it told the story of someone who was not good around people (she needed to "step up") but ended up rallying many sad people together to save all their lives.
--Fizzy, age 14
Note: As might be gathered from the description of the original fairy tale, the plot of this story involves death, humiliation, and great suffering on the part of the protagonist and her friends. |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Goose Girl, The |
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, 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 3rd, 2009
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| Author: | Wendy Mass |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
I loved this book. It is about this girl named Mia who has this syndrome called synesthesia. Some different parts than usual are connected in her brain, so that letters and sounds have colors (this is real!) Her cat's name is Mango. In the book she learns that she is the "weird" one in her school and has to deal with it, because at first she thinks she's crazy.
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Anyway, really good book: lots of emotions and colors. There is one really sad part, though.
-- Fizzy, age 14
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Mango-Shaped Space, A |
Posted in Animals, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up, School | Comments Closed
Thursday, December 11th, 2008
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| Author: | Chaim Potok |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1967 |
WAS:Orthodox Jewish boy trying to decide what to be when he grows up.
Flippant. Flippant. And, entirely unfair to this book.
It is the middle of World War II and most citizens of the US are still unaware of what is happening to the Jews of Europe. Reuven Malther, an Orthodox Jew, is severely injured in a baseball game by a ball pitched by Danny Saunders, a Hasidic (much more fundamentalist) Jew. They become friends and as a result they, and we, learn a great deal about the different styles of parenting, religious observation, and reactions to the formation of the state of Israel, among believers in different branches of Judaism. |
More generally, this is a story about parents struggling to figure out how to raise their gifted sons to honor their religious heritage and to reach their potential.
And it is about gifted boys realizing that they may not be called to follow in their fathers' footsteps.
"A very sad book," my 12 yr. old says. "But well worth reading." My other daughter called me from college to recommend the "sequel" (It's not about the same characters, but the themes are similar): My Name is Ascher Lev. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Chosen, The |
Tags:Baseball, Gifted, Hasidic, Holocaust, Jew, Jewish, Parenting gifted children, World War II homefront
Posted in Baseball, Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up, School, Sports | Comments Closed
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
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Tags:1776, American Revolution, consequences of war, Declaration of Independence, George Washington, Independence Day, July 4, suffering in war, war
Posted in Biography, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Death is a central theme, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
