Archive for the ‘Reading level: age 12 and up’ Category
Thursday, July 6th, 2006
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| Author: | Louis Sachar |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2006 |
Small Steps is kind of a sequel to Holes, but it's from the perspective of Armpit (Theodore) instead of Stanley.
I liked Small Steps; I read it in less than a week, although it gets a little smushy in some parts -- lots of kissing and stuff.
In the beginning, it's just a little bit boring, but it picks up at the end.
So if you read it…
Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fizzy, age 11
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Parent's note: Along with the romance mentioned, the plot also involves battery and an attempted beating to death....
-- Emily |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Small Steps |
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Dickensian, Fiction, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Friday, June 30th, 2006
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| Author: | Jonathan Stroud |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2004 |
Sardonic musings of a demon summoned by a very young, but now, successful, wizard.
Bartimaeus Book Two: The Golem's Eye is a very good book, but before you read it you should read Bartimaeus, Book One: The Amulet of Samarkand, because things in Book Two will make much more sense that way.
This book switches perspective between three very different characters:
- Kitty the feisty commoner,
- Bartimaeus the sardonic djinni, and
- Nathaniel (John Mandrake) the annoying magician.
My favorite character is Bartimaeus, because he gives you footnotes to explain stuff better, tell us his very personal thoughts, and talks very funnily.
-- Fizzy, age 11
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Parent's note about the Bartimaeus trilogy:
As you can tell, my 11 year old really loves these books (she's finished the first two so far). But they are a bit of a departure for her -- there's real murder and mayhem in them, which, until recently, she would not have tolerated.
She loves them because the narrator of the book is a djinn who stands back from the action and makes kind of sarcastic comments about the other characters and the plot.
In these books, the gifted boy protagonist has been put in a position where he's been co-opted by an Evil Government because of his great intellectual abilities. The djinn has to obey the boy's commands, and a lot of the humor/sarcasm comes in when the djinn explains to the reader how morally compromised the boy is becoming. (And, to his credit, the djinn doesn't hesitate to tell the boy either, not that the boy listens most of the time.)
There a complex relationship between this book and slavery too. The djinn is a slave, and even though he respects the good qualities of his boy master, he also hates having to obey his commands. Most of the time, the djinn makes this clear. But he's sometimes more supportive of his master than I think an average slave might actually be.
-- Emily |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Golem's Eye, The (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 2) |
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Monday, June 5th, 2006
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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". |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Summerland |
Posted in Baseball, Conceptual: 8 and up, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fiction, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction, Sports | Comments Closed
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006
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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.
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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) |
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Sunday, May 21st, 2006
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| Author: | Ayn Rand |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1946 |
At one point, I actually believed that Ayn Rand had overreacted and that most people respect and understand that they need intelligent, capable people around them.
Read The Fountainhead; Atlas Shrugged is identical except that it's much longer.
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Fountainhead, The |
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
Friday, May 19th, 2006
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| Author: | Jonathan Stroud |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2003 |
CAUTION:This wonderful trilogy features characters with whom the reader will fall in love, and significant violence that has predictable consequences. Please, before recommending this first volume to a sensitive young reader, either read the whole trilogy or read our reviews of book two and, especially, book 3.
Sardonic musings of a demon summoned by an academically under-challenged 12 year old apprentice wizard. |
Together, they save Civilization as they know it. First in a trilogy.
Luckily, unlike Inkheart and Eragon, this book's sequels are already in print.
-- Emily Berk |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Amulet of Samarkand, The (Book One of the Bartimaeus Trilogy) |
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Dickensian, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Saturday, May 13th, 2006
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| Author: | Sue Monk Kidd |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2003 |
Huckleberry Finn in the 1960s and with all girls and the Goddess. I would have liked to have felt more Joy but my friends tell me that the 14 year old narrator is still in shock from all that she's learned. Anyway, the bees and the Sisters June, May, & August make this book well worth reading.
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Secret Life of Bees, The |
Posted in Animals, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Dickensian, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Reading level: age 12 and up | 1 Comment »
Saturday, May 13th, 2006
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| Author: | Cornelia Funke |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2005 |
No doubt most authors of fiction hope to evoke worlds using words alone. But what if it were possible for certain readers to actually cause people and objects to transition between fictional worlds and our world, just by reading aloud?
This is book two of what is promised to be a trilogy.
If anything, my 11 yr. old and I liked this book even more than its predecessor, InkHeart. And, as an added bonus, InkSpell provides a touching and believable portrayal of a pair of pre-adolescents who are just about certain they are in love.
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In fact, we are coming to believe that anything Cornelia Funke writes might be enjoyable reading.
See also:
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: InkSpell |
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Saturday, April 15th, 2006
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| Author: | Tracy Kidder |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Non-fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1981 |
Kidder is a great non-fiction writer. This is a true story about how a company manipulated its most talented employees into creating a great computer, without regard to what the work environment would do to them or their families. |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Soul of a New Machine |
Posted in Biography, Computers in society, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Gifted, History, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science | Comments Closed
Saturday, April 1st, 2006
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| Author: | Charlotte Bronte |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | fiction, historical |
| Year of publication: | 1847 |
A difficult book; much, much sadder than I had remembered from when I'd read it to myself a very long time ago. It's about temptation and the definition of bigamy. |
My daughter was really shocked by the way
children (Jane Eyre and her classmates) were treated in the beginning of the book. She was horrified by the
sacrifices that Jane felt required to make in order to resist temptation and preserve her good name.
I'm pretty sure that, although the book is fiction, the conditions it describes are ones that affected many women at the
time depicted in the novel.
See also The Cider House Rules.
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Jane Eyre |
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Dickensian, Female protagonist, Fiction, Homeschool, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
