September 3rd, 2006
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| Author: | Stephen King |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1987 |
According to the blurb, Stephen King wrote this book because his 14 yr. old daughter could not read his other books.
I got this book because I'm not a fan of horror, but wanted a chance to read a book by Stephen King.
It is not a book I'd recommend to a child; I found it CREEPY, perhaps not in a horror-ish way, but creepy nevertheless.
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Eyes of the Dragon, The |
Posted in Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Fairy tales, Fiction, Reading level: age 8 and up | Comments Closed
August 29th, 2006
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| Author: | Joseph Heller |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1961 |
Comedy about why war is not funny. |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Catch-22 |
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Death is a central theme, Fiction, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
August 24th, 2006
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| Author: | William McCleery |
| Illustrator: | Warren Chappell |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 5 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 5 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1947 |
A great book to read aloud to your child about a father who tells his son a story. Especially wonderful if you know NYC and its suburbs well enough to recognize the venues the boy and his father visit.
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Wolf Story |
Posted in Animals, Conceptual: age 5 and up, Fiction, Reading level: age 5 and up | Comments Closed
August 12th, 2006
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| Author: | Annie Dillard |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | non-fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1988 |
Annie Dillard aims her clear scientist's eyes and the evocative Voice of the Pilgrim At Tinker Creek at the lives of upper class families with children in Pittsburgh, PA in the fifties. She reveals a great deal about Pittsburgh; and just about nothing about herself. |
As long as one isn't determined to read this as an autobiography, it will not disappoint.
Dillard's reflections on the differences between her fascination with the French and Indian War versus her obsession with reading about World War II (one was history, the other was an open wound), about the good that Andrew Carnegie did for the people of Pittsburgh and the good that he could have done if he'd made different choices, about her father's aborted trip down the Mississippi, and, especially, about Dillard's growing awareness as she grew up that Pittsburgh high society was not the box she wanted to be in -- made me grateful to have read this book. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: An American Childhood |
Posted in Biography, Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Female protagonist, Gifted, History, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science | Comments Closed
August 12th, 2006
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| Author: | Annie Dillard |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | non-fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1974 |
I have always been squeamish.
And yet, Annie Dillard's beautiful yet clear-eyed vignettes about the resplendence and horrors of the natural world captivate me.
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A must-read for any budding naturalist.
See also An American Childhood, a memoir by the same author. This one doesn't tell you exactly how Dillard became the astute observer of nature revealed in Pilgrim, but it does focus those same astute eyes on life in Pittsburgh, PA in the fifties. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Pilgrim At Tinker Creek |
Posted in Animals, Biography, Conceptual: 8 and up, Death is a central theme, Female protagonist, Gifted, Reading level: age 8 and up, Science | Comments Closed
August 12th, 2006
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| Author: | James and Christopher Collier |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1997 |
A review by a 10 year old reader...
I liked With Every Drop of Blood, but it was sad. I never have understood how people thought they were better, and smarter, and deserved a better life than black people just because they looked different.
There were two main characters: Johnny and Cush. Johnny is a white kid whose dad got killed in the civil war. When his dad died he left Johnny, his mom and his two younger siblings Sam and Sarah alone. They needed food and money (and Johnny wanted to revenge his dad's death) so Johnny went teamstering food in a wagon for the rebel soldiers.
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Cush is a black slave who ran away from his master to be a union soldier. He is about Johnny's age. He ends up capturing Johnny while he's on his teamstering mission and later on becoming his friend.
I think Johnny was a good character. But it took him a long time to realize that Cush was just as smart as him even though he was black. So none of his escape plans fooled Cush.
Even though it's sad, With Every Drop of Blood is an okay book.
Fizzy, age 10
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: With Every Drop of Blood |
Posted in Conceptual: 8 and up, Death is a central theme, Fiction, History, Reading level: age 8 and up | Comments Closed
August 8th, 2006
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| Author: | Richard Adams |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1972 |
Epic story of a rabbit civilization that faces challenges. |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Watership Down |
Posted in Animals, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Fairy tales, Fiction, Reading level: age 12 and up | Comments Closed
August 8th, 2006
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| Author: | William Pene du Bois |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | Science fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1947 |
Technologist/balloonist discovers an island on which a group of very special folks have isolated themselves.
Winner, 1948 Newbery Medal |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Twenty-One Balloons, The |
Posted in Conceptual: 8 and up, Culture, Fiction, Gifted, History, Reading level: age 8 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
August 6th, 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: | 2005 |
Sardonic musings of a demon summoned by a very young, but now, successful, wizard.
Book review: Part 1
Spoiler alert
I hate spoilers. However, I wish I had known more about the third volume in this trilogy before my daughter and I started reading the first one. (This would not have been possible when we started the first volume, because the third volume had not yet been released.)
That being said, I highly recommend all the books in the trilogy and I am glad that my daughter and I read them together.
This review is being presented in multiple parts; each part may provide additional information that, taken together, might give away some of the plot twists of Volume 3.
On the other hand, those helping highly sensitive readers select books might want to read through all the parts of this review before recommending books in this trilogy to them ...
Book review: Part 2
My 11 year old really loved these books. 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.
As in previous volumes in the Trilogy, this book switches perspective between three very different characters:
- Feisty Kitty is one of the commoners who are mistreated by the ruling elites and the demons they employ and are devastated by the economy and grief that result from the incessant wars the elites wage on foreign shores. She realizes that she must do something. But how much can one person do and can she live with the devastating consequences of her actions on her friends and colleagues?
- Bartimaeus the sardonic djinni, who stands back and makes sarcastic comments about the other characters and the plot, even when he's right in the middle of it all, and
- Nathaniel (John Mandrake) the gifted but annoying magician who has been co-opted by an Evil government because of his great intellectual abilities. Most of the time, the djinni has to obey the boy's commands, and a lot of the humor/sarcasm comes in when the djinni explains to the reader how morally compromised the boy is becoming. (And, to his credit, the djinni doesn't hesitate to tell the boy either, not that the boy listens most of the time.)
There is a complex relationship between these books and slavery too. The djinni 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 djinni makes this clear. But he's sometimes more supportive of his master than I think an average slave might actually be.
In Ptolemy's Gate, Bartimaeus also develops a touching relationship with Kitty and an awareness of kinship with the commoners whom most djinn scorn if they consider them at all. So much for cooperation between oppressed masses. |
Book review: Part 3
My 11 year old daughter -- a very sensitive reader who has fallen in love with many of the characters in the Bartimaeus Trilogy and who "trusts" Bartimaeus' author implicitly -- and I read books to each other, usually alternating chapters. So, here we are, alternating chapters. My daughter reads Bartimaeus' words:
There are times when even a near omnipotent djinni knows to keep his mouth shut, and this was one of them. ... Trouble was, neither of them was in a mood to listen to my doubts. ... Pride has a part to play in it, and other emotions too. Neither wishes to fail; each redoubles their efforts to impress. Things get done -- but not always the right things, or not always the things expected. .. Farqual's phrase rang uneasily in my mind: He would welcome your attack and feed off it. And, call me pessimistic, but that struck me as a mite ominous. But it was too late to worry about that now.
I interrupt her and ask, gently as I can, "So what is the author telling us here?" My daughter pauses reluctantly. It's been an exciting, interesting, scary story so far, a story that persuasively argues that war can harm the invading country as well as the country that was invaded, that slavery compromises the humanity of the slave-owner as well as the slave, that torture is likewise devastating to both the torturer and the victim, and that a country in which the ruling classes blithely assume that what is in their interest is also in the interest of commoners who have no say is a country heading for destructive violence. I persist -- "What is the author telling us right now?" She replies, "I HATE foreshadowing." She gets it, I'm pretty sure she does. I persist, "So what's being foreshadowed?" (It's almost always better when she gets the opportunity to face unpleasantness gradually.) She says, "Bad things are going to happen. But he CAN'T kill off -- ?"
Book review: Part 4
So, what are the options for an author who obviously is wanting to make a case for the horrors of war, horrors he thinks may perhaps be discounted by the young and foolish? If no one but the unnamed masses or unimportant minor characters in the book are affected by the violence, what does that say about war?
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Ptolemy's Gate (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 3) |
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Death is a central theme, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
