Dumpling Days by Grace Lin

9780316125901Dumpling days is about a family who lives in New Hartford, which is in upstate New York and they visit Taiwan for 26 days. Pacy, who is not so excited to go to Taiwan starts to like Taiwan so do Lissy and Kiki, those are Pacy’s sisters. Lissy is the oldest Pacy is the middle child and Kiki is the youngest. Pacy’s parents are from Taiwan so they are really excited to go. When Pacy’s family arrives at the Taiwan airport Pacy, Lissy and Kikis aunt and uncle picks up the whole family up and brings them to their home, their names are uncle flower and auntie Jin.

 Pacy’s mom and dad signs lissy Kiki and Pacy up for painting, calligraphy and paper cutting. Lissy does calligraphy, Pacy does painting and Kiki does paper cutting. Pacy does not want to do painting at all. When Pacy meets a girl named Audrey Chang she is not so happy because in Pacy’s mind she thinks that she is mean but she is actually not. Soon it is Pacy’s grandma’s birthday so Pacy, Kiki, Lissy and their mom go shopping to buy pastries and food for the party. “When it is your 60th birthday for chinese people there is a big celebration” says Pacy’s mom so that is why everyone is having a big celebration. Before they have grandma’s party Pacy’s family visits Taipei to see their other aunt and uncle and they visit all different places. There is a contest when they come back for the art class of who has the best painting. A girl named Eva wang wins but then Pacy and Eva make friends. After grandma’s party it is time to go home. Everyone says goodbye and then they get on the plane. Pacy’s dad had to leave Taiwan early because he had work. So Pacy, Lissy, Kiki and their mom go on the plane and now they are on their way home.

I really liked this book it was one of the best books I have read. I would say this book is an adventurous book and a little bit non fiction. The book is a little non fiction because the places that their family visits are actually real places in Taiwan. I would give this book a five star rating out of five stars.

 

The Key To The Indian by Benjamin Winokur-Applebaum

Over spring Break I read a book called The Key To The Indian written by LYNNE REID BANKS.  This book is the fifth and last book of the series there are three main characters in this book. The first one is Omri.  Omri is 12 years old, loves school and lives a few miles away from the English Channel.  His family inherited the house and barn that they now live in from their mom’s Great Aunt.  Omri’s ca Charlotte made a cupboard with a magic key.  Anything that you put into the cupboard, let’s say a plastic fish, will become real.  Another main character is Little Bear, an Iroquois chief, who is very wise though he is young, from the time right around the French and Indian Wars, who was brought to life by Jessica Charlotte’s cupboard and key.  When they first meet each other (first book) they become blood brothers and visit each other every 5 months (time that the books take place) in the other person’s time.  The third main character in this book is Omri’s dad.  He learns the secret about the cupboard and it’s magic and they go off on a trip to help Little Bear that is disguised as a camping trip.  They ask an old friend who knows the secret to help them leap back in time.

Omri brings back Jessica Charlotte to re-design the cupboard key so that it fits into the car so that they can bring more supplies back to Little Bear’s time, but they have some problems with the size and time.  One thing that you have to know is everyone and everything that/who comes through the cupboard is about as big as your thumb (6½ inches) .  This book will leave you “Tearing your hair out” by the end (not literally)

If you like surprises and adventure this book belongs to you then because that is what happens in the series and mostly in this book, The key to the indian I would rate this book a 7 out of 5 stars.

7*******___out of___ *****5

Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell

Polly Hoffman

 

Rooftoppers is a book about a girl named Sophie and her dad who is not a dad named Charles. Sophie of course is a growing girl so Charles will have to take care of her. Everyone thinks that Charles will not be able to take care of Sophie, especially Miss Eliot, the girl who wants Sophie to be proper, wear pink dresses and get a real dad and mom.

 

Sophie wants to be unique and her own type of girl so she decides to wear trousers and shirts and not skirts and shirts. She climbs trees and reads and Miss Eliot doesn’t like that at all. “You will have to get a mom and a dad some day,” said Miss Eliot. So Charles and Sophie go to France so Miss Eliot won’t tell Sophie what to wear and what to do.

 

I loved this book because it sounds like a true story. I think this book is good for people 8 years old to 12 years old I rate this book 3 and ¾ stars. I think you will like this book, because it is awesomely good.

 

Lost in London by Cindy Callaghan

Lost-in-London-by-Cindy-CallaghanLost in London by Cindy Callaghan is about a girl named Jordan Jacoby. Jordan lives this normal and boring life until she finds this flyer about doing some studies about London in London. At first her parents won’t let her go but then all of a sudden Jordan is off to London. Jordan is just like a normal girl before London but she gets a London makeover and after she’s a total fashionista and a total girly-girl. The setting is London for the whole book except for the very beginning and the very end.

 

What happens with Jordan is she gets to London and when she thinks she going for some studies thing, she’s wrong. The girl (Caroline) who’s taking Jordan around makes it very different. Jordan and Caroline start by meeting Caroline’s friends and Jordan make them call her JJ because she wants them to think she’s very cool. JJ and Caroline get locked in Daphne’s (it’s just a very big mall with a fancy name). After they get out JJ left her phone and this really rude boy has video footage of them and JJ and her friends have to do someone’s school work. Right when JJ feels she’s getting along well with Caroline, Caroline says she thinks hanging out with JJ is boring. JJ gets really angry and plans a huge prank on Caroline. A quote from the book that I really like is, “I was going to embark on a journey call the De-bored-ification of Jordan Jacoby. Only I didn’t know how de-bored-ified my life was about to be.”

 

I really liked the book because it was funny and surprising. The reading level is sort of easy but the concept is for 4th grade girls. I would give this book 4 ****. It is a really good book and I think you should read it too!

The Year Of The Dog

    This book is called The Year Of The Dog and the author’s name is Grace Lin, I have a lot of her books and I have picture books of hers too. The main characters are Pacy and her best friend, Melody. Pacy and Melody are very alike. They are both Chinese American, well that’s how they met. They think alike too, and look the same. The setting of this book takes place in New York State, outside of the city. Pacy and Melody have a science fair and the school has a special guest to judge their projects, who is a very important person too. Pacy and Melody don’t know what they are going to do and whatever they do it better be good because they’ll lose the contest. Pacy and Melody did a plant thing, they grew plants with soda like coke and they also used water. Pacy and Melody get really nervous at the competition. Pacy and Melody have crushes on some people in their class (this part is the only thing I hate about this book,) and Melody has a notebook to write down the people that their crush talks to. “Today Teddy talked to Emma three times, Charlotte five times, you four times, and me six,” Melody reported. By, Friday Melody had filled her notebook.
I liked this book a lot! I liked it because the main characters are Chinese American, like me. But I didn’t like it just because of the crush part. I would recommend this book to 6-10 and maybe for a family. I rate this book 4 out of five stars. I think that people would like this book!

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Cabin Fever Diary of the Wimpy Kid By Jeff Kinney

UnknownAs you know, if you read my book reviews, that I like the Wimpy Kid books. So I think that this is a great book to read if you want a bit of humor in your reading. The pictures in this book are great too. This book is all about the holidays. It is about a kid named Greg and he is bored when it comes to Christmas. He is always tempted to open the presents before Christmas when they are under the tree, but now they have a new toy that watches them, well, that’s what everyone in the house thinks because it is creepy. Greg also has weird thoughts like when he felt bad for Jesus because he probably got fewer presents. He lives in a small town.      Gregs whole family gets trapped in their house because there is a blizzard, well not the whole family. The dad was at work when the blizzard hit. So he got to stay at a lovely hotel with TVs, hot tubs and amazing foods while the rest of the family had to suffer with a flood, barely any food and no heat. I would rate this book four stars because I have liked some other books in the series a little bit more than this one. If you think some of the details are not there look at the other book reviews that I have posted.

Bridge To Terabithia By Katherine Paterson

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My book is called Bridge To Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. The main characters are named Jessie (he is a boy) and Leslie (she is a girl). Jessie is ambitious. He has ambition to be the fastest boy in his grade. Leslie is imaginative. She invented this amazing land called Terabithia. The setting is in a small town in Virginia.

 

     Leslie is new in town, and as I mentioned, Jessie wants to be the fastest runner in the 5th grade. The first day Leslie is at school she joins the boys for a race. First the boys thought it was wrong for Leslie to be playing with them, because she was a girl but then the boys gave in. When Jessie and Leslie  raced they were both competing for first but Leslie was faster. She won. Jessie was mad but he got over it.

 

When they become friends they built this magical place called Terabithia. That is where the adventure begins! When she was coming up with the idea for Terabithia Leslie said, “We need a place just for us. It would be so secret that we would never tell anyone in the world about it.”

 

I loved the book because it was sad and surprising. I can’t tell you why it was sad and surprising without giving away the entire story. I can tell you that the author did a good job building up to the sad moment. I would recommend this book to a person who likes books about friendship. I would rate this book 1,000,000,000 stars if I could but since I have to I will rate it 5 stars.*****

 

A Snicker Of Magic

My book review is on A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd . It is this girl named Felicity Pickle. Her Mama has this thing where they are always moving for no reason. This book takes place in the newest place they moved to, Midnight Gulch.

In Midnight Gulch there used to be magic. Two brothers who used to live there were the cause of that, but then a mishap happened and the town lost all of their magic.

Felicity is a word collector, which means she sees words floating around people and she takes them. She had no friends. Until she meets Jonah. Jonah also has a secret, you find it out at the start of the book.

18222556In the book Jonah convinces Felicity to join the duel, which is like a talent show. He wants her to share words. Felicity is nervous because she is very shy. “After two painful minutes of silence, I Managed to mumble, “ My name is Flea…””

I really liked this book because it is very unexpected and there are a lot weird connections. I recommend this book to people who know how to read. It has something for everyone. I rate this book *****!

 

ENDERS GAME

UnknownThis book is about training kids to go to war. There is one kid named Ender and he gets bullied a lot and the teachers like him but he’s in the regular school so he gets upgraded to the battle school. They like him because he,s a good student. At the regular school he gets bullied a lot. At the battle school he has to train for war against the buggers. The buggers are like aliens and they already had a few battles with them.

 

During the story he makes a few friends but otherwise no one likes him because he’s so good at battle school. When he was good enough he became a commander and he became a commander of the the dragon army. After a few years he goes to command school to defeat the buggers. Every time Ender gets better the teachers make it harder for him. The people in his army keep on telling him that the teachers are the enemy not the army he’s playing against.

I loved this book and would rate it a 999,999,999,999 out of 1o and I would recommend it to you if you like science fiction. There is a bunch of other books in this series but I don’t know how much but I know it’s a lot. There’s other books that are the same as this one bit it’s from a different perspective like from his perspective.

 

The Battle Of The Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

imgres-1I recently read a book called The Battle Of The Labyrinth by Rick Riordan. In this book, the main character is Percy Jackson. Percy is a boy, who is a bad student, for example he has ADHD. He also has dyslexia. Also, he is a demigod. A demigod is someone who is half god half human. In order to be a demigod, one of your parents have to be a god and one of your parents have to be mortal, which is also known as regular.

In this book there are a couple of supporting characters. One is named Annabeth, who is really smart and intelligent and is a demigod. Another one is named Grover and he is a satyr. A satyr is someone who is half goat, half boy. Another supporting character is Tyson. He is a very scared, and not very smart Cyclops. A Cyclops is a person who is very strong, and has only one eye.  This book takes place in a labyrinth. The labyrinth keeps on growing, sort of like a living person.

You are probably wondering why they are in a maze that goes forever. It is because they have to find Daedalus-the person who made the labyrinth-and convince him to not let Kronos’s army get through the labyrinth. Kronos’s army is trying to take over Olympus, and is going to use the labyrinth to get there. The labyrinth goes anywhere you want, if you know how to navigate it. That is why Kronos wants to find Daedalus, so he and his army can convince Daedalus to teach them how to navigate the army. Kronos is an evil titan lord. Kronos’s army is so big. On page 202, it said “I almost froze in mid air. Kronos’s army was as big as five football fields.”

This book is one of the best books I have ever read. I really like how Rick Riordan was very descriptive. His description gave you a good feeling, that goes with the type of place it is. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read because this book has just about everything for every type of reader. I would rate this book five stars because it is a really amazing book.