Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

“Fever 1793” is about Mattie Cook, a girl who lives in Philadelphia in 1793. When Yellow Fever brakes out Mattie’s world is turned upside-down! Disease is everywhere destroying every thing it can. When her mother gets sick Mattie leaves the city with her grandfather. But find sickness is everywhere!

Mattie liked to spend her days avoiding chores and planing ways to her family’s business the best. But when the fever hits Mattie wonders if she will survive! And worrying about her mother doesn’t help ether! When she comes home she meets this young child on the street. But when Mattie finds a broken doll near her she asks if it is her doll all she says is “she is broken” and when Mattie asks were her mother is she says, “my mommy is broken too”.  The little girl’s mother was dead.  So Mattie decides to be her new mother. This makes her think there are so many fever orphans (orphans who’s parents died of yellow fever). Am I one too? 0978068984891_500X500

I would recommend this book to 5th graders and up. I would rate this book 5 stars.  This was a very sad but good book and

I think it was a historical fiction.

Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko

Screen Shot 2014-06-04 at 9.34.22 PMThis book review is going to be about the book Al Capone Does My Shirts. The book was written by Gennifer Choldenko. The book is about a boy that lives on Alcatraz, the worst prison to be on at thetime. As you might have guessed there are ups and downs when you are living around the worst criminals in America. Alcatraz is basically a gigantic rock (or island) covered in cement, topped with bird crap.

 

The main characters name is Moose, short for Matthew. He is very solidly built, nice to everyone except for the warden’s daughter named Piper. For example he is constantly hanging out with a 7 year old that likes him. When he first gets to the island he is sent to the warden’s office to promise to help the wardens daughter carry her projects to and from school. It turns out that Piper is more trouble than Moose thought.

 

Within the first few hours of school Piper has broken her dad (the warden’s) rule about not talking about living on Alcatraz. Also she makes people pay to have their laundry done by the criminals but then won’t pay the people who helped her do it.

 

In the beginning of the book you think that Al Capone is really bad but he is actually pretty nice to moose. For example one time Moose goes to the sell house and Al is complimenting him. He also helps Natalie Moose’s sister to go to a school for children with autism. He asks Al Capone to help her get in.

 

One quote from Piper is,”You won’t get any of the money we make.”. So to conclude this book review the book is about how Moose will keep a good record with the grownups and a good relationships with the children on the island. I recommend it if you like mystery and adventure, a fast moving book, or a book about living near a prison. I would rate this book 100 stars out of 5. ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************* Ok that might not be 100 but it is pretty close to it.

 

Standing In The Light by Mary Pope Osborne (from the dear America series)

 

Carry is a young girl living in 1763 in Pennsylvania. She loves to wright in her diary. And she has three younger siblings named Thomas and Eliza and baby Will. She goes to school every day. And she is very kind and she likes to see the good in people. Because it seems to help her in the story. She and her family are religious.


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One day when Carry was  walking to school two native men come and take her and her little brother. They take them to their clan area but it is not right there. They have to take a long journey to their  clan area. When they get there Carry and Thomas get separated. And Carry worries that she will never see him again!

I really liked this book because it is an adventure and historical story (I LOVE HISTORY!) I would recommend this book to 3rd and 4th graders because I think that they would understand it the most and I think that is that level. I would give this book 5***** stars because it is so good because it takes history and add fiction!    (There are other books in this series if you are interested!) -Ruby

 

Dead End In Norvelt By Jack Gantos

Dead End In Norvelt By Jack Gantos is a gothic-humor-historical-fiction-part -autobiography. If  you read the book then you will understand by what I mean by this.

 

Dead End In Norvelt is set in WWII in Norvelt. Norvelt is a place in Pennsylvania. It is called Norvelt because it was founded by eleaNOR rooseVELT and the last few letters became Norvelt.

 

The main characters are Jack, Bunny, Mrs. Gantos/Mom, Mr. Gantos/Dad, and Ms. Volken. Jack is funny and mischievous. Jack always can cheer-up and put-down anyone he wants to. Bunny, is Jack’s best friend. She doesn’t like that Jack got grounded and that she doesn’t get to play baseball with him. Mrs. Gantos is Jack’s mom. She is strict and loving, but not both at once. His dad, Mr. Gantos, has an old airplane that he rides a lot. Jack’s mom will not let Jack ride in it, even though he really wants to. His dad is always doing something with Jack behind his spouses back.

 

Ms. Volken is the hand-frying obitist. An obitist is a person who writes obituaries. Since she literally fried her hands. Now her fingers do not look and work the same way they used to. So Jack’s mom forces him to be Ms. Volken’s scribe. She is sometimes dead on serious and sometimes extremely hilarious. But sometimes people get mixed up between the two.

 

The plot is about Jack’s worst summer of his whole entire life. He got grounded by a dangerous stunt and his dad is forcing him to make a bomb shelter to protect from the russians. Even though they were in the middle of Pennsylvania and so on.

 

I enjoyed this book fairly well. It is not bad but it is not good. I say this because I wish that there was more action but the humor made up for it. I would recommend this book to

funny people. There is never a chapter in this book where there is not some stupid pun or a strange joke. I would rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.imgres

Al Capone Does My Homework, Gennifer Choldenko

search*°•The Al Capone series doesn’t need to be read in order, only the first and second book need to be read in order•°*

 This is the last book in the series.

Moose and the gang are having fun, spying on the cons, helping them to. Moose needs to help Capone, who has already gotten nat into a special school for kids with disabilities. Moose is nice, and now it is working against him flowers for Mae Capone, Al’s mom…

 

He needs help and has a limited time period to do it. He has to look like he is alone, not with his friends on the boat, ware Mae will be.

 

But there are some cons with them on Alcatraz that are up to something of their own.

Piper has found a list, not just any list, a list made by cons, and not just any list from a con, but a game, but not any game… a game that can kill, literally. And it looks something like this: And guess who the new assistant warden is; Moose’s dad…Nat is also getting really smart.

 

Hazardous Tales By Nathon Hale

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Hazardous Tales by Nathan Hale which is funny because there was a spy named Nathan Hale in The Revolutionary War who is the main character in this book. It is about Nathan Hale ( the spy) who is about to be hanged on something called a gallows and the stories he tells to the hangman and a redcoat (English soldiers named after their red coats). It takes place in an English territory in 1779 during the American Revolution.

Nathan Hales one problem is that he has but one life to give for his country. ( A Nathan hale quote ” My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country” ). This book is about the entire revolution two main parts are when Nathan becomes the spy and when he gets slammed in The Big Giant Book of American History. It is very interesting because pretty much everything is true.

I would recommend this book to someone who likes humor and wars because it is about a war.If you like to learn while you are reading you should read it. I give it five out of five stars. *****I because of all the positive things I said in this review.

 

Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere, by Julie T. Lamana

(“Advanced Readers Copy”, being published April 2014)

      Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere is a amazing book by Julie T. Lamana. The main character is Armani Curtis. Armani is looking forward to one thing: her 10th birthday. Armani and her mom, dad, grandmother Memaw, Brother Gorgeie, Sister Seally, and a brother Kheelin, and sister Khayla, who are about two years old live in New Orleans, in the Lower 9’s.

      Then, the family hears about this hurricane Katrina, and says there’s gonna be no damage. But, they are wrong. Once the storm starts, Armani knows she will have to be brave, watch loved ones die, and have to help the family survive this horrible storm.

 

      Armani learns while the storm is wrecking her life, that she has to help her family survive this storm, even though bad things happen, she has to fight them away and help out, then maybe come back to it. Her idea is to somehow find lost family members, and what used to be her home. “For the first time in my whole life, I felt unsafe in a place where I’d always know, no matter what, I was going to be safe.” On the blurb (back of book). Before the storm, Armani was safe in her home with her family.  Once the storm hit, she lost some family and security.  Then she didn’t feel safe in the place that always felt safe to her. The aftermath of this storm made her brave.

 

      I enjoyed the book, because sometimes it was pretty sad, and then, it eventually got better. Also, there was one big problem, and there was another small problem, which might have got solved, and then there was another one, and maybe the big one got solved at the end… Read it to find out! I would recommend the book for 10+ because it was sort of hard to take in sometimes, and it was pretty intense sometimes. I would rate this infinity stars because it was so good. I like the authors writing style because it gave me a better sense of what was going on in the book, and it was very clear. And, the characters are really interesting. (This storm is real, and it was pretty bad. This book might be a little different when it is published, so be aware.)

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The Wicked Wicked Ladies in the Haunted House

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by Mary Chase

 

Maureen who is the main character in the book I read is kind of a bully but only because people pick on her sometimes, she is also a very clever kind of girl who needs a lot of attention because she is always causing trouble.

 

So one day Maureen is walking along and takes her neighbor’s house because she is in a cranky mood and sprays her neighbor’s house with water and then Maureen’s neighbor comes out of her house and yells at her so she sprays her neighbor too. And her neighbor chases her but Maureen runs so fast that her neighbor can’t keep up with her.

 

Near by there was an old haunted house but Maureen did not know that so she ran into the haunted house and finds a magical feather bracelet and she takes it. The ladies who live in the house need that bracelet to do the magic they want to do so they send Maureen back in time to get the bracelet back.

 

It is a really magical wonderful story it is well written and I would rate my book 5 out of 5 stars.

 

The Enormous Egg, By Oliver ButterWorth

This book is about a triceratops that hatched out of a hen’s egg. It is also the only living dinosaur in the world. A boy named Nate Twitchel and his friend go on a quest to save this dinosaur. The main characters are Nate, a paleontologist, a dinosaur,and Nate’s  family, which is his dad, his mom, and his sister. The book takes place on a farm in Freedom, New Hampshire. My favorite part was when the egg hatched. The dinosaur was so cute as a baby! I really, really enjoyed this book and I would recommend this book to people who like action and times where you think “ wow! This is interesting, but I wonder what will happen next?” I would most definitely rate this book 5 stars. It is really good.

Time Traviling Fashionista, by Bianca Turetsky

The main character is Louise. She loves vintage fashion. Every year she gets invited to a vintage sale. In one dress in each sale takes her back to a different place in time. This book she finds herself the best friend of Marie Antoinette! She has to find away to get back with hurting anyone. This takes place in France and Connecticut. I liked this book but I thought it was to sad. If you like sad books read this. If you like this it is a series. I would  give this three stars.