Shadow Shaper, by Daniel José Older, is a book I read for book camp that was truthfuly one I did not enjoy. Out of all the books that I read for book camp, I just thought this one was poorly written. It was interesting that this was the most famous out of the four books, and the only possible reason I could think for that is that it is the most commercial and normal. I thought that the plot was not well constructed and it didn’t grab my attention. After reading this book I felt unfulfilled, like I had stopped half way through the book. The protagonist, Sierra, is a teenage girl living in New York. Her life is pretty normal despite the fact that her grandfather had a stroke one year prior, making him paralyzed and unable to speak. Sierra is an artist and paints murals around NYC and Brooklyn. One day her grandfather starts to speak to her and tells her that she has to finish the mural as fast as she can. He also tells her that the murals are fading. The shadow shapers are leaving, and a boy named Robby can help her. She not only thinks he is going crazy, but basically ignores him until she runs into Robby at a party. She asks him what the shadow shapers are, and he seems surprised that she knows. Soon after, a half dead looking man comes and starts to run after Sierra. Once she gets away, Robby realizes that she is a shadow shaper and you start to find out what that is. Robby shows her that shadow shaping is the transferring from a soul to a painting. A shadow shaper must create almost a portal for a soul to go into. The soul enters the shadow shapers body and then moves onto the painting that the shadow shaper has intended the soul to go into. Once the souls have entered the paintings they obey anything that their shadow shaper wants them to do. Sierra soon learns that a man named Wick is trying to take over the souls and cast away the shadow shapers for ever. She also learns that her grandmother, Lucinda, who had died many years prior to the setting of the book, had once been the leader of the shadow shapers, and now that she is dead, the paintings are starting to fade and disappear. Sierra fights Wick with her shadow shaping powers and attempts to save the shadow shaping world. Despite this book’s difficulties, I really did love the beginning of the book, and now I really know how much the end matters for future reference.

This Side Of Home, by Renee Watson, is one of the 4 books I read for Thalia Book Camp at Symphony Space. It is almost the antithesis of what we have learned in school; the structure is a new creation in itself, and the plot and obstacles are less prominent. Though this book was just a normal read for me, I respected the fact that the author changed the vibe of this book compared to the others I am reading. I loved the simplicity of it and how it was just about daily life instead of all this high speed action that I am used to. The main character is a African American teenager living in Portland. Her old neighborhood starts turning into an expensive gentrified place, and her friends start having to leave because of the constantly rising rent. The identity of her school morfs and more hispanic and white children join. This book is about change and coping with it. It is really a good easy read, and I recommend it to anybody who just wants to sit down with a book each day and relax. This Side Of Home was a great book, and I am excited to meet the author.

P.S. Book camp happens for a week in the summer where we read 4 books,  meet the authors and talk to them about their book.