Author Archives: Piper

Aug
05
2014

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Posted by

Hungergames_posterKatniss Everdeen lives in Panem. Panem is made up of most of the old North America but now it’s 12 districts and a capital. Katniss has a pretty normal life for a district 12 girl. Her dad died in a mining accident, she has a mom and sister, a tiny house and  almost the amount of food she needs to survive. The time has come around again for The Hunger Games.

 

Why does Panem have The Hunger Games? About 50 years back the capitol had a big fight against the rest of panem. To pay back the capitol made… The Hunger Games, where you kill people to win. The two names that they pick  out of the bowls could change Katniss’s life. And the names are… Peeta Mellark and Prim Everdeen. Katniss gives her life for one of the most important people in her life. Her life is about to change forever and this might be the last time she’ll ever see her home again.

 

From here on everything is different. First she makes a stunning impression and is called, “The Girl On Fire.” She gets an 11 in training and mostly things are going well. But then… 1. 2. 3. The games begin. Before, Peeta was sort of her friend and now he wants to kill her. She has to go from capitol ways back to district 12 ways but worse.

 

The story is written in the 1st person and it’s from the perspective of Katniss. This book is good for 4-6 graders. I suggest not reading if you don’t like blood or violence. I would rate this book five stars out of five stars. After you read the books watch the movies.

 

Jun
04
2014

Ghost of a Chance by Lauren Barnholdt

Posted by

I read the book Ghost of a Chance by Lauren Barnholdt. It’s the 3rd book in the Girl Meets Ghost series. It takes place in a nice town kind of like Connecticut but it never says the name of the town. The main characters are Kendall, the ghost helper, and Lily, the ghost. Kendall has a problem that she’s got to solve. So first Kendall and Brandon broke up, Ellie and Kendall aren’t really friends anymore and she has to help another ghost move on. The ghost, Lily, who she has to help move on is Kendall’s enemy’s sister, Madison.  

 

To help Lily move on Kendall has to sneak into a lot different places and it’s kind of funny because she gets caught once and almost gets caught the other times. What’s really weird is in the very beginning Madison hates Kendall and then Kendall says one thing and Madison likes her and then Kendall does another thing and Madison hates her again. When Kendall feels really stressed out about everything she goes to see her mom who when she last saw her Kendall has about 3 months old. A quote that shows how Kendall is feeling is this one, “I’m starting to not remember my own lies.”

 

I didn’t really like Ghost of a Chance. I think I would have a little while ago but now I’m into different kinds of books. I would recommend this book to people who like realistic fiction about girls because it’s a very girly book. I would also recommend to read the books in order and not to read any other books in between the books because, just like me you could lose interest. For myself I would rate it 2 stars. It was written well and it was funny but it just wasn’t my type of book right now. It was also really easy.

 

 

Apr
08
2014

Lost in London by Cindy Callaghan

Posted by

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!

Feb
26
2014

Once Upon A Toad by Heather Vogel Frederick

Posted by

imgres       Once Upon A Toad  by Heather Vogel Frederick is about two stepsisters named Cat & Olivia and they both really hate each other. The book takes place in Portland, Oregon. The two girls are so different from each other. Cat lives with her mom in Houston, Texas and came to Oregon for three months because her mom is on a mission in space and Cat loves classical music and is a tomboy. Olivia, on the other hand loves arts and crafts and is a total girly girl.

 

       At school Olivia and all her friends make fun of Cat and call her mean names like Catbox and hold their noses whenever they walk by Cat. Cat thinks everything is as bad as it gets so she calls Great-Aunt Abyssinia (A.K.A. Aby) to come. She tells Aby everything and Aby tells Cat that she will find a really good way to fix this. The next morning Cat wakes up and things had just gone from bad to way worse. Everytime words came out of her mouth toads came out too. But whenever Olivia talked, diamonds and flowers came out of her mouth. Soon everyone all over knew about the diamonds, flowers and toads. After that everyone wanted Olivia so some people kidnapped their little brother Geoffrey to get Olivia. Olivia and Cat have to run away to find him and to stop all this crazy fairytale stuff from happening. One of my favorite quotes from the book that Cat said is, “I drew a shaky breath. It still made absolutely no sense. Middle-schoolers didn’t start spontaneously spewing toads. How could this be happening? How could that creature have come from me? My mouth still tasted like breakfast cereal, not toad. Not that I knew what toad tasted like.”

      I really, really liked Once Upon A Toad. I would recommend this book to people who like realistic fiction with a hint of fantasy because it’s about people not monsters and it’s in a realistic place not somewhere made up but the fantasy part is you can not just start spitting out toads and flowers and diamonds and there is no such thing as casting spells. I would rate this book four stars ****! The book is written in a fun way. I really like Once Upon A Toad and I think you should read it too.

Jan
29
2014

Soul Surfer by Bethany Hamilton with help from Sheryl Berk & Rick Bundschuh

Posted by

1563Soul Surfer is a book about a girl whose arm got bitten off by a shark. This book is an autobiography about Bethany Hamilton. I personally like this book because I’m a surfer and she is one too, but also she’s a survivor.

This book is about “the soul surfer”. (A.K.A, Bethany Hamilton.) She is a surfer and goes surfing every day. She loves surfing so much that she’s homeschooled so she can surf more. Just like every other morning, she puts on her bathing suit and goes out to surf and it was almost the exact same thing that happens every morning. The thing that was different was her arm got bitten off by a shark! After that her life totally changed. She got so famous. She barely was in Hawaii because she was touring so much. Other than getting famous most of the other things were bad.

I’m pretty sure everyone knows about the movie Soul Surfer. A really cool part of this book is that in the book it shows Beth’s movie journal. It kind of shows you what happened behind the scenes of the movie.

This book is not hard but there are a few words that are confusing because they’re Hawaiian. I thought it was really cool because i’ve always been a fan of hers. I would give this book **** because there are some sort of boring parts but if you don’t read them the book doesn’t make sense. It’s a really good book and I think you should read it.

Jan
08
2014

Girl Meets Ghost by Lauren Barnholdt

Posted by

Girl Meets Ghost is about a girl named Kendall Williams who can see dead people. She can hear them and she can talk to them. Sometimes the ghosts need help to solve their problems (even though you would think ghosts don’t have problems because they’re dead, but in this book they do) and since she’s the only person in the world that can see, hear and talk to them, she’s the only person that can help solve their problems. This time around it is a 17 year old (but dead) gymnast, Daniella.

 

Sometimes, for Kendall, it gets really annoying because sometimes the ghosts pop up at really bad timing. For example, she’s really bad at math and Daniella, a lot of the time pops up during math. She thinks her life is really bad and to make it worse she has a crush on someone and she’s not sure he likes her back. And to make that crush situation worse the guy’s mom died. And the mom keeps showing up in Kendall’s bedroom every night. The mom keeps telling Kendall “put yourself on the green paper” but Kendall has no idea what that means. Kendall has to do lots of weird things to help Daniella. She has to lie about lots and lots of things to solve Daniella’s problems and to make her go away.

Girl Meets Ghost is realistic fiction with a hint of fantasy. This book is a medium 3rd grade book and a super easy 4th grade book. I would rate this book ***** because it’s cool to  see what it would be like to be able to talk to ghosts. I really liked this book and I think you should read it too.

Dec
12
2013

Take Two By Julia DeVillers & Jennifer Roy

Posted by

Take Two is the second book after Trading Faces.

In  Trading Faces Emma and Payton got in big trouble at home and at school, which means detention. Emma (the brainy one) feels like she shouldn’t be in detention, but lucky her and  Payton (the stylish one)  get out of it. But they just get a different type of detention.

Emma has to tutor math-hating eight year old boy Mason. Payton has to keep an eye on Mason’s twin brother Jason and help the drama club with the school play. Instead of being in the play like she wanted to she has to work under the stage.

This book is very easy and fourth grade level. It’s a realistic fiction book. If you like books that you can kind of relate to this is a good book for you. I would give this book 4 **** because it very fun to read>It’s a fun book with  lots of surprises along the way!