Flora & Ulysses Book Review

floraUlysses is a plain old regular squirrel until he gets sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. I read Flora and Ulysses by Kate Dicamillo. It is about a girl named Flora that saved a squirrels life. She breaths into the squirrels mouth and all of a sudden it lifts up the vacuum cleaner and starts to shake it. Flora is 10 years old and she is a cynic. Her parents are divorced so part of the book is with her dad and the other with her mom but she lives with her mom. The setting is mostly in Flora’s neighborhood.

 

Flora is very Strong, Brave, and kind. She is Strong because it is really hard to have divorced parents and have your mom trying  to murder your pet squirrel. She is Brave because it is really hard to tell your mom that you want to live with your dad instead of her. She is Kind because she saved Ulysses life. An interesting thing about this book is how Ulysses can fly! Because he is a normal squirrel not a flying squirrel. Another interesting thing about this book is how Ulysses writes poetry if I was writing this book I would never thought of making Ulysses write poetry. Another interesting part is how Flora’s mom thinks Ulysses is a dirty animal and wants to murder him. And Flora’s dad likes Ulysses and is kind to him.

 

I really enjoyed reading this book. I like how it is really unique I have never read a book like this. I recommend this book to people who like short books where you can’t put it down. I also recommend this book to people who like animal books. I rate this book 5 stars!

 

The Magicians Elephant

Elephant Crashes Through Ceiling of Opera House

 

Baltese –  Yesterday, during a magic show while performing at the city opera house, a mysterious magician whose name is unknown made an elephant come crashing through the ceiling. The elephant broke both of Madam La Vaughns legs. After crashing through the ceiling someone called 911 and the police showed up to take the elephant away.

 

The magician said, “I only intended lilies.” but, how do we know if he only intended lilies if instead of lilies an elephant crashed through the ceiling. After breaking Madam La Vaughn’s legs the magician has been locked up in prison in a tiny prison cell.

 

There is a boy named Peter Augustus Duchene training to be a soldier by an old soldier Vilna Lutz. This boy said he needs to see the elephant to find his sister but, that makes no sense at all! We have no idea what he is talking about.

 

A police officer Leo Mantiene is helping keep the elephant away. We have no clue where the elephant is located now but we are sure it isn’t far away.

 

People all around the city are obsessed with the elephant. The bakers created an oversized pastry filled with cream and sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar and called it an elephant ear. The street vendors sold the pieces of plaster that fell when the elephant fell. The puppet show in the public gardens all are about elephants crashing through ceilings. Even in the ballroom the men and women would dance a simple two step dance called of course the elephant.

 

Is this no ordinary elephant?


Maybe this elephant will be magical and enchanted.

I made a diorama for this book I cut holes in the sides of the box from three perspectives.

the magicians perspective            the audiences perspective

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and the elephants perspective

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Half Magic By: Edward Eager

Half_MagicIt all begins with a coin…  (or what the children thought was a coin). The title of my book is Half Magic by Edward Eager. I think there are two more books in this series, Magic by the Lake and Knights Castle. This book is about four children who find what  Jane (the oldest child) thinks is a nickel. The kids soon find out that the nickel is a magic charm that wishes only half of what you wish for. You have to wish double of what you wished. The main characters are Jane, Mark, Katharine, and Martha. Through this book the four children travel in their house but, mostly places where the charm takes them.

 

Martha is stubborn, curious and impatient. She is stubborn because when they went to the movie she wouldn’t stop saying she wanted to go home so she walked out of the movies. Curious because she wanted to know what had happened to her mother. She is impatient because when her siblings were watching a movie she wouldn’t wait until it was over she just ran out of the movie theater. The problem was when Mr. Smith wanted to marry their mother because their dad died. Their mother wanted to marry him but she thought she was ill because the children kept using the charm and things were disappearing in front of her eyes. So, the children were trying to prove to their mother that the whole time she was seeing things and she thought she was ill was just the children using the charm. And the kids had to convince her that she wasn’t seeing things and that the charm really is magical. I also think it was interesting when Jane went to another family and she was the total opposite to the real Jane. I think it was really interesting when they first found the charm and didn’t know what it was or how to use it. The children thought it was a nickel, and by accident made a fire.

 

I really enjoyed this book because I really like books about magic and this book was sort of like realistic magic. I really enjoyed the parts of the book when the four children use the charm and the magic begins and they’re just trying to figure out how to use the charm. I think the author did a good job of describing one scene where knights were fighting and I thought he was a little too descriptive about the body parts being chopped off and the blood. It’s really exciting when something happens and then the children have to fix it. I would recommend this book to people who like books about: Magic, Friendship, Adventure… I think this book is like another book I just read called Howl’s Moving Castle. I chose Howl’s Moving Castle because in both Howl’s Moving Castle and Half Magic the characters travel all over the area and are both about magic. I rate this book Five stars!!!!!.

 

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones


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Sophie is a regular 17 or 18 year old girl when all of a sudden the Witch of the Waste turns her into a 90 year old woman. I read Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. The main characters are Sophie and Howl. Sophie is a normal girl, and Howl is a wizard. The book is about a 17 or 18 year old girl who gets turned into an 90 woman by the Witch of the Waste, so she runs away. She finds Howl’s Moving Castle and she starts living there. The setting is in a lot of places, but it mostly takes place inside the castle.

 

Sophie is very nosy, curious and brave. She is nosy because she is going around the castle and looking out of windows cleaning things and looking at other people’s stuff. She is curious because the front door has different colors that they can spin this knob and go to different places. She was looking at all the colors on the doors and was really curious what the black went to. She is brave because she had the courage to run away from her home without saying goodbye or telling her family what had happened. One thing that I thought was really interesting was the front door. You can use the door to go to 4 places that I can remember: Ingary, Kingsbury, Wales and the Moving castle. Another thing about this book is Calcifer. Calcifer is a fire demon. He keeps the castle moving and makes the hot water. Calcifer is under a curse too. Like Sophie, he is not allowed to go out of the fireplace. Only enough to see which way to move the castle. Sophie and Calcifer make a deal that if she breaks the curse on him, he will break the curse on her.

 

I really, really enjoyed this book. I think it is my favorite book now! It’s really interesting how there is magic. Diana Wynne Jones really described the magic, so you can really imagine what’s happening. I would recommend this book because it keeps you reading non stop. You have to keep reading until you get to a stopping point. It gets you really exited about what is going to happen next and the chapters end in cliff hangers. I think I want to read it again. I think people who really like magic should read this book! I think Harry Potter is like this book because there is also a lot of magic in Harry Potter. I rate this book FIVE STARS out of one to five.

 

 

Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson

 

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I read Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson. This is the fifth book of the Moomin series. The main characters are Moomintroll and Too-Ticky. The main problem is that Moomintroll wakes up in his hibernation and can’t fall asleep so he has to survive winter. This book takes place in a House a Bathing House and mostly in the Woods.

 

Moomintroll is curious, kind, and brave. He is curious because he saw someone under the sink and he tried calling out “ it’s ok” and he tried leaving out food he tried really hard to find out who was under the sink. Moomintroll is kind because he was kind enough to let a lot of people stay in his house. Moomintroll is brave because he was brave enough to go and save Little My on the breaking ice. Moomintroll and Too-Ticky have to take care of a lot of people that come over so they have a warm place to stay. Something called a Hemulen comes over and the Hemulen is really annoying to everybody. But Salome, the little creep, likes him. Too-Ticky knows about the lady of the cold so she warned everyone to stay inside. If the Lady of the cold looks you in the eye then you freeze. But when the lady of the cold comes, a squirrel forgets to stay inside, so he gets frozen. Moomintroll makes a big decision to not go back to sleep but to see what winter is like.


I enjoyed this book because it shows you how Moomintroll reacted to his first winter. I also like how Tove Jansson is really descriptive about the snow. I would recommend this book because it’s a really good book for people who like books with animals, adventure, friendship, survival and nature. This book connects to my life  because I bet I didn’t like my first winter either because it’s cold and you have to wear too many layers! I rate this book five stars out of five.

Poppy by Avi

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           I read Poppy by Avi. The main characters are Poppy and Mr. Ocax. Poppy is a mouse and Mr. Ocax is an owl. The main problem is that the mouse population is growing and there isn’t enough food to feed them all. They have to move to a place with more food but Mr.Ocax won’t let them move. It takes place in the woods.

                  At the beginning of the story, one day Poppy and her boyfriend Ragweed go to Bannock Hill because Ragweed thought that it would be romantic if he asked Poppy to marry him on Bannock Hill. Then Mr. Ocax flies down and eats  Ragweed up and Poppy feels really sad. After that Mr. Ocax wants to eat Poppy but Poppy saves herself and only gets a little scratch on her forehead. Poppy makes a big decision to go through Dimwood Forest all by herself. Mr. Ocax made the mice think that he is the boss and he protects them from porcupines but. Then Poppy figures out that he’s lying and that he’s the one afraid of porcupines and porcupines are vegetarian. He doesn’t want them to move because then he will lose his food.

         I enjoyed this book because sometimes it leaves you at a cliffhanger when you just want to read more and find out what’s going to happen. I also think it is fun when the animals are talking. I also really enjoyed this book because it has a lot of feeling at the end of the book. I would recommend this book to people who like books about animals or books that are a little scary or people who like mysteries. I rate this book 4 stars out of five stars.