Author Archives: Xander

Sep
02
2015

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

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The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

     The book I read over the summer was called The Crossover by Kwame Alexander. I think the author really liked basketball because the setting of the book was mostly on the basketball court. The main characters in the book are Josh Bell and JB they are twin brothers that are 14, they’re on the same basketball team and play great together on the court. The book also had a lot of descriptive writing about basketball. Like my favorite line in the book when she wrote “ to JB, who skips downtown zips around then double dips it in the bowl SWOOSH.” They’re many problems in this book but the main one is that Josh and JB’s dad has hypertension and he is really sick, but he doesn’t like doctors so he keeps not going to the doctor and keeps getting more and more sick.

In the beginning of the book it explains who the characters are and what they’re like. Then in the middle of the book it’s all about their basketball careers and what they want to do in college and when they get older. Also what happens in the middle is that JB gets a girlfriend and he is hypnotized in a way because all he thinks about is her and cares less and less about basketball. There is also a problem in the middle when Josh gets suspended from the basketball team and school. He gets so angry. His mom who is also the vice principal suspended him because he was bad in school. Josh missed the semi final game. Later his mom decides to lets him play in the finals. Before the game Josh and his dad were playing one on one and when Chuck, their dad, was going to dunk, he fell. They called an ambulance to pick him up. He was in a coma for a while but eventually he woke up. He was in the hospital recovering and everyone thought he was getting better. But on the day of the game he had a heart attack! JB was crying so much and was so sad, instead of going to the game he went to the hospital. Josh went to the game and scored at the buzzer and won the championship! Sadly, after the game, Chuck Bell died of a heart attack.  He was 39.  Chuck played in the NBA so it was all over the news. Before he died he gave his championship ring to josh.

I really enjoyed this book because I LOVE basketball and this book was about basketball. I also liked this book because the book was written in verse and I thought that was really cool. Lastly I liked this book because I thought this author was really good at making me feel like I was connected to the characters.  It made the book very interesting. I recommend this book to kids that love basketball and like books that are told in poems. I give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Feb
26
2015

Who was Galileo? by Patricia Brennan Demuth

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515w08svuZL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_The book I read was called Who was Galileo. Patricia Brennan Demuth wrote the book. The book is mainly about Galileo’s life and how he was persecuted for knowing a scientific truth. He was born during the renaissance which was a time for rebirth of art and learning. Galileo loved learning and questioning how things worked in the world. Although Galileo created important inventions his life was at times difficult.

His father was a musician and he taught Galileo how to play instruments. A really cool instrument his dad played was called the Lute. When Galileo was just 8 his family move to Florence, Italy which is much different than when he used to live in Pisa. A part in the book that was really interesting was that eyeglasses had been around since the 1200’s but until 1608 no one used glass lenses to magnify far away objects. So Galileo set to work trying to build something that did and built the telescope. Three adjectives to describe Galileo are smart, curious, and energetic. Was smart because he was the first person to realize that the Earth moves around the sun not the sun moves around the earth. Curious because he always wanted to learn more and more. Last but not least Energetic because he had so much energy when he was a kid.

This book was fun to read because it had some really cool information that I thought was cool. One is I didn’t know that he invented the telescope. I recommend this book to kids who like reading about non- fiction.I give this book 3 stars out of 5.

Feb
02
2015

Who Is Bill Gates? by Patricia Brennan Demuth

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51KXdiA2LtL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_The book I read is called Who is Bill Gates?  by Patricia Brennan Demuth. The name of the series is called who is or who was or what is.The main character of the book is William Henry Gates III but everyone called him Bill. The book is mainly about a man named Bill Gates who was born on October 28th, 1955 in Seattle. Also it is about a genius who went to Harvard and dropped out to make his own company. He was the co-founder of Microsoft and his other co partner is named Paul Allen and they were best friends.

The most interesting parts of the book for me were that he wrote with his right hand in school when he was bored even though he was a righty.  Also I liked when gave 28 billion dollars to charity. Another thing I thought about is that was cool was he would stay at his computer and go to sleep at midnight then wake up in the morning blink once and start working again. Three adjectives that I would talk about Bill are nice smart , and happy. Nice because he gives a lot of money to charity. smart because when he knew all the answers to every question. For example When the teacher said a really hard math question he knew it right away. Last but not least happy because he almost always had a smile on his face. Almost every time the author put a smile on Bill’s face because bill was a really happy guy a lot of the time.

I enjoyed the book because I thought the author did a good job telling us about Bill’s life. I also liked this book because I thought Bill was a cool person to read about because he did so many things to change the world in computers and without him a computer would be the same as a broken piece of plastic. Also the author made me want to read more about Bill. This book reminds me of the movie Imitation Game because it’s also about a really smart guy who was smart at computers.I would give this book 3 and a half stars.

Jan
05
2015

Fenway Foul-Up by David A. Kelly

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searchIn The Fenway Foul-up  By David A. Kelly, Big D the best hitter on the Red Sox had his bat stolen at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.  Mike and Kate, the main characters, try to figure out who stole Big D’s baseball bat.  This is especially important because Big D only plays great with his lucky bat.

Mike suspects that the old man stole Big D’s bat.  He suspects this because he got the a bat that looked the same for his grandson. The old man was eating sunflower seeds when the bat went missing. Mike and Kate think this may be a clue to solve the mystery. However, the photographer was also eating sunflower seeds, so Mike and Kate are stumped.  After Kate looked closer she also found that  the old man’s bat looked newer with less scratches than Big D’s. My favorite character was Kate. She was my favorite character because she is smart, athletic, and funny. Smart because she speaks more than 3 languages. athletic because she plays a lot of sports. Last but not least funny because she makes a lot of funny jokes.

I liked the book and I didn’t like the book. I thought this book was really interesting because it was about baseball and I love baseball  One thing is I love baseball . The thing I did not like is that I do not like the Red Sox, but I thought the story was good. I would recommend this book to kids that love baseball. It was also a good mystery.  This book’s author reminds me of Matt Christopher because he does baseball books too and writes the story the same way. I give this book 3 stars out of 5.

 

Jan
05
2015

Stay Alive Flood by Joseph Monninger

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searchThe book I read is called Stay Alive Flood by Joseph Monninger. It is the fourth book in the series called Stay Alive. The main characters of the book are Day, Kuru, Ellis, and Carmen. The book takes place in the apartment building that all the kids live in.They are stuck in 10 feet of water from a massive storm that floods the building.The kids have to devise a plan for them to survive the flood and get out alive.

At the beginning of the book the kids barely know each other but once they all realize that there is a flood in their town they join together to find a way out.

In the basement of their apartment building the owner’s son keeps 7 pythons as pets. When the flood occurs the pythons escape from their cages and are set free.

Carmen is wounded by one of the pythons when it wrapped around her neck while she was sleeping. All the kids felt  bad for Carmen and let her rest while they were still trying to find a way out . Day was my favorite character in the book because he’s smart, really nice and athletic. Day was good at chess which shows that he is smart, nice because he took really good care of his younger brother Ellis, Carmen when she was hurt, and played a lot of sports showing he was athletic. By the end of the book  all the kids learned a very valuable lesson in friendship and caring for one other.

I did not like this book because I thought there was too much talking and conversation among the main characters and not a lot of action. Also I did not like the ending because I wanted there to be more action. I would not recommend this book because I found it boring. I did think though that the idea of the story was good and liked the parts where all the kids were helping each other. The book and movie that pops into my head that feels similar to me is the book called The Lost City Of Ember. This book was also about a storm and how two kids had to escape by boat.

 

 

I would give this book 2 stars out of 5.