Author Archives: 25mayers

Jun
09
2017

Holes By Luis Sachar

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The book I read is called Holes. Holes about a boy who is accused of a crime that he is not responsible for. This boy is named Stanley Yelnats. When something bad happens, he and his family blame it on their no-good-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather. When he is sent to Camp Green Lake, a prison camp, he has to get used to a lot of things- manual labor and mean people. Just with those two things what kind of community do you think this is?

 

Stanley is smart, kind and brave. Stanley is smart because he is trying to stay out of fights when he knows it will just get him into more trouble. He is not like the other kids at the Camp Green Lake. He is not all bad, because as I said before he didn’t even commit a crime. He isn’t scary; the kids there just think he is because he is so big. It makes him feel uncomfortable because that is not the true him. Stanley is kind because not only does he teach his friend Zero to read and recognize the alphabet, but he also becomes a true friend to him and they have some hard times together. Stanley is brave because he has a lot of problems in this book and he always takes them head-on like a bull spearing his problems with his horns.

 

One interesting part was when Stanley was just getting used to the way of life at Camp Green Lake and he was thinking that all the kids were bad and that he was better than all of them. Eventually, he started to see the good in all of them. Another eye-opening part is when Stanley was hearing everybody’s criminal stories. That was interesting to me because it was fun to hear everyone’s backstory because it was taking a break from hearing about Stanley. I could tell that it was also fascinating for Stanley because Louis Sachar described the moment so well. Additionally, a part that helped me form a picture in my mind was when Stanley told all his friends his story about how he had “stolen” the shoes. I could picture the shoes falling from the sky and him not knowing what to do except running home with the shoes so his dad could recycle them. When Stanley was done everybody started laughing and it was as if their crimes were huge and his was tiny. Some beautiful language that Sachar uses to describe Stanley was, “that his hands and muscles weren’t the only thing that had hardened his heart had hardened too”. This happened right after Zero asked Stanley to teach him to read and Stanley didn’t want to do it at first. Even after these good things about Stanley, I probably still would not want him to be my friend.

 

This book is an easy favorite. Top 15 on my list. You know how much I liked this book? I would consider writing a letter to Louis Sachar. That’s how much I loved this book. It always makes you think what is going to happen next in Stanley’s imprisoned life. This book reminds me of Pilfer Academy. The two books are alike because they both have two kids that hate what their life is so they make a change. Zero and Stanley make a lot of changes to their life. This book is an easy five stars.

May
12
2017

The Mighty Dynamo by Kieran Crowley

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The book that I chose to read (or the book Tara told me I had to read) is called the Mighty Dynamo by Kieran Crowley. Noah is the main character of this book. The setting is Ireland in the present day. The Mighty Dynamo is what Noah’s mom used to call him before she passed away. Noah gets into a fight at one of his soccer games, a fight that he did not start. As a result, he gets kicked off of the school’s team, Saint Killian’s.  When Noah gets banned from Saint Kilian’s soccer, he sets his eyes on building his own team under the name of another school.  Noah has a genius friend named Stevie who was the one to come up with the idea of starting Noah’s own team. The idea is to start a new team for the all girls school St. Mary’s.

Noah is not pleased that he is playing for a girls school but he knows this is the only way he can play in the big tournament. The St. Mary’s principal lets Noah’s play under her school’s name but she says they must have at least one girl on their team. Noah is not pleased with this either but again he knows that this is the only way he can play. The girl on the team is Maggie O’Connell. Noah met Maggie at the park to see if she was any good at soccer. He found out that she was really really good, so he started to appreciate her. The first thing Maggie did when she saw Noah was pull out a tennis ball and they had a Juggle off which is when you try to keep the ball in the air for as long as possible. The Juggle Off was so hard because it was with a tennis ball not a soccer ball. Maggie wanted the Juggle Off as a way to test Noah’s skills.

Noah is unstoppable, athletic, and stubborn. Noah is unstoppable because when he got banned from the soccer team he didn’t give up. He still wanted to play in the big tournament so he made his own team.  Noah is athletic because he is the best player on his soccer team. He is also the leader of his soccer team and he is the captain because he is the leader. Noah is stubborn because once Stevie presented the plan of starting a new team under the name of the a all girls school, he didn’t want to do it at all. It took a lot of Stevie arguing with him before he agreed.

Noah was eventually into the idea of starting this new team because he wants to play in the big Tournament, the World Cup. When Noah’s team realizes that the first manager/coach doesn’t work out he hires Stevie to be the manager/coach. This is the most interesting part because Stevie is not that good at soccer but he is a great coach. Stevie was happy from then on out, but when Noah wasn’t looking he always had this look in his eyes that he wanted to be a player. I think the quote I chose resembles Noah’s leadership, “Come on team we can do it. We have to get better.” This quote shows Noah’s leadership because he is saying encouraging words to the players.

I loved this book so much because it was a step outside my comfort zone, that’s big for me. Tara told me that I needed to take a look at fiction, not only nonfiction and I listened to her. Now I’m reading so many fiction books that sometimes I have to read a little nonfiction. I would recommend this book if you like realistic sports fiction. This book takes a lot of surprising twists and turns, but it is still very realistic. Things happen that could totally happen today. This book reminds me of a typical sports story, it isn’t unique. There are a lot of parts of this book that remind me of Matt Christopher and Tim Green books. If you don’t know, those two are some very famous sports writers. I would give this book four stars because I really liked it.  I would have liked an epilogue so I could find out if Noah ended up playing in the Premier League when he grew up.

 

Mar
17
2017

Strong Inside, by Andrew Marahiss

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The title of my book is called Strong Inside by Andrew Marahiss. The book is a biography about a basketball player named Perry Wallace, who is facing a lot of racism and segregation. He is black in the 60s and in a still segregated college in Nashville, Tennessee. He is grown enough to understand segregation.  People put signs on his door saying mean things, they talked trash in basketball games, the fans threw food at him, and he was not allowed to be part of a fraternity group because he was black.  People treated him differently and it influenced him a lot.  He became more quiet, knew to avoid people and stay away from segregationists. Perry Wallace had to be a lot more cautious.

Perry Wallace is quiet, mature, and perseverant. He is quiet because he grew up in the South and he learned to be shy and stay away from all of the terrible things that were happening there.  Instead of speaking up and standing up to the bullies he stayed away from all of them and didn’t do anything and let the racist slurs roll off his back.  Wallace is mature because he always knows what to do.  He drove away when there was a riot, like someone who is mature would, instead of getting into it. Another instance is when he was the first black player on the Vanderbilt team. He could handle all the pressure; that’s what’s mature about him.  Perry Wallace is mature because when people hang bad signs on his door, he doesn’t go berserk about it.  He is perseverant because he doesn’t give up when all of the racist segregation happens.  He didn’t give up when in a Mississippi game all the fans were talking trash and throwing things at him and not giving him a chance. He still played a great game. Perry Wallace has great characteristics because he is all of these things.

One of the most interesting parts is when the author talks about Perry Wallace maturing. This is the part I chose because it is not how a typical sports story would go. A typical sports story would intro the player, talk about him or her, then talk about the games and end the book by making the player win or lose. That’s what a typical sports story would be; but not this time, this book talks about Perry improving. It talks about his experience of being a black athlete in the mid-60’s. He is threatened, and he is cursed at. Another really interesting part of the book is realizing how he was treated. I’m just saying, it was hell. Why do you think he was treated that way? The worst place he played at (racist wise) was Starkville Mississippi and Auburn. Perry called it “Four Days in Hell”.

I liked this book because it is unique and it tells a different story than most other sports books do. The time period is very interesting to me since it’s not how we would live today. We don’t have segregation anymore and sports players of all colors, and other people, are allowed to do whatever they want. I have two feelings about recommending this book to other students. I think you should read this because it’s such an inspiring and realistic story.  It teaches people how hard it was for people of color in the 1960s.  Also, I do not recommend this book because there are a lot of curse words in it. This book reminds me of the movie Race; it is about Jesse Owens and him overcoming racism just like Perry Wallace did. Overall, I would rate this book with three and half stars. The reason I only rated it with three and a half stars is that it’s not a kid’s book, because of that I thought that it was a little slow moving. If you are a kid that likes grown-up books you will like this book, but if you’re a kid that likes fantasy and things like that, then this probably isn’t an amazing book for you, but otherwise it was great.

Feb
28
2017

The Story of Texas, by John Edward Weems and Ron Stone

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The title of my book is The Story of Texas. It was written by John Edward Weems and Ron Stone. The Story of Texas is about all the important  things that have happened in and to Texas from the early 1500’s to the late 1900’s. A few of the historic people that are included are Santa Anna (the President of Mexico when Texas was fighting for their independence), Sam Houston (the first President of the Republic of Texas), Stephen F. Austin, Mirabeau Lamar (the second President of Texas), and the Indians of Texas (mostly the Cherokee). These people appear in all the stories in the book. The Parker family is only in one story. This book has many different events in each part; there are four parts. This book will help you with your knowledge of Texas because it has good stories, good pictures, and good descriptive words to go with the pictures. It tells you a lot of history.  

The Texas President, Sam Houston, was wise, brave, and consistently right.  He was wise because when he made all the laws of Texas, almost all of them worked. He was brave because you have to be brave to be the first president of the Republic of Texas, and he commanded people. He was consistently right because he predicted that the Confederacy would lose. He said that Texas was going to fall when they joined the Confederacy (Texas did fall apart after that war). Sam Houston was the most important person in this book.

An interesting part in the book is when people fought at the Alamo. This was interesting because they held up longer than everybody thought they would. Another memorable part is when the book explains how people lived. That’s memorable because the way they lived was very different from the way we live. There are no duals now. And there are much less criminals. The construction of houses is very different. One more important part is when the Texans in the military fought at Rio Grande and beat the Mexicans. This is important because it’s a big part of how Texas gained independence from Mexico. All these interesting historical facts about Texas will teach you about the people and land of the Lone Star state.

This book is good because it teaches you about a state (if you’re not from Texas) you don’t know about. Another reason I like the book is that there is more than one story. If you don’t like the first part, the second part will be totally different. Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, the second President of Texas, reminds me of George Bush. Lamar reminds me of Bush because Bush wanted to wage war on Iraq. He was wrong to go. Lamar wanted to be in the Confederacy, forcing Sam Houston to resign as President. Texas was basically destroyed after the war just like Iraq was. I would rate this book four and a half stars. It’s cool to read about a way of life that is different from your own. I really recommend this book because Texas is not in the same location as LREI is and this book is all about Texas.

 

Jan
26
2017

Paperboy by Vince Vawter

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Paperboy Pitches Something Besides Papers

A really important event in the story, Paperboy, is that the main character becomes a paperboy.  This happens because the soon to become paperboy is the best pitcher in his grade. He pitched a baseball, and that ball went into Art, his best friend’s, face. Art was the actual paperboy so our main character became the substitute paperboy. This event is important because he stutters and it gets him to talk to a lot more people.  Most of the people are very nice on his paper route, some of them are not. There is a lady on his paper route named Mrs. Worthington. Every house he tries to say a word that is troubling him like basketball or pitch. When he came to Mrs. Worthington’s house he said the word pitch.  She thought he said a different word, maybe a bad word.  There is another person named Mr. Spiro. The first time the paperboy goes to Mr. Spiro’s house to deliver a paper Mr. Spiro is sitting on his porch. They start having a long conversation and at the end of the conversation, Mr. Spiro asks the paperboy a dreaded question, “What is your name.”  When the paperboy tries to say his name he gets so stuck on the V sound he faints. Mrs. Worthington is important because he has a really strong relationship with her towards the end of the book. Mr. Spiro is very important because he also has a strong relationship with the paperboy and rich conversation.  He also persuades the paperboy to talk a lot more and the paperboy doesn’t like to talk because of his stuttering. Mr. Spiro also knows some tricks to help the paperboy talk better. Once he said if we say “this word” in unison will it help you. The paperboy nodded, and guess what, it worked. I know you’re asking “what is this kids name”? I don’t really know, but it doesn’t make the book any different. This is a really good book. I recommend reading it. In the book they change Art’s name into rat because it is easier for the paperboy to pronounce. The names in this book may be confusing but the story is great and realistic.