Review {The Fourteenth Goldfish}

Synopsis & cover photo: {courtesy of amazon.com}:

Galileo. Newton. Salk. Oppenheimer.

Science can change the world . . . but can it go too far?

Eleven-year-old Ellie has never liked change. She misses fifth grade. She misses her old best friend. She even misses her dearly departed goldfish. Then one day a strange boy shows up. He’s bossy. He’s cranky. And weirdly enough . . . he looks a lot like Ellie’s grandfather, a scientist who’s always been slightly obsessed with immortality. Could this pimply boy really be Grandpa Melvin? Has he finally found the secret to eternal youth?

With a lighthearted touch and plenty of humor, Jennifer Holm celebrates the wonder of science and explores fascinating questions about life and death, family and friendship, immortality . . . and possibility.

{Review}:

{I received a digital copy of this book VIA Netgalley in return for an honest review}

I LOVED this book.

I had a feeling before I even started that it was going to be about more than goldfish…and it definitely was.

Ellie’s world turns upside down when her grandfather comes to stay with them. Except, unlike most grandparents, her grandfather {Melvin}…isn’t just some old man who wear slippers around the house and does crossword puzzles—he’s a scientist. Who has discovered a cure for aging.

And turns himself into an adolescent boy.

And the story unfolds from this beginning.

I enjoyed this book for a few reasons: It reminded me a little bit of Back To The Future. With a little more Doc Brown.

I also loved the message that this story had. It was sweet, pretty profound, and I definitely had tears in my eyes when I finished it.

It took me all of about 2.5 summer hours to read {my summer hours are definitely much easier to “read straight through” in}.

I also liked that some of this book was given away piece by piece. I definitely am going to look into it and see what guided reading level it is to possibly use it with one of my groups this school year: I really enjoyed the message within the pages. I also liked that Holm took the time to place resources in the back of the book to further look into some of the scientific matters {an excellent resource for educators looking to squeeze potential out of this fantastic book!}

{Where can I buy this?}:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Fourteenth-Goldfish-Jennifer-L-Holm/dp/0375870644/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414367664&sr=1-1&keywords=the+fourteenth+goldfish

B & N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-fourteenth-goldfish-jennifer-holm/1117541921?ean=9780375870644

{What would I rate it?}: 4.9/5. I really, REALLY liked it.

{Who would I recommend this book to?}:

Anyone with an interest in science, pre-teen girls AND boys, basically…pretty much any kiddo out there!

Flashback Friday {Review: Signal by Cynthia DeFelice}

(photo courtesy of google image search)

{Synopsis: courtesy of amazon.com}: 

One day while running on the trail near his house in upstate New York, Owen McGuire meets a girl with startling green eyes and bloody cuts all over her body who seems to be utterly alone. Her name is Campion, after the wildflower that is an alien species in the area—alien meaning “from someplace else”—and Campion claims to come from someplace else entirely, a planet called Home. She plans to signal her parents to come pick her up in their spaceship. Owen agrees to help, and as he does, he feels happier than he has in a long time: His mother died a year and a half ago, and now he and his workaholic father live together like two planets on separate orbits, in a new house far from his friends. What will he do when Campion asks him to come with her into outer space, away from his lonely life on Earth?

{Review}: 

There are a few things that I love about this book.

1.      It takes place on the shores of a finger lake in Upstate NY—where I’ve grown and spent all of my 29 years on this Earth.

2.      Cynthia DeFelice is behind this great piece of fiction.

3.      The cover is interesting and appealing, before you ever open the book to read it.

Cynthia DeFelice again paints a very realistic picture of an adolescent who is going through some pretty serious changes in his life. His mother has died, his father is very consumed with his life, and doesn’t necessarily have everything together himself, let alone getting himself together for his son.

And then we meet Campion: this poor scared alien-girl who mysteriously ended up near Owen’s home, and has no family to speak of, except the family from another planet. There is also a man—Ray, who is looking for her. Ray is a bit of a tough guy, and you’re never quite sure what the connection is. Until the ending, which will tear your heart out and stomp it on the floor.

I bought this selection from a scholastic book fair, because I knew that my guided reading students would love it. I could see {from a teaching perspective} that this would be a great addition to any child’s library, but especially to children who have already read Weasel by C. DeFelice--- there are a multitude of similarities of the story outlines, and it would be interesting for a middle-grade level to take these texts and really dive deeply into them. Cynthia DeFelice is also just a good author “to know”…as she has written a LOT of awesome books that appeal to young readers. My fifth grade students—upon receiving this book said the following:

Student 1: “Signal… the cover looks pretty cool…”

Student 2: “OMG! It’s by Cynthia DeFelice!”

Student 1: “That’s awesome. After we read Under The Same Sky, I tried to read all of our libraries books by her…”

{that’s super powerful stuff, peeps!}

{Where can I buy this?}:

Like I said, I bought mine at the last scholastic book fair we had, but you should be able to pick this up wherever books are sold.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Signal-Cynthia-DeFelice/dp/0312617763/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400961886&sr=8-1&keywords=signal+by+cynthia+defelice

B & N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/signal-cynthia-defelice/1100357585?ean=9780312617769

{What would I rate it?}: 

4.8/5: I REALLY enjoyed this book, and it was an incredibly quick read. My students thought the same, and were intrigued by the story the entire time.

{Who would I recommend this book to?}: 

Anyone with an advanced reading 4^th grader/ 5^th grader (on or above level) who is looking for something quick, and a good all-around read. Her stuff is really amazing, and once you've read one DeFelice, you really yearn to read at least 3+ more.... if not everything she's ever published. :-) 

We Were Liars {E Lockhart}

Photo courtesy of Google image search:

{Synopsis: courtesy of Amazon.com}:

A beautiful and distinguished family.

A private island.

A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.

A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.

A revolution. An accident. A secret.

Lies upon lies.

True love.

The truth.

 

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 

Read it.

And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

{Review}: 

Woah.

Just Woah.

I’d heard buzz about this book from the minute I attempted to snatch it up from my netgalley.com account. I never in a million, gazillion years thought that Penguin Books would EVER choose me to get an ARC, but I did.

And am I EVER thankful for that.

This book is a masterful piece of young adult literature. In fact, it’s unlike any book I’ve really ever read. It reminds me a bit of The Great Gatsby {because of the idyllic money situation, and living near the ocean… plus some of the adults act a bit Tom Buchanan-esque}, throw in a little Gone Girl {in the mystery….}, and a dash of the camaraderie and friendship you see in a novel like The Outsiders…and you’ve kind of got a sliver of what you’re in for.

Main character Cadence is a trust-fund grandbaby {the oldest, but only by three weeks}. She’s the only child in her nuclear family, and her parents are pretty recently divorced. She has 2 cousin’s with whom she’s very close, and another “family” friend, Gat {who is really the son of the man who is dating her aunt}. 

They together, make up the liars.

While reading this book, you’re transported into a world of tennis playing, ultra rich kids, who really DON’T have it all together, or have it all…period. It’s an incredibly enthralling tale {primarily because it’s about a culture of which I don’t really know}…but more than that, Lockhart has done an absolutely amazing job of making this a can’t-put-it-down type of summer read. This is the book you tell all of your friends about, and practically throw in their beach bag for them.

I will say at the beginning, there’s a TON of information to take in all at once. Aunts names, cousin’s names…it was a little overwhelming, and I actually had to diagram it all. But it’s super important to know.

And the ending?

The ending is the best possible part of the entire book.

And it’s masterful. 

Amazing.

And you NEVER see it coming.

And no….I won’t tell.

{Where can I buy this?}:

 Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/We-Were-Liars-E-Lockhart-ebook/dp/B00FPOSDGY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400016983&sr=8-1&keywords=we+were+liars

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/we-were-liars-e-lockhart/1116530632?ean=9780385741262

{What would I rate it?}:

 5/5. Solid 5 star book.

{Who would I recommend this book to?}: 

Anyone really. I’d say anyone who is interested in the book and can read it, should. Anyone 12+ probably, if not 10+ {provided they can handle some of the smootches, and there is some talk of “sexual intercourse”, some light boozing…among other things : - )

Countdown by Deborah Wiles

{image courtesy of goodreads.com & google image search}


Got this gem at the scholastic book sale for $2.50 (HARDCOVER!). I had heard from a 5th grader that it was a REALLY awesome book. The comment that she made was, "It's the format that's the coolest part." 

{Yep, a 5th grader said that!}

And the format is one of the coolest parts! 

This book is like none other that I've ever read. Not only because it's a realistic historical fiction piece, but because it talks about the Cuban missile crisis, and that's something that I, myself... don't know much about. I've heard my parents talk about duck and cover drills, but really I never understood (before reading this book), how often the occurred, and how impossibly scared the kids of this day and age were.

We meet Franny (the main character), and through her eyes, we see her complex family (she's a military brat, with her father in the military, an uncle who is suffering from PTSD from his own military experience, a mother who is the quintessential housewife, a (much older), older sister who is trying to fight for change on the side of racial relations while attending university, and a younger brother who is beyond obsessed with Burt the turtle, and becoming an astronaut someday. 

Franny has a hard road ahead of her...she's trying desperately to fit in at school, and dealing with the challenges of the day and age she's growing up in, while just growing up...is difficult for her. Ms. Wiles takes us on an amazing journey of her trying to figure out her life.

Again, one of the most endearing qualities of this book is it's format. Ms. Wiles uses many non-fiction elements while she tells Franny's story (using excerpts from speeches, advertisements, etc), which all fit in nicely with the text before and after it. I loved that portion of the book, because it so seamlessly makes the book tie into non-fiction, and you don't have to go searching everywhere for your answers to "what is she talking about here?" and "who is that person again, and why are they important?"

As far as teachability is concerned, there are so many directions that this book could take you. You could obviously tie it nicely into social studies, and a non-fiction project on what it was like to grow up during the early 60's, you could absolutely interview someone who was alive back then, and ask them what they knew, and you could also make some personal connections to how Franny's life is similar to their own, growing up in a post 9/11 world.

I very much enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to teachers, parents, and the like.

Where can I buy this?: Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Countdown-1st-first-Wiles-Deborah/dp/B00BTM0TSQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398117782&sr=1-2&keywords=countdown+by+deborah+wiles

Barnes and Nobel: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/countdown-deborah-wiles/1100162030?ean=9780545106054

What I think of it: 4.5/5 

Who would like to read it: Kiddos, teachers, parents...or anyone who lived in the sixties.

AND--- it's part of a trilogy!! That's one of the most endearing qualities about it-- That it sucked me in, and makes me want to read the rest of them!

Words Wound by Justin Patchin & Sameer Hinduja

Review:

I received an ARC of Words Wound courtesy of Netgalley. I was very interested in what this book had to say about cyberbullying. Working my days in a school with kindergarten through 5^th graders, I (thankfully) don’t usually have many instances to use knowledge of cyberbullying, primarily because my students aren’t old enough to really use a lot of social networking. Many students have Instagram, but very few have Facebook or twitter at this stage in the game. However, being aligned with many students who were a little older, the book was of interest to me, and I really wanted to see what it had to offer.

I DID very much feel the entire time reading this book, that while its intended audience might be of the teenage variety, it really was written as if it was directed more toward their parents and educators. This isn’t to say that the whole book is a wash—there were some awesome suggestions to be made to students who are bullying and/or witness bullying of others, but the book was filled with a lot of facts and figures—things I’m not sure would appeal to a reading audience of teens. The book definitely had instances of teens giving feedback as to experiences that they had had with cyberbullying, which was refreshing to hear the “real life” stories of teens standing up to bullies, and standing up for their friends--- it was sometimes hard to get through with the hypotheticals, and I personally wished that there would've been more feedback from teens throughout the book.

The book dealt with some very real situations that students don’t think about. I personally, know of a teen whose Facebook account was hacked because he gave his password to an ex-girlfriend, and he dealt with the repercussions of a night of completely inappropriate musings--- he got into trouble at school, with family members, and with friends.

I felt as if the most important chapter of the book (how to bring cyberbullying down in your school by forming groups/making pledges to stop cyberbullying), were very well written, and provided a ton of great ideas to begin something in your own school district.

One piece of the book that I definitely LIKED, was that the book outlined some court cases involving cyberbullying, and how even online behavior off campus (or outside of school), can still definitely affect you INSIDE the walls of a school. It's important that students and teens understand what could happen because of their online behaviors, and that there still are consequences within the four walls of the schoolhouse, for things that might have been said in the heat of the moment online.

Where can I buy this?: Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Words-Wound-Delete-Cyberbullying-Kindness/dp/1575424517

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/words-wound-justin-patchin/1114971564?ean=9781575426020

What I think of it: 4/5 (again, if it was written more for a teenaged audience, this would’ve been a clear 4.5/5)

Who would like to read it: I think EVERY parent of a teenager in this day and age should definitely read this book. Educators who work with teens should definitely look into it as well.

Social Media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wordswound