STUDENT
WORK
Book Reviews
TASK:
Review
your book. Be sure to mention
the title, author, main character, brief summary, and reaction.
Include at least 1 quotation that will enliven the review.
End with advice about reading this book.
MAINE
LEARNING RESULT:
A7 –
Summarize whole texts by selecting and summarizing important
passages.
Chinese Cinderella, which was written by Adeline Yen Mah, was a very sad but true book. It is about a young Chinese girl who caused her mother’s death when she was born. Now she has to deal with it everyday of her life. She is rejected by almost everyone in her family but her aunt. Her only escape from the sadness of rejection is her writing and her homework. “I can’t wait to grow up and get away,” she says as she explains how much she hated being treated so badly. “Things were so much better when she was around. You made her go away.” This is what she gets practically every day of life. There her brother was telling her that it was her fault for their mother’s death.
This book was not as good as I thought it would be. It especially dragged on at the beginning. But once you get into it, it gets more interesting. If you like long, sad stories, then this is the book for you, otherwise I advise not reading it. - T.H.
The name of the book I read is All Creatures Great and Small. This autobiography was written by James Herriot; a young veterinary surgeon who decides to work as an assistant in the small county of Dales, England. This young vet gets the assistant position under Siegfried Farnon, a temperamental veterinary surgeon that is always either very happy or very angry.
When he wasn’t very happy, he came into surgery and said things like “Stop pulling at that bloody gut! Do you know how much that stuff costs per foot?” Mr. Herriot gets his challenges with the animals: pigs, dogs, cows, roosters, and a lot of other animals. He did all sorts of things from harder things like helping a calf give birth to easier things like giving an injection. He got up early a lot too but the only way he complained was to say stuff like “I hardly awake enough to function.” He also got married but I’ll let you read this fantastic book to find out about that.
I really suggest someone read this book if they’re interested in hearing about part of a marvelous young man’s life. - C.K.
Alive
by Piers Paul Read is thrilling, but also tragic.
It’s such a superb book your face will become glued to it.
Once you get going you can’t stop. In this book there is no main
character.
A rugby team from Uruguay is on a quest to survive from an airplane
crash in the deadly Andes. You’ll be shocked once you find out how they
survived.
You’ll have to find out for yourself.
As Parrado always said to his peers, “If I die, take my flesh.”
Do you know what I am talking about.
Many men said, “Leave me here to die.” That would not benefit
anyone.
Then guess what they do?
What… I’m not supposed to tell you.
You’ll have to read it for yourself.
I rated this book 4 out of 5 stars.
– A. S.
Being in Roald Dahl’s place would have been ruthless; he was caned with his pants pulled down. Roald Dahl wrote a book called Boy about himself when he was a kid. Roald did all these things that were stupid and funny; he’d think it was funny until he was caned for it. “At first I only heard the crack and I felt absolutely nothing, but a fraction of a second later, the burning sting flooded my bottom, it was so terrific that all I could do was gasp.”
One of the things that I found hilarious was when Roald dropped a dead mouse in a candy jar at the candy store; he really paid for it with the whipping that he got. Roald went to private schools a lot because before Roald’s father died he said he wanted his son and six daughters to have proper schooling. Poor Roald had four sisters, and two half sisters. Therefore, Roald went to private schools as his dad wished. Unfortunately, Roald’s mother liked to move a lot, so he was always the youngest student at the school and he had to do all the chores for the older boys.
Overall, I think this book isn’t too hard or too easy to read. The book was funny, and there were some serious parts. It was just a good book to read. - H.N.
She Said Yes
by
Misty Bernall was about a girl named Cassie Bernall who got shot at
Columbine High School. It all
started when she was going to another school and was in a bad crowd.
She was angry at her mom and dad because they would not let her do
things with her friend Mona. Cassie
wrote notes often that were not good.
Misty, her mother, was frustrated by the letters which said that
Cassie and her friend should kill her mother.
She even went to the police to get a restraining order made out so
that Cassie and Mona could not see each other.
Cassie’s parents put Cassie in a church
group so that maybe she could get a better
A
week or so before Cassie’s death she
told her mom, “Mom, I am not afraid to die because I will be in
heaven.” On April 20, 1999,
she died for God. A boy name
Dylan asked her if she believed in God. She said Yes.
He shot her right in the head.
Cassie’s parents were not mad at Dylan’s parents because they
thought that they too lost a
child. There are now 15
crosses near Columbine. 13
for the victims and 2 for the killers.
Cassie had underlined as one of her favorite quotes I a book.
“All of us should live life to be able to face eternity at any time."
I
liked this book. It was sad.
If you do not like sad books, this is not one for you.
I thought that one of the chapters was kind of hard to read because
it was not exciting. I also
thought that the end was a little slow.
Other than that it was an A+ book.
If you are looking for a good but sad book to read, this is it.
In the book there are letters and quotes that Cassie liked or
thought were interesting and so did I.
K.R.
The name of the book is My Everest Story. The authors are Mark Pfetzer and Jack Galvin. This story is about Mark Pfetzer. He likes to climb mountains. He attempts to climb Everest and other mountains. He does a lot of training. His father takes him to the hospital to run the stairs. He ran eight flights of stairs every night. He had a personal trainer that did workouts with him. His trainer always said, “One more! When you got nothing left, you still have one more!” Mark spent time in a rescue camp learning to do emergency mountain rescues, too.
On March 15th, 1995, Mark made his first attempt on Mount Everest. He was only 15 years old. People that were on his mountain climbing team said, "He’s just a kid.” Mark was unsuccessful on that climb because he got sick. He coughed so hard and long that he fractured a rib. He had already gone to Camp One five times. Most climbers do it three times.
On the day of his second attempt, May 11th, 1996, one of Mark’s teammates saw a start above South Col and packed his stuff quickly. Jabion, Mark and another teammate decided to go down. Later, they found out that nine people were missing and a rescue team was going after them. Eight of the nine people died. Mark did not try to go back up the mountain.
In this book Mark did not summit Everest, but he was one of the youngest to ever try. This was a book of adventure and danger. I liked the book when they talked about climbing Everest. I didn’t like the book when it jumped around and left you hanging, not knowing what happened. Because of this, it was confusing. J.D.
I read
Hawk:
Occupation Skateboarder, the autobiography of the pro-skater Tony
Hawk. As a child Tony was
very…well…hyper. He had
two sisters and a brother and his mom and dad living in one house in Serra
Mesa, California. Being as
hyper and flexible as he was, he easily found ways to annoy everyone
around him. Tony once said,
“If my sons Riley and Spencer ever acted like I did, I’d make my wife
hold them down while I checked their heads for the number of the beast.”
Tony was introduced to skateboarding at an early
age. At the age of only six, Tony’s friend Stever move out of town to
study Journalism, and gave him his skateboard.
It was a thin board but not a long board.
Tony described the board to have “an edge so sharp it was capable
on cutting paper.” When he
got older he went to a part called The Oasis and started winning contests. Later he joined a skating team called the Bones Brigade and
was a real pro skater though only in his teens.
This book is full of humor, skate talk, and
everything from 1968 to 2000. I really liked this book.
Surprisingly, I don’t think you have to be a skater to enjoy the
book. You just have to have a good sense of humor and the patience
to read 300 pages. But if you
are a skater I definitely think you should read this.
It tells you how to do a few tricks, like the “rock ‘n roll”
where you slap the nose of the board on the edge of a pool or the launch
surface of a half pipe and do a 180 back into it.
This is probably one of the best books I’ve read and I think
everyone would like it too. T.C.
They Cage the Animals at Night is a book by Jennings Michael Burch.
This book is about a boy named Jennings Burch.
He does not have a normal life.
He gets passed around from orphanage to orphanage because his
family cannot take care of him. His mom, Rita, always gets sick, one brother is an alcoholic,
and the other two brothers are too young to take care of him.
Jennings is a nice, giving boy.
He will do anything for anyone.
For example a new orphan spilled his hot cocoa and Jennings
protected him and took the blame. For
doing that he got dragged across the floor and beaten.
Jennings is a survivor. He
never gave up hope. This
story has a good ending. Jennings
is rescued by his older friend Sal. Sal
will now take care of Jennings forever.
A quote I like is “You do not have to have the same
last name to be brothers.” Jennings
found Mark in the second home. They
were good friends. They had
missed each other when they were
separated. Mark did not know
his own last name so Jennings and Mark called each other brothers.
He told Mark it is what you feel inside about someone that makes
you brothers.
I think
people should read this book because it lets them know what it is like to
be in an orphanage and to have all the terrible things happen to a little
boy. The book kept my
attention. I was always
wondering what will happen next. It
made me appreciate my life and my friends.
– C.J.
This
story is about an unwanted girl named Adeline.
Her brothers and sisters blamed her for causing their mother’s
death and never forgave her. Big
Sister once told her, “If you had not been born, Mama would still be
alive. She died because of
you. You are bad luck.”
When
Adeline was a year old, her father remarried and she never felt like part
of the family. Her stepmother
had two children with her father, and of course they were favored.
Poor Adeline tried to feel better about herself by doing well in
school. Even then, she was
made to feel worthless. After
winning the class election for president, her parents were mad that she
was celebrating and yelled, “Who do you think you are?
You are getting altogether too proud and conceited!
No matter what you consider yourself to be, you are nothing without
your father. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!”
I advise reading this book because it tells a story about a person
who overcame many things to achieve her dream.
Adeline always loved to write and used it as an escape from her
horrible childhood. She grew up and wrote this story, Chinese Cinderella,
and also the New York Times bestseller, Falling Leaves.
– C. I.
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The Memories of Anne Frank is about Hannah Goslar, her family, and Anne Frank before and during the Holocaust. Hannah and Anne were best of friends and lived next door to each other.. When the Nazis were rounding up the Jews Hannah’s family moved to a different town, leaving Anne and her family behind. Hannah lived in hiding for four years and then the Nazis found them and put them in a concentration camp. Hannah thought that her life was awful. Then she found Anne in the other concentration camp that was on the other side of hers. Anne wasn’t fed enough, so Hannah threw food over to Anne. One day Hannah went to the wall, but found that Anne had been sent to another camp. She never saw Anne again. After a year, Hannah heard the best words in the world, “The Germans have surrendered! They were marched away with white flags in their hands!” She was finally rescued, hoping she would see Anne and her family, but sadly she did not. This is a story of survival during WWII when the Germans were rounding up all the Jews. As Hannah’s father said, “Don’t they know that human life it sacred?” This story is of courage, disaster, and love. I would recommend this book to everyone, because this book is about what happened to the Jews and you would see the hardships they had to face. They had to get past deadly diseases, the train rides to each camp, and the camps themselves. How did Hitler convince all Germans to kill all those innocent people and why didn’t the U.S. help the Jews before they did? You should read this book to learn about this terrible chapter in history.
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“The Travis Roy Poem”
There was once a boy
A hockey stick was his favorite toy
In seventh grade his list of goals
It looked like it was make up by fools
At night he’d stroll along to
the rink
Waiting just to hear the puck go pink
Against the post was his favorite sound
Rolling on the ice instead of the ground
He’d switch from school to
school
More and more no place for a fool
Then came the huge one
No room for too much fun
College was where the hockey
would be done
Even though ‘twas so much fun
He was hit and paralyzed
He thought it was just unfair
Out of everyone out there why was
he in there
Three months is a lot
Especially staring at one ceiling spot
Into the world was too much
For an injury that
included more than a crutch
A wheelchair that means you cannot use hands
But instead a sip and puff straw for commands
That would mean nothing for granted
Everything that you do would have
to be planted
Not going into a nice smelling locker room
Or even cutting up a mushroom
If your world would be like that
Only lying down flat
What does your hair feel like to
you?
Imagine your legs with no feeling too
Imagine that as a life
Not even being able to use a knife
E.
H. (Eleven
Seconds)
