The Misfits

I really enjoyed this book although I thought that I would not like it when I first picked it up. It just did not seem like a book that I would be interested in and it was definately not a book that I would have chosen for myself, so in that sense I am grateful that we were required to read this book. This book opened my eyes to a lot of the things that go on in the middle and high school years that I never had to deal with personally. I was never really picked on or bullied in school and im sure that this had a lot to do with the fact that I went to school with all of my cousins so therefore I did not have to venture out much to try and make friends. Although none of this stuff happened to me personally, I did know people that things like this happened to and I found myself inserting those people and their faces in for the characters. I found this book to be really easy to relate to and I think that students would enjoy this book, even if they had not had any experiences like the ones in the story.

This Book is Haunted

This is a great book to use during Halloween time. Although I was a little suprised that the book was not an acutal picture book but a picture book made up of many different stories. I thought that this helped keep me interested in the book because it was not just one story that I had to keep reading about. I also thought that the pictures and the colors were very good and the popped off the page.

So Far From The Bamboo Grove

This is definately one of the best books that I have ever read. I really didnt know much about the issues that were going on in the book and I think it is best that I didnt know. I think it really helped me get into the story more because I did not come to the book with my own opinions formed already. I thought that many parts of the story were ver graphic, but I think that is what makes the book so great. I know that many teachers want to shield there students from things like the ones that are presented in the book, but the reality is that things like these do happen all the time, especially in a time of war. I think that it is good to expose children to reality and prepare them for the world that they are going to be living in, instead of sending them out under false prentions like the world is always a happy place. I do believe that there is a place to draw the line when it comes to the things that you tell children, but I think that this book walk that line in the best so of way. We all have these ideas of what a child is supposed to be like and what they can handle but I believe that children can handle more than we give them credit for and that is something that we must always remember.

Inventor McGregor

I am not sure how I feel about this book. I think I like parts of it but other parts I believe were boring to me. The beginning of the book was definately my favorite. I felt like there were a lot of different things going on that kept me interested. All the different types of inventions and their uses was very interesting to me. As it got to the middle of the book, I noticed that I was not as interested as I was before. I think it was because there was not a lot, in my opinion, going on in the middle of the book that would keep someones attention. I think this really ruined the end of the book for me also because once I was bored with the book, it made me not even want to finish it so I just rushed through it so that I could finish it.

Raising Dragons

My favorite thing about this book was the pictures by far, especially the front cover. I thought that they were really cute. I really enjoyed the colors and just the overall way that the pictures were drawn. I also thought that the story itself was really cute. It made me think about myself as a child and how I loved to take care of puppies and kittens. I thought that this book would be really good to show students that friendships can be made anywhere between any people regarless of what others have to say or think about the situation.

Somewhere in Africa

I thought that this was a really cute book. I really liked the fact that the book had a twist to it, although I am still not sure about exactly how the book ends. Throughout the whole book the reader is made to believe that Ashraf lives in Africa but when the reader gets to the end of the book they find out that Ashraf himself is only reading a book about Africa. The thing that confuses me about this twist is that I am not sure if Ashraf actually lives in Africa and is just reading about the parts that he knows nothing about or if he does not live in Africa at all and just gets so deeply involved with the book that it is like he is living there. I thought that this could confuse a reader and possibly make the reader not want to read the book again because it would be hard for them to re-tell the story or show comprehension of the story.

The Queens Feet

I really enjoyed reading this book. I thought it was a funny book that a student could read just for enjoyment. I also really liked the illustrations that were done in the book. I thought that it was very creative that throughout the whole book you never saw the queen's face, only her feet. I really liked this concept, because the title of the book is clearly about the queen's feet and not the queen herself. I also liked that the book showed interactions between feet as if they were peoople. The reader never gets to see the face of the other characters in the book, just their feet.