Kids Books - Family

I had to read this book for school, it was a very good book. It is like a coming-of-age book. It's very sad close to the end but overall it's very good and I would recommend this to other people. "Stay gold Ponyboy" if you know, you know..

Don't ever judge a book by its cover you'll be sorry you did. About three years ago my mom picked up this book and said that she thought it would be a good read. I took one look at the cover and said " that looks boring ". She insisted that I try it and over the summer I did. It was fantastic! The very book is now sitting on my shelf and I have re-read it many times. Rosalind,Skye,Jane,and Batty are not entirely sure what this summer may hold for them but they are determined to make it a Penderwick one. Rosalind the oldest and the prettiest if you ask any of the other sisters acts like the girls' mother because their mother died years before while also trying to sort out her feeling about a teenage gardener named Cagney. Skye the only sister that looks anything like their mother with blond hair and blue eyes is ready for a relaxing summer with just the perfect amount of sisters fun and trouble. Jane the head in the clouds author sister is working on her new Sabrina Starr book. Batty the youngest is happy to be out playing with her best friend the family dog named Hound. What looks to be a good summer turns into a great one with adventures like a man goring bull, two rabbits, a grouchy neighbor, and a very mysterious boy.

Not The best of the series. But still quite good. The writing is wonderful. The world Sutherland has created is vibrant and complex and oh so amazing well thought out for a middle grade series. Or frankly, for ANY epic fantasy series. I loved finally getting to see the Icewing culture, even though it was terribly depressing & must be so hard on all those poor Icewing dragonets. I'm loving how far the Darkstalker legend has come, has been expanded for the ghost stories of the terrified Nightwings in book 5. And it was great getting to know these new dragonets better. (Although I still can't figure out why they are suddenly so loyal to each other after knowing each other for like 5 days.) The story itself was well crafted and fun, with hints of "oh my god, this stuff is kinda dark, why is it for kids?" Thrown in. Like all the other "Wings of Fire" books. But, sadly, I didn't find "Winter Turning" QUITE as enjoyable as previous books. And again, sadly, I had to give it only 3 stars instead of a super excited 5 or 4. Mostly, due to Winter himself. It was painful, being stuck in his head. :( so sad, because I usually love the tortured soul, angry & sad type heroes. I found him annoying and whiney and mean. Why did Moon spend so much time telling how good & great he is? All I saw was a super whiny little dragon. A hateful dragon. I get that he spent his whole life being told to basically hate all other tribes, (& having unpleasable parents) but come on. It was a bit over the top.... And then the over the top-ness of it was undermined by how quickly he got over it all. Although I did feel how much he missed and loved Hailstorm so that was good. He just wasn't a very likable character. :( I know that they don't always have to be, but I was so looking forward to this book and this character & I felt so let down. :/ It wasn't a bad book really. It just wasn't as great as it could have been. I felt Winter could have been a great character. But really he was just obnoxious. At least I only had to deal with one book in his point of view. The series is still one of my favorites, so I look forward to reading and reviewing the next book "Escaping Peril" Recommended to fans of dragons, the rest of the series, and lovers of epic fantasy.

A Long Walk To Water. One of my favorite books of all time. It's about a boy named Salva who had to escape war from his home in South Sudan. He walked miles and miles to refugee camps. (Fun Fact: Salva stayed in one of the refugee camps for 10 YEARS!) But the thing is he NEVER gave up. And that this is a true story! I believe Salva did not give up because of his Uncle's words. "One step at a time. One step at a time.". This book was very very very rich and loads of detail. I wanted to read more, but it was very short which I did not like. He also led a group of 150+ boys to a refugee camp. (Fun fact: Salva is still friends with some of them! They call them the "Lost Boys!") I seriously cannot express the way this book seriously changed my life. It made me realize what people in other countires must go through, and in America we have many riches, even if you live in an apartment. This book made me want to help. And I am, me and my class are raising money for Salva's organazation "Water For South Sudan". (He's alive and very healthy, he also owns that organazation.) Me & my class are going to help BUILD a well in South Sudan! I really cannot express anymore of my gratitude for this book. This book really truly opened my eyes. (Also, I watched a livestream with my class of Salva answering questions that kids from other schools sent in. It was very interesting, that's where I got those fun facts from.) (I know I didn't say much about Niya, the other character in the story. She's about the same as Salva, she opened my eyes and made me see what's REALLY going on in the world right now. It's tragic that people must go through these things.) (A very important fun fact: You pronounce Niya like this: Ne-ya. The author said this in the livestream, I thought that was important.)

For his entire life, Cooper has been known by simply "Whatshisface". Since he moves a lot because of his dad's job, he doesn't usually stick around long enough to get to know other kids. So his parents get him and his sister a phone. Cooper is super excited to finally have one! But his seems to malfunction...there's the blotches in pictures, the weird noises during the middle of the night, and finally...a voice. "Hello? Hello? Can anyone hear me?" Cooper's phone is possessed-by a kid from the 1500s! Cooper and Roddy become friends. Roddy's "eyes" are the camera and his "ears" are the phone's speaker. This is a super short read, and this book is HILARIOUS! The plot gets thicker and thicker but it is laughable because of Roddy's attempts to help Cooper in his 1500s way and his unbelief and amazement at everyday modern items! But it turns out Roddy isn't the normal (well...not exactly normal LOL) kid that he seems....*wink, wink* READ THE BOOK!

I honestly only picked this book because I thought the cover was interesting. However, this book was so much more than I thought it would be. (I also learned a lot of Spanish from this book, haha). Efren is a normal seventh grader, straight As and a perfect attendance record. He has everything anyone could wish for— caring parents, annoying yet cute siblings, and a best friend, David (sometimes referred to as “El Periquito Blanco” due to the colorful clothes he wears). Well, he might be poor, but his Ama (mom) makes it feel like the house is bigger than it seems with her joyful attitude, her strong hands, and her care for the family. Until one day. Efren was helping David with his campaign posters (David had decided to run for president). He arrived home late but when he entered his house, something was wrong. The twins (Max and Mia, his siblings) were missing. At first he assumed that Ama had brought them back to the playground to play, so he didn’t ponder it for too long. After reading for over an hour, though, he started to get worried. Thats when he realized Ama was missing, after discovering a note that said his neighbor had the twins. His Ama had been DEPORTED, meaning she was now across the border in Mexico taken by the ICE because she wasn’t a “true citizen” in the United States. Life got harder for Efren after that. Taking care of the twins HIMSELF, with his father working overtime to earn money, having to make food and earn money, and still help his friend manage his campaign. Lots of things happen in between here and I won’t spoil it for you… however this is an amazing and heartwarming book and my heart really ached when Efren couldn’t tell the truth about Ama getting deported to Max and Mia, when David told Efren he didn’t want to be friends with him anymore, sympathized when so many loved ones in Efren’s life was deported… I think you’ll have a fun time reading this book. :)

This is a really great book about friendship and love. There are terrible things that happen in this book like being wrongly helped captive, but the main character can find friendship in the darkest of places.

Natalie Babbitt, the author of Tuck Everlasting, sweeps readers along on the thought-stirring journey of Winnie Foster when she meets the eternally unaging Tuck family. The well-crafted characters included eleven-year-old Winnie Foster, a young girl who yearns to escape the confines of her yard and to be free of proper, beautiful clothing--and finally gets her wish. The Tuck family includes Mae Tuck, the caring, mentally old mother of the family, Angus Tuck, the weary father who wishes the Tucks could someday age and die to allow them back into the “wheel of life”, Miles, the oldest of two brothers whose wife left him under the belief he had sold his soul to the devil to say young, and Jesse, the eternally seventeen-year-old boy. There is also the eternally living horse, the yellow-suited man, and the somewhat dim constable. The book is set in the fictional town of Treegap, where there is a wood. In the middle of the wood, there is a pleasant touch-me-not cabin, in which the young Winnie foster lives with her parents and grandmother. The young girl escapes into the wood one day, and finds a spring, as which a boy, Jesse, is resting. When she sees the boy, she asks to drink from the spring, being dreadfully thirsty, but Jesse panically tries to stop her, and eventually Mae and Miles arrive, halting Winnie from drinking the water which would bless--or curse--her with eternal life. What follows is a story that can change how readers think forever. Personally, I admire Natalie's writing style and admire her ability to tell the story of the Tucks so creatively. She made me think a lot about what it might be like to live forever--is it really a good thing to never grow old? She also makes it easy to envision the wood and treegap in my mind’s eye; the amber and emerald light filtering through green leaves to the forest floor, the eternal ash tree, the animals, and the way she explains how things connect together. Samples of her writing style: “His tall body moved continuously; a foot tapped, a shoulder twitched. And it moved in angles, rather jerkily. But at the same time he had a kind of grace, like a well-handled marionette. Indeed, he seemed almost to hang suspended there in the twilight. But Winnie, though she was half charmed, was suddenly reminded of the stiff black ribbons they had hung on the door of the cottage for her grandfather's funeral.” “Into it all came Winnie, eyes wide, and very much amazed. It was a whole new idea to her that people could live in such disarray, but at the same time she was charmed. It was… comfortable. Climbing behind Mae up the stairs to see the loft, she thought to herself: ‘Maybe it's because they think they have forever to clean it up.’ And this was followed by another thought, far more revolutionary: ‘Maybe they just don't care!’” “There was a clearing directly in front of her, at the center of which an enormous tree thrust up, its thick roots rumpling the ground ten feet around in every direction. Sitting relaxed with his back against the trunk was a boy, almost a man. And he seemed so glorious to Winnie that she lost her heart at once.” “She rocked, gazing out at the twilight, and the soothing feeling came reliably into her bones. That feeling—it tied her to them, to her mother, her father, her grandmother, with strong threads too ancient and precious to be broken. But there were new threads now, tugging and insistent, which tied her just as firmly to the Tucks.” This book, despite being slightly short, really makes you think, and I love it--I plan on re-reading it until my eyes burn out. It makes the reader think and consider what it would be like to live forever, and it really makes you second-guess your first thoughts of immortality. It’s most certainly a must-read for anyone! -Dakota Corr.

I love this book so much because it shows that you may be faraway you can still be friends.

I love this book because max is tough and so strong and fang is so cool. I also like when when they have to fight to get out of a bad situation. last I like it when it becomes fangs blog randomly.