The Secret Life of Bees Book Review
Sarah
          The book The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a wonderful novel you’re sure to enjoy. This is the first book the author has ever written and it has been on the New York Times adult bestseller list for over 37 weeks. She has been an inspiration to many adults to become a writer and has inspired me to like to write.

This book is about a girl named Lily Owens whose father beats her. She and her live in nanny Rosaleen escape to find the secrets to her dead mother’s past. There is one thing Lily needs to discover. They trace it all back to one house with three African-American sisters living in it. These three sisters are the best bee keepers in town and are a little strange. Rosaleen and Lily stick together through their whole journey and develop a friendship. They begin to have the best time of their life with the sisters and they don’t even know who they are and why they’re really there. Lily can’t figure out what they have to do with her mothers past but she’s determined to find out.

             This is the best book I’ve ever read and that is why I’m recommending it. This book gives you a sense of realism in your own life and a sense of excitement in your imagination while reading this book.

An incredibly interesting and suspenseful book, The Silent Storm would be much enjoyed by both boys and girls. Everyone has had a friend at one time or another, so it would be easy to relate to Alyssa and Ty.

Although there are the occasional segments of information that you don’t want to read, they are necessary, and you’ll be grateful you read them. The Silmarillion’s magnificent storyline leaves you with all questions answered, but makes you want to know more. I recommend this book for readers who like fantasy and enjoy Tolkien’s work. This book may be hard to read for most people so only advanced readers should read it. The Silmarillion is a great book.

The Shining
Patrick

The Overlook Hotel has been home to many of the finest people in the world. It has its presidential suite, its normal suites, and its normal rooms. Though many fine men and women have stayed in all of these rooms, the Overlook Hotel has its many dark and disturbing secrets. Murders. Suicides. Love affairs. All of these have been witnessed by the walls of the Overlook Hotel. Some of them have come and left undisturbed, but some of them have stayed to keep the Overlook, and its caretakers, company in its long, cold, nasty Colorado winters.

            Jack Torrance, a forty year old father trying to get over his drinking problem and trying to mend his relationship with his wife and son, Wendy and Danny, needs a job. When an old friend helps him out with the job he needs Jack can’t refuse. He tells his wife and son that they will be moving from their home in Boulder, CO to the Overlook Hotel for the winter, and probably most of the spring. Nobody objected to the temporary move. They should have.

            Things live in the Overlook Hotel. These are things that nobody could imagine. When five year old Danny starts to see and feel the presence of things unknown he uses his “Shine”, a psychic development that lets him see people’s thoughts and some other nasty things, to contact the only person he can trust, Doc O’Hollaran. Doc O’Hollaran is the Overlooks cook during the summer and works in Florida during the fall and winter. When Doc gets this “mind message” he rushes to the Overlook to help his five year-old friend in need.

            I found The Shining a very good and scary book. It twists and turns until it snaps at the climax. It is just as good, if not better than, the movie. I loved the book and would recommend it to any horror book fanatic. 

Skeleton Key
Kris

          Skeleton Key is a really good book and I would give it a five star. I like the characters, because it is cool to be a teenage spy and the main character is a teenage spy. I also liked the enemy’s because they have defects with them. One of Alex’s enemies’s had a metal plate in his head and he had metal pins holding his body together.

          The setting was cool it was under water, in boats, and in an abandoned submarine boatyard. In the abandoned submarine boatyard was the coolest setting, because Alex tried to escape but he was caught every time. Then finally they were trying to kill him but then he finally escaped.

I really didn’t like anything in the book. Everything was cool and everything had lots of action involved. I really like books with action in it. Skeleton Key made me fell like I was actually there, because the author Anthony Horowitz described everything so well and he described it in lots of detail. He would explain every crack in the wall and every color of a shirt.

I would recommend this book to young adults and both genders, because it had lots of action for boys and some romance for girls. It had romance because Alex falls in love with this girl. Skeleton Key made me learn that spies get a lot of gadgets and spies could put any weapon in any ordinary thing. Also that there are a lot of sick people in the world who think terrorism is a good thing for the world.

Anthony
5 stars

            One book I really loved reading was Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz. It’s about a boy, Alex Rider, who lived with his Uncle Ian until he died. He later finds out his Uncle was a spy working for the British Intelligence. He then is sent out as a spy. In the book I read he is forced into the world of spying for the third time.

            I liked a lot in the book. The first thing I liked was the fact that it was still the same character from the first two books, Alex Rider. He makes the books good because he is inexperienced as a spy, but always seems to find a way to get out of a tight jam. One example is, in Skeleton Key there is a part where Alex has to distract everyone on a yacht. What he does is he lights some canisters of gasoline on fire.

            The setting in the book changed a lot throughout the book, but most of the book took place in the Caribbean Sea in Cuba and Kay Esqueleto(or Skeleton Key). Skeleton Key was an island south of Cuba.

            Although the book was almost perfect there was one thing I did not like about it. The book took a while to pick up speed, but once it did there were a lot of slow parts. If an action scene was not happening then there were slow parts.

 The mood of the book was like any other espionage book (unless it wasn’t well written). It was suspenseful. When there was not a slow part sometimes there was suspense. The suspense leads to the action which made it good.

            This book is good for boys and girls because the way it was written it is enjoyable for both. I think it is god for grades 4-8 and give it 5 out of 5. I think so because if it was not a slow part it was fun.

Review by S. O. (November 3, 2004

Stargirl
Brooke

When I read the book Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, I felt strange.  I felt this way because of the new girl…… Stargirl!  When she moved to town she became a cheerleader.  Only she cheered for the other team.  She played a ukulele while she sang Happy Birthday to different people.  She even changed her name four times.  To everyone, Stargirl was different.  Who was this girl?

I recommend this book for teens who like to read about kids their age.  Those are the kinds of books that I read and I loved this book!

I liked Stargirl’s personality.  She didn’t care what other people thought of her.  She liked being different.  I think all people should be like her!

I can relate to Stargirl because sometimes I like to be different, too.  Its fun to be different. Who cares what other people think!!

In fact there is not a part in this book that I didn’t like!  It was an enjoyable book.

So overall I think Stargirl is a really fun book to read!

Star Girl

A wonderful book that I would like to recommend is “Star Girl”. It is about an ordinary school and Star Girl becomes a new student there. She is not a regular kid, she is extremely different and she doesn’t care how other people think about her. She stands out like an oasis in a desert. She does things like wear wedding-like dresses with elaborate sequences. She also plays the ukulele in the cafeteria for pleasure. At first she has a lot of friends; the kids at the school follow her interesting ways. She captures one boy named Leo Borlock’s heart with one smile. But then the tables turn and she is left all alone being ignored because of her differences.

            I recommend this book for all young adults 12 and up. Because the author made this book so unpredictable, it will keep this reader eagerly flipping pages to see what is coming next. For example, when everyone ignores her, her boyfriend Leo says that she should dress and act more normal so people won’t be so rude to her. I wasn’t sure if she would change for her boyfriend that she loved or not.

            I also like the way Star Girl cares so much about everybody, even if she doesn’t know them. She always reds the bulletin and the small sections of newspapers to find out who’s birthday, funerals, or anniversaries it is so she can make them a card or bring them flowers. There is nothing I didn’t like about this book; I think the author did a wonderful job on the book.  

I can relate to this book because my mom is also very caring. She does so much for our family and while reading” Star Girl”, Star Girl showed so much generosity which reminded me of my mom

Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself
Molly

            Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself is a wonderful novel. This book took place in 1947. It is fiction but, it does talk about Hitler.

        The author also talks about why Sally is always thinking. Sally also writes letters. Mostly to her father (he’s in the army) but, some are to Mr. Zavodsky, who she thinks is Hitler.  One of the letters she wrote to him was when she had just decided that he was Hitler. It was the first letter she wrote to him.

    “Dear Mr. Zavodsky,

         You don’t know me or who I am, and you’ll never find out, not if you guess for twenty years. But I think I know who you are. I think you are a person people hate. I think you are a person who is wicked and evil. I think you are worse than a regular murderer or kidnapper. I think you are a person with the initials A.H.”  Even though Sally writes all these letters, she never sends them. She keeps them all in her keepsake, until the day Mr. Zavodsky passed away.

            This book is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read. I would recommend it for girls or boys. Some boys may like the fact that it talks little about Hitler, and it’s otherwise a girl’s perspective. Other boys may not. I rated this book an eight because, though it is long, containing over 250 pages, and I don’t like long books, it has vivid descriptions of the characters. Whether it was Sally, her new home, her friends (Barbara, and Andrea), her brother, or her mother, the author creates a picture in my mind.

Sun and Spoon
Review by Brittany
Poor Spoon Gilmore.  His grandmother has died and he thinks she will forget about her.  He keeps on having strange dreams about his grandmother but his sister keeps following him.  He could never do it with his sister always by his side and keep this secret.  He and his friends have to find a way so Spoon will never forget his grandmother.  He needs to find a way to keep her in his heart but some thing is helping him.  No, it can't be the sun.  His gram's dead.  Or is she?  Find out in the book.

Sweep 1-15
Ourania

“Sweep” is one of best series ever written. This book has so many good points I don’t know if I can name them all. My favorite part of the series is that Cate Tiernan always gives so much emotion and details its exhilarating. At one point when Morgan’s boyfriend died. Cate explained what Morgan was feeling and what she was doing so precise that I felt I was Morgan feeling her pain. I feel as if I’m Morgan.