Student Favorites and Reviews

 

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While you can add to any page in this wiki, this space is especially for you!  What books have you read and loved?  What books do we absolutely have to check out?  Here's what you do:

1. Check the list to see if your book is included. If it is, feel free to add your own comments and recommendations. If not, go on to Step 2.

2. Create a new entry heading including: Title, Author, Publication Date, your review and brief plot summary.

 

1. Click on the Edit button at the top of the page.

2. Log in with the wiki password (the same for most databases we subscribe to; ask Ms. Harris if you're unsure). Type in your first name only and your Uni e-mail address.

2b. Important! If you see a box with tons of HTML coding, click on the "NEW Point-and-Click Mode" button in the top righthand corner. This will take you to an editor similar to MS Word. Much easier to work with and keeps all the formatting pretty! :)

3. Add content in the appropriate sections or add sections. Don't worry about formatting--we can change that later. You can include links by clicking on the Link icon in the format bar above the text box; change the link type to URL.

4. Click Save when you're done!

 

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    The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

    Avi

    Fiction Av51t 1992

    Summary: Charlotte is a 13 year old girl who is sailing to America to meet her family. The

    other families who she was supposed to sail with don't show up, so it is Charlotte and

    the crew aboard the ship. I won't tell you more except that Charlotte ends up tried for

    murder and found guilty. This book is slow for the first chapter or two, but after that it is

a page turner. I would recommend that everyone read this book because you will fall in love with the characters.

This is one book you won't want to put down! (Submitted by Sarah Y.)

 

 

    King of Shadows

    Susan Cooper

    Fiction C7872k 1999

    Summary: Nat Field is a young actor who is transported back in time to Shakespeare's

    Globe Theater. He acts in a play with Shakespeare himself. Find out whether Nat gets

    back to his own time and enjoy the book as Nat comes to know the real Shakespeare.

    Read this because: This is a great book for people who like time travel and those who

    love historical fiction. Also, if you love theater here's a book for you. (Submitted by Sarah Y.)

 

 

 

 

    Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

    Jean Lee Latham

    Summary: Nathaniel Bowditch is a boy who grows up in Salem, the sailing capital of the

    colonies. He loves math and is devastated when his father takes him out of school to be

    apprenticed. He spends all his spare time reading and studying, learning about everything

    from sailing to French. Then he gets a job on a ship. He works his way up through the ranks

    by using his head. He also teaches all the crew how to do complex sailing calculations, even

    if they must count on their fingers! This book is about a great mathematician and scholar and

    his exciting adventures! (Submitted by Sarah Y.)

 

 

 

    I am the Messenger

    Markus Zusak

    2005

    Fiction Z89i

    Summary: After capturing a bank robber, nineteen-year-old cab driver Ed Kennedy

    begins receiving mysterious messages that direct him to addresses where people

    need help, and he begins getting over his lifelong feeling of worthlessness.

Why I liked it: I thoroughly enjoyed this book because Ed is a totally normal guy on an extraordinary mission.

The ending left me unsatisfied, but overall, Ed's character was so well-developed that I felt like I was right there

with him. (Submitted by Library staff)

 

 

 

    Memory

    Linda Nagata

    2003

    Summary: Young Jubilee is devastated when her brother Jolly is caught and taken by the silver, a terrain

    changing fog that comes nightly and destroys everything in its path. But when a forbidding stranger with the

    incredible power to control the silver comes seeking Jolly-and claiming that Jolly knows him-Jubilee first

    distrusts the man, then fears him and flees. For she has learned an impossible secret: Jolly may still be alive...

and may somehow become the catalyst for the annihilation of everything she knows if she does not find him

first. On her journey, Jubilee will travel thousands of miles on a motorcycle, discover the roots of her strange civilization, and confront  the gods.

Why I liked it: Memory is a well-developed science fiction novel that not only presents new technology but alternate technology. It also has major fantasy elements, and ends much more successfully than Harry Potter 7. (submitted by Charlie N.)

 

 

 

    A Long Way From Chicago

    Richard Peck

    1998 

    This is a really funny book. It is about a brother and sister from Chicago who spend a week each summer with their

    grandmother.  Each chapter is one summer, and it tells about all of their adventures. One of my favorites is how

    they get the boy a ride in an airplane. It has a sequel, A Year Down Yonder (in this book the sister is older and is

    staying a year with her grandmother, her brother is at war - I think), which is also very good. (Sarah Y. & Kathleen K.)

 

 

 

 

 

Harry Potter Series

Joanne Kathleen Rowling (commonly known as J.K. Rowling)

1998 - 2007

Summary: If you haven't read these or at least heard of these already, where have you been living for the past ten years? Mars? Well, for those of you who have been living on Mars, the Harry Potter series is about wizards and the school they go to and how one boy (Harry Potter) and his friends try to defeat Voldemort - a wizard gone bad. Of course, the muggles (all of us non-wizards) would know nothing about this, but J.K. Rowling got it all written down and published. Filled with "magic and snakes and unicorns and giant spiders and werewolves and British slang and awesomeness," as Lauren Piester puts it, these books are a must read! (Kathleen K.)

 

 

 

 

Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card

1985

Summary: Ender Wiggin is a very very very smart kid. A genius, really. He's one of a group of (yet more) genius children taught to be military leaders and save Earth from an inevitable attack by aliens, known as "buggers." Ender becomes unbeatable in war games and eventually starts getting to "play" bugger attack simulations, trained by ----. (Sorry - that would be a spoiler.) Meanwhile, his brother and sister plot various *evil-ish* scemes back on Earth. Very interesting and a good book. My favorite sci-fi, probably. Also, its companion book, Ender's Shadow, is very good. (Kathleen K.)

 

 

 

 

 

Flipped

Wendelin Van Draanen

2001

If you like Stargirl, The Wanderer or any book about teenagers and their everyday life that has a deeper theme, Flipped is the book for you. Flipped has two narrators, a boy and a girl. They live across the street from each other and have a had a variety of perspectives of each other. The book alternates chapters between the characters and going from their childhood through the present. It is a journey of discovery for both the boy and the girl. The most prominate discovery is of the true character of their respective families and how they want to live compared to that. Great book! (Sarah Y.)

 

 

 

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre is a dependent girl who grows up with her unloving relations. They send her off to school, which is in some ways even more miserable. However after you pass through her grim childhood, the book takes a more romantic bent. Her romance isn't a smooth one, but... well actually I won't tell you the end. Anyway, I highly recommend this book, which is not a quick, light read. The story is wonderful and the characters are delightfully complex, it is hard to predict how they or the story will turn out. If you feel bored with it, let me assure you that the end is a real page turner and you should finish it! This is a beautiful read and I highly recommend it to any reader (Sarah Y.)