The Screaming Staircase/ by:Jonathan Stroud

                                    Book Recommendation

                Do ghosts really exist? Lucy, Lockwood, and George are agents. They face dangers that they might never come back from. They earn their living by solving cases in London. They are hired to solve the case of a strange activity in a house. Lucy and Lockwood go to check it out and barely make it out alive. They are hired to solve another case much more dangerous than any case they have ever solved. Will the young agents survive the horrors of this deadly mansion? Could the two cases be related? Nobody has ever come out of the mansion alive after knowing its secrets!

               The main characters are Lucy, Lockwood, and George. Lucy meets up with the two boys when she leaves her home after a horrible incident. Sh starts looking for a job when she arrives in London. She sees the sign that says that an agency has been looking for an agent about her age. She goes for an interview and they hire her to join their agency. Lucy, Lockwood, and George are soon caught up in a dangerous case that could cost them their lives.

               I would recommend this book because it has very good description of the characters and the setting. The author leaves you hanging so that you want to read more. It includes adventures that the three young agents go through together and the cases they solve. It also has dangers that await to be discovered by the young agents that are unimaginable even in your wildest dreams.   

               I would recommend this book to readers who like to read fantasy, adventure,and mystery books. If you like this book you might be interested in reading the next book once its published.                             

By: Kiranpreet K.

Listening for Lucca by Suzanne LaFluer

Mock Newbery Club member Claire shares her review of Listening for Lucca with Angie and Jada (filming).

Odessa Again. by.Dana Reinhardt

 The book I am reading is called Odessa Again, it's interesting.   Odessa is my favorite character because she is nice and she seemed interesting.   The part part I like in this book is when Odessa is trying out dresses for her dad's wedding.   My favorite quote from this book is, '' Don't be impulsive make it matter THINK!!!   This is  the question I would ask the the author, how did you you come up with all the characters? 

          
 I would recommend this book for ages 10 and up. The genre of this book is a fantasy because it talks about going back in time in the story. At first when you start reading this book it seems not interesting but when you're in the middle of the book it will be interesting. 

            

  I would recommend this book for the Newbery award book because is full of adventures and it's full of excitement. I hope you get a chance to read this book.

                    Thanks for reading my blog hope you enjoyed it bye. 

          

                                       By. Annie !!!!!!

Escape from Mr.Lemoncello's Library

Mr.Lemoncello has chosen twelve, twelve year olds to spend a night at his brand new, never seen before library. When Kyle is chosen, he is in for a night to remember. Instead of a lock in and exploring the library, the 12 kids have 24 hours to escape from Mr.Lemoncello's library and win amazing prize. Kyle teams up with his friends to escape. With a few lies,betrayal and even crime and punishment, every word will make you dig deeper. What happens? Do Kyle and his friends escape? Or are they trapped until they find a way out?

My favorite character was Haley Daley because,instead of taking all the credit she screams "Nuh-Uh! I'm one member from a super duper team-we're all winners!Woo-hoo!'' The only flaw that I can see was that there was hardly any character development for most of the main characters so when somebody was eliminated you just like "Thats a shame...." and kept reading without feeling any sympathy for the character. Other than that, the book was fairly decent. I am on the fence about whether this book will win a Newbery award because like I said, very little character development for the characters plus, at the start of the book, there was a plot and then it was skipped with no end.

                                                                     -Claire 

Rump The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin By: Liesl Shurtliff (Blog by Claire L.)

Rump. Yes, Rump. That's his name. His mother died before she could finish telling him his name. So, until further notice, he has half a name. Rump lives with his grandmother. When she dies, that's when the trouble starts. Rump finds  he can spin straw into gold, like the story says. But in order to get food you need gold. So Rump trades with the greedy unfair miller,keeper of the food. He gets by until the king comes. The miller says that his daughter is spinning the straw to gold and she is taken away to make him rich.So how does Rump find the rest of his name? Well you'll have to read to find out! I loved this book so much and I def. think this book could win a Newbery Award; this was a great book and I hope Liesl Shurtliff writes more books like this!



                                     I hope that you read this book and agree,



                                   Luved it! <3 claire="" comment-3--="">

Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace by Nan Marino

“When you’re so busy trying to be what other people think you should be, you’ll never find your own music.”

Cecilia has a problem; she can’t hear the music in the pine forest. This is a problem for her because according to the story her parents tell every year on her birthday, the pines played a special song on the night she was born.  Now that she’s almost 11 she wants to hear the music for herself, but no matter how hard she searches she can’t find the music.  Then one night she inadvertently witnesses the secret arrival of a new resident to her town of Wares Grove, New Jersey.  She soon discovers that the mystery person is a famous pre teen star.  He’s picked her town to hide out in after a very public embarrassment on a reality show.  He’s gone from fame to serving pancakes at the Pancake Palace.  Can he help Cecilia find the music before the paparazzi finds him first?  Will the people of Ware’s Grove keep his secret or sell him out?

This story gave me a whole new perspective on the state of New Jersey.  I actually found myself researching New Jersey to discover if there really was a Pinelands, a place that…..

          “…..can go unnoticed.  The trees are stubby, the paths are hard to find, and the      streams are lazy and slow.”

 

I also found myself craving pancakes, especially Aunt Emily’s famous Reds (cranberry), Blues (blueberry) and Whites (plain, but there’s nothing plan about them).

The Bully Book by Eric Kahn Gale

This post is actually a difficult one to write.  The following is the review I wrote for The Bully Book for Goodreads:

"This book is disturbing on many levels..... That being said I think it would be an excellent book to promote class discussion on bullying. My only qualm was the role of adults in the story. How many times have we told students tell an adult? Do we listen? Do we do something? Is it enough? Maybe this a book adults should be reading too."

The book is actually two stories, or journals rather, blended into one.  One story is the “bully book” or guidebook on to how to be cool and rule the school (while being a bully).  The other story is the journal of Eric Haskins, the current sixth grade “grunt”, the student that has been chosen for some unknown reason to be picked on, harassed, tortured, in a word – bullied – by the entire sixth grade.   Eric cannot fathom why he was chosen, or why his friends have suddenly turned on him and won’t even talk to him.  Who make the rules?  Why is he the “grunt”?  What can he do to save himself?  Determined to find out, Eric launches his own investigation to find the answers and along the way discovers the existence of the “bully book”.  Unfortunately, the author and location of the book remain a well-guarded mystery.

As I mentioned in my Goodreads review, the adults depicted in the story disturb me.  Are they really so dense they don’t see or even sense what’s going on?  The “bully book” offers bullies insight into how to deal with adults that ask questions, it’s chilling testament to how easy it is to fool people into believing the innocent are at fault.  What is even more disturbing is when Eric finally discovers the true author of the “bully book” and that person’s reaction.  You can feel the pain in Eric’s reaction:

               “Bully Bookers forget………   We live this life forever!”

You’ll have to read the story to find out whom the culprit is, it’s a shocker.

While I think this is an important book for kids to read, it’s a book that needs to be discussed as it’s read.  Kids need to understand that being a bully is not cool, not for the “grunt”, the bully, or the kids dragged into the mess.  The effects of bullying are not easily forgotten and in fact stay with people for years, if not forever.   While the story is fiction I did read in the author’s section that he was inspired to write the story from real life events when he was in sixth grade.  I’m sure there are many of us who can relate….