Monthly Archives: September 2017

Film Review: Spider-Man Homecoming

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I’ve always been a fan of superhero movies and Spider-Man Homecoming defiantly did not disappoint. It was, yet again, another great Spider-Man movie.

The movie starts off where Captain America: Civil War ended and Peter Parker just wants to be a big time hero and help save the world again. But he keeps waiting and waiting for Tony Stark to call him back and let him fight with the Avengers again. He wants to be more than a a friendly neighborhood superhero. But Stark doesn’t call him. So he goes off on his own, without permission from Tony.

Tom Holland did an amazing job as Spider-Man and in general I really liked how Spider-Man was portrayed in this movie. The movie really brought back the fact that Peter Parker is still just a high school student and really treated him like a teenager which is something, that I had always thought the other Spider-Man movies had been lacking.

I also personally though it was really cool how they tied this movie into Captain America: Civil War. Though I could see how if you hadn’t watched Civil War certain small parts of the movie might had not made as much sense.

The movie overall, was great. It was really funny and full action that kept you at the edge of your seat. I would totally suggest this movie to anyone who has any interest in the world of superheros.

-Ava G.

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

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“Hope is the most treacherous thing the world. It lifts you and lets you plummet. But as long as you’re being lifted, don’t worry about plummeting”  -Elizabeth Wein, Rose Under Fire

Rose Under Fire, written by Elizabeth Wein, is a historical fiction novel about Rose Justice, an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot for the Royal Air Force. She along with other pilots, Maddie, and Felicyta, carry out their duties of delivering airplanes for the RAF.

However, one day, while delivering a Spitfire from Camp Los Angeles in France, to England, Rose encounters a V1-flying bomb, a pilotless plane carrying a bomb, heading towards Paris. She prevents the attack, but it takes her off course over Germany.

After flying over German territory aimlessly for a while, two Luftwaffe pilots spot Rose’s Spitfire and cornered her to follow them inside Germany. Rose is taken in as a political prisoner and sent to Ravensbrück Concentration camp, a place where she would learn to survive the horrors of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

The book is divided into three parts and it is written from Rose’s point-of-view. It is a companion to Code name Verity, but it can be read as a standalone book. I loved the writing style of the author and the characters in this book. Wein did a wonderful job in details and in staying true to most of the historical facts.

Since most of the story is set in where Rose is a prisoner in Ravensbück, there are some parts where it is graphic such as describing the experiments the Rabbits went through in Block 32. There are curse words in this book (more f-words than a PG-13 movie, but less than an R-rated movie), but it’s expected since it’s set during World War II.

If you’re tired reading YA books with romance or you’re not interested in romance, this book might be great for you. There is a little romance, only a tiny bit when Rose was dating Nick before she got arrested and brief instances where Rose would write poems about Nick, but that’s it. I loved that the author focused on the strong friendships Rose made at Ravensbrück instead of her relationship with Nick.

I don’t read historical fiction often, but after doing a quick Google search on ‘YA books without romance’, I discovered this book. It took me a while to read since I recently started reading novels again, but overall a great read that might make you a bit teary-eyed.

-Ash A.

*Note: Recommended reading age: 14+ for mature themes, curse words, graphic/disturbing images, and violence.

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. 

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

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Hoot is one of my favorite books of all time. The author, Carl Hiaasen, masterfully weaves different stories into the book to finally merge into one, beautifully composed masterpiece.

Roy Eberhardt is the new kid–again. This time around it’s Trace Middle School in humid Coconut Grove, Florida. But it’s still the same old routine: table by himself at lunch, no real friends, and thick-headed bullies like Dana Matherson pushing him around.

But if it wasn’t for Dana Matherson mashing his face against the school bus window that one day, he might never have seen the tow-headed running boy. And if he had never seen the running boy, he might never have met tall, tough, bully-beating Beatrice. And if he had never met Beatrice, he might never have discovered the burrowing owls living in the lot on the corner of East Oriole Avenue. And if he had never discovered the owls, he probably would have missed out on the adventure of a lifetime. Apparently, bullies do serve a greater purpose in the scope of the universe. Because if it wasn’t for Dana Matherson….

Roy’s whole fiasco wouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Carl Hiaasen plunges readers right into the middle of an ecological mystery, made up of endangered miniature (and super cute!) owls, the Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House scheduled to be built over their burrows, and the owls’ unlikely allies–three middle school kids determined to beat the screwed-up adult system.

As I read this book, I was grinning and thinking how cool the three main characters were. And beware–because once you pick up this book…you can’t put it down, because it is truly a hoot.

-Katherine L.

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. 

Harry Potter, Nineteen Years Later

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*Contains spoilers for anyone who has not read the entire Harry Potter series!

In the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (the final installment of the series), Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione are shown seeing their children off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry nineteen years after the Battle of Hogwarts. James and Albus Potter and Rose Granger-Weasley board the Hogwarts Express while Lily Potter and Hugo Granger-Weasley watch wistfully alongside their parents on platform nine and three-quarters as they are still too young to attend Hogwarts.

The Battle of Hogwarts occurred in 1998, which means nineteen years later would be 2017! This year, a new generation of witches and wizards will attend Hogwarts and have and create spectacular memories of their own. This is also the year in which Harry Potter and the Cursed Child takes place!

It’s extremely difficult to believe that this year marks the end of the Harry Potter series –this year Harry would’ve turned 37! Coincidentally, this year also marks the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s (or Philosopher’s) Stone.

September the first was a momentous day for Harry Potter fans all around the world. This was the exact day on which the Hogwarts Express would leave platform nine and three-quarters at King’s Cross. Loads of die-hard fans poured into King’s Cross station in London, England so that they could be present at eleven o’clock — when the Hogwarts Express would leave and Harry and his friends would be seeing their children off.

I have always been a huge fan of Harry Potter, and, in a way, I feel as if this year sort of brought a closure to the Harry Potter series for me. But I will still love it and read it and re-read it — always.

-Elina T.

J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library and online from Overdrive. 

Apparently, I Can’t Ride a Boat

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On Saturday, August 12, from 3:30-6pm, my friends and I built a cardboard boat, and attempted to race it across the Sierra Recreation and Fitness Center Pool.

We were given two large, cardboard boxes, a roll of silver duct tape, and a new X-acto knife (in the package!). We had 60 minutes to mess around and figure out how on earth to get 16-year-old-me across a lap pool against kids a third of my size.

We decided a canoe shape would stand out aerodynamically and also look cool. We used a red pen to trace the outline of one cardboard box and had great ideas while listening to Hamilton. We made flaps to keep the edges together and coated it in duct tape.

Soon families began to cart their boats to the pool. Their boats looked very different from ours! We wondered if this was a good or bad thing. We looked back on our hard work and realized in our strategic placing of cardboard and duct tape, we had forgotten to include the other cardboard box! We hastily taped together supporting poles from the other box and hobbled the odd raft to the pool as an employee insisted we’d be disqualified in seconds.

We waited for our team name, Wrong Direction, to be called, and lined up on the bright poolside. I was the smallest, so I had been nominated to maneuver the raft. I was given a plastic, green shovel to navigate the treacherous water. How I was going to get in, I did not know. My friend etched the boat over the pool’s peak, and when he megaphone blared “GO!” I nervously put one foot in the boat and it instantly collapsed under my weight.

Laughing, I sunk into the chlorinated water and held onto the soggy, floating cardboard to try and recompose myself. The failure of our creation was magical and hilarious. It took me a while to stop giggling and not-so-gracefully heave myself out of the water. Wrong Direction did not care at all that our hard work and been reduced to mush because creating it and watching me sink (mainly watching me sink) was an as good as a reward as any.

We had so much fun, and will definitely be staying updated with the Sierra Recreation and Fitness Center’s activities, as I recommend you do as well.

-Jessica F.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

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When I think of poverty, I think of homelessness, starvation, sadness and hopelessness. I would never have thought that it could be adventurous and fun. But Jeannette Walls does not hold back and tells everything about poverty you never would have known.

In The Glass Castle, Walls tells the true story of her childhood. She grows up in the roughest parts of poverty with her two sisters, brother and parents. They constantly move all over the country. Which the kids think are adventures, but really, the parents are running from bills and responsibilities.

At first I was very skeptical of this book. My mom recommended it to me and sometimes when parents say you should read a book it can be super slow and super educational. I was worried the writing would make this interesting plot turn boring. But luckily, Walls is an amazing writer. She makes you feel like you are right there with them every time they leave in the middle of the night.

Normally when I love a book I read it as quickly as possible, but for this one I didn’t. I felt the need to soak in every situation. Sometimes, I had to put the book down and walk away before I began to read again because it got so intense. I highly recommend this book for anyone who understands funky families (which we all do) and it is definitely one of my favorites. And I hope the movie is just as good!

-Sophie W.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. 

Haven by Kristi Cook

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The first book in the Winterhaven series, Kristi Cook’s Haven is a mystery romance about a 16 year old girl named Violet Mckenna  and her journey throughout her new life at Winterhaven. Back in Atlanta, at school Violet was known as a freak because she sees visions of her dad’s murder. But, later she goes to New York with her stepmother Patsy and goes to a new boarding school called Winterhaven. Winterhaven was not just an ordinary school, but a school filled with secrets and students having special psychic abilities or “gifts”. Violet meets a small group of friends and she finally finds a place where she seems normal. At school, she meets the most popular guy in school named Aidan Gray and they start developing feeling for each other. While Violet dated Aidan she noticed he’s keeping something away from her. Aidan has been keeping a secret that none of the students know about and later on revealed that he was a vampire. After that there’s a plot twist where there’s a spin on a tragic event that happens to Violet and Aidan relationship.

I would recommend this book if you like mystery, paranormal, romance, and friendship involved. I like the build up towards the middle till the end and it has an interesting plot twist involved. If you like the book Twilight, then this is a spin on that book with a different plot twist that involves vampires and a bit of werewolves. In this book, you can see the journey Violet has taken in her stay at her new school and getting to know her new friends. There is a sequel to this book called Mirage.

Vanessa T.

Haven, and the rest of the Winterhaven novels by Kristi Cook are available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. 

Authors We Love: Meg Cabot

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Monday, August 7, boys and girls of varying ages gathered at the Norman P. Murray Center to get the chance to listen to author, Meg Cabot. As a child, Cabot always had a special place in her heart for writing. Growing up, she admired princesses, particularly, Princess Leia from the movie franchise, Star Wars. This inspired her to write stories based off of princesses. It wasn’t until the age of seven when Cabot began creating her own short stories. She is most recognized for her series, Princess Diaries, which Disney later turned into a movie starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews.

Cabot attended Indiana University where she hoped to pursue her writing dream. However, she decided to major in art, rather than writing, as she was told not to sign up for the course by a fellow student (who happened to be a creative writing major) at a college party. He warned her that the class would “suck the love of creative writing out of you.” Although she listened to her peer, Cabot attended multiple writing classes while studying at Indiana University until she graduated.

Cabot’s next chapter in life brought her to New York City where she worked as an illustrator. There, she was brought face to face (once again) with the man from the college party. When she asked him why he had convinced her to become an art major and not focus on writing, he answered, “because I was drunk!” In between her work, she still found time to create her own stories. Following the death of her father, Cabot attempted her first publication. His sudden passing brought her to realize that she wouldn’t get anywhere in her writing career if she kept putting opportunities off.

After many publication rejections, Cabot got her first book approved when she was thirty. In addition to the Princess Diaries, she has also written complete series including The Mediator, Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls, Avalon High, All American Girl, and much more. Combined, she has published over fifty books! Her new series, From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess, is a continuation of the Princess Diaries. It follows the life of Princess Olivia, the half sister of Princess Mia, (the main character from the Princess Diaries) as she discovers the ups and downs of being royalty.

It was such a great opportunity being able to listen to Meg Cabot talk about her past experiences and accomplishments. I am currently reading her young adult series, The Mediator, and am loving every page of the books! Her stories pull me in and all I want to do is finish it in a single sitting. I’ve also watched the Princess Diaries countless times and always find it as intriguing as the first time I saw it. I really enjoyed attending this event and can’t wait to see what Meg Cabot comes up with in the future!

-Skyler K.

Authors We Love: Meg Cabot

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On August 7th 2017, Mission Viejo was graced with a visit from world famous author, Meg Cabot. There to promote her latest novel, Royal Crush, Meg Cabot has wrote many books; she has written the Princess Diaries, The Meditator, 1-800-WHERE-R-U, All-American Girl, Avalon High, The Airhead, and The Abandon series. In addition to this, she wrote numerous standalone novels. With such a wide collection of works, there is sure to be something for everyone. Just like the various characters Meg Cabot has wrote about, she has an interesting life story.

Born in Bloomington Indiana, Meg Cabot started to write stories from the age of seven. She was a big fan of Star Wars, and admired Princess Leia so much, that she wrote stories about her. As she grew older, she realized she could not do that, but she still loved Star Wars. In high school, she flunked math because she was too busy drawing all the time because she loved it as much as writing. After high school, Ms. Cabot attended Indiana University. Not sure about her major, she runs into a guy at a party who tells her not to major in creative writing. Taking his advice, she decides to major in art. During her time at college, she did not take a single writing class. At graduation, her diploma tube was empty because of that.

After graduation, Ms. Cabot moved to New York where she worked as an assistant residence hall director at New York University. There, she met the same guy from the party who told her that he was drunk at that time, and did not know what he was saying. They started to date, eventually got married, and have been married for over twenty years. Around the same time, her Father passed away, which really hurt her. She also decided to start publishing her works, but they kept getting rejected. Three years later, Ms. Cabot finally published her first novel, Where Roses Grow Wild, under her pen name of Patricia Cabot at the age of thirty. Her most famous series, Princess Diaries, was originally based on Cabot’s life about a woman her age having her mother starting to date her teacher. After writing about it, her friends feel it’s weird, so Ms. Cabot makes the girl fourteen, but nothing really happens. Ms. Cabot revises the story to make the girl a long-lost princess, and Princess Diaries is born. An interesting fact about the series is that the Father is not in the movie because the producers wanted Julie Andrews, who plays the grandmother, to have a lot of speaking parts.

As a writer, Ms. Cabot gets ideas for her novels from everywhere. Some are based on her own anecdotes, while others are just from her imagination. She advises aspiring writers to never give up their dreams. She lives in Key West, Florida with her husband and her many cats.

-Anmol K.

Royal Crush and the works of Meg Cabot are available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. 

 

My Reading Playlist

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I know some people aren’t able to listen to music while reading, but I like to, and decided to compose a playlist consisting of most of the songs I listen to while I read. I generally avoid listening to anything too loud and/or busy so that I won’t be too distracted. Hope you all enjoy 🙂 

Here are some of the bands I listen to:

Grizfolk: I stumbled across this band on Spotify, and I absolutely love their music! I was sort of surprised when I realized that not very many people have heard of them. Their sound is very unique and clear, which I like. I often just play the band’s playlist on Spotify, but I do have some favorite songs: Bob Marley, Waking Up the Giants, and The Struggle. 

Young the Giant: This band is more popular than Grizfolk, and I also discovered them on Spotify. I really like the band’s style and their lyrics are really meaningful. Some of my favorite songs from them are: Art Exhibit, Waves, and Firelight. 

The Fray: I’ve been listening to The Fray for a while now, I don’t really remember how I found them, but I really liked their songs. Most of them are fairly calming and tranquil, which is great for reading. They use a lot of piano, which makes for graceful music. My favorite songs by them are: Never Say Never, Ungodly Hour, and You Found Me. 

Cage the Elephant: I love this band so much! Their sound is so unique, and I love the riffs they come up with for their songs. Their music is definitely louder than the bands I discussed above, but I still enjoy listening to them while I read. Some of my favorite songs by them are: Cold Cold Cold, Whole Wide World, and Come a Little Closer. 

Imagine Dragons: This is, and has been one of my favorite bands since I first began listening to their music. I love all the different percussion they use in their songs, and I love how different all of their tracks are (I also love their album art!). My favorite songs by them are: Dream, Who We Are, and Battle Cry. 

Queen: Queen is my favorite band of all time! I love their sound, their lyrics, but mostly, I just think Freddie Mercury has an amazing voice. I’ve always thought that their name: Queen, was so fitting. Their music, to me, sounds regal, If that makes any sense. Additionally, their sound is so distinctive, which is largely what makes a band successful. I honestly love all of their songs, but here are some of my favorites: Killer Queen, Don’t Stop Me Now, and of course, Bohemian Rhapsody. 

Les Trois Accords: This is a French rock band from Quebec, whose music I find very unique and fun to listen to. I can’t understand all of the words to their songs, but I think that’s fine for while I read. My favorite songs from them are: Le bureau du médicine, Bamboula, and Vraiment Beau.

Here are some other songs that I like to listen to while I read:

  • Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down
  • Superman (It’s Not Easy) by Five for Fighting
  • Work Song by Hozier
  • Always by Panic! at the Disco
  • Be Yourself by Audioslave
  • Wonderwall by Oasis
  • Valerie by Amy Winehouse
  • I Miss You by Blink-182
  • Santeria by Sublime
  • These Days by The Black Keys
  • Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
  • Jumper by Third Eye Blind
  • Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce
  • Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day
  • 21 Guns by Green Day

-Elina T.

You can find these albums and more with Hoopla, a streaming music service available for free with your library card.