Author Archives: Maya S.

Book Review & Playlist: If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, by Pseudonymous Bosch

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bosch_cover2The truth is. . . if you are reading this, it is too late!  Now members of an unknown society in an unknown neighborhood in an unknown town, Cass and Max-Ernest’s adventure is all about the gift of sound and Cass’s oddly shaped ears.  The first book in this series, The Name of This Book is Secret, is about smells, hence The Symphony of Smells.  If this wonderful series of books by Pseudonymous Bosch was made into a film, this story’s beginning should start with the song ‘Secret Garden’ by Bruce Springsteen.  After the first chorus of “Secret Garden,” it should fade away to the opening scene of Cass’s dream.

The story starts out with Cassandra experiencing a bad dream.  She has a field trip to the tide pools, and Cass and Max-Ernest are supposed to meet Pietro, but some kids get in the way.  They finally see a ship with a familiar man staring back at them.  At this point in this story’s movie, “Message In a Bottle” by The Police reflects the panic the characters feel at that moment.  Oh no!  It is the Midnight Sun (a group of evil alchemists who are the antagonists).  The crew assures them it is not really the Midnight Sun and everything is fine until they begin hearing familiar voices… Cass and Max-Ernest are once again in the Midnight Sun’s grasp.

This story engaged me from the beginning.  There were many times I was expecting  something to occur when just the opposite did.  As was the case with the first book, I would recommend this hard-to-put-down novel for all ages.  In the movie version, “Fooling Yourself” by Styx should close the film. This song shows how many times Max-Ernest and Cass made mistakes and put themselves in harm’s way but always using cleverness to overcome obstacles.

-Maya S., 6th grade

Book Review: The Name of This Book is Secret, by Pseudonymous Bosch

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name_book_secret‘WARNING: DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS PAGE!’ is how the fantastic, yet mystifying book, The Name of This Book is Secret begins.  Secrets, secrets everywhere!  So scary and dangerous, Mr. Bosch leads the reader through a world unknown to the average population, but just into the peculiar world where long-since magicians and alchemists reside.  When the main characters find a strange box labeled ‘The Symphony of Smells’, they are led into a trap with immortality and cruelty.

Max-Ernest, a boy wanting to be a stand-up comedian, and Cassandra (Cass for short), a very serious and vigilant survivalist, come together on a rollercoaster of an adventure throughout this well-written book.  There are a lot of unanswered questions that the peculiar narrator, Pseudonymous Bosch, poses such as what Max-Ernest’s ‘condition’ is, or who Cass’s father is.  At this point in the story, if it were a motion picture, I envision the song “Come Together” by the Beatles, because I believe it shows perfectly how Cass and Max-Ernest meet and come together to begin their adventure. Situational irony is inserted in odd parts of the story, The Name of this Book is Secret, which makes it one of my top five favorite book series and earns this an 11 out of 10 rating!

I would definitely recommend this book for ages 10-100, because the writing style  makes the mystery impossible to put down.

-Maya S., 6th grade

Book Review: Half-Moon Investigations, by Eoin Colfer

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half_moon_investigations_coverHalf-Moon Investigations, a mysterious detective story by Eoin Colfer, is about a boy named Fletcher Moon who walks straight into the wrong fighting ring.  The story starts out with Fletcher Moon, private eye, coming to school ten minutes early to find out he should have quit his detective business for good.  He walks into a fighting ring with a Sharkey fighting in it.

Now the Sharkey family is a rule-breaker family.  If there ever was a rule that was to be broken, the Sharkeys would go far out of their way just to break it.

This time in the fighting ring there was the tallest, biggest kid in the school and Herod Sharkey.  They were in a headlock waiting for Mr. Detective Fletcher to show up. They then send Fletcher on a life-changing case.

Fletcher believes he has solved the case, but every afternoon he is asked to visit a different person’s house.  He is working for many people when he discovers his badge is missing.  At this point in the story, I think the Mission Impossible theme song should begin.  There is a conspiracy appearing behind all of the smiling, innocent faces.  Fletcher goes out on his own exploration turning away from FBI to CSI.  He finds himself in the hospital the next morning with a small concussion and a broken wrist.  He is not done yet with his new CSI job.  He creeps out of the hospital only to find himself back in the hospital hours later with a burnt-out torch in his hand.  What is happening?  Fletcher makes an unlikely friend, is treated differently, and uses his smarts to solve the mystery.

He gets his badge back, mentors another detective-in-training, and is a hero to new friends and an enemy to old.  As a film, I would recommend the song Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson during the credits, because it reflects how Fletcher feels during the entire book.

I think Eoin Colfer did a fantastic job with this book!  I have his Artemis Fowl series, and I found a few connections between the different genres.  I love the detective aspect of this story, and Mr. Colfer wrote as though he was the detective.  I would definitely rate this book a 10 out of 10 for its wonderful detective characteristic and the superbly written story.

-Maya S., 6th grade

Music Pairings: The Fairyland series, by Catherynne M. Valente

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This wonderfully-written small series starts out with a 12-year-old girl, September, living her own life with only her mother and her father away at war until one night she falls into another dimension where she meets the best of friends and starts the adventure that has been waiting for her since the day she was born.

girl_who1The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making

She woke up to world full of vibrant colors and rich foods with birds and all sorts of animals welcoming her to Fairyland.  She learns many things including an expedition of her own and also finds out things she might not have wanted to know.  September discovers the ‘enemy’ is just a mirror of herself.   She battles her own brains and wits.  Her time has run out in Fairyland.  She must return to civilization.

The perfect soundtrack for this scene would be Get Back by the Beatles because the song shows that life is not perfect, and sometimes you have to ‘Get Back to where you once belonged’. She returns to a place where there is smog everywhere, the food on her plate is not good quality, and where the birds sing a sad tired song instead of a skipping happy one in Fairyland.  Will September accomplish what she set out to do?  Would the final song be We are the Champions by Queen while the credits roll?

girl_who2The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

September has been waiting for almost a year to go back to Fairyland.  If this were a movie, I think as they start the movie when the producer and executive producer–and the other almost ‘annoying’ information is displayed that just delays the start of the movie–the song should be You Can’t Always Get What You Want by The Rolling Stones because she was expecting that she was going to be able to go to Fairyland again in the spring.   But like it says in the song ‘If you try sometimes, you just might find… you get what you need!’  September got what was needed.  On the night of September’s 13th birthday, she was called into the delight of Fairyland.  Instead of Fairyland-Above, she fell beneath Fairyland where she went on another adventure, but this time without her normal friends.  She strived to get the one part of the puzzle that will satisfy her forever.  I picture the song We are Family by Sister Pledge connected with this scene for the emotion.  When she walked back home that night, she saw two figures talking under the porch light.  She ran toward them…

I would recommend these 10-out-of-10 novels to any middle grader who thinks they have a spark of adventure in them.

-Maya S., 6th grade

Book Review: The True Confesssions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi

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charlotte_doyle_coverThe True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, a journey of a ship-girl crashing through the waves of beautifully written literature by Avi, is a truly magnificent novel. I would rate it a 10 out of 10 for its humor, formality, and engaging style of writing.

The story starts out with a young woman, Charlotte, whose parents had moved to America, but she had stayed in England to finish school. At the end of the year, she was to have a servant pick her up and accompany her to the boat. She had another worker carry her trunk to the ship, but when they heard the name of the ship and its captain, they took off running. Two of them had left her alone! Charlotte was astonished, nevertheless, she boarded the boat. That first night on the ship, she remembered seeing a figure with only one arm scampering up one of the main masts.

The voyage started out, and Charlotte met a man named Zachariah. At first, he didn’t seem like anyone who interested her, but later he became her caring mentor. The captain seemed nice at first but later was revealed to be one of the cruelest people Charlotte had ever known.  A series of odd events occurred, but Charlotte didn’t tell a soul.

When chaos and shouts of anger came from the crew the first time, Charlotte was scared. However, after the first attempt to kill the captain, Charlotte slipped away from the captain’s reach, chopped off her hair, and became one with the crew to complete their army. They tried for a second strike where Zachariah was almost killed, but a stowaway with only one arm was found. Mayhem then ensued, and Charlotte faced her greatest challenge to stand up for herself with the ultimate goal of being reunited with her parents.

Maya S., 6th grade

Book Review: Bomb, by Steve Sheinkin

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bomb_coverBomb is a breath-taking, emotional book by Steve Sheinkin that shows the three-way race to building an atomic bomb in World War II, and while the war was going on, the race to find Uranium, TNT, and hydrogen.

From FBI agents to spies, everybody is trying to find out how far each team is, where their supplies are hidden, and what their plan is. The three racers, the Soviet Union, the Americans and the Germans, start off.  First the Germans give up, and then the Soviet Union is trying hard. They give up and the Americans drop the first bomb blowing up a city. Ultimately the Soviet Union is trying to make a super bomb that could destroy the earth eight times.  Welcome to the race of the Manhattan Project.

The story starts out with a prologue showing what happened at the very end, getting the reader excited and mystified. Then it shows the beginning life of a little boy named Robert Oppenheimer, a German, who later became one of the most successful scientists in making the atomic bomb. He was very focused on education. As he grew older, he became a teacher. The Great Depression had started, and he didn’t notice until ten years after it had begun.

Some new scientists by the names of Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann, and Otto Robert Frisch discovered a new scientific process in 1938 which could destroy human nature by taking one atom and shooting it at a Uranium atom which splits and causes fission this process was the basis in making the atomic bomb– hence the word atom. Scientists all over the world heard about it, and rumors went flying that someone could create an atomic bomb. Meanwhile the Americans were starting to get some ideas, and some scientists researched ‘Einstein’ for inspiration. Mr. Albert Einstein was found, and he agreed to help them not knowing what they will use the bomb for, later regretting he had ever joined the team in the first place.

The FBI caught on. This mission was top secret, the innocent American public did not know, but there was one person who needed to know:  Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President.

Meanwhile, the Germans and the Soviet Union were weakening under the pressure of the war started by Hitler. They began coming into the United States to try to find some information and steal the ideas from the Americans. Stealing each others’ supplies created a tense situation all the way to the end.

Using action, emotion, and high-quality writing, Steve Sheinkin‘s book Bomb was a fabulous, hard-to-put down book.  And you would have never guessed it was a true story.

-Maya S., 6th grade

A Word with Mrs. Debra Weller, Storyteller

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debra_weller

During this interview with the ‘Voices of the Future Storytelling’ club teacher, Mrs. Debra Weller, I learned a lot about how she began a storytelling club. We met for this interview after a storytelling club meeting at Bathgate Elementary School.

ME: How and when did you become interested in becoming a professional storyteller?

MRS. WELLER: It started when I was a girl, and I got sent to my room when I was naughty. I would start making up stories with my dolls. When I was 14, I started teaching a class at my church for fourth graders, and I used stories to teach them.  Finally when I was 26 years old- I had just given birth to my daughter- I met another woman who was going to take care of my daughter. She said, ‘You know, there may be something we can do together, because we want to stay home with our babies.’ We formed the Annie-Lynn Storytellers, and we performed for six years together.

ME: You wouldn’t be doing storytelling for so long if it didn’t benefit you. What benefit do you get from storytelling?

MRS. WELLER: I like using my music and telling serious stories. I like to teach adults how to be storytellers as well as children.The benefits for me are bringing a wholesome way of introducing many beautiful stories from around the world.

ME: Where did the tradition of Storytelling come from?

MRS. WELLER: It’s actually an ancient tradition. It started in many cultures probably 3,000 years ago. In the Kelti times, Shankes went from Irish village to village telling tales. In the Native American culture, Proquastraries explained things that happened in nature. Chinese, Indian, Japanese, South American, Africa, and the Medieval storytellers were quite active throughout the world. Continue reading →