Tag Archives: families

My Brother Sam Is Dead by Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier

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This year for school, one of the required books to read for English was called My Brother Sam Is Dead written by Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier. When I first heard we were going to be reading this book, I was intrigued by the title. I thought it was a bit funny to have such an important detail in the title. I wasn’t super thrilled at first when we had to read it for English class but in the end, I enjoyed the book. 

My Brother Sam Is Dead is a historical fiction novel that takes place during the Revolutionary War. The story is told by Tim Meeker. Tim Meeker is a young boy who helps his parents at their tavern and looks up to his older brother Sam. Sam Meeker is a college student at Yale and is expected to have a bright future ahead of him. One day, he comes home from college and brings home the news that he has decided to enlist in the army to fight in the war. Not only is he fighting in the war but he is also fighting on the patriots side while the rest of his family and his town he lives in are loyalists. Sam and his father argue and their family is tearing apart. Now Tim must decide who to side with, his brother he looks up to, or his father he has obeyed for his whole life.

My Brother Sam Is Dead uses a lot of accurate historical elements making the story clear to understand. I ended up really liking this book. I was never really interested in historical fiction when I was younger but I guess my taste had changed. The characterization of each character was unique with Tim being unsure of his and everyone’s decisions and Sam being ambitious and righteous. The character development through Tim showed a boy who grew up. At the beginning he was a child but throughout the years, he had to grow up and fill other people’s shoes to help himself and his family. 

The characters I really liked were Father and Tim. Father was strict on his kids but there were parts in the book that showed he was still human and he could hurt. He cared about his family and just wanted them to be safe and happy. Tim was childish and wanted to prove himself but as he grew he became like his father filling his role. Tim became independent and successful by the end of the story, and lived his life.

I liked My Brother Sam Is Dead. I hadn’t expected much from this book but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Even though it was a school required book, I had fun reading it and had some slight emotional moments in some parts of the story. I would definitely recommend this book to those who like historical fiction and even to those who don’t. 

-Nicole R.

My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library

A Night Divided By Jennifer Nielsen

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A Night Divided is a historical fiction book based on the event of the Berlin Wall, and is about a girl name Gerta. Who one day gets separated from her father and brother by the wall. Gerta has grown to dislike the East and instead think of it like a prison. One day as she was heading towards school, she see’s her dad preforming a dance and takes it as a sign to escape. So her and her other brother Fritz work on digging a secret tunnel. I just finished reading a night divided and I must say it was an amazing story to follow along to. It contains, a a heart warming lesson, along with an action plot story line.

This book showed a new perspective of how much the effect of war ending can still effect the people. Not only do we experience new insight we learn more about East Germany and its laws and restrictions. I especially loved how divers the characters personality’s were and that they weren’t just side characters but also had their own life’s and troubles. I enjoyed the organization and flow of the story. It wasn’t predictable, and had intertwining events that showed the characters thoughts.

Overall, this is a enjoyable yet deep and meaningful book, containing facts about the event of the Berlin wall and East Germany. The story is filled with an exciting and suspenseful journey. The characters are well written and memorable, with a fun story line that is easy to follow. I liked how all the characters and elements came together to form a likable book. This book has definitely become one of my favorites and I recommend this to anyone who is interested in this genre.

-Caitlyn Y.

A Night Divided By Jennifer Nielsen is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It can also be downloaded for free from Libby.

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

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Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer is told in journal entries that sixteen years old Miranda Evans makes. The book is set in a suburban city in Pennsylvania where Miranda and her two brothers and mother live. Her straining friendships, falling grades, and the fact that she is going to be a godmother to Lisa’s, her step-mother, and her father’s child are her major issues. But when the predicted asteroid hits the moon, it causes the moon to move closer to the Earth disturbing the Earth’s gravitational pull. This causes earthquakes, and tsunamis in various parts of the world causing many casualties. Now Miranda and her family have much more to worry about than her school life. The story becomes a survival story and they have to get through these hard times even with volcanoes erupting out of nowhere and very deadly mosquitoes.

Life As We Knew It could be a very relatable story to others in the way Miranda and her family act. It can really make you think of what you would do in their situation and how you would handle it. It makes me think about how grateful I am that I am not going through their situation. The theme of the book is survival. Miranda and her family works hard in the book to stay alive and get through everything together. They stick together through everything and work things out. I really loved their dynamic and how they acted with each other. Their personalities had their own flair that made them stand out from each other. Life as we knew it is an emotional story and it can make you rethink things in life and I really liked that aspect of it.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone, especially if they like dystopian stories. Life As We Knew It is the first book out of the four in the series and I would love to read the next in line: The Dead And The Gone.

-Nicole R.

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It can also be downloaded for free from Overdrive.

Tight by Torrey Maldonado

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Have you ever felt like one of your friends had another side? Have you ever had a friend who you thought was a good student, kind, caring, and honest, but they shocked you out of your shoes by their behavior? If you answered yes to one or both of those questions, you will definitely find Bryan’s story relatable. Bryan was always told by his mother, “Focus on school. There will be friends later. The wrong friends bring drama, and I don’t want them rubbing off on you.” Then, one day, a kid named Mike showed up at Bryan and his family’s home, and everyone in his family was very fond of Mike.

That annoyed Bryan, until one day, Mike came for dinner and Bryan and Mike became really close after reading their superhero comics together. His mother and father loved Mike because of his good grades and they felt that he would be a good friend for Bryan. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Mike would do crazy things like cutting school by faking his mom’s handwriting and excusing himself from school and Bryan started to notice that Mike was jealous of him under the fake smiles that masked Mike’s face. Bryan felt pressured by Mike because he was afraid that Mike would call him soft or a mommy’s boy. Mike kept on getting Bryan in trouble, and Bryan learned that Mike was not the best friend choice for him. He started to become friends with people closer to his personality like Big Will. 

This book was so interesting and exciting that I couldn’t put it down and I finished it in one day. As I turned the pages, I was curious to see what would come next. As each minute ticked by, I fell more and more into this book. It really fed my passion for reading!  I think this book really shows that you should be careful with the people you become friends with because they can be very good, nice friends, but they can also get you in trouble like Mike did to Bryan in this novel. 

I really recommend this book to anyone who needs a good book to read because this novel will not disappoint. I rate this book a 10 out of 10 and this is definitely one of my favorite books that I have read recently.

-Mert A.

Tight by Torrey Maldonado is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library.

Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe by Preston Norton

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Most of us, hopefully, have never undergone a near-death experience. Or perhaps we have, but we didn’t see God. Wait, what?

Yeah, God. Don’t worry, though, it gets better! Because God, who apparently sounds sort of like Morgan Freeman, has a plan for you. A List–sort of like the grocery kind–that reveals five objectives you should complete to…well, make high school suck less, I guess. Confused yet?

Cliff Hubbard, loser extraordinaire, known by the student body as Neanderthal due to his enormous size (6’6″ and over 250 pounds), is thrown into an unusual alliance with incredibly popular quarterback, Aaron Zimmerman, after Aaron claims to have seen God and received His message while in a coma.

Cliff, whose axis is still spinning off center due to his brother’s suicide, is reluctant to join lame, uber-star Aaron on his quest to bring enlightenment to Happy Valley High School. Against his better judgment, Cliff does, which spirals into a Sermon Showdown against the Jesus Teens, countless trips to the principal’s office, raging teachers and lawn mowers, and an unforgettable school year–all driven by the divine nature of a possibly insane List.

First things first: this book’s humor is on point! To the mild alarm of my mother, I would burst out laughing at particularly well-timed paragraphs. Now, when it’s a forced sort of funny because the author obviously tried too hard, it verges on the edge of annoying. Norton, though, is clearly the master of the funnies; humor rolls off his writing effortlessly, slipped into the seams of dialogue, stitched imperceptibly in Neanderthal’s hilarious narration. What I’m trying to say here, ladies and gentlemen, is that this dude has talent!

Second: I absolutely love the friendship evolution between Aaron and Cliff. Norton builds up their relationship so meticulously, at the perfect pace, so that by the end of the book undeniably there exists an adorable bromance between the two. Aaron and Cliff are so incredibly relatable, each with their struggles and hardships, that they gradually reveal to each other. In subtle ways, they are able to remind us of what friendship truly means.

Even after I closed the book, I was thankful to be reminded by Norton of the gratitude we must hold for our friendships. Amidst all of the confusion and hatred in the world now, sometimes all you need is that one friend that makes you laugh until you cry, and will cry with you; the friend that will never question eating ungodly amounts of bacon with you for breakfast; the friend who you know will never judge you, no matter what you tell them; the friend that makes you feel, even if only for a fraction of a second, infinitesimally times better when you hold their gaze steadfast; the friend that you thank the universe brought you together, because you cannot possibly imagine living without them.

At first, I thought the book was going to be highly religious or somewhat “preachy” about life lessons, if you know what I mean: “Time heals all wounds! Hope is our saving grace!” I was wrong. Universal messages are presented beautifully throughout the plot, and I was impressed by the wide range of present societal issues that are presented throughout the story, such as homophobia, bullying, substance abuse. I loved how the story prompted me to become philosophical with it–did God really come to Aaron? Or was it the workings of his subconscious mind during his coma, stirring up the depths of his morality as he truly grasped the incompetency of his high school?

But what I truly enjoyed about this story is how touching it can be to the reader on a personal level. These characters are quintessential models of our suffering, loss, grief, and hidden struggles that we may not wish to reveal to the world.

To be honest, this YA fiction reminded me strongly of the novel Darius the Great is Not Okay. Both present messages about hope, of putting one foot in front of another, even when sometimes you feel as if you’re trying to tread through wet cement. Sometimes there’s this wide, yawning chasm of despair inside of us that cannot be filled, until we are drawn into the golden light of friendship and purpose–though probably not all of our callings are to save the future of our high schools.

But hey, do we have to sit around patiently and wait for our callings? God or no, is there any reason why we shouldn’t be the voices of change? This book reminds us that change starts with us, even if we might only be sleep-deprived teenagers in this big, confusing world. Though we may feel uncomfortable in our own skins, no matter how irreparable or insignificant we seem, we have graced this earth for a purpose…a purpose that may leave an imprint on the world bigger than Neanderthal’s size 14 shoes.

-Katharine L.

Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe by Preston Norton is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library.

Authors We Love: Roald Dahl

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Roald Dahl is the author of many fictional books for children.  Most of his books were illustrated by Quentin Blake.  I have always enjoyed these books as well as the illustrations.  Dahl uses very inventive language, including interesting words such as “gnazzle,” “knid” and “snozzcumber.”  His books are very funny and full of entertaining nonsense.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is about a boy named Charlie who lives in a small home with his poor family.  Willy Wonka, the owner of a famous chocolate factory, announces that five lucky children will be invited to tour his factory.  The children would be selected by finding one of five golden tickets hidden inside the wrappers of chocolate bars.  By sheer luck, Charlie receives one of the five golden tickets.  As the story unfolds, we discover the wild and zany rooms in Willy Wonka’s factory, and finally we learn the real reason why Mr. Wonka invited the children to his factory.

The BFG tells of a little girl named Sophie who lives in an orphanage.  Sophie is captured by a twenty-four-feet-tall giant, who takes her to a cave in a faraway land called “Giant Country.”  There she learns that the giant’s name is the “Big Friendly Giant,” or the “BFG,” for short.  The BFG is actually the runt of nine other giants, who are about fifty feet tall and are very wicked, unlike the BFG.  The other nine giants like to gallop off to different countries to gobble up about two to six people at a time.  Sophie and the BFG come up with a plan to put a stop to the other giants’ evil deeds.

In Matilda, a girl named Matilda learns how to read at a very young age, but her parents mistreat her and hardly even notice her talents.  When she starts school, Matilda encounters the giant, nasty headmistress named Miss Trunchbull.  The headmistress terrorizes the entire school until Matilda discovers special powers within herself.  This is my favorite of Roald Dahl’s books because of the charming characters and wonderful story.

Most of Roald Dahl’s books are about ordinary children who discover extraordinary things.  Dahl usually includes fantastical characters, such as man-sized insects and little people known as “Oompa Loompas.”  It is for good reason that his books are very popular and are considered classics for young readers.  I highly recommend these books to people of all ages.

-Oliver H.

The works of Roald Dahl are available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. They can also be downloaded for free from Overdrive.

Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert

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The recent representation of Asian-Americans in film and literature has been thundering the media. From the more obvious success of Crazy Rich Asians and Fresh Off the Boat to the smaller-rooted Netflix film “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” (and it’s soon-to-be sequel), the portrayal of Asian families has skyrocketed, building new stepping stones in which the small society of its own is rendered in society as a whole.

Kelly Loy Gilbert’s second novel, Picture Us in the Light, is a beautifully crafted story revolving around the Asian-American cultural hub in San Francisco. Picture Us in the Light follows eighteen-year-old Danny Cheng, as he struggles with his pursuit of artistic inspiration (post-college acceptance to an art and design school) and finding footholds in his graying, mysterious family life. Accompanied by long-time friends Harry and Regina, Danny unearths his family’s deep past piece by piece and discovering small realizations about himself and the relationships he has with those he loves most in his life.

As Danny jockeys with the slow, difficult reveal of his parents’ secrets and tries to find some balance over what he does and doesn’t know about his own identity, the audience is presented with the intense and haunting realities of global immigration. Every turn of the page brought a new feeling of suspense — each time we were given new information, the plot became more and more complex, heading a dozen different ways at once.

Being Asian-American myself, I found the story delightfully relatable in a small-scale way that it was powdered with concise “Asian insider” instances that I could relate to — the abundance of food, the hefty trips to Costco and Ranch 99, the intensive preparation for big exams.

The featured family in the novel, the Chengs, center the majority of their conflicts and victories over meals, which is extremely relatable to me in the way that family bonds over food. Just this seemingly insignificant instance opens up huge discussion for literary meaning (communion occurs over cuisine, perhaps?), but also exhibits how striking and intimately real the characters and situations Gilbert creates are.

Picture Us in the Light, published just over a year ago, is one of YA’s most down-to-earth and honest storylines thus far. Gilbert brings together shattering occurrences with the small moments of merriment, joining together two of our center emotions into a heart wrenching and, slowly, heartwarming book.

     So, as we are, picture us enchanted by Gilbert’s authentic and profound capability for storytelling.

—Keira D.

Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. 

Anything But Okay by Sarah Darer Littman

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Anything But Okay by Sarah Darer Littman is about Stella Walker, a junior in high school. She is like most other teenage girls, but her whole life is shaken up once her older brother, Rob, returns from serving as a Marine. Her brother is suffering from PTSD, and a lack of resources from the VA means the family has to wait for counseling. Unfortunately, Rob gets agitated and punches a boy in the face at the mall after the boy was harassing a worker by saying “go back to your country.” In the politicized climate of the town mayor running from election, many say that Rob is a terrorist sympathizer. This extreme dialogue affects her best friend and family, who is Muslim.

Dealing with the turmoil of all this by running for class president, Stella must tell the right side of the story and be able to diffuse the tension. Anything But Okay is a powerful novel for teenagers to read because of the topics explored are a reflection of the ones in our community today. By telling the story in the point of view of Stella, the novel gives young adults someone  they can relate to and learn from.

This novel was different because of how relatable it is to society today. It gives a hypothetical, but startling, scenario, where lies fueled by speculation can spread like wildfire and do almost as much damage as one. I would recommend this book not only to teenagers, but adults as well to understand a fresh perspective about the political turmoil in the news.

-Anmol K.

Anything But Okay by Sarah Darer Littman is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like if your family left behind everything you knew and moved to a remote African village? Probably not, but that is the scenario that the Price family faces as they embark on their missionary trip to the Congo in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, The Poisonwood Bible. There are five members of the price family. Nathan Price is a firm willed Baptist pastor, determined to right the “evils” of Africa. Orleanna is Nathan’s wife, and is lost in the identity of her husband. Their daughters, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May each react to their new home in different ways- and to the tragedy which soon befalls them. The family gets more than they bargained for when their Baptist evangelist mission is swept up in the Congolese revolution, and the government- and their world- falls apart around them.

The Poisonwood Bible deals with a topic that is all too often glanced over in modern society: the effect of European colonialism. The Congo that the Price family visits is broken politically and economically. Additionally, it explores the idea of gender through Orleanna, who has lost her own identity and lives for her husband instead. The idea of voice is also thoroughly explored by Kingsolver, who rotates the book’s narration chapter by chapter. Sometimes the story is narrated by materialistic Rachel, other times by dedicated Leah, sometimes by five year-old Ruth May. The only member of the Price family who does not narrate is the father, Nathan Price, whose character can be vividly constructed through the insight of all of the Price women. Because such a diverse cast is narrating the story, not only is the book engaging, the reader is able to see every facet of the trials of the Prices in Africa- and see how each character reacts to a tragedy which befalls them, whether that be through denial or guilt.

This book is so valuable, and reading it is an experience in itself. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a good read that is steeped in nuance and artfully written, in which political and religious references abound.

-Mirabella S.

The Posionwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. 

Film Review: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

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This amazing rom-com movie was released through Netflix on August 17, 2018. Normally, the thought of a romantic movie makes me cringe, but when I first saw the trailer for the movie, I was immediately hooked.

This movie is based on the book series To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before written by Jenny Han. I personally have not read the books (but planning to read them later). This story has everything from romance, to comedy, to the important lessons every teenager should know not only life but love as well.

The movie is about a girl named Lara Jean Covey. She is half-American and half-Korean. Her mother passed away when she was young, so her father raises her and two other sisters (one older, one younger) by himself. Basically, the main plot of the story is that Lara Jean has these five letters. She writes them when she has a crush, “..so intense, [she] doesn’t know what else to do..” One day she finds that all the letters have been sent out… all FIVE of them!! The recipients of the letters are Peter Kavinsky, played by Noah Centineo (a dreamboat may I add), who is the hottest boy in school, John Ambrose from Model UN, Lucas from homecoming, Kenny from camp, and Josh, the boy next door (who is her older sister’s boyfriend).

The rest of the movie is just about how she handles the whole situation, and the lessons she learns along the way. I totally recommend this movie. It is an amazing movie with an Asian lead– which you don’t see very often.

Jenny Han’s novel, To All the Boys I Loved Before, is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It can also be downloaded for free from Overdrive.