Tag Archives: nonfiction

Book Review: Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, by Julie Andrews Edwards

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home_memoir_coverJulie Andrews’ autobiography, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, shares with the reader the hardships and rewards of becoming a famous Broadway and Hollywood star. This book is fascinating to me, because like Andrews, I love to sing, dance, and read. Although I do not dream of becoming a famous icon, I find those who follow the road to becoming one interesting and undeniably courageous.

Julie Andrews’ story begins in London, England during World War II. Julie Andrews spends her childhood constantly in voice lessons and traveling to perform with her parents, and she describes despising her voice lessons as a child. Little did she know that later- in her teen years- she would come to appreciate and use her voice as her ticket to stardom. Despite her parents’ painful divorce and her mother’s flighty behavior, Julie Andrews succeeds in becoming a well-respected performer in her home country.

Andrews writes that although she thoroughly enjoyed traveling with a company and performing, she always felt responsible for her family, and she hated to be away from them. Julie Andrews is admirable because when she is offered a two year contract to perform as Eliza Doolittle from “My Fair Lady,” she insists on making it one year so that she can come home to care for her siblings. Most girls looking to make it on Broadway would snatch up the offer and leave their family to fend for themselves.

Julie Andrews was a talented, compassionate, responsible, composed young lady; respected by many as one of America’s greatest icons. With the help of the much-loved Walt Disney, Julie Andrews became a star on-screen as well as on-stage. One might say Julie Andrews is best known for her perfect role as Mary Poppins, the beloved nanny; but I love her most for her role as Maria in The Sound of Music for her carefree attitude and loving heart.

I recommend this book to all who love Julie Andrews’ work, and find themselves, like me, in awe at those who take such risks to discover themselves.

-Kelsey H., 10th 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