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Paper Towns by John Green

Hi, I am Sarah. I am fourteen years old and an avid reader; it is one of my favorite things to do. Inspired by authors’ creations of magnificent places and surprising havens built by simple letters, I aspire to be an author and, meanwhile, nurture the love to write.

Quentin “Q” Jacobsen figures that everyone gets a miracle. If you consider all of the unlikely possibilities, it’s not much of a stretch to suppose that at least one should happen to every person. But Q’s miracle is not winning a Nobel Prize or surviving a lightning strike. His miracle is living next to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

Q is comfortable watching Margo from afar – until the night she crawls into his bedroom at midnight, recruiting him as a getaway driver in an elaborate, eleven-part plot of revenge. When the day breaks and Q returns to high school, Margo has disappeared – and apparently left behind a trail of clues for him to follow.

Written with incredible attention to detail, Quentin looks for Margo, and the more he finds, the less he sees of the girl he thought he knew. Just when it seems that the trail has gone cold, another thread appears, weaving a net of paths she could have disappeared to, to get away from the picture-perfect town that they live in.

John Green probes the foundation of what life is like today: every day lived for the next. For Quentin, it has all been simple: the monotonous routine, the pleasant identical-ness. For Margo, it has been all about having more, knowing more, being more than just a paper girl in a paper town. Through a winding mystery, each finds parts of the other than neither of them knew before, a path to discovery that’s ultimately very human.

Find it in print, ebook, CD and DVD here.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Hi, I am Sarah. I am fourteen years old and an avid reader; it is one of my favorite things to do. Inspired by authors’ creations of magnificent places and surprising havens built by simple letters, I aspire to be an author and, meanwhile, nurture the love to write.

Imagine living in a world in which, every year, you must stand in utter terror, waiting for your name to be drawn. If it is, it condemns you. If you don’t hear it, you thank your lucky stars that it wasn’t you, that you are safe for another year, safe from the dreaded Reaping. Safe from the Hunger Games. 

The Hunger Games: a gladiator-style, nationwide fight to the death, intended to keep the 12 districts surrounding the Capitol of Panem from revolt. But those twenty-four in the arena? They’re kids: twelve-to-eighteen-year-olds that have been chosen from their districts; one male, one female.

Maybe you don’t live in Panem, but Katniss Everdeen does. Katniss must stand dreading, every year, for her name to be called. Now, at sixteen, her name has yet to be chosen. This year, her name isn’t the one pulled from the bowl. 

But her sister’s is.

When Primrose Everdeen’s name is called, Katniss can’t let her be killed by another, bloodthirsty competitor. So she does the only thing she can: she volunteers for the Hunger Games. Prepared to die, so another can live. 

Before leaving for the Capitol, Katniss makes her sister a promise: a promise that she’ll try to stay alive and try to win. And with that promise in her heart, she boards a train heading for the Capitol. 

Exploring themes of aristocracy and dictatorship, friendship and family, independence and oppression, Suzanne Collins weaves a masterpiece of a novel. With the rifts between the Capitol and the districts triggering unrest and hatred, this book is a warning of sorts, but also defines what it means to be free.

Find it in print, ebook, eaudiobook, CD and DVD here.

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

My name is Slader. My favorite things to do is to play baseball, and watch my favorite movies. I am a 12 year old and in 7th grade.

The One And Only Ivan is a book by Katherine Applegate. In this book, Ivan is a silver back gorilla. Ivan lives in a circus. He is very friendly. His best friend’s name is Stella, who is an elephant. The One And Only Ivan is a very interesting book. It is full of emotion, there are happy parts, and sad parts. I definitely recommend this book if you really like animals. This book is mostly animals. My favorite character is Bob, who is a stray dog, who is also Ivan’s best friend. A new animal is forced to live in the circus, and that’s where the real problem begins.

The One and Only Ivan is easy and decently long with 336 pages. To me, the book got a little confusing at some parts as there were some words I didn’t know, not too much though. Every page is super interesting to read. It never really gets boring. The genre of this book is fiction. I recommend this book if you are in 6th to 8th grade. The One and Only Ivan won the John Newbery Medal, “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children”.

I could not stop reading this book. This novel is definitely one of my favorite books I’ve ever read. I have read this book twice and enjoyed it both times. I think you will enjoy it too. Thank you for reading my review.

Find it in print, ebook, eaudiobook and CD here.

The Time Hackers by Gary Paulsen

My name is Zach. I am a seventh grader, and live in Ketchum, ID. I enjoy playing board games, reading, mountain biking, Nordic and alpine skiing, playing with my family, snowmobiling, and being outside.

Imagine a future where you could see events from the past in the form of a hologram. In The Time Hackers, the two main characters, Dorso and Frank, experience this reality. Scientists have discovered a way to recreate the past and bring it forward. Time travel is still very new to the world, so one of the laws of time states that you can’t go back in time and mess with the past. Imagine you go back in the past and kill your great-grandma. If you did that you would cease to exist. But you wouldn’t exist to kill your relative, thus a paradox.

Dorso becomes the target of a series of pranks using this time travel technology. It starts out with gross pranks that are mostly harmless, but they eventually escalate to being life threatening. When Dorso and Frank keep going back in time and almost dying, they have to work together to stop whoever is behind this before they mess with the time laws and destroy the universe.

This thrilling book has very deep material. It has plenty of ideas that send your mind reeling. It makes you think about time and how it affects the world. This book is somewhat targeted to more mature audiences, but is an easy read for most ages.

Find it in print here.

I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 by Lauren Tarshis

My name is Slader. My favorite things to do is to play baseball, and watch my favorite movies. I am a 12 year old and in 7th grade.

I will be reviewing the I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912. This book is a book by Lauren Tarshis. Lauren Tarshes is a very talented author. I Survived The Titanic is a historical fiction novel. This book was written in 2010. This book is very intense and packed with suspenseful moments. I definitely recommend you to read this book because it isn’t only fun and cool to read, but it teaches you all about the Titanic and the amount of people who made it off alive. I enjoyed every moment of this book and learned a surprising amount about The Titanic that I didn’t know. I learned that way more than half of the people on The Titanic didn’t make it off.

This book has won the Golden Kite Award for Fiction award. If you choose his book, you will enjoy every page of it. I recommend reading this book if you are in 6th to 7th grade. This book is very easy. If you are looking for a quick book to read this is definitely one at 112 pages. If you are into ships and history then you will like this novel. This is a family friendly and appropriately written book. 

I read this book in about 5 days and i enjoyed every part of it. This is one of my favorite books and I think you’ll like it. Also try the other books in the series. The books in the series are historical fiction, based on real events that people survived.

Find it in print and eaudiobook here.

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

My name is Elizabeth. I love reading, and my favorite book is My Sister’s Keeper. I am in the 8th grade and enjoy dance.

The Outsiders is a book written by S.E. Hinton. It is 192 pages, so it’s a fairly quick read, but it is super good. I read it in one night because I couldn’t put it down.

The Outsiders is a must read for kids and teens. The plot is about some greasers who live in Tulsa, Oklahoma during the year 1965. They feud with a group called the Soc’s (pronounced soshes). They are the rich kids in town, and they aren’t exactly nice to the greasers. The main character Ponyboy is who we see the book told through. He goes on an adventure with a few other greasers to escape the mistakes that he has made. The plot sucks you in, and you get to escape the real world while you read. The book doesn’t have a huge presence of adults, so you can be a little care free when you read The Outsiders.

This book is the best that I have ever read, and I highly recommend it. The Outsiders will stick with you for the rest of your life, and it will hackle you see the world differently. The story if The Outsiders has also been made into a movie, so when you finish with the book, you can watch the movie!

Find it in print, ebook or eaudiobook here.