The Bronze Pen

Let me start by telling you my hook, the author. I just love this author! How many of you think Lemony Snicket is a good author? Well, you will love anything by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. The all the books I have ever read by her have the following quote on the back:
"Zilpha Keatly Snyder is
the sort of writer
who makes you peek in
the closet, check under
the bed, and spend all
night under the covers,
reading with a flashlight
to find out what
happens next."
-Lemony Snicket
"P.S. I LOATHE these books"

Well, I don't know about him, but I love these books. That hook is on every single one of her books and isn't it marvelous!? Whenever I read this hook, my little voice just takes off and starts screaming, "Don't you dare put that book down, you will regret it!  Trust me!  I'm right, you know!" 

What I love about her books is that they get to the point. They don't talk for long periods of time about what might happen or what's not happening, but it hits the action, the bam, the pazaz! It is a lot like the Percy Jackson series, in a way. It is, in my opinion, a scary book. They freak me out and, you guessed it, my little voice,too. You will certainly like these books no matter who you are. Try them.

The Truth About Sparrows

Beleive it or not, it is not about sparrows. I think that is hard to understand, but I can see why it is called that, though. See, this girl named Sadie and her family had to move to the coast of Texas during the Great Depression. They were cooking on the road and an old man comes by asking for food. She calls him Mr. Sparrow.  She feels like she and everybody eles who had to leave from their home. So she says, "we are all sparrows."  I think that, in a way, it is really great, but it is also a sad book. Not sad as in burst out in tears. Just sad where you wonder why she did that and you ask yourself what you would do in her place, or how you would feel.

In the process of the book her mom is pregnant and one month away from giving birth. They went out to pick pecans about five miles away from town with Sadies friend Dollie. So their just picking, picking, picking, and all of a sudden she can't find her mom. I felt this pang. It was like having the wind knocked out of me. Anything could be happening. When she finds her she is lying in a ditch, and her breathing is heavy and labored. I won't go in to detail, but that wave of nervousness and feeling of fear is so powerful it made me bang my head on the ceiling of an annoyingly small plane.

She got mad at Dollie and called her a bay rat (an insult that basicly says, "I'm big, your little, I'm right, your wrong, I'm smart, your dumb."). So Dollie, her previous best friend, and Davis, Dollies brother who at first thought he was really great and Sadie liked him to someone who Sadie likes yeah, not as a friend, start to leave her alone. I felt really sorry for her because now she was friendless, and felt lower than mud. I could feel how much remorse she felt.

Her dad told her that they were going to live by the sea and fish for a living. On the way to earn more money they had to stop to pick cotton. She felt really angry at her dad and thought he was a big, fat, liar. Her anger flowed into me and I agreed that is completly the way I would feel if I was in her position. Then you also feel like she is a little brat. The kind of person who if things don't go just their way they throw a fit.

This book is really powerful, it is rather slow. I could totally feel the emotion. So I would give it an 8. I hope you read it. It is in our school library.

Wenny Has Wings

Wenny Has Wings is the most heartbreaking book around. Janet Lee Carey conjured up a tale that will make it seem as if the ocean is coming out of your eyes. Wenny North, died at age seven. She was hit by a truck with her brother Will. Our school library copy has tear stains to share on pages galore. They were both rushed to the hospital. In this time is really the main story.

Most people will tell you that is what the book is about. Thats true, but really the thing that boggles me is it is just the beginning. True throughout the whole book they reefer back to this moment in time, but the book really is about what happens after. I think that is what people should say. " This book is about the suffering of a family after they lose the youngest member of there family."

This books hook is really good. It isn't exactly the first piece of the book it's the back cover. "Dear Wenny, I died too. Not when the truck first hit us, but right after in the hospital. I was pretty messed up by the truck, and while they were trying to fix me, my heart stropped for a whole ten minutes. I sped through a tunnel when I died, then I flew around in the sky. I'd be flying up there with you still if D.r West fall hadn't put two paddles on my chest and shot electric energy into my heart." From this I know that he was writing letters to his sister. I think that if I were in his shoes I would want to be up there still. I think this because mainly is because how his parents are effected. It seemed to me that they really didn't care that he had made it. They just dwelled on the fact that Wenny was no longer with them. I think he got over it the best. He still got angry really easily but he saw the bright side. Like what he did for Wenny's birthday. I won't give it away, but I think that it was really sweet. I think that the most amazing thing is that Wenny is based on Janet. I could never write a book about the person who is basically me dyeing. That would just be too much. Please consider reading this book. I think that Emi also has read this book. I would definetly rate this book a ten.

P.S. Watch out for tear stains.

Gaia Girls Enter the Earth

I think that this book is one of the most detailed you can come across. It very vividly describes what is going on. For example:
"...and through The Chaplain's leaves she could see the lights of her house. ...took her time walking slowly up the slope of the long, green yard." Page 49.
"... maybe the trees are so old they remember the Iroquois Indians. Maybe the Indians purposefully left those oaks in a line as guideposts. Elizabeth liked that idea and liked to think that once, long ago before the European farmers came to clear the woods, there had been a great line of oaks nodding and waving to each other and passing information up and down a living line all through Upstate New York." Page 12.
"She was in the dark but felt compelled to move herself toward the most beautiful sounds she had ever heard. It sounded like harps and choirs and bells and magic. The sound grew louder and louder until it was all around her." Page 64.

It's about a girl who lives on this incredible farm that seems to stretch for miles. She has almost a connection with the earth. One day some otter stands on its hind legs and says that she needs to help it. This otters name is Gaia. Gaia is the earth. At the same time evil Harmony Farms a factory farm is buying land from the farmers in Avon.  

"Boy, they made it sound so great. Harmony Farms was feeding the hungry and doing it cheaply... It made her feel weird but not as weird as what she was next... Such farms were called CAFOs, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. The pictures were disgusting. Pigs were crammed so close together they bit each other's tails! Chickens had their beaks burned dull. Cows pumped full of antibiotics and things called growth hormones and then killed by shooting a bolt in their brains. And it got worse... air for miles around had toxic chemicals in it. It ran off into rivers and streams and ruined them. Those living near it had to move because of asthma attacks and giant swarms of flies." Pages 174-175.

This is why Gaia was asking for help. She was becoming destroyed. She needed Elizabeth to help her save herself.

So far I like this book because it is about saving the planet and has an important message. This is a series of six. I hope that you try it or one of the others. I would rate this book a perfect ten.

Dear America Series

These books don't exactly qualify for a series but thats alright. These books are dairies. I know that this doesn't sound very cool but all of them are great. You have to have some back ground knowledge or the stories get super confusing. I like these books because it being a dairy you have the same thoughts that the person writing has. Like if someone is stealing and only the one person knows about it then you can feel the frustration they must feel. They are also really good for creating these little pictures in your mind because it's in a form that ( because the person is telling the dairy) lets you ask a ton of questions about what other people think and feel, what the writer felt and what life was like then. It also is really fun to ( because these books are historical fiction) read other books about that time period and make connections. That is what I've been doing with my History of Us book. I keep seeing things or they talk about things that I have found somewhere in the book. They don't really come in an order but you can read them according to the year they are based on. I think that these books are an eight not ten because they aren't really the best ever book but they are pretty good.