Here are some reviews of books I've read:
Crispin: The Cross of Lead
Stars: 4.5
Description: this book is a winner of the new berry medal, and I simply loved it.
It's about a young boy in medieval times who was accused of stealing from the king, but actually didn't. He also meets a person who becomes his friend along the way and his whole mission is to flee far away: because so many people are trying I kill him.
Chains
Stars:3.5
Description: this book is on the american revolution. The main character, Isabel, is trying to reach her freedom of slavery along with her sister Ruth and another boy. It takes place mostly in Boston and is very interesting.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Stars:3.5
Description: if you love classic literature where the book has too much stuff going on, you'll love this. It's from the 60s, and the whole story is about a trial. It was a good book, but the trial was like 30 pages long and started at page 300, so there is basically 300 pages of not important scenes.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Stars: 3.5
Description: this is a story on the Holocaust. It is about a German boy who secretly makes friends with one of the Jewish boys on the other end of the fence that separates the camp and the ret of the world. It is very interesting, and highly recommend it to people who like historic-fiction books.
Touching Spirit Bear
Stars: 3.5
Description: a bully who beat up kids at school every day just crossed the line. He smashed a kids face into the sidewalk and almost killed him. When he gets caught, instead of going to jail, the government decides to send him to a deserted island. He doesn't get a home or anything, he must survive in his own, and there's no way he can swim away! There he meets a spirit bear which makes him change... A lot.
The Red Badge of Courage:
Stars: 2
Description: this is an old book written in the 1800s. I found it o be really boring and hard to focus on. When the characters talk thy have crazy accents, so it's hard to tell why they're trying to say. This book is on the Amerian Civil War, so I you like war stories that concentrates more on the characters and their feelings and thoughts than the actual action of the war, you'll probably like this.
The Hardy Boys: The Witchmaster's Key
Stars: 4.5
Description: not just this book, but the whole Hardy Boys series is incredible. The books aren't too long, and they're just incredible! You never know how the Hardys will catch the criminal. These books are also kind of spooky too. This one though is really good!
The Alchemyst
Stars:3.5
Description: if you like fantasy books wih mythical creatures, you'll live this! It's about this one race of creatures who want to take over he world and the other must stop them and retreive the codex, book of spells, back. It sounds corny but is very good.
The Good Earth
Stars: 2.5
Description: this book is decades old, and can be quite boring but interesting at the same time. It takes place in china around the 1700s, and it's about a family of farmers who have a bad harvest who must move south to get food, supplies, and money. There, they end up getting rich and move back north and buy a huge mansion. As time passes, and the book takes place over a period of about 50 years, many people of the family live in the house. And there's no peace. It's noisy and people fight all day. Wang lung, the main character, realizes there's no peace and that everything was more calm when they were poor. And he missed when he was a dirty farmer in the hot sun while having his feet buried in soil.
Last edited by turkey3 (2012-03-21 19:42:01)
Offline
Great list! I've only read a handful of the books on there ("To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Alchemyst") - but I preferred "To Kill a Mockingbird" to "The Alchemyst" and would definitely have rated it much higher than you did.
Well, I didn't quite like The Alchemyst at all, actually. I'd probably have rated it a 2.
But, TKAM I think deserves a slightly higher rating. Those 300 pages of non-usefulness touch on subjects such as racism, which was pretty radical for a woman living in Alabama in the 1960s. The climax was very well-executed as well, and I found the buildup in the Boo Radley subplot quite nice. In my opinion, there's a lot more to a book than its principal plot.
Offline
Offline
Offline
werdna123 wrote:
Shouldn't this be in TiRP?
It should. Moving time!
Offline
I've never read any of those books, so I can't really comment on the list, but it was really well-written
Offline