My One Hundred Adventures

Jane is 12 years old, and she is ready for adventures, to move beyond the world of her siblings and single mother and their house by the sea, and step into the “know-not what.” And, over the summer, adventures do seem to find Jane, whether it’s a thrilling ride in a hot-air balloon, the appearances of a slew of possible fathers, or a weird new friendship with a preacher and psychic wannabe. Most important, there’s Jane’s discovery of what lies at the heart of all great adventures: that it’s not what happens to you that matters, but what you learn about yourself.

Polly Horvath has a great writing style and she's a good storyteller. I also really enjoyed her book Everything on a Waffle. This story, My One Hundred Adventures, is about a young girl, Jane, who wants to experience life and prays for one hundred adventures. She only has 14 in this story, but boy does she have some interesting experiences! Some of the characters were a bit frustrating, i.e. the preacher Nellie Phipps and the crazy mother Mrs. Goard, but that is part of the adventure I guess! This is sort-of coming of age story and I felt good about the ending. Cute book!

Small Little Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a smaller affair this year. We, my parents and brother, just had a low-key thanksgiving at my Grandma's house. Grammy is bedridden right now, so we just went over to spend the day with her. My mom prepared a small meal, just the right size for four of us and she did a great job. We sat around Grammy's bed and ate and talked until she started getting sleepy. She sleeps a lot more now. We then went out to the living room and watched a movie. That's about it! It was a good day! Happy Thanksgiving!

Book Review Overload!

I'm sorry for all so many books! Whoa! I'm finally caught up to what I'm reading right now - so this long list will not happen again! This is just what I've been reading over the last six months - not in November alone. Just in case you were wondering!

The Mysterious Benedict Society

Dozens of children respond to this peculiar ad in the newspaper and are then put through a series of mind-bending tests, which readers take along with them. Only four children-two boys and two girls-succeed. Their challenge: to go on a secret mission that only the most intelligent and inventive children could complete. To accomplish it they will have to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there are no rules. But what they'll find in the hidden underground tunnels of the school is more than your average school supplies. So, if you're gifted, creative, or happen to know Morse Code, they could probably use your help.

What a great book! This was a page turner from the first chapter! It was thrilling, funny and the story was very clever. It's about these 4 amazingly smart/resourceful kids who help spy at a a learning institute, where questionable things are going on. They have to be very resourceful to learn answers and sneak around without getting caught. I want to say more, I can't do it justice! I loved it!

The Magic Thief

In a city that runs on a dwindling supply of magic, a young boy is drawn into a life of wizardry and adventure. Conn should have dropped dead the day he picked Nevery's pocket and touched the wizard's locus magicalicus, a stone used to focus magic and work spells. But for some reason he did not. Nevery finds that interesting, and he takes Conn as his apprentice on the provision that the boy find a locus stone of his own. But Conn has little time to search for his stone between wizard lessons and helping Nevery discover who—or what—is stealing the city of Wellmet's magic.

This is about a young pick-pocket theif who gets involved with a wizard and the magic crisis in this fictional town. I'm guessing that this might be the start of a series. It was a good book and I enjoyed it for the most part. It did have a slow start, but I kept on reading to see what would happen. I felt pretty good about it, even though it's not one of my favorites.

Hush: An Irish Princess' Tale

This was a fascinating book and a good story. It takes place during the reign of the Vikings. Melkorka, an Irish princess, gets kidnapped by Russian slave traders. She takes a vow of silence and it saves her life. She is observant and learns from her captors and from her surroundings and helps her fellow slaves. In the end she learns to trust again. I learned in the epilogue that this book is based off a real person.

Crimson Thread: A Retelling of Rumpelstiltskin

The year is 1880, and Bertie, having just arrived in New York with her family, is grateful to be given work as a seamstress in the home of textile tycoon J. P. Wellington. When the Wellington family fortune is threatened, Bertie's father boasts that Bertie will save the business, that she is so skillful she can "practically spin straw into gold."
Amazingly, in the course of one night, Bertie creates exquisite evening gowns -- with the help of Ray Stalls, a man from her tenement who uses an old spinning wheel to create dresses that are woven with crimson thread and look as though they are spun with real gold. Indebted to Ray, Bertie asks how she can repay him. When Ray asks for her firstborn child, Bertie agrees, never dreaming that he is serious....

Rumpelstiltskin isn't my usually my favorite fairytale, but this retelling was pretty good. I like this "Once Upon a Time" series because they take a common fairytale and put into a certain historical time period and it's fun trying to guess where the traditional story will come out. This one was put during the early 1900's in New York and Bridget/Bertie and her family are Irish immigrants. I liked it and it had a cute ending - what more can I ask for?

Found (Missing Series #1)

Thirteen-year-old Jonah has always known that he was adopted, and he's never thought it was any big deal. Then he and a new friend, Chip, who's also adoped, begin receiving mysterious letters. The first one says, "You are one of the missing." The second one says, "Beware! They're coming back to get you."
Jonah, Chip, and Jonah's sister, Katherine, are plunged into a mystery that involves the FBI, a vast smuggling operation, an airplane that appeared out of nowhere — and people who seem to appear and disappear at will. The kids discover they are caught in a battle between two opposing forces that want very different things for Jonah and Chip's lives.
Do Jonah and Chip have any choice in the matter? And what should they choose when both alternatives are horrifying?

What an interesting story! What's more, it left you hanging at the end! How long until the next book! It starts out with a mystery plane from nowhere filled with babies. Then, 13 years later these mystery children are starting to get notes that say, "You're one of the missing". The story is gripping and I'm anxious to see how it will all work out!

The Trouble Begins at 8

"MARK TWAIN WAS BORN fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth." So begins Sid Fleischman's ramble-scramble biography of the great American author and wit, who started life in a Missouri village as a barefoot boy named Samuel Clemens.
Abandoning a career as a young steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, Sam took a bumpy stagecoach to the Far West. In the gold and silver fields, he expected to get rich quick. Instead, he got poor fast, digging in the wrong places. His Stint as a sagebrush newspaperman led to a duel with pistols. Had he not survived, the world would never have heard of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn—or red-headed Mark Twain.
Samuel Clemens adopted his pen name in a hotel room in San Francisco and promptly made a jumping frog (and himself) famous. His celebrated novels followed at a liesurely place; his quips at jet speed. "Don't let schooling interfere with your reducation," he wrote.
Here, in high style, is the story of a wisecracking adventurer who came of age in the untamed West; an ink-stained rebel who surprised himself by becoming the most famous American of his time. Bountifully illustrated.

I don't usually read biographies, but this one came highly recommended and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The life of Mark Twain, or Samuel Clemens, is presented in an intesting and entertaining way. For example, Mark Twain did a series of lectures, or comic routines, and his posters read: "Doors open at 7 o'clock. The Trouble to begin at 8 o'clock.". The author, Sid Fleishman, did a good job and I'm curious to read more biographies that he's written!

Savvy

Mibs Beaumont is about to turn thirteen, which in the Beaumont family means her "savvy"-her special power-is about to strike. Her brothers' savvies let them create hurricanes and spark electricity, but Mibs has yet to learn what her savvy is. Then, two days before her birthday, her father is in a terrible car accident. He is sent to a hospital two hours from their isolated small town, and Mibs determines that she must get there, adamant that her savvy is going to help save him. She ends up on a traveling bible salesman's pink bus with all her siblings and the preacher's children, including the preacher's son, Will, who has a crush on her. The story chronicles the ups and downs of their journey to the hospital-where, in the end, Mibs's savvy (she can hear the thoughts and feelings of people with ink on their skin) helps her hear Poppa's tattoo speak and, ultimately, save his life.

Savvy was a fun coming of age story. Everyone in Mibs' family inherits a special power, or savvy, on their 13th birthday. The day before Mibs' 13th bday her father is in a terrible car accident and it sets rolling a series of events that help the characters bond and realize what's important in life. This book got good reviews, and it was a clever story - but it wasn't my favorite.