Wednesday, September 28, 2016

September reviews from St Kilda

Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima - reviewed by Yuanquan

The story is set in the Shattered Realm. It’s about this kid named Adrian sul’Han, known as Ash or Adam Freeman who’s the son of a former street thief who is the king of the Queendom of Fells. Then his party gets killed. He gets upset and runs away from his kingdom to the enemy kingdom, to a place called Delphi where he’s going around killing people.

I should mention there are magical people in this world and if you’re a sorcerer, or a healer you can use your magic to heal, kill, control minds, pluck eyes out and so on.

Then he goes to the King’s court. Because the kingdom of Arden and the kingdom of Feld are arch enemies, to get into the court he has to dress in the disguise of a healer. But really, he’s on a mission to assassinate the king. He meets this girl named Jenna Bandelow, all the time he is under the alias of Adam Freeman, Healer of the King’s court. Jenna has a mark on her neck, and that’s why she gets kidnapped by this group of evil guards. Then an emperor from a land far, far away says they will give the kingdom of Arden a gift in exchange for her. One of the gifts is six really large, expensive diamonds. Adam is in charge of checking them for curses (as a sorcerer he can). He slips in this bottle of living silver because it’s actually this thing from the hot baths of the mountain Fells and if you heat it, it will make people sick. So he is trying to kill the guard. Then this thing happens where because the Queen of Arden doesn’t like the King, she tries to do him in, throwing him off the balcony.

Adam is caught in the scandal, someone is after the diamond and who is Jenna really?

Rated:  4/5 reallys

The Chocolate Box Girls series by Cathy Cassidy - reviewed by Ruth

I was trying to persuade my parents to read this series, but they don’t want to read it, my dad thinks it’s a ‘girly girl book’ but anyway, he’s just judging a book by its cover.

This series is sort of for teenagers. It’s set in England. There a four girls. They’re sisters. Their ages are ranging from eleven to fourteen. Their parents have split up and they live with their mum in this house which is like a mansion. They have a bed and breakfast business in part of the house. Anyway their house is ginormous with like thirteen bedrooms and three dining rooms. The girls are Skye and Summer, Coco and Cherry. Their dad has a chocolate shop and names a truffle after each of them and these are what the books are titled.

Each story focuses on one of the girls. For instance, in Marshmallow Sky, Sky is drifting away from everyone else because she starts having dreams about a girl’s life after wearing some vintage clothes…

Rated:  5/5 reallys - “They’re really good books, I really want my parents to read them! Full of really funny and really sad bits.

The crown's game by Evelyn Skye - reviewed by Spike

About this girl called Vika and another boy named Nikolai Karamov. The story is set in Russia in 1852. They are both enchanters. Enchanters enchant stuff with magic. In Russia there is only supposed to be one enchanter that harnesses the power of Bolshevik Dito, which is the place that gives them their magic. There’s this thing called The Town’s Game, where each enchanter has to fight. It’s quite weirdly polite. You have to take turns to fight people. You can only use your magic to attack during your turn, you can use it to defend even if it’s not. It’s really good. I would recommend it for people who like magic and stuff like that.

Rated:  5/5 reallys - “... the lady who wrote this got offered a job by the C.I.A.!

Earthfall by Mark Waldon - reviewed by Jack

It’s set in London in the middle of an apocalypse and everyone is getting brainwashed by aliens. The main character is Sam, who has been living in a sewer system for safety. When he comes out of hiding, he meets a bunch of kids who are fighting against enslavement. The aliens have a mothership which is a three kilometre saucer disk.

The story is full of tension, as the humans fight against the aliens, known as the Voidborn and their creations, robotic soldiers known as Grendels.

Rated:  5/5 reallys - “Exciting. Read this if you like sci-fi!

The war that saved my life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley - reviewed by Emese

This book is set during World War II. Hitler is trying to bomb the towns. It’s about this girl called Ada who has a twisted foot so it’s basically backwards. Her mum has always been ashamed of her so she never lets her go out or near her window, even though that was her favourite spot. She couldn’t walk properly and had to pull her bad leg around and crawl. She had a little brother called Jamie, and he could walk and play and go outside. Their mother loves him and lets him see everything of the world. Sometimes he wouldn’t come home until early in the morning.

When Hitler and the Nazis start bombing their town, Ada’s mum is really cruel to her, taking her brother somewhere safe and leaving her behind in danger. Ada escapes on a train with her brother and stays at this lady’s place who has a pony named Butter. At first Ada thought she was rich because they had such good food and she had literally never had more than crumbs at home, even though their mother and Jamie would have a feast each night. She finds out later that the lady is actually very poor.

Rated:  5/5 reallys - “An exciting, enjoyable read.

One false note ; bk. 2, The 39 clues by Gordon Korman - reviewed by Jaxon

This is the second book in the series. So they are on the chase for clues and they are trying to get 39. So they had the choice of a clue hunt with the goal of being the most powerful person on earth or decline and get a million dollars.

First, the characters are a fourteen year-old girl called Amy and her eleven year-old brother Dan. A hunger strike begins in two hours east of Paris. Saladin is a cat so right now they’re in Paris and they’re trying to get to Japan. There is this family called Hult, and what they do is they literally boss everyone around because they’re so strong. The youngest Hult is one and they can lift Amy off the ground! So basically the Hult's are these strong guys who try to beat everyone up. Hult Hamilton hates France. And I should have said Saladin has a cat carrier.

Sometimes it’s a bit violent because it includes things like blood lips, poison and scratching and one of the contestants dies in a fire.

Rated:  4/5 reallys

Percy Jackson and the Titan's curse by Rick Riordan - reviewed by Ollie

Percy, Thalia, Chase and Annabeth go to this school for military kids where Grover the Satyr (half-goat) is in disguise as a student. Grover has horns too. Back to the point, Grover has called for help because there are two half-blood kids at that school and there’s a monster there. The vice principle Doctor Thorn is a monster, a manticore. Dr Thorn takes Percy Jackson and the two half-bloods who are brother and sister. They have to fight him. Thalia and Annabeth come to help. The manticore is very strong. Then they hear the horn of the hunters. They shoot and badly wound Dr Thorn. He jumps off a cliff and takes Annabeth with him, but she survives. The Hunters set up camp for the night. Dr Thorn had earlier talked about a monster powerful enough to overthrow the gods and take over Olympus… Artemis and the hunters and Percy and his friends go on the hunt. Also Apollo attempts the haiku and there is a deadly prophecy to be fulfilled….

Rated:  5/5 reallys - "Everything in this series is great!"

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

September reviews from Albert Park

The magic pudding by Norman Lindsay - reviewed by Miranda 

Bunyip Bluegum the koala goes on an adventure, on the way he meets Bill Barnacle the sailor and Sam Sawnoff the penguin. When he meets them they are eating a pudding. This pudding (named Albert) walks and talks, changes flavours. He doesn't always taste like a pudding, sometimes he can taste like kidney beans. The pudding also lasts forever no matter how much you eat or take from it - it's always there!

There are also some pudding thieves who try to steal the pudding from Bunyip Bluegum and his friends.

I give it Infinity out of 5! - "It was really interesting with lots of good ideas and strategies for saving your life! My mum made me read this because she wants me to try new books."

Fifth formers of St Clare's by Enid Blyton - reviewed by Zoe

This book is about a group of girls at a boarding school and their life there. One of the girls is Claudine who is French, she hates sport and finds lots of excuses and tricks to get out of doing it. There are also twins Patricia and Isobel who are the main characters in all of the St Clare series. The girls have lots of midnight feasts!

Rated:  5/5 - "Really good and kept getting more interesting."

Here's the naughtiest girl by Enid Blyton - reviewed by Charlie

Elizabeth comes back for Term 4 and meets a new boy at the school who looks a lot like her best friend Julian Holland. But this boy is competitive, rude, arrogant and mean it also turns out that he is Julian's cousin.

Rated:  5/5 - "very interesting."

Super Diaper Baby by Dav Pilkey - reviewed by Flynn

This book is about a baby and a dog who fall into some super juice that gives them superpowers, they become Super Diaper Baby and Diaper Dog (they both wear diapers). A man falls into pee and is really angry and blames Super Diaper Baby and Diaper Dog. He has a cat called Petey who steals diapers and the angry man steals potties.

Rated:  5/5 - "very entertaining and funny. I think this book is good for those 7-9 years old!"

Under Wildwood by Colin Meloy - reviewed by Emma

Prue finds out about Wildwood in the first book in the series when her brother is abducted by crows.

This time Prue and her best friend Curtis need to go under Wildwood to save themselves and their friends and the place they live. Prue and Curtis don't know who is their friend or enemy, for example someone is their friend but then turns out to be a traitor (there are lots of traitors in this book). They get put into a cage made of bones.

There are also the Overdwellers, a group made up of mice, squirrels, wolves and moles who are good and fight the baddies.

The worst person in the book is the Dowager Governess - she creates a robot son, and as long as he is around she cannot be killed.

Rated:  4/5 - "It was good because it was long and very exciting but sometimes it was predictable - you knew where the story was going to go. I recommend this for those aged 9+."