Thursday, December 12, 2013

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

By James Patterson

Synopsis:

Six unforgettable kids—with no families, no homes—are running for their lives. Max Ride and her best friends have the ability to fly. And that's just the beginning of their amazing powers. But they don't know where they come from, who's hunting them, why they are different from all other humans... and if they're meant to save mankind—or destroy it.

In this book max leads her flock through the grasps of the “school”. The school is where they were created, mutated, beaten and tested on. After escaping with the help of a former white coat Jeb, they hide out in a secret estate in hopes of living normal lives. but soon after that Jeb disappears. Now the six kids are living on their own. Although they once thought they were safe they now know that they can no longer stay in one place. The Erasers- another form of experiment from the school- have found their location and are tracking them down, trying to drag them back to the school- alive or injured. Max shows just how strong she is when shes leading them across cities and countries trying to keep her ‘family’ safe. But when she gets put to the test can she be strong enough to fight for them?

My thoughts:


What i like about this book is how it starts out and talks about their previous life in the school. This is already intense and continues to rise throughout the book. It leaves you wanting to read the whole book in the first sitting, its extremely hard to put down and its just absolutely amazing. It takes the position of a girl going through her life struggles protecting her family. Only her struggles are a lot more extreme than those of an ordinary teenager. Its life or death for these kids. And their never in one place for too long.

                                                                 reviewed by A.P. Grade 10 Scona Student

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas

By John Boyne

Synopsis:

Berlin 1942

When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance.


But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.


My thoughts:

I find the award-winning novel “The Boy In The Striped Pajamas” by John Boyne to be brilliant. The way the author finds a way to get deep inside of you as if you were in it is absolutely brilliant. Personally this book took a toll on me and really did hit me down deep, showing how much a broad topic such as jews in WWII can have a massive impact on an individual when made into a story like this. It provides an accurate historical compound to it to leave the reader a strong message from the novel. What’s interesting about this novel is the point of view. Normally a book like this would be written in first person to focus around one individual but the author wrote it in omniscient and manages to make the reader feel as connected with the main character as if it was first person which I found to be different from other books I’ve read of similar topics. Another thing the author did which was unique was his emphasis on details throughout the book and phrases he would often repeats such as when he talks about Bruno sliding down the banister on the stairs, or when he’s talking about Maria going through his closet and “the things he’d hidden at the back that belonged to him and were nobody else's business”. Simple tools like attention to detail is what makes the reader draw into the book and not be able to put it down. Overall I would give it a 9.5/10 and definitely recommend it to read.


reviewed by J.S., Grade 10 Scona student

Monday, December 9, 2013

Escape From Camp 14

Escape From Camp 14

by Blaine Harden

Synopsis:

North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political prison camps, which have existed twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. Very few born and raised in these camps have escaped. But Shin Donghyuk did.

In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of Shin's life unlocks the secrets of the world's most repressive totalitarian state. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence-he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his own family. Through Harden's harrowing narrative of Shin's life and remarkable escape, he offers an unequaled inside account of one of the world's darkest nations and a riveting tale of endurance, courage, and survival.


My thoughts:

Escape From Camp 14 is a very hard book to read.  It is very well written.  It is hard to read because some events that took place were very brutal. These types of camps (that the book is set in) have been around twice as long as Stalin’s gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi’s Concentration Camps.  The prisoners in these camps grew their own fruits, vegetables, and raised farm animals.  When they got meat, they were not allowed to eat it.  To prevent the guards from knowing that the prisoners had meat, they ate it raw, so the guards did not see or smell the meat being roasted/cooked.


reviewed by K.H., Grade 10 Scona student

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Pirate Cinema

Pirate Cinema

by Cory Doctorow

Synopsis:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Little Brother, Cory Doctorow, comes Pirate Cinema, a new tale of a brilliant hacker runaway who finds himself standing up to tyranny. Trent McCauley is sixteen, brilliant, and obsessed with one thing: making movies on his computer by reassembling footage from popular films he downloads from the net. In the dystopian near-future Britain where Trent is growing up, this is more illegal than ever; the punishment for being caught three times is that your entire household's access to the internet is cut off for a year, with no appeal. Trent's too clever for that too happen. Except it does, and it nearly destroys his family. Shamed and shattered, Trent runs away to London, where he slowly learns the ways of staying alive on the streets. This brings him in touch with a demimonde of artists and activists who are trying to fight a new bill that will criminalize even more harmless internet creativity, making felons of millions of British citizens at a stroke. Things look bad. Parliament is in the power of a few wealthy media conglomerates. But the powers that be haven't entirely reckoned with the power of a gripping movie to change people's minds....

My thoughts:

When I chose this novel, I was expecting to get piles of drama and adventure, but I was not expecting close friendships. It begins with a regular 16 year old boy, Trent McCauley, who downloads illegal footage from the Internet. His Internet gets cut off because of this. He was only doing it because “In [his] mind, [he] was one of [those great directors], someone who had to get the bloody film out of [his] skull”. To me this is important, because it ends up being the main theme in the novel. When Trent goes to London he becomes famous for his films. In this way, this quote has a little bit of foreshadowing.
Another little quirk in this novel is that its written in a British dialect. For example, at one point, Trent asks his girlfriend about her last boyfriend, and he asked “Was he posh?”. I didn't really understand it, and I still don’t, but words like this really made it a bit challenging to understand parts of the novel.

This novel really got me thinking about our government, and in general, governments around the world. This modern form government resembles governments from real, corrupt nations from around the world, past or present. Trent and his friends couldn’t stop the government, even if they were the majority, without help. And it’s the same in some real world nations. Even though I’m not into politics, this book was a very good read, and I think many people would agree.


reviewed by N. B., Grade 10 Scona student

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

The Scorch Trails

The Scorch Trails

by James Dashner

Synopsis:

Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to.

In the Maze, life was easy. They had food, and shelter, and safety . . . until Teresa triggered the end. In the world outside the Maze, however, the end was triggered long ago.

Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated—and with it, order—and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim . . . and meal.

The Gladers are far from finished with running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them.
Thomas can only wonder—does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED?

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this novel. It met all of my standards, and surpassed some. The story moves at a perfect pace, and Dashner doesn’t spend too much time on the backstory of Maze Runner, like authors often do in sequels. He jumped straight into the action, and I like that, because if the exposition is too long in a story, readers often lose interest in the book. He made an excellent job of the character development; Everyone from the old, nose-eating crank, to Thomas himself have been developed excellently, and in such a way that the reader becomes even more interested all of the time.


Reviewed by A.C. Grade 10 Scona Student