The Callahan Cousins: Keeping It Cool

The bookworm says..........YES! The Callahan Cousins: Keeping it Cool by Elizabeth Doyle Carey was a great book. Cousins forever Kate, Phoebe, Neeve, and Hillary are enjoying their usual summer stay with their grandmother, Gee, on Gull Island. When Gee needs their help getting donations for the annual clinic benefit they quickly agree. But when they find out their enemy, Sloan Bicket, will also be gathering donations, it turns into a competition. Kate, the shy, relaxed, "old lady", and the cook of the cousins decides to completely change her image and become "the cool girl" on the island. But this doesn't come easily. The four cousins struggle through friendship troubles, fights with the "cool girl", ear piercing, midnight swims, faux tanning, hair dyeing, and eyebrow picking all just to become "cool". But what is "cool"? This book teaches young girls every where just to be yourself and she shows the world what "cool" really is.

The Revealers

The Bookworm says.........YES! I recently finished The Revealers by Doug Wilhelm. This book was amazing. It shows that you don't have to be popular to make a difference. Russel, Elliot, and Catalina were all picked on for different reasons. They wrote down their stories and sent them out to their entire grade. After that, people start sending in their stories to be sent out. The trio deals with lots of bullies that do things like drop them off bridges, spill soda down their shirts, and make up stories about them and their families. This book shows just how bad bullying gets. I would recommend this book to anyone that has been bullied, is a bully, or has observed bullying.

The House of Dies Drear

The Bookworm says........NO! I just read The House Of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton as a school reading assignment. I would have never read this book on my own and am not happy I had to read it for school either. The Small family is moving from a town in North Carolina to a small town in Ohio. Their new house is HUGE! And the only other person for a 1/4 mile is the houses caretaker, Mr.Pluto. Now the creepy part, the house belonged to white abolitionist, Dies Drear. This means there are lots of secret passage ways snaking through and under the house. There is also a lot of ghost work going on. Do the four triangles left by a prowler meant to be a sign to leave, or a Greek cross? Is the sticky apple mess a sign to clean up their act, or just a mean prank? What will they do with Dies Drears treasure chamber? Will the Smalls prank against the Darrows work? Find out by reading this book. I didn't like this book because there was a lot of times when women were treated as if they are not equal to men. You will enjoy this book if you enjoy learning about the Underground Railroad.

Dive

The Bookworm says.......... YES! I just read the Dive trilogy by Gordon Korman. These books were great. When Kaz, Adriana, Dante, and Star are brought to the small Caribbean island of Saint-Luc on a dive internship, they are definitely surprised. Kaz just got his dive license, Adriana is just a snobby rich girl, Dante is a colorblind photographer that's scared to dive, and Star limps because of her cerebral palsy. They are the four least likely people to get a dive internship. They have to figure out what Tad Cutter and his crew are hiding from them, dive to incredible depths to find buried Spanish treasure, go down in a submersible to 700 ft deep, and the whole time avoid the divers sickness, The Bends. Can they find the treasure and get it appraised, all the while keeping it from Tad Cutter? If you fantasize about fish, diving, or just being in the water, this is the book for you. Gordon Korman also wrote another great book, Swindle, that I read last year.

The Underneath

The bookworm says.......NO! This book was NOT good. Kathi Appelt did a good job on her book, but it was not my taste. An old hunting dog, Ranger, is held chained to an old man, Garfaces front porch. When a pregnant mama cat is dropped on the side of the highway and finds Ranger, its like love at first sight. When her kittens are born and named Puck and Sabine they are told "Stay in the Underneath" Puck ventures out and is captured, so his mama trys to follow and is captured also. They get drowned in the river but Puck escapes. He makes his home in a tree where the 1000 year old snake, Grandmother Moccasin, is waiting. You will hear of Pucks adventures through the forest and Rangers struggles to find him. Kathi Appelt uses a lot of personification and i thought it was too much. Also I thought it was quite gory to be killing off the main characters. If you are an animal lover, you should not read this book

The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet

The bookworm says.........Maybe. The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne was a good book, but not the best. When Hamlet Kennedy finds out that her sister Desdemona or Dezzie for short, was going to be in her 8th grade class she almost died. Her sister is a 7 year old genius who needs more creative studies on her record before she can get into college. Hamlets parents work for renaissance fairs and when her social studies and English teachers announce they will be studying Shakespeare, and that Hamlets parents will be coming in to help, Hamlet takes that as a threat for social death. Hamlet deals with being the third wheel, being framed for something, discovering a gift she DOESN'T want, and being left in the dark while her sister shines. This book was a maybe because there were some parts where the Shakespeare language was used withought being explained so I had no idea what some of the words meant. This book is good for any girl that doesn't mind stopping her reading to look up some words on dictionary.com

13 Gifts

The bookworm says...........YES! 13 Gifts was another book written by Wendy Mass(A Mango Shaped Space), and a great one. This is the third book in the trilogy by Wendy Mass. It starts with 11 Birthdays, then Finally 12, and 13 Gifts. When Tara Brennan does some unthinkable things to try and fit in, she is suspended from school and sent on a summer long vacation to her bratty cousin Emily's house, in the sleepy town of Willow Falls instead of going to Madagascar to study lemurs with her parents. She feels like her life is over. She experiences having to make new friends, a wild goose chase, her first steps as a teenager, and her first crush. Tara sees that Willow Falls is a lot more complicated than what meets the eye and she learns just how valuable friendship can be.