Lemony Snicket

The End by Lemony Snicket
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I remember when these books originally came out and I didn’t understand the fascinations with such a dismal sounding title. When my older daughter brought one home and didn’t want to stop reading, I knew it was time to check the book out. I borrowed the book after she went to bed and … couldn’t put it down! Lemony Snicket is a brilliant writer! His comedic triplets are hilarious. The doom and gloom are so over the top that I had to laugh. The ramblings would seem to break writing rules, yet deliver comic relief and do not detract from the story. Dare I say, these books are just as good as Harry Potter—and I thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter series.

There were a few volumes that I thought were darker than the others (thus the 4 star rating) such as cook 3, 4, 8, and 9. Without spoiling the end of The End, I felt it all ended a little sadder than I had hoped; but I guess with the title of A Series of Unfortunate Events, one can’t expect a happily ever after.

I would definitely recommend this series to the 8-12 year old crowd!

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Everybody's doing it: My opinion on the Hunger Games

I had already seen the buzz among my peers about the Hunger Games. I wasn’t really interested. I already had a big to-be-read stack. Then my older daughter (9yrs) came home telling me that lots of kids in her class were reading it. I promised her I would read a little and then let her know what I thought. I read the sample on my kindle and still wasn’t interested. I told her I didn’t like it and that I didn’t feel it was age appropriate for her. Still my daughter was persistent and even started writing us proposals. I made her a deal and a list. I told her if she read at least one book from each series on the list (and I knew there would be some series in which she would read more than one) that I would reconsider my decision. When I compiled the list and counted the number of books in each series, the total was more 100! Even if she doesn’t read every book, there are still eight different series for her to explore. My daughter is satisfied, at least for now. Though I think she’s looking forward to a day when she can convince me to let her read Hunger Games, in the mean time there will be many more moments like this. Sure some may say I’m over-protective; but really there’s a lot of books to read, a lot of movies to see and Hunger Games is neither the last book nor the last movie on the planet … yet.

A different look at slavery

The Clone Codes by The McKissacks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Clone Codes by The McKissacks is about a girl named Leanna Deberry in the year 2170. She attends virtual school with the help of virtual reality type glasses in which she get to experience history as though she were really there. But as she learns about slavery and the Underground Railroad in school, she learns about another type of slavery in her real life that involves clones and cyborgs.

This is a great story with excitement, suspense, and intrigue including flashes to the past and a fun look at the future. It definitely asks the question—is slavery really a thing of the past or is it still with us in other forms.


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