The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

Genre: Children's Novel

Plot: Peter Augustus Duchene, a young orphan that has one question always on his mind, "Is his sister still alive?" Peter was told by his gaurdian, Vilna Lutz, to get bread and fish at the market square. He had seen a fortune teller's tent with a sign in front of it saying, "Any question can be answered for the price of 2 gold coins." Under the pressure of him wanting to know if his sister is still alive and where he can find her. Peter had asked the fortune teller where his sister was. She replied, "An elephant! An elephant will lead you there!" 

My Opinion: The Magician's Elephant was an amazing book to read. Even though it's a children's novel, it's still a great read.This book really emphasizes on strong topics like love, family and friendship. This book would change scenes a lot and it would be sometimes hard to understand what was happening. I would rate this book a 7/10 

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

Genre: Fantasy, Adventure


Plot: A boy named Jason wakes up on a school bus not remembering any thing about him self or his past. He's awaken by Piper McLean and Leo Valdez, which seem to be his girlfriend and his best friend. The bus is taking them and the rest of their grade at their Wilderness to a field trip to the Grand Canyon. But then they we're attacked by storm spirits and their supervising teacher, Coach Hedge. After all of this, 2 people on pegasi land next to them, a girl names Anabeth and a boy names Butch. They we're told to look for Jason because apparently he knew where Anabeth's missing boyfriend, "Percy Jackson" was. Piper, Jason and Leo were told they're all demigods, child of a mortal and a god. They are then taken back to Camp Half-Blood where they meet other demigods. About 24 hours later they receive a quest to go out and save Hera who has been captured by unnamed forces.


My Opinion: My opinion of this book was that it was a fun, fast-paced adventure with a lot of action that kept me turning the pages. The Greek Mythology aspect of it kept the idea of the book fresh. As well that it intertwines with the story of Percy Jackson, one of my favourite book series. I would rate this book a 9/10 because it was such a good book that I did not want to put the book down.

Au Revoir Crazy European Chick by Joe Schreiber

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Plot: Perry Stormaire is a normal high school senior that is always busy applying to college and playing with his band. But then his mom forces him to take Gobi Zaksauskas, Their quiet, geeky Lithuanian exchange student who is staying with his family. It turns out that Gobi Zaksauskas is not the nerdy teenager that she seems but rather an attractive, confident trained assassin. Perry finds himself on a crazy ride on the streets of New York City with Gobi at the wheel of the Jaguar his father lent him for the prom in order to find out her targets.

My Opinion: With a crazy story plot like this, the book gave a spark of interest for reading it. The book is fairly short but it was still action packed with a lot of funny moments about different cultures. I would give this book a 7/10 because the plot was funny and interesting but the execution on the writing was a bit lacking.

October Sky by Homer Hickam

Genre: Memoir

Plot: Sonny Hickam, the main character in this book grew up in a mining-infested town in West Virginia, known as Coalwood. He was inspired to build rockets when he saw the first artificial satellite, Sputnik in the sky. With his friends and the local nerd, they set out to make rockets with many trials and errors. His father was disappointed in him because he wasn't going to grow up as a typical miner in Coalwood. Everyone in the town thought he was wasting his time trying to learn about rockets. Sonny and his friends then get in contact with his science teacher, who helps them create and shoot the rockets into the air.

My Opinion: In my opinion, this book would receive a 10/10 because of the many connections to the real world. It showed many problems that a teenager would face in this day and age. (There is also an award-winning movie about it too!)

Ctrl-Z by Andrew Norriss

Genre: Children's Novel


Plot: A boy of the name Alex is given a home-made laptop that was made from his Godfather John for his birthday. But different from other laptops, this laptop was special and had the power to rewind time in the period of the same day just by pressing Ctrl-Z. Which as most geeks know that it "undoes" what ever you last did if you made a mistake. Alex uses this power to "Undo" the mistakes he makes in his daily life.


My Opinion: I remember when my grade 7 teacher read this to our class. This book has incredible and wacky plot that anyone would enjoy.This book is very humorous and would be a great book to read if your into a short but hilarious book. I would rate this book a 8.5/10