In The Rock and the River, fourteen-year-old Sam Childs has to decide if he wants to be the rock or the river. Sam lives in Chicago in 1968 during the Civil Rights Movement. His father, Roland Childs, is a civil rights activist that speaks against violence. Sam’s brother, Steven, known to Sam as Stick, is in a group called the Black Panthers who believe in self-defense. Then things start to get rough at home: Steven/Stick moves out, their family friend Bucky get assaulted by cops, and the Civil Rights protests start to get violent. With the sudden change of events, Sam now realizes he cannot be both the rock and the river, and he has to decide which he would rather be.
Kekla Magoon has a very specific writing style. She uses lots of sensory details to create a movie in your mind. Here’s a example of a sentence with great thought feelings and sensory details that put you in the character’s shoes: “Seeing that gentle smile, beneath all the blood and the sound of the beating, hits me hardest…” The details in the book really helped create a sense of action. Since the book is about Sam developing as a character, the details in the book show his movement. The thoughts and feelings make you feel the same way as the character. These are some of the great techniques the author uses to make this a engaging title.
Sam, the main character, is very timid through out the book but learns how to be his own person. Sam is shy around new acquaintances, but he is very close with his brother Steven/Stick. Sam looks up to Steven as a role model. He wants to follow in his brother’s footsteps, but does not want to disappoint his father by doing what his brother has done. He doesn’t want to break up his family even more. But by the end of the book, Sam finds his own way. Read the book and find out if Sam ends up as the rock or the river.
Kate
This book is about Libby Day, whose family was brutally murdered, supposedly, by her brother Ben Day, who nobody really knows much about. The book is set thirty years later when Libby is thirty-seven and is about her trying to prove that her brother is not guilty. It skips back and forth from between when she is seven and thirty-seven. I would definitely rate this book a ten because it didn’t give any hints about who committed the murder and made the reader wait anxiously to the end. Other titles by her are Sharp Objects which has gotten good reviews and has a praise section on the back of Dark Places and they were all great. This book left me feeling satisfied that I found out how the family was killed, who did it, and why.
Since her mother’s death when she was seven, Jem has known about numbers. Fifteen-year-old Jem has kept the biggest secret ever. When Jem looks into anybody’s eyes she gets a number stamped into her mind. That number represents the date of that person’s death. Jem tried to tell people when she was younger. Her response was always, “It’s not her name, it is Mommy’s special number.”
Counterfeit Son is crammed with suspense, moments of sadness, and moments of happiness that bring tears to your eyes. Cameron, the main character, has a father that murders innocent young boys in his basement, and no matter how many cleaners he puts down, the stench of old blood and flesh won’t go away. While his father is in the basement, Cameron looks through the files of the boys his father has murdered. When his father is finally killed during a police shootout, the one thing he had been waiting for might be right around the corner: becoming a normal person. He decides to steal the identity of one of his father’s victims: Neil Lacey. He dreams of sailing and Neil Lacey had exactly that. His wish is granted.
Suzanne Collins writes about a future United States of America broken up into twelve districts and in the middle is the Capital, where people who control the country live. Every year, the brutal leaders choose two tributes, starting at the age of twelve to eighteen, from each of the districts to fight to the death. Katniss, the lead character is chosen to represent District 12 in the arena where the Hunger Games are held. District 12 is fenced in (like all of the other Districts) and it’s illegal to hunt. Also, there is a place called the Hob and there they sell many things, and most of them are illegal like alcohol, and many of the people from District 12 live in fear because if they get caught they either die in jail or have brutal punishments that can lead to death.
One stormy night, Ella gets kidnapped, when her parents are out to dinner with friends and Fin, her oldest brother, goes to his friend’s Billy’s house without permission. Ella has to baby-sit Sam, her younger brother, but she is afraid of being home alone in their old Victorian house. When Sam falls asleep, she starts to hear a tapping sound downstairs. She makes herself investigate. When she gets downstairs, she hears the sound coming from the sitting room window. She opens the curtain and there is a kidnapper standing in front of her. The rest of the book is about her family trying to find her and Fin dealing with this tragedy.
Leviathan is about two different characters, each with different plots. One character is Aleksandar Ferdinand, the prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His parents are assassinated when he is at home, and he is tricked into running in a Stormwalker, a giant two-legged walking weapon of war by Autto Clop and Count Volger, two of his teachers. Then Alek learns that his parents were assassinated, and runs to Sweden to get away from the people that assassinated his parents. Germans and Austro-Hungarians chase them all the way to Sweden because Alek’s mother is a commoner and they don’t want him to be king.
Prentisstown is a place where there are no females as a result of the Spackle war. During the war with the Spackle, an alien race, a disease called “the Noise” got picked up by the men, so every man can hear each other’s thoughts. Todd Hewitt is a regular boy in Prentisstown, until he finds Viola, a girl, the only girl he has ever met in his life.
Mateo Alacran, known as El Patron, rules a small stretch of poppy fields between United States and Mexico, the futuristic country of Opium. In Opium, things are run far different from anywhere else. El Patron, a drug lord, is selfish and cruel because anything that he possesses, becomes his forever. Whether the possession is a person or a useless object, it will remain his to the grave. In Nancy Farmer’s future, clones are considered to be scum, lower than animals, and are not welcome anywhere because when a clone is made its brain is damaged forever because of the crude law. Matteo’s life is saved, and he is forced to set out to live as normally he can while being a clone.
The summer i turned pretty by Jenny Han is a fantastic novel that I devoured in a day. I was caught up in the story from page one because of Han’s characters, dialogue, and storyline. Through all 276 pages, I was hooked.