Megan

The book I read for the third trimester was __The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.__  From my viewpoint, the theme of the book is curiosity. Bruno is always exploring and always wants to investigate everything. I really liked this book because it never got boring. There was always at least something going on, weather it was something at the house, or something happening outside. One of my favorite quotes from __The Boy in the Striped Pajamas__  is, “ ‘There is such thing as a nice Jew, isn’t there?’ ‘I think, Bruno, if you ever found a nice Jew, you would be the best explorer in the world.’ “ This story takes place in two places. In the very beginning and end of the book, it takes place in Berlin. In the middle of the book, it takes place in the “Out-with,” which is what Bruno calls it. They never really said where it was exactly, but it was next to where the Jew’s are kept, just on the other side of the fence. I think both settings make the story very exciting because it’s not really a place you read about in a regular book. The main theme of the book is the whole family moving, and how bad their new home is. Because the family came from such a big house with tons of room in it, and came to the “Out-with” to a different house that’s smaller, they don’t like it as much. In the beginning, Gretel and Bruno don’t have any friends, and they have no one to play with. Then, one day Bruno was exploring and was walking on the side of the fence that his house was on, and the one that he was allowed to be on, and he met someone named Shmuel. He was a Jew, so they couldn’t really touch each other because of the fence, and they had to talk in private so no one saw them. Then, let’s just say Bruno goes out to do some exploring, but this time he goes with Shmuel. I think pretty much anyone can read this book, you just have to be able to understand the holocaust. I loved this book because it’s so interesting to read and never gets boring. It’s also good because I’m interested in the holocaust, and I can understand what’s going on in the end of the book.

Click [|here] to buy this book. Click [|here] to see a picture.

For my second trimester book, I read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. The main theme is to stay true to yourself. A quote that I really liked in the story was, “And you can’t win against them no matter how hard you try, because they’ve got all the breaks and even whipping them isn’t going to change that fact.”

The setting of the book is in Oklahoma. I think it’s interesting that it’s there because its not one of the more ‘popular’ settings that I would think a book would be about. This makes it exciting because it’s more interesting. But it also makes it more boring because in my opinion, there’s not that many things there. I do not think that the setting plays an important role for the characters or to the readers understanding because everything is based on two sides of one tiny town.

One of the big problems in the story is fighting. The two gangs, the Socs and the Greasers. They are always fighting, no matter what. The Socs own the west side of town, and the Greasers own the east side of town. They always beat other kids up, and I don’t think that any of this will ever not be a part of their lives.

Some information on Susan Eloise Hinton is that she was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and always loved to read. The Outsiders was her first published book. S.E. Hinton was known as, “The Voice of the Youth” because of some of the other novels she has written. She eventually got depressed. This was called a writers block. Her husband was tired of it, and made her write two passages a day if she wanted to get anywhere in her life. Click [|here] to buy this book. Click [|here] to see a picture.

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My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult(7th Grade 1st Trimester Review) =====  The book I read for the first trimester was __My Sister’s Keeper__  by Jodi Picoult. The main theme of the book is the relationship between the parents and children. I thought that it was a great book, even though it was sad, it was very impressive! It definitely deserves five stars. I have seen the movie four times, and I wondered what the book would be like. As always, the book was much better than the movie because it explains things more and it has more detail. My favorite quote in the book would have to be, “You don’t have to be someone because they’re perfect, you love then in spite of the fact that they’re not.” It is my favorite quote because it has a lot of meaning, and it relates to the book so well. The main character in the story is Anna Fitzgerald, and her older sister Kate Fitzgerald. The main problem in __My Sister’s Keeper__  is that Kate is diagnosed with leukemia. It is a very big problem for the whole family, and almost every year she is in the hospital on the holidays. When Kate is at home, she is only there for a short amount of time, until she gets sick again and has to go back. While she is in her hospital bed, one of the things she does is look through an album of pictures.  Not only does the book have a great theme, it also tells a wonderful story. I think it tells a great story because it has so much detail and your mind never drifts away when you are reading. You are always so attached to the book, you never want to stop reading. The plot is memorable and believable. It is memorable because it is different to the movie, and it has a totally different ending than I was expecting. It is believable because nothing seems fake; there is always something new to learn about the book. My mind was definitely focused the whole time I was reading because it was very interesting to read what the characters thought and what they were saying.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">__My Sister’s Keeper__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> showed me that you should always love someone and spend as much time as you can with them. In the end of the book, when Anna and Campbell Alexander get in a car crash, and Anna dies, Mrs. Fitzgerald regrets not spending more time with her while she could have. Mr. Fitzgerald is sad, too, but he and Anna spent quality time together. She was mostly spending her time with Kate at the hospital. When Anna was in the hospital after the accident, Sara sat beside her and put her hand over Anna’s heart. Once they turned the monitors off, she felt Anna’s heart stop. This is how it was explained in the book: “And then I feel it, as her heart stops heating beneath my palm-that tiny loss of rhythm, that hollow calm, that utter loss.” This, to me, was the saddest part in the book. But, I also think that it was a great last sentence in the book, because to me it had the most meaning. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Chalkboard; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Click here to buy this book. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Chalkboard; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Click here for a picture.

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The book I choose to read was __The Clique__ by Lisi Harrison. The theme of the book is when Claire Lyons came up to New York from Florida and tried to fit in with the Clique, but Massie Block didn't like her at all. She especially didn't like that fact that Claire and her family were staying in Massie's guest house until they could afford to get a place of their own. By the end of the book, they became better friends. =====

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The book tells a great story because it shows how a group of friends can work all of the friend problems they might have out, and in the end, its all worth it. The plot of the story develops throughout the whole book. It was not hard to concentrate on the story at all, mostly my mind stayed on the book the whole time I was reading it.=====

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The story takes place at Octavian Country Day School and Massie's house. The setting makes the story exciting because it is interesting to see where the group of friends also known as “The Clique” is going to be the next day, and what they will do. The setting plays an important role for the characters and to the reader's understanding because I think that the author picked a great setting for the story.=====

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The characters connected with the readers and with each other because there was a lot of narrating and talking between the them. The book showed me to never judge a book by it's cover. I learn this from lots of books I read, and it is a great thing to be taught. The author accomplished just what she set out to do, and it is a great story.=====

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think that any girl who likes to read about friends and the everyday problems they have. The age group this book should have is 12 and up. I loved this book because it has a great moral and it was interesting to read.=====

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The name of the book I read was __The Wave__ by Todd Strasser. The theme of The Wave is an experiment that went too far in Mr. Ross' history class. The genre of the story is fiction. When Mr. Ross shows his class a movie, one of the students asks him a question he cannot answer. He decided to show the students what life would be like in Nazi Germany. =====

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I think this book tells a great story because of the problems in the book and how they are solved. I think the plot of the story is developed because of the time it takes to find out what the wave really is. It defiantly was not hard to concentrate on the story because it was interesting to me. Most of the time my mind stayed completely on the story, but some parts in the story were long and drug out, but that was rare.=====

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The story takes place at Gordon High School in Palo Alto, California, in 1969. The setting helps the story be more exciting because there are conflicts with the wave, being Laurie Saunders thinks it is dumb, and tries to stop it. The setting plays an important role for the reader's understanding of the story because without it, the story would be boring, and hard to understand if it weren't based on a history class at school. I think the setting plays an important role to the characters, too because without it, “the wave” wouldn't be possible.=====

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The characters connected with the reader and each other because if connection wasn't a part in the story, there would be no problems, or conflicts. Throughout the story, the characters develop to be great students, and by the end, they were great people. I can not connect with just one of the characters throughout the whole book, but I can connect with two. Ben Ross is one I can connect with because I would have thought that it would have been a good idea to start The Wave, too. But when I heard what Laurie Saunders thought about it, I leaned toward her side in the story.=====

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I think that anyone who loves to read, would love this! This book's age group should be for kids 10 and up because any adult would probably like to read this, my mom almost read it. I liked reading this book because it wasn't boring, and it wasn't too much going on. Before I started reading this, when I read the front of the book that said, “The classroom experiment that went too far.” I was somewhat confused because I didn't know what the title The Wave had to do with it. =====