Wily Snare has always lived underground. He is a trapsmith - he designs traps to protect his "father's" (more like master's) hoard of treasure. One day a band of thieves (an elf, a warrior with a magic arm, and a golem made of moss) arrive and manage to get through Wily's traps and decide that they want Wily to join them and help them defeat other traps in search of even more treasure.
But when Wily gets above he finds that not only has he been lied to his whole life but that a great adventure awaits.
I really enjoyed the set up of the book and when Wily first came above. I can appreciate the quest and I did like the way the book ended. Because I am not overly fond of fantasy I felt it dragged a bit but I think those who really enjoy fantasy will like it.
Rosa and her mother are librarians who are tasked with ghost appeasement and the town of Ingot has a lot of ghosts. Ever since the wall, that had stood for over 100 years to keep the ghosts out, was destroyed the ghosts have come back with a vengeance. There are ghosts everywhere. Rose is working on the ghosts at school that are stealing voices and causing mayhem. Jasper, Rose's best friend, is trying to fix the situation with the ghosts at the Renaissance Festival and ghosts from the mining days. And, to top it all off some residents are trying to rebuild the barrier and Rosa keeps thinking she sees her dead father.
As I got into the book I started realizing that the premise seemed familiar and then it dawned on me that it could actually be a sequel. Indeed it is - A Properly Unhaunted Place was the first book and I read it last October. Funny - my biggest complaint about that one was the ending. This one was much better and the 2 together work very well.
Donut's mother died when she was born and her father has just died. Now her two aunts want her to move away from the only life she has ever known - her best friend Tiny, her godfather Sam, her school, her home - and move to Boston with them. Donut decides to run away but a fire helps her finally realize where she belongs.
This is getting good reviews and love on Goodreads but I found it boring.
I am bumming... truly bumming. I have read other books by Kadohata that I really enjoyed so I had high expectations and this just fell flat for me.
Conor and his dad live hockey. His dad briefly played in the NHL and is now a police officer. Conor is working his way up the ranks. But hockey is expensive especially when Conor's dog has expensive chemotherapy.
And that's it... 404 pages of hockey, dog, money angst. There is a brief time when it looks like something might be wrong with his dad but... nope. To me the book just didn't go anywhere. If I had students do a plot diagram and try to find the climax I am not sure what it would be exactly. For students who love hockey... maybe.
This is another book about the Apollo missions. Instead of focusing on just Apollo 8 it covered the missions up to 11. It is also done in poetic narrative. So... not my favorite of the ones I have read. The poetry drew me in a first but it was more of sparse text than poetic. I also was not really a fan of the mix between photographs and illustrations.
I love reading books about little known events. For one thing it can shine a light on the forgotten victims and survivors if nothing else.
This book tells of a disaster that seems unbelievable - a 3 hour tour if you will that went very wrong. The S.S Eastland was carrying 2,500 passengers to a picnic on the shores of Lake Michigan and it didn't even make it out of port before it tipped over. 844 people died - crushed from falling furniture, etc, trapped and drowned. This book focuses on several of the passengers - some who survived and some who did not.
My biggest issue with the book is that since it is not well known and not well documented there isn't a whole lot to tell. There is a good bit leading up - why they were going, background on ship, some of the people and their background but it loses some punch when you don't get to know the people well. Maybe a fictionalized account would have been better?? Not sure...
It's all because her grandfather died on the top of the hill. That's why she went up there. That's how she found the bones.
Esme's home life is a bit odd. Her father, Harlan, disappears for a long time. Her mother, June Rain, withdraws into herself and rarely talks. She has a brother, Bo, and a grandmother, Bee who is good at finding things. In addition there are many other characters from the Texas town she lives in with quirky personalities.
The story really centers on Esme - finding her own purpose, finding the bones, finding her place in the family and coming to terms with it, and finding the dinosaur bones.
It was an okay book but I was left wanting more...
