More to Catch Up On...

  

Louie wants to be a famous comedian and he is funny.  But, he is afraid to do his routine in front of an audience.  Then there is the problem with his best friend Nick who all of a sudden likes sports and has another friend, Thermos...a girl.  Can Louie navigate this new friendship dilemma and perform at the school talent show?

Some of the plot is same old, same old - best friends grow apart after summer camp but the characters are funny, especially Louie's younger sister Ruby.

  

Pringle Rose's parents have died in a carriage accident and her relatives are mean to her brother and herself.  So they run away to stay with their mother's best friend in Chicago.  But, she has been placed in a sanatorium.  Pringle is able to find work with a family in Chicago but on the eve of the great Chicago fire she makes a terrible discovery.

The story was more about the events leading up to the fire - unions, her travels, her brother, than the fire itself.  There was a lot of build up and then it ending rather abruptly I thought.

 

This book confused me.  It was told from many different points of view and it was gard to keep the characters straight.  In a way it came together in the end but...  Not sure why it was called Runt honestly...there were a lot of tie ins with dogs but maybe I missed a reference to runts somewhere.  

 

This was a cute book for my 3rd and 4th graders.  Zack and his family are traveling to  Nebulon.  Zack is worried about making new friends and fitting in.  It is very simple and really just an introduction to a series but some of my students will enjoy it.

  

I liked this book.  Darling's family can't afford to keep her during the war so they donate her for use in the army.  She at first trains to be a messenger dog but isn't very good at that.  Instead she becomes a mercy dog whose job is to find wounded soldiers so medics can get to them.  It was interesting look at an aspect of war that is little known and students who like reading about dogs will enjoy it.

  

I personally liked the book but it is not appropriate for my students.  The book is about a zombie like epidemic that hits Brian's town and high school.  It was quite violent and there was a lot of language.