I really enjoyed The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey. This YA piece of science fiction is also a great survival story. Rich Yancey creates some great memorable characters. With the alternating first-person perspectives, readers live in the characters' heads. Even doubt, worry, and bit of emotion is clear to the reader. We also get to see the experiences of four main characters: Cassie, Ben, Sam, and Evan. I feel the multiple perspectives will appeal to both male and female readers. There is action, aliens, and romance! A little bit of something for every one!
I also saw the movie adaptation of this book. It highlighted how great this book is and how the best parts simply cannot translate to the movies. Like I stated earlier, this book allows us into the characters' thoughts and feelings. The movie struggles to give the audience the same perspective. Also the movie cannot fit all of the action well into two hours. Check out my book trailer below for more. The book is available in the library. It is also a part of the Battle of the Books 2017. --Mrs. Woodall, Teacher Librarian Orbiting Jupiter is one of the best books that I read in 2015. The narrator in this book is a young man named Jack. His family is taking in a foster child named Joseph, who spent time in a juvenile facility for trying to kill his teacher. Jack and his family welcome Joseph, but Joseph takes a bit to warm up to the family. Eventually he opens up to his foster brother and parents about wanting to find his daughter named Jupiter. This is a wonderful short novel about this young man's quest and the foster family that loves him. Mrs. Woodall, Teacher Librarian Here is a little secret about me: I love spy stuff. This was a fun take on a teenage spy novel. You have standard teenager drama: love and rivalry, family misunderstanding, a school(ish) setting. But added to this mix is a some Cold War history, psychic abilities, genetics, and the Beatles! If you like spy movies, you might love this book about psychic teenager spies. Read about how the KGB uses these teenagers to try to beat America in the space race in 1960s Russia. If you liked The Hunger Games and Divergent, you might also like this book because it focused on strong females trying to fight their way out of an oppressive system. Come check it out in the GV Library. --Mrs. Woodall, Teacher Librarian A laugh-out-loud funny, although delicately dark, yet remarkably smart, publication, this book unearths the dirt that lies just below the surface of high school as an outcast high school senior, Carson Phillips, decides to blackmail the most popular students into contributing to his literary journal all for the purpose of bolstering his college application that will includes his title of "editor;" who wouldn't want to walk in his shoes ... that is, until he is Struck By Lightning? Chris Colfer, my student at Clovis East wrote a "short story" in my Forensics class, that became a competitive speech and debate piece in Original Prose and Poetry (OPP) after winning with it all year long, it was no surprise that this became a movie. His imagination doesn't stop with the silver screen, in fact his young readers books, Land of Stories are even more incredible as they escape the real world and enter into the world of mischievous characters, magical lands and mysterious adventures. --Mrs. Mikendra McCoy, Social Science Thank you to Chris Colfer for sending our library a copy of his book Struck by Lightning. --Mrs. Woodall Come check it out. Literally. Mrs. Murphy came by my office to tell me about this book. She had heard about it on the radio. I have always been interested in US History, especially Supreme Court cases. This book is a biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but it is also partially a story of the changes in America from RBG's birth to the present day. We learn about her childhood, her college years, her years as a lawyer, her time as a judge, and finally her time as a Supreme Court justice. While I enjoyed learning about her life outside of the court--a life that includes a love of opera and pushups, I really appreciated reading excerpts from her opinions and her dissents on Supreme Court cases. Each excerpt is annotated by legal scholars so that a reader can understand what RBG was doing with her words. I felt like this biography is an excellent read for a high school students who is interested in the Supreme Court and law. Come by the library to check it out! --Mrs. Woodall, Teacher Librarian |
AuthorsEach blog post is written by a different author. All book recommendations come from Golden Valley Faculty, Staff, and Students. Archives
April 2017
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