Almost Home

Last week the class finished reading Flush by Carl Hiaasen. Like I said in my book review I liked it at time but mostly I wasn't that fond of it. Anyways moving on I just finished Almost Home by Nora Raleigh Baskin. Since I just finished it I'm going to write my book review.

book: Almost Home
by: Nora Raleigh Baskin
5 out of 5: *****

If you like drama, a little romance, and humor in a book, then this book is great for you. It is about a girl named Leah and she ran in to an old friend from the second grade. She is in the sixth grade and if I were to be friends with anyone in this book it would be her. She's different but still seems cool.

I would definitely recommend this book to my friends and I have. Then again there was just one paragraph that could have been cut. In my opinion it didn't make much sense for it to be there. This would be best for grades 5 - 7 because it's really easy to understand and most likely 7th graders will like it.

If I were to make a list of my favorite books this would absolutely be on my top five. To wrap it up I really like this book a lot.

Book Review

Book Review
Flush By: Carl Hiaasen
Reviewed By: Tori
Rating: *** Out of 5 Stars

Imagine having a dad who can get a little crazy sometimes. Hypothetically speaking he sunk a very popular casino boat because they were dumping waste into the water. This is the interesting life of the Underwood family. Noah is no popular kid. He gets beat up by bullies and has the normal life. Well that is until his dad sunk a casino boat. Now he is sitting in the jail cell saying this is for animal rights. To top it all off, Abbey (Noah's sister) hears his mom talking about the "D" word. If his parents get a divorce, what could be worse? If you want to know what happens after words you can find it at any local book store most likely. I thought this book was pretty good. I thought it was alright in the begining for instinces it was a little boring. The end was better than the begining but it also needed some work. Although in the end there were really good cliffhangers. I felt like I could not put it down. I like I said though, I thought some parts were a little boring. I thought that the characters were going very descriptive and very colorful.I would recommend this book to kids over ten because there was some swear words in the book. Also, there was a little violence in it. Otherwise, I thought this was a good book but it should not be read by anyone under ten years old. If you read this book, I hope that you will enjoy it a little more than I did.

Almost Home

This week I continued reading almost home. There wasn't much time in class to read but I did read at home.

Every now and then Leah writes her mom a letter (Because she doesn't live with her mom and she like to update her). Sometimes the notes are long and sometimes their short. This last one was pretty long just because she hadn't had time to write before.

She is auditioning for the middle school play. The play was called Welcome To The Jungle House and it was actually from the book called Welcome To The Jungle House. It was by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

There is a girl in her class named Sasha that hates her. She started an "I hate Leah Baer club." At the end of her letter her exact words were PS: By the way is a hickey a bad thing or a good thing? Or just a stupid thing? That's what I thought." I really like what she says in her letters they are very entertaining and meaningful.

Now that I'm getting farther in the book my recommendation has changed (partially). I would still recommend this to average 7th grade levels readers but now I would change it to more advanced 6th grade level readers.

Other than that I am really enjoying this book and I am almost done with it.

Almost Home

This week I found out that Jacob Have I Loved wasn't the right book for me so I decided to read Almost Home. From what I've read it is about a girl that went on a field trip and she's not the most popular girl you could meet.

It was a hot day on the bus and everyone had their window down except me. Mine seemed to be stuck Leah thought to her self. Then suddenly a boy came over his name was Will Hiller but Leah didn't remember him at the time. They were in the same second grade class with Miss Greiger well Mrs. Greiger after she came back from her 2 week vacation. Now Leah has made a friend and she’s not as lonely.

Leah lives with Gail and her dad but Gail is more like a sister and she’s her aunt. Gail asks her how her day went and treats her very kindly but she can be mean sometime seeing that she’s a lawyer. Since Leah’s parents are divorced and she can’t see her mom so she writes her letters a lot.

If I were to recommend this book to anyone it would be to people in the 6th or 7th grade because it is easy to understand and follow. It’s probably one of the easiest books to follow that I have read all year. The paragraphs flow nicely which makes it a better book than already.

This would probably be a better play or movie than book because it would make there be more of a visual. It’s descriptive but I would rather see it in front of me than read it. The next type of book I’m planning to read is going to be a fictional book because most of the books I’ve been reading memoir type books lately.

Jacob Have I Loved

This week I started reading a book called Jacob Have I Loved. The only time in class I have been able to read it was after I finished my testing, and if you ask me I think I did really good on my testing. But it was a little hard to understand because I was distracted by thinking did I do the math right or did I not fill in the right bubble for on of my answers but I think I have the main idea of what the book is about.

In my own opinion this book is a high - low book. What I'm trying to say is that it can be a very well said at some points. However, other times it can be hard to understand what they mean.

From what I understand this book is about a girl named Sara who catches crabs and sells them. She does it with her friends Call but sometimes Call can rain on someones parade. For example, Sara was trying to tell a joke but Call ruined it. He said that since it wasn't true it didn't make any sense and he didn't want to listen any more.

One day they were walking and they ran into a man who seemed very nice so he offered them to come into his house (they knew him) and they went and had tea. Call was laughing at the Captain's jokes even though Sara's were much more funny. Sara finally figured that the captain likes Call more so she left them there to talk.

If I could be friends with anyone in this book it would be Sara because she would laugh at my jokes and I would laugh at hers. She seems like she would be cooler than her sister even though in the book her sister is the cool one.

If I were anyone in the book I would want to be Catherine because she can stay nice and clean and not have to work with crabs all day. I would recommend this book to people my age because it can be hard to read at times but you get it after you read it over a couple times. I really enjoy reading this book but I do get a little confused.

Hope Was Here

This week I continued reading the book Hope Was Here. Just to refresh your mind on what's going on Her real name is Tulip but she wanted to change it legally to Hope because Tulip just didn't match with her. She lives with her aunt Addie who treats her like her mother would because her mother left Hope (well at the time Tulip).

Just recently Hope got promoted from a bus lady (someone who cleans the tables at restaurants) to a waitress. She has some hard times but she gets over them. Hope works at a restaurant called Welcome Stairways and her mom just recently visited her with no warning at all. Hope made a good impression seeing that she hasn't seen her mom in 3 and 1/2 years. In my point of view they connected and you could tell they were mother and daughter. Her mom's name is Deena and she has had a lot of boyfriends, moved in with them then found out they weren't the one. I kinda feel bad for her. When her mom arrived she recognized her immediately and she got nervous that she would make a fool out of her self. She is the one who is good with the kids so she made a sponge nose like a clown and all the kids came around her with joy and excitment.

If I could be friends with anyone in this book I would be friends with Hope because it seems like she acts some what like me. The one thing that is confusing to me in this book is the age of Hope the author doesn't make it clear enough. In my point of view this would be a better movie than a book it would just make more sense to me. I'm really enjoying reading this book and I would reccomened it to people in the 6th or 7th grade it's a good book that isn't that hard to follow.

Science Script

This week I didn't have much time to read hope was here because of exhibition (that went really good, if you ask me) so I read my science script mostly. My station was about Radiometers, Solar Panels, Changing light into heat, And storing Radiant energy. The supplies we used were, a light, 4 glow toys, a radiometer, a solar panel, and 2 termometers. During one of our practices some one broke our light bulb so we had to get a new on ASAP. It was really bad.

There's not much to write about but exhibition was fun and I was scared at first but it was for no reason it wasn't scary at all.