Book Review 37: The Sherlock Files: The 100-Year-Old Secret by Tracy Barrett

Cute, short book. I love the main characters' names, Xena and Xander. I always thought if I ever had a boy, if he wasn't a "Junior" of his father, I'd want to name him Xander, of course I now like the name Cullen too. Both my names are from my favorite vampire series, Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Cullen from Twilight. Anyways, back to the book, Xena and Xander are direct descendents to the great Sherlock Holmes, and they have moved to London, where they meet some people who give them their ancestor's unsolved case book. And of course, they right away choose to solve one of those mysteries. It has to do with a painting that has been missing for 100 years, called "Girl in a Purple Hat".

It's a short, quick mystery, I think kids might like it. And again, as I said with Dodger and Me, it seems as if it will be a series, and you can get kids hooked into reading with series if they like the first one. I don't know that I believe this belongs as a nominee, but who knows what others will think.

For the next book I picked one of the dog books, Leanin' Dog by K.A. Nuzum, there are like 2 or 3 on the list, so we'll see how it goes.

Book Review 35: Dodger and Me by Jordan Sonnenblick

The cover of this book is so not interesting to me. And the premise, and it didn't start out very good either. However, I had read a book by this author before that I did really enjoy, and as I got into this, it got better. The main character is Willie, his best friend moved a while back, he's horrible at baseball, but he loves baseball, and his mother is WAY overprotective. While walking home from a baseball game that he loses for his team, he cuts through the woods, which he isn't supposed to. He sees a McDonald's bag laying in a clearing and picks it up. When he does, out comes a giant blue chimp. Turns out the blue chimp is kinda like a genie, but not. So we get the normal story of be careful what you wish for. But a humorous one. In the end, I really got to where the blue chimp, Dodger, was making me laugh. So it was entertaining. And at the end, it kind of leaves you hanging, not knowing how the big last baseball game of the year actually turns out. But they also give an excerpt from a sequel to the book, and I like when the books on these lists do have sequels. At least that's what I've decided.

I think a really good book, that gets kids to read it, and then to go on to it's sequels, only leads to those same kids, who may not have read much before, really getting into reading. Soon they're in the library asking for more books like what they just finished, sometimes while they're waiting for the next book in the series that got them started to come out. In fact, I've seen this over and over in my classes the last few years. It's so great to see. While this isn't personally my cup of tea, I can see it fitting in the same slot as the book I didn't really care for last year that still made it to the list, The Big One-O by Dean Pitchford.

Got to this blog a bit late, almost done with the next book: The Totally Made-Up Civil War Diary of Amanda MacLeish by Claudia Mills, which I'm really enjoying.

Book Review 34: The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy by Diane Stanley

This was a pretty good book. Of course it's about a school that is very prestigious, and all the students are nice, smart, and very hardworking. Franny's younger sister Zoe, is actually the one the school wants, she's recruited by a famous politician, the first female secretary of state supposedly, in fact. But Zoe won't go without her older sister Franny and her twin brother J.D. Franny and J.D. must go for a weekend of tests to see if they qualify. When they don't, Zoe says she still won't go without them, so Martha Evergood, the secretary of state, pulls some strings to get them all in. At the testing, Franny meets Cal, a moody girl whose father travels a lot and is leaving her there for his job, Brooklyn, a cute boy who writes poetry, and Prescott, an annoying, know it all boy. She is happy to see they are all there when she goes for orientation. Franny wonders if she'll ever fit into a school where all the students there look so perfect, and the "cottages" which is what they call dorms, are all kept so neat, and everyone is talented in some way, be it art, writing, science, etc. But soon they are meeting with counselors who make suggestions about their look, and things seem to calm down, and just work. Zoe and Franny and their brother J.D. are all in different dorms. J.D. is in the "oddball" dorm, and doesn't seem to change as much as Zoe and Franny do. And when they go home for Thanksgiving, and the meeting with Franny's best friend from before goes kind of weird, things start to unravel. But, there's always the famous Allbright Academy brownies to make them feel better.

Good book, I rated it a 5 on the 5 point scale.

I went through the books I had left and rearranged what order I'd read them in by the due date to the library, because a bunch are due back on October 19th, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to renew them this time. So the next book is by an author I've read before, Jordan Sonnenblick, but its premise and cover do not look good at all. And so far, I've read about 2 chapters, and I'm still like ehhh.