Book Review 8: Hershey Herself by Cecilia Galante

I tend to prefer more fantasy or sci fi books. So I wasn't really looking forward to a more "realistic" book. But as I think back now, many of my favorite books as a kid were realistic books: Harriet the Spy, A Summer to Die, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. So I thought to read Hershey Herself more as if I was a kid. It actually is a pretty good book. Hershey's mom lives with her boyfriend, Slade. Slade is verbally abusive, and at one time threw a glass that shattered and shards of glass went into one of Hershey's eyes and messed it up. Her mom left, but shortly after they left, she found out she was pregnant, so she went back to him. There's no more physical stuff until a couple weeks after Hershey has enacted a scheme her best friend Phoebe helped her come up with to get rid of Slade. Her mother decides now they have to move out, and they go to a women's shelter. Hershey, her mother, and her little sister Ella must learn to live in this shelter. Hershey meets a mysterious woman named Lupe who teaches her to play the piano. She has issues with her friend, and a bully at school. I know there are probably many kids who might read this book who are in this same type of situation. So I think this would be a good book for them to read. So it turned out to be much better than I first thought.

I've started the next book already tonight, it is The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson. I've actually wanted to read it for awhile since I saw it read by someone else on Goodreads.com.

Book Review 7: Voss: How I Come to America and am Hero, Mostly by David Ives

This book was one I actually am not a huge fan of. The story was only a little okay. It was told with bad spelling, to make you "hear" the main characters Slobovian accent. Voss came to America smuggled in with Cheese Puffs. He gets there, looks for a job, which first he finds, then he gets fired, then his dad gets kidnapped and he has to save him, but it turns out it's not just his dad he has to save, and so on. A few funny parts, but one of the misspellings is the b-word, and I just feel like it is kind of a stereotyping book, and don't know that I would recommend it to kids. Just my opinion of course, but it's getting a pretty low rating on my scoring sheet for the Truman books. I actually finished it before bed last night, but no time or should I say too tired to come down and type up a blog. Today I started the next book called Hershey Herself by Cecelia Galante.