Monday, September 29, 2014

Book Review: Nick and Tesla's Super-Cyborg Gadget Glove: A Mystery with a Blinking, Beeping, Voice-Recording Gadget Glove You Can Build Yourself - Bob Pflugfelder, Steve Hockensmith

Nick and Tesla's Super-Cyborg Gadget Glove: A Mystery with a Blinking, Beeping, Voice-Recording Gadget Glove You Can Build Yourself
Bright siblings--and amateur inventors--Nick and Tesla Holt are back in this fourth installment of their whiz-bang middle-grade series.  This time, the twins are out to save science itself, as they race against the clock to figure out why a robotic assortment of history's greatest scientist and inventors keeps going haywire.  Is this sabotage, robo-geddon...or something more sinister?  To unravel the mystery, they'll have to keep adding all-new gadgets to their cyborg glove as they stay one step ahead of a hidden adversary.  Together with zany scientist Uncle Newt and their friends Silas and DeMarco, Nick and Tesla won't give up until an answer is found...but can they do it before time runs out?  In this book, readers will learn how to construct a super-cyborg gadget glove that has four incredible functions:  LED signal light, ultra-loud emergency alarm, handy sound recorder, and UV secret revealer.  Science and electronics have never been so much fun!

4/5 stars (really liked it)
When I asked my 10 year old what he thought of this book he said "There better be another book because the ending sure made me want to read more"  So after he read it, I read it and now I know what he meant.  This book takes place in the new museum and it is the night before grand re-opening but looks like someone is trying to sabotage things.  Of course all the kids use their sneaking and cool gadgets to find out who is behind it.  I think this book was more full of action than the previous books.  I also hope that in the near future we meet Nick and Tesla's parents.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Book Review: The Revenge of Seven - Pittacus Lore

The Revenge of Seven (Lorien Legacies, #5)
The worst was supposed to be over.  We were reunited after a decade apart.  We were discovering the truth of our past.  We were training and getting stronger every day.  We were even happy...

We never imagined the Mogadorians could turn one of our own against us.  We were fools for trusting Five.  And now Eight is lost forever.  I would do anything to bring him back, but that's impossible.  Instead I will do whatever it takes to destroy every last one of them.

I've spent my entire life hiding from them, and they've stolen everything away from me.  But that stops now.  We're going to take the battle to them.  We have a new ally who knows their weaknesses.  And I finally have the power to fight back.

They caught Number One in Malaysia.

Number Two in England.

Number Three in Kenya.

And Number Eight in Florida.

They killed them all.

 I am Number Seven.

I will make them pay.

4/5 stars (really liked it)
This book was told from the point of view of Six, John Smith and Ella.  I really liked that they were all fighting the Mogadorians.  I especially like that Adam (the good Mogadorian) has become such a large part of the Loriens.  Also fighting along side them is humans like Sarah, Sam and Mark.  There were so many things going on with all the characters.  I also learned to hate Setrakus Ra even more.  Although we do learn a little background on who he really is.  And also there was a lack of BK in this book, I missed the little guy.  I can't wait to read the next book.


Thursday, September 04, 2014

Book Review: Girl in Translation - Jean Kwok

Girl in Translation
When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings.  Disguising the more difficult truths of her life-like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family's future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition-Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles.

Through Kimberly's story, author Jean Kwok, who also emigrated from Hong Kong as a young girl, brings to the page the lives of countless immigrants who are caught between the pressure to succeed in America, their duty to their family, and their own personal desires, exposing a world that we rarely hear about.  Written in an indelible voice that dramatizes the tensions of an immigrant girl growing up between two cultures, surrounded by a language and world only half understood, Girl in Translation  is an unforgettable and classic American immigrant novel-a moving tale of hardship and triumph, heartbreak and love, and all that gets lost in translation.

3/5 stars (liked it)
I really enjoyed how this story begins with Kimberly as a young girl coming to America to a young woman that has adapted in America.  Her story made me think of my own story of coming to the U.S. and all the things you have to go through, especially in school to fit in.  I came to the U.S. from Central America when I was 9 years old not speaking any English.  Like Kimberly I was put in a normal classroom where I did not understand any of the students and teachers,  I didn't dress how they dressed and I just didn't fit it.  Although my financial situation was better off than hers.  But her mother's superstitions reminded me of my mom.  I really enjoyed the book, although I was not too happy about the ending.

Book Review: The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith

The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike, #2)
When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike.  At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days--as he has done before--and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.

But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realizes.  The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows.  If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives--meaning that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced.

When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before...

3/5 stars (liked it)
This was good but I don't think as good as the first book.  Although we learned more about Cormoran and also Robin.  Also we learned a little bit about Cormoran's ex-fiance.  The killer at the end was not someone I even thought of.  I love how Cormoran figured out who it was and how he explained things.

Book Review: Overbite - Meg Cabot

Overbite - Meg Cabot Meena Harper has a special gift, but i's only now that anyone's ever appreciated it.  The Palatine Guard--...