Chasing Redbird, by Sharon Creech

This book was GREAT!!!!! This book is about Zinnia Taylor, a girl at the age of 13, who has three brothers and three sisters. She lives with her mom and dad and her Uncle Nate and Aunt Jessie. The story is about when Zinny(a) finds an old trail and starts to clear it. But when Uncle Nate's wife, Aunt Jessie, dies, he starts acting weird. Along the way clearing the trail, Zinny finds things like fossils, a bear, a bob cat, and lots of different kinds of birds, especially redbirds. She also finds Uncle Nate's secret. There is also a man named Jake Boone, who likes Zinny and gives her presents almost every day. He even steals things to please Zinny. At the end, Zinny was famous for clearing the whole trail.

I like this book because it's about adventure, determination, funniness --for example, chickory plants sprouting from chicken eggs-- and God.

James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl

This book was AWESOME!!! It's about a boy who grows a peach as big as a house. Then he finds a hole in the peach and he goes in the hole. Then he opens a peach seed and inside there's a whole room! And there is a giant silk worm, a giant lighting bug, a giant grasshopper, a giant ladybug and a giant spider. The grasshopper nibbles off the stem of the peach and then they all go rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling and then the peach rolls into the sea. Then sharks come and the peach gets lift up by seagulls! Then they go from one adventure to another to another to another and at the end they are famous and they live in New York.

This book is about weird things, adventure, friendship, adventure, and more adventure.

Pleasing the Ghost, by Sharon Creech

This book was AWESOME! It's about Dennis, a boy, and his dog Bo who meet their Uncle Arvie. Uncle Arvie wants Dennis to give him three pleases (three gifts) and Dennis has to go through a puzzle of words that Uncle Arvie gets mixed up with. For example, what is "Fraggle pin Heartfoot a wig pasta?" That was his first please. His second please was for Dennis to "Hammer a needle." and the third please was for Dennis to "dunder." Oh, by the way, Uncle Arvie is the ghost of Dennis' uncle and he had a stroke so he got his words mixed up. But don't worry, you'll find out what these words mean. If you like ghosts, dying with laughter, and made-up words, read this book.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle, by Beverly Cleary

This story is GREAT! It's about a mouse who lives in a hotel and then a boy comes to the hotel and he goes to the room where the mice are in. One mouse is named Ralph and he is a curious little fellow. One day, Ralph goes out of his mouse hole and explores the room. He climbs up the telephone pole and finds a motorcycle. Then he climbs on the motorcycle and pushes the motorcycle so that he can ride it. Then the phone rang and Ralph fell off the table and into the trash can! The boy came and picked Ralph out of the trash can and lets him use the motorcycle. The rest of the book is about the adventures of Ralph and the boy. This book is adventureous and full of hope and friendship.

Bunnicula Strikes Again, by James Howe

This was a good book. This was a very good book. It's about when Chester thought Bunnicula's mother, er Bunnicula thought his mother, was coming to visit him/Bunnicula. The movie theater where Bunnicula was found was going to be destroyed in three weeks (September 24th) and the Monroes wanted to stop that because it was the most famous movie theater in town. In the meantime, Harold and Howie are running around town looking for Bunnicula's mom, but Chester had other plans. Chester was acting very suspiciously and Harold thought he was trying to hurt Bunnicula. Harold and Chester had a big fight about that. Will Harold and Chester's madness recover? Find out when you read Bunnicula Strikes Again!

You can read my reviews of other books in this series in my blog, for example Return to Howliday Inn and It Came From Beneath the Bed.

The Secrets of Droon, Vol. II, by Tony Abbott

The first book was a fun book. Almost the funnest Secrets of Droon I have ever read. It is about when Eric, Julie, and Neil go to Jaffa City, the capital of Droon and the city falls into a spell of snow. Then groggles (flying lizards) and nins (red ogres) and their master Lord Sparr come to destroy Jaffa City. But Eric, Julie, Neal and Keeah, and the people that live in Jaffa City save the day! The other three books are also a lot of fun.

Since I read this, and until now (November 14) I have read Volume III and books 13, 14, and 15 (they stopped doing the volumes on the third one). I can't get enough! I am saving my money to get more.

Love that dog, by Sharon Creech

Do you like reading poems? If you do, you will love Love that dog. The book is about when Jack tries to make a poem and then starts learning how to make one. I liked this book because its like a boy talking to a teacher. For example, it starts:

SEPTEMBER 13

I don't want to
because boys
don't write poetry.

Girls do.

Jack at first doesn't like poetry, but then he reads some cool poems at school and he even writes his own. At the end of the book are some of the poems Jack read at school. I really liked reading the poems, but I want them to be right next to the notes that explain about them in the story. My favorite poem was called The Apple. My favorite part of the poem is when it says

yum yum wormy worm yuck yuck yum yum yum
yum yum wormy worm yuck yuck yum yum

Return to Howliday Inn, by James Howe

This is another book in the Bunnicula series. In this book Chester, Harold, and Howie go back to Chateau Bow-Wow and find new friends: Hamlet, a dog; Weasel, a weasel; Felony and Miss Demeanor, two cats. This book is kind of freaky. It involves talking bones, ventriloquists, paranormal experiences, and a fake dead dog. I liked when Hamlet gets back home and what I don't like kind of freaked me out -- talking bones!

The Desert Beneath the Sea, by Ann McGovern and Eugene Clark

You may be asking youself, how can a desert be beneath the sea? A desert has almost no water, and the sea has a lot of water. The desert beneath the sea is actually the sea floor. It is called a desert because it is made out of sand. This book is about how fish live, eat, and even breed at and under the sea floor.

Some advice: If you don't like reading boring stuff, skip the introduction. The introduction is three pages long! After that, things get pretty interesting. A fish that can dig? A starfish that looks like a fish? A fish with two eyes on one side of its head? Find out how fish can do these incredible things when you read The Desert Beneath the Sea

It Came From Beneath the Bed, by James Howe

This story is about friends, lots of adjectives ("the brave but scared Howie"), and about writing books and scariness. This story is when Pete turns bad and makes a potion so that he would grow and grow and grow and defeat the universe. The potion slipped out of his hands while he was sleeping, and fell on Pudgykins, his stuffed koala bear. And then Pudgykins grew and grew and grew and tried to defeat the universe.

I liked this book because it had friends and little notes and funny things.

Time Cat, by Lloyd Alexander

This was a good book. I learned a lesson and probably everybody in this book learned a lesson. Some lessons were about cats and some were about humans. This book is about when Jason finds out Gareth, his cat, can actually talk and he can travel back in time and to other places. Come with Time Cat to go to ancient Egypt, Japan, Italy, and other places. I liked this book because in every place Jason and Gareth teach somebody a lesson, like in ancient Egypt the Pharaoh thought that cats should be shouted at and of course that is not true. If you like learning, history, and adventures read this book.

Bunnicula, by Deborah and James Howe

This was a very funny book in all three stories (except the middle one). In the first book (Bunnicula: a rabbit-tale of mystery), a family goes to the movies and finds a rabbit and they name him Bunnicula. But Chester, the family cat, thinks Bunnicula is a vampire. In the second book (Howliday Inn), the family goes on vacation and leaves Chester and Harold, the writing family dog, at a pet hotel. In this book, Chester thinks two dogs are werewolves. In the third book (The Celery Stalks at Midnight), they think that Bunnicula is multiplying to make more vampires. The last one is both the scariest and the funniest of the three stories. If you like laughs, being scared, and solving mysteries, read this book.

The Secrets of Droon, by Tony Abbott

This volume has the first four books of the series. It's about when Eric and his friends discover a world under Eric's basement. The world is called Droon and it is a magical place with monsters like groggles and nins. In the first book, Eric finds the world under his basement and rescues a little princess named Kia. In the second, Eric and his friends go to Droon to find a palace inside a volcano! In the third, they go to save a mysterious island, and Neal, one of Eric's friends, gets licked by a bug and turns into one! In book four Neal turns back into a bug and they rescue a floating city. Read this book if you like mystery, magic, monsters, and more. I am reading more Secrets of Droon. So far, Eric can send messages from his mind and shoot sparks out of his fingers and July can fly and change shape. I will keep updating as I keep reading this series.

Magic Tree House: Carnival at Candlelight by Mary Pope Osborne

This is a book of when Jack and Annie go on a mission to save Venice from a flood and the only person who can help them is Neptune, the God of the Seas. At first, they don't understand how, and they end up skipping every single thing in the list of things they have to do because they are stomped on all of them! Then they understand and take a trip on a flying lion to the middle of the sea where Neptune lives.

I liked all of the book and I didn't like none of the book. If you like surprises, magic and learning, read this book.

Al y Oli, dos vampiros sin dientes, by Elvira Alvarez Menendez

This is a funny book. Al and Oli are two vampires without teeth (except for Al). Oli does not have teeth because she is just a baby. Al thinks he loses all his teeth, but it is just grandma's dentures and he puts them on and then he gets his grandpa's dentures and puts them onto Oli. The kids with the dentures hide away, so dad calls the police to see who is after their teeth and children.

If you want to read a funny book about vampires that is not scary, then get "Al y Oli, dos vampiros sin dientes."

The Ice Dragon, by George R. R. Martin

This is a little book, it was shorter than I expected. This book is boring because nothing much happened. Adara is a girl who was building castles and touching little ice lizards and then she touched an ice dragon and then she rode an ice dragon. This book was sad and the boringest part of all was the battle.

[Note from mom: He is right that the book is short. We read it in one sitting in a little over half an hour, the end of each chapter bringing pleads of, "Just one more chapter...", so I don't think he thought the book was boring as we read it. However, it is a sad book, and my guess is that is where the problem lies. We both ended the book with a few tears in our eyes. Adara is a little girl (7, at the time most of the story takes place) who is cold both physically and emotionally, having lost her mother at birth. That in and of itself is sad. During the climax, in a very moving moment, Adara realizes that she loves her family above all, and the cold leaves her. Sacrifices are made, and there is a happy ending, but there is a cost. This is also a graphic book, to some extent. The ugliness and the stench of war are not prettified. The "boring" battle contains descriptions of charred flesh, frozen limbs, screaming, death. It is not as graphic as some of Martin's other work, but it is not your regular kiddie fare. Overall, I think this is a book a 10- or 12-year-old would enjoy. At 7, my kid who cannot stomach Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was a little overwhelmed.]

Gooney Bird Greene, by Lois Lowry

One day a girl named Gooney Bird came to school and her classmates wanted to hear stories about Gooney Bird, like how she got her name and how she came from China in a flying carpet. Sometimes things are unexpected, like the flying carpet was not a magic carpet -- it flew out of a van's window with Gooney Bird in it and unrolled! I like Gonney Bird because she has some extraordinary stories to tell her class.

If you like unsuspectingness, surprises, and outrageous real stories, you should read this book.

Gracias a Winn-Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo

This book is about when Opal, a girl, goes to a store called Winn-Dixie and saves a pet there that wasn't hers, but she pretended that it was hers. And the first name that came to her was "Winn-Dixie", so that's what she called the dog. Thanks to Winn-Dixie, Opal became friends with a lady who was so blind glasses wouldn't help, the pet store lady who has a guitar, a girl that sucks her fingers, and a boy and a girl that tease Opal for being friends with what they call a witch.

I liked this book because it had friendship -- one girl with no friends would have five friends -- and sadness and funnyness at the end. My favorite character was Winn Dixie, the dog, because she is funny and she is smart. At the end Winn Dixie gets lost, or is she?

Stink: The Incredible Shrinking Kid, by Megan McDonald

Stink is Judy's little brother. In this book he thinks he is shrinking. He is sad because he thinks he will always be shorter than Judy. The book is also about presidents. Everyone likes Abraham Lincoln because he is the tallest, but Stink's favorite president is James Madison because he is just like him. They are both called James, they are both from Virginia, and James Madison was the shortest president.

Whatever happens in the real world, Stink makes a comic out of it. For example, when a toad licks Stink's class newt, he writes a comic where he turns into Newt Boy, a super hero, and Amphibian Man (a bad guy) tries to eat him, but Newt Boy jumps into a vat of hot pepper sauce and Amphibian Man thinks he's too hot and spits him out!

I liked this book because I liked his comics. I liked that at the end he knows that when he was a baby he was taller than Judy Moody when she was a baby.

Judy Moody, Around the World in 8 1/2 Days, by Megan McDonald

Judy is a young girl, 8 years old. Join their adventures in class 3T, learning new things with Rocky and Frank and Amy Namy. This book is about when Judy Moody tries to go around the world in 8 days with Rocky, Frank and Jessica Finch. But Rocky and Frank got mad at Judy. Will Judy be able to get around the world in eight days ALONE? Find out when you read Judy Moody Around the World in 8 1/2 Days.

I liked how there was a problem and a solution like in other books. I learned that when a friend gets mad, they are always still friends. On the way, I learned facts about Italy, tarantulas, and Nelly Bly, Daredevil Reporter.