Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This reminded me a bit of Moby-Dick, which I normally wouldn't count as a good thing in a book. But Margi Preus didn't make me suffer through pages and pages of boring nonfiction information about whales, so I'll forgive her.

This also reminded me quite a lot of Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, which is the Newbery award-winning story of the life of Nathaniel Bowditch who also loved to sail and loved to learn. So I thought it was very fun when he was mentioned in this book in a roundabout way when Manjiro read and loved the book he wrote, The New American Practical Navigator.

I started listening to the audio version of this, but I had to stop for a bit to listen to something else because of a deadline. But I couldn't stop thinking about this story and luckily I also had a hard copy of the book. I'm glad I picked up the actual book because I didn't realize I was missing drawings by the real Manjiro! Even though this is considered a fictionalized biography, I loved learning about Manjiro's story. He's been called "the boy who discovered America" because he was most likely the first Japanese person to set foot on American soil. And he had amazing adventures even before that happened!

I also really enjoyed the author's note, vocabulary lists and suggested reading listed at the end. Several of the titles were already on my to-read list, but they will now receive higher priority. And of course several new to-read titles have now been added to my list. Now I need to read (or bump up in priority): Shipwrecked!: The True Adventures of a Japanese Boy by Rhoda Blumberg, Black Hands, White Sails by Patricia McKissack, Gone A-Whaling: The Lure of the Sea and the Hunt for the Great Whale by Jim Murphy, Revenge of the Whale by Nathaniel Philbrick, and Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun by Rhoda Blumberg.

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The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy by Leah Wilson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you read my reviews of The Hunger Games books, you'll see that I did not read the series with any sort of scholarly thought. I just immersed myself in the story and read to the end. The authors who wrote these essays really thought about the concepts and the characters. Their essays reminded me of critical analysis papers I used to have to write in high school. But they were very interesting to read! Some were a bit repetitive, although I'm sure they didn't know what the others were going to write about. I enjoyed some more than others, but overall, I found these to be well-written and well-considered essays about a great series!

I particularly enjoyed the essays about the media (Reality Hunger by Ned Vizzini), Reality TV (Panem et Circensus by Carrie Ryan), science (Not so Weird Science by Cara Lockwood), fashion (Crime of Fashion by Terri Clark), and PTSD and the brain (Bent, Shattered, and Mended by Blythe Woolston). But, as I said, they were all interesting to read.

Now I need to reread the Hunger Games series! Although I bet the story will just grab me up again. I don't know how these authors did it! I'm impressed.

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The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets by Roald Dahl
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

As a huge Roald Dahl fan, I've been looking forward to reading this! But overall, the book is a bit of a disappointment. It feels like they padded it out with not terribly interesting extras just so they could publish the missing chapter that was originally cut from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Also, some of the information can be found elsewhere. There were a few nice bits, but not really enough for a full book. I would only suggest this for huge Roald Dahl fans who want to read everything he's ever written.

I did really like this quote from Roald Dahl:
"I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage."

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Divergent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is another one of those books I enjoyed so much that I have a hard time writing a review. I just keep wanting to say things like: "Excellent! I loved this and so will you!" "Great reading! This caught me up from the beginning and wouldn't let go - even though I HAD to get some sleep, I still continued reading until the wee hours of the morning!" "If you read and enjoyed The Giver, The Hunger Games, or any other young adult dystopian type of story, you must read this one, too!" So I guess I'll just let all of those very enthusiastic but not very detailed phrases stand as my review for Divergent. It's great! You really should read it!

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Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH was one of my childhood favorites. I don't even know how many times I read it growing up. So I was very interested to see that Robert C. O'Brien had written a post-apocalyptic type of story for young adults.

This is written in first-person as the diary of 15-year-old Ann Burden. There was a nuclear war and as far as she can determine, everyone else has died. She survived in the isolated valley where she grew up because it is surrounded by mountains and essentially has its own weather - the winds from outside do not blow through it. Her family went to see if they could find any survivors and never came back. But then a man comes hiking into her valley wearing an odd green suit. She hides from him until he becomes sick from swimming in a lake that was still contaminated from the fallout.

Even though there are only two characters in this story, and we only get the viewpoint of Ann Burden, this is very suspenseful! I thought O'Brien did a great job of writing as if this was Ann's diary. He never gave us information that Ann wouldn't have. It felt very real. The beginning reminded me a lot of Island of the Blue Dolphins with a young girl alone forced to rely on her own resourcefulness to survive.

When the man, John Loomis, arrives, the story changes and becomes more intense. I didn't really like the man much, but once he entered the story, I couldn't put the book down. I knew far more about the storyline than I wanted because the book blurb pretty much gave it all away. But still I wanted to know how it all ended! If you enjoy post-apocalyptic survival stories, add this one to your list.

Note: This would be a great "Z" title for an A-Z challenge!

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On My Way by Tomie dePaola
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the third in Tomie dePaola's autobiographical series. In this one, young Tomie finishes kindergarten, worries about who his first grade teacher will be, worries about his baby sister who has pneumonia, and gets to spend a day at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Tomie also steals the show at a dance recital and again at a "tiny tot wedding" put on at his brother's birthday party. Of course my favorite part is right at the end when Tomie sneaks his school reading book home so he can learn to read quickly and get his "liberry" card!

Reading these books always makes me want to sit down and write stories from my own childhood. Tomie dePaola makes it look so easy. He has such a great memory for details from his early life. His writing style is simple yet vivid, which makes these books a joy to read. And of course, the dePaola trademark illustrations are wonderful. Next up: What a Year!

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Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Excellent! This is well-researched and well-written. I have never before understood so well and in such detail what the soldiers at Valley Forge suffered. I loved the quotes from letters and journals at the beginning of each chapter. I also found the author notes at the end to be very informative.

I did have a hard time caring about Isabel like I did in the first book. She seemed different and distant somehow. But that didn't ruin my enjoyment of this book at all. If you've read and enjoyed Chains, you definitely need to read this one. Even if you haven't read Chains, this is a great book to read. Highly recommended!

A favorite quote, one of the soldiers in Curzon's company speaking of Valley Forge: "This camp is a forge for the army; it's testing our mettle. Instead of heat and hammer, our trials are cold and hunger. Question is, what are we made of?"

Another favorite quote at the beginning of chapter XLVII: "His excellency today appealed to the Officers of this Army to consider themselves as a band of brothers cemented by the justice of a common cause." -General Orders of George Washington, Valley Forge

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The Shepherd's Tale by Zack Whedon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this back when I first purchased it, but I didn't count it as "read" or write a review because I wanted to spend more time with it. This week I read it through again and again - rereading some parts several times. Does this really reveal the secrets to Shepherd Book's life? It seemed too simple. There just wasn't enough - no HUGE secret or HUGE reveal like I wanted. But the more I read through it, the more I liked it. I especially like the backwards way the story is told - starting from Book's death and then spiraling back through his life and showing us how Shepherd Book became the man we knew in Firefly. We do learn some interesting tidbits - his real name, how he became Derrial Book, how he found God in a bowl of soup, etc. I was left wanting to know more about his eye! And really, reading this as a graphic novel just isn't the same as seeing it as an episode of TV or even a movie. But it is better than never having any new stories in the Firefly 'verse!

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Emma, Volume 1 by Kaoru Mori
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This month the Pick-a-Shelf group is reading graphic novels. So I picked up the first two in this series from the graphic novel section at the library. I've read a few graphic novels - mostly just so I could see what happened to favorite characters from Buffy or Firefly. I've also read a few of the Babymouse books when deciding whether or not to purchase them for my school library (which I did and my students LOVE, by the way), and I've read a few random graphic novels for challenges here on Goodreads. So while I do have a little experience with graphic novels, they aren't really my go-to type of book.

This series, set in Victorian England, looked like something I might really enjoy. This is printed in the traditional Japanese manga format by starting at the end of the book and the top right corner of the pages and you read the story by moving "backwards" through the book. You also have to pay close attention to the illustrations and subtle signs on the page that let you know when you are going to a flashback memory, or a character's dream, etc. I'm sure it's my inexperience with Japanese manga that made it difficult for me to pick up on the author's clues and caused me to have to reread some portions in order to figure out what was going on. This first book in the series was pretty much just an introduction to the setting and the characters with not a whole lot really happening. All in all, though, I did enjoy it and look forward to reading more in the series.

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Troublemaker by Andrew Clements
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this! As always, I feel like Andrew Clements got it just right. His students, teachers, and parents all feel very real. Luckily, Clay isn't the type of student you run into very often. But I've definitely met him and felt similar frustrations as expressed by the teachers and administrators in this story. He's so bright and capable! He is making specific choices to act the way he does, which is very frustrating to deal with in the classroom (or in my case school library) setting. I hope this book doesn't act as an idea book for students who are looking for pranks to pull at school! Other than that, I think the message it sends about the importance of our choices is a great one for students to think about. This is definitely a must-read for fans of Andrew Clements.

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