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It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

To learn more about It's Monday! What Are You Reading? visit Mentor Texts

 

 

Genre: Mystery
AR level: none yet (this series is typically 3.__)
Grade appropriate: 1st and up

RATING BREAKDOWN:
Overall: 4/5-- This series is consistently wonderful for beginning chapter book readers. It is a mystery that doesn’t sacrifice plot for simplicity. The family visits famous landmarks in each book and we get to live vicariously. Occasionally we get the sneaking suspicion that we are being taught something, but the stories are not ruined for it.

In this book the family is in Greece. They are on an archeological dig and find a symbol in the wall that matches Grandpa Harry’s coin. Why?!?

Creativity: 5/5-- The books take place in different countries as the family travels for Mrs. Briar’s newspaper column. She writes about each country as they visit it.

Characters: 5/5-- Ethan and Ella are likable and relatable.

Engrossing: 4/5-- They hold your attention without the beginning readers getting bogged down.

Writing: 5/5

Appeal to kids: 5/5-- My high 1st graders, 2nd graders and 3rd graders eat this series up! Perfect for fans of Magic Treehouse.

Appropriate length to tell the story: 5/5-- Perfection.

CONTENT:
Language: none
Sexuality: none
Violence: none
Drugs/Alcohol: none

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

To learn more about It's Monday! What Are You Reading? visit Mentor Texts

 

Genre: Realistic   

AR level: 4.0

Grade appropriate: 4th and up

RATING BREAKDOWN:

Overall: 4/5-- Great ‘chick lit’ for middle graders. I was telling one of our high school students about this book and she said it sounds (and looks) like what she used to buy at Justice. (You know, they sell tween girls’ clothes.) A little cheesy but still very enjoyable. An easy quick read.

Creativity: 3/5

Characters: 5/5-- very likable and relatable.

Engrossing: 5/5-- a welcome break from all the heavy fantasy and dystopian lit out right now.

Writing: 4/5-- a little cheesy but honestly not as much as many adult ‘chick lit’ books I’ve read.

Appeal to kids: 5/5-- There is a group of girls who will eat these books up.

Appropriate length to tell the story: 5/5

CONTENT:

Language: none

Sexuality: none

Violence: none

Drugs/Alcohol: none

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

To learn more about It's Monday! What Are You Reading? visit Mentor Texts

This is one VERY strange book. It skirts the line between ridiculous and scary. It is in the same vein as A Series of Unfortunate Events, but there are scary moments. I guess the ridiculousness is to off-set the scariness. I added it to our Newbery list but now that I’ve read it I’m frantically trying to remember where I saw it. It’s on the list because some blogger that I trusted said it was a contender. Who? I can’t for the life of me find it...

Genre: Fantasy

AR level: 5.4

Grade appropriate: 4th and 5th grade

RATING BREAKDOWN: 

Overall: 2/5-- so odd. You spend the entire book wondering if it is fantasy or realistic. Sometimes that adds to the plot, but in this book it detracts from it. 

Creativity: 3/5-- This is the story of an average girl who is snatched from her parents and held captive by two seemingly sweet great-aunties. They are actually murderers and planning to kill her. 

Characters: 2/5-- I didn’t feel a particular attachment to any of the characters. Anastasia isn’t particularly lovable and everyone else is so far fetched that they are un-relatable. 

Engrossing: 2/5-- Not one I was anxious to get back to...

Writing: 1/5-- The over-writing was intended to be funny in the vein of “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” but it misses the mark in my book. Much discussion of “tragic flatulence” and the like. 

One reviewer said, “attempts to mimic ‘Series of Unfortunate Events,’ but lacks the satire which makes the other book so fun to read.” I agree 100%. 

Appeal to kids: 2/5-- Fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events will give it a go. Time will tell if they will stick it out. 

Appropriate length to tell the story: 5/5

CONTENT: 

Language: none

Sexuality: none

Violence: none

Drugs/Alcohol: none

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

To learn more about It's Monday! What Are You Reading? visit Mentor Texts

Genre: Fantasy   

AR level: none yet

Grade appropriate: 5th and up

RATING BREAKDOWN:

Overall: 1/5-- This was one of my least favorite of the books I’ve read this year. The one part of this story that I really enjoyed was the history of the Vanderbilt family and Biltmore Estate.

Creativity: 2/5-- There is a man in a black cloak abducting people and absorbing their talents. Serafina is not human, but a catamount. It was pretty obvious early on...

Characters: 1/5-- All the characters are one-dimensional.

Engrossing: 1/5-- this book does not draw you in in the beginning. An odd girl who catches rats in a basement... I put this book aside multiple times and read other things. It was not one I wanted to read. I had to make myself pick it back up.

Writing: 1/5-- Serafina's lines are often cheesy or trite. And for some reason in the end Serafina's mother has all the answers to every mystery in the book.

The one predictable thing about this book was the identity of the bad guy. It was supposed to be a huge mystery who the man in the black cloak was, but you could peg it very early on.

Appeal to kids: 2/5-- The cover might draw them in but it won’t keep them. I doubt many will finish.

Appropriate length to tell the story: 5/5

CONTENT:

Language: mild--"hell to pay"(1)

Sexuality: none

Violence: medium-- a very descriptive scene of a man abducting a girl, her fighting him off...

Lots of gore & at one point the bad guy gets mauled by a mountain lion. Watching him die is graphically described.

Drugs/Alcohol: none

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

To learn more about It's Monday! What Are You Reading? visit Mentor Texts

This book is getting a lot of attention and it is part of our Newbery Book Club this year. I am in the minority of people who didn't LOVE this book.

Genre: Historical

AR level: 4.1

Grade appropriate: 4th and up

RATING BREAKDOWN:

Overall: 3/5-- My biggest problem with this book was the severe abuse of Ada. That doesn’t detract from the quality of the book, but it did detract from my enjoyment of it. I do have a bit of a sensitivity to that kind of thing though.

Creativity: 4/5-- This is a story about a brother and sister in London during World War II. The girl, Ada, has a clubfoot and their mother is extremely abusive to her and very vocal about preferring her son. They escape to the country to avoid the bombs that are feared in London and find a loving foster home.

Characters: 4/5-- The characters do grow very naturally through the story, but having experience with abused children, Ada seems to recover awfully quickly. Again, this may seem so to me because of my own experiences.

Engrossing: 3/5-- It was not a story I wanted to escape into.

Writing: 5/5-- There wasn’t the edge-of-your-seat, what’s-going-to-happen-next appeal of many World War II stories.

Appeal to kids: 3/5-- I will recommend this one to the kiddos who loved Number the Stars and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas though it doesn’t have the same excitement they do.

Appropriate length to tell the story: 5/5

CONTENT:

Language: none

Sexuality: none

Violence: mild-- the abuse of Ada bothered me a lot.

Drugs/Alcohol: none

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

To learn more about It's Monday! What Are You Reading? visit Mentor Texts

Genre: Fantasy

AR level: 5.4

Grade appropriate: 3rd and up

RATING BREAKDOWN:

Overall: 3/5-- I feel like maybe I’m being overly critical. There was nothing inherently wrong with this book, it just wasn’t that great.

Creativity: 5/5-- Time/creation runs like a river and sometimes a stream shoots off from the main flow. This is called a pirate stream. Two characters meet because of this pirate stream of time and end up working together to save it.

Characters: 3/5-- Both Fin and Marrill are likable but there’s nothing about them that really makes you feel like you are in their shoes.

Engrossing: 3/5-- It doesn’t suck you in or make you want to stay up nights reading it.

Writing: 2/5-- This is such a hard thing to pinpoint, but I think this is where this story falls short. The plot is fine in and of itself, but the unfolding of it seems scattered or lacking something. Quirky spellings like Khaznot Quay also really detract from the story line.

Appeal to kids: 3/5-- The cover is the big draw. That’s what made me pick it up.

Appropriate length to tell the story: 5/5

CONTENT:

Language: none

Sexuality: none

Violence: none--There is some fighting against the bad guys, but nothing graphic or disturbing.

Drugs/Alcohol: none

~~~

This book, I loved. A historical story set in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century, it’s one to add to our Newbery list.  There is a plague scare in Chinatown and the area is quarantined, but only if you are Chinese… Lizzie and her friends try to get their beloved cook out of the quarantine. This books discusses racism from that time that is often forgotten and gives a fascinating look at medical practices at the time.  A fantastic book.

Genre: historical

AR level: none yet

Grade appropriate: 4th and up

RATING BREAKDOWN:

Overall: 5/5

Creativity: 5/5-- different take on racism from other things being published right now. Who knew there was a plague outbreak in San Francisco in the early 1900s? A glimpse of a time and place I didn’t know much about.

Characters: 5/5-- definitely felt a kinship to Lizzie and felt you were fighting right alongside her.

Engrossing: 5/5

Writing: 5/5

Appeal to kids: 4/5-- It’ll be one you have to sell them on. Once they get into it, they will like it.

Appropriate length to tell the story: 5/5

CONTENT:

Language: none

Sexuality: none

Violence: mild-- Lizzie’s older brother is earning money as a fighter. There are some drunk men who try to burn down Chinatown. Lizzie also gets attacked by some drunk men when she is out late at night. None of these scenes are graphic.

Drugs/Alcohol: mild-- Lizzie crashes her uncle's work luncheon where they are drinking whiskey. She encounters some drunk men late at night who act violently.