Love Among the Walnuts: or, How I Saved My Family from Being Poisoned Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Horatio Alger Huntington-Ackerman is a billionaire living in a huge mansion with his wife Mousey, and his son Sandy, isolated from the real world. Horatio's two brothers, Bart, and Bernie are jealous of Horatio's fortune. They know that if they could wipe out his family, and his butler, Bently, the fortune would be theirs. Bart and Bernie come to the mansion for their monthly dinner with a birthday cake. Everyone except Sandy, and Bently eat some of the cake. The next day, Sandy wakes up to find that everyone, including his pet chicken, was in a coma. Sandy and Bently do some research, and discover that the cake Bart and Bernie brought was poisoned. The only problem is, Bently disposed of the cake before they could get evidence to the police. Now Sandy and Bently will have to find proof that his uncles poisoned his parents, and try to survive their other attempts to kill them too.
This is a hilarious book dealing with family rivalries. I recommend this book to readers from 9-14. This book is well written and has a good plot!


Click Here to see more reviews about: Love Among the Walnuts: or, How I Saved My Family from Being Poisoned

Sandy Huntington-Ackerman didn't expect life to be a free ride (even though his parents are multimillionaires). He certainly didn't expect his two money-grubbing uncles to try to kill his family with a drugged birthday cake. Luckily for Sandy, the cake only sends his parents (and their pet chicken, Attila) into a coma. Along with a loyal butler and a wacky nurse from the asylum next door, Sandy is determined to bring the scoundrels to justice-if he's not the next to go!This "rollicking screwball-comedy of a story" (The Horn Book) is just right for fans of Holes and The Westing Game.

Click here for more information about Love Among the Walnuts: or, How I Saved My Family from Being Poisoned

Read More...

Tears of a Tiger Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)As a junior high school English teacher, I am always on the lookout for a good YA novel to teach to my students or to recommend that they read individually. When I heard of Tears of a Tiger, I had high hopes that it would be everything that I look for in a YA novel. First of all, I liked the fact that the main characters were African-American. I teach a large portion of African-American students, and I have a lot of trouble finding a YA novel in which African-Americans are the central characters (are you listening, YA authors?). Second, I absolutely loved the differing points of view style that the book is written in. The way that the characters are developed through conversation, letters, poems, essays, and so on is one of the best that I have read. This is a great teaching tool alone, not to mention a super way of telling the story. Third, the event that is the catalyst for the plot, the underage drinking and driving, is realistic and teaches a great lesson to teenagers. Given my glowing praise, you may wonder, why not five stars? The simple fact is that Andy's suicide destroyed the book for me. The whole plot of the book seemed to be leading to Andy's coming to grips with the death of his friend. I was thinking: what a great way to show kids that there are other alternatives than killing oneself to work through problems. Then, the suicide note and he is dead. This is not a good message to send to youth. While a mature young adult can read and understand this book the way that the author probably meant it to be read, this is not a YA book for the masses. In good conscience, I cannot teach a book to kids who have enough disturbing messages thrown at them from all sources on a daily basis as it is. They do not need to read a book in which the main character, a young man much like many of them, cannot cope with his mistakes and kills himself. Would I still teach Antigone and Macbeth, you may wonder? Yes, I would; the characters who commit suicide in many classic works of literature bear little or no resemblance to the teenagers of today. Andy, on the other hand, is too much like many of the teenagers that I run into on a daily basis. Our children need to be taught the real truth--that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Tears of a Tiger

Click here for more information about Tears of a Tiger

Read More...

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky, in April of my sophomore year at college. A friend lent it to me and I had read it within twelve hours. This book reaches inside of you and pulls everything to the surface. It is a beautiful and painful story about a 15 year old boy, Charlie, moving through his freshmen year of highschool. It is written in letter form to an unknown friend. Charlie is always completely honest, whether he is describing his first "beer" party where he witnessed a girl being raped by her boyfriend, or explaining masturbation and his excitement for this newfound "activity." Charlie is a wallflower who observes people and feels very deeply for the experiences occuring around him. His favorite Aunt Helen died in a car accident when he was six, and he holds himself accountable, and his best friend committed suicide a year before he began the letters. His English teacher realizes Charlie's potential and brilliance and asks him to try and participate, which Charlie agrees to do. He becomes friends with two seniors Patrick and Samantha and begins to experience dances, parties, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, pot, love, bad trips and sexuality. We feel exhilerated when Charlie describes his happy moments, and we are swallowed in pain when Charlie is overwhelmed by his depression. Charlie's realizations are eye opening for us, and we are so captivated and immersed in his life that his life and stories become a very real experience. This book is about moments, and being as much alive within each moment as possible. It is about looking around us at the world and the people and appreciating that we don't know what their lives are like, and the pain and happiness that they experience day to day, so we shouldn't judge them but accept them and appreciate them. A favorite section of this book, for me, was when Charlie describes the movie It's A Wonderful Life, and how he wished the movie had been about one of the less heroic characters so the audience could have seen the meaning that this person's life held. That moment is just one example of Charlie's amazing intuition. This book should not be limited to a certain "category" of people. I truly believe that it would be understood, appreciated, and loved by everyone aged 12 (+ or - a few) and up regardless of gender, race, sexuality, etc. This book changes you, if only for a moment, but you are not the same upon completion, and you become more appreciative of life then ever.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Get 36% OFF

Click here for more information about The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Read More...