Unwind by Neal Shusterman

What would you do if you were between the ages of thirteen and eighteen and were told you would be unwound, or pulled apart limb by limb?

Lev, Risa, and Connor all come from very different backgrounds but meet for a common reason. They are going to be Unwound. Lev is a tithe, or a member of a very religious family that send children as a religious offering. Risa lives in a crowded orphanage. She isn't the most talented so she is sent to be Unwound. Connor gets in lots of fights so he is sent to be Unwound.

It all began when Connor runs away a few days before his Unwind date. He rides with a trucker until they are stopped by the Juvie cops. He is able to escape but jumps onto the highway and causes many car crashes. Risa is on a bus that crashed. She sneaks into the woods. Connor then breaks into a car and pulls Lev out as a hostage. He drags Lev into the woods that Risa escaped to. Risa, Lev, and Connor then are able to steal the gun of the Juvie Cop that is chasing them and tranquilize him. They find their way into a school were Lev is able to escapes. With the help on a kind teacher, Risa and Connor find their way to a set of safe-houses. Every few days they move to a new one until they reach what is thought to be the final destination.

It ends up they are being flown to an airplane graveyard (the Graveyard) in cargo boxes. Once they are there everyone is assigned jobs. Risa becomes a nurse and Connor becomes a mechanic. Everything is going perfect until the Graveyard ruler's five assistants are found dead.

Connor is chosen to figure out the mystery of who killed them. While Connor is on the mystery, Lev shows up. Lev is in the Graveyard only a short time before he leaves. Risa and Connor are worried about him but they are both busy so they try not to think about him. Connor thinks that an evil boy named Roland killed the assistants. He traps him in the box that killed the assistants but gives him air holes.

While Conner is doing this, a group of kids find the graves of the assistants. They think the ruler killed them so they attack the airplane he lives in. They trap him inside but he is with Risa. The mob rips the air conditioner out so they almost die from the heat. Connor realizes what is happening so he goes to try and help save Risa and the ruler. The airplane pilot admits he killed the assistants before he dies in the hands of the mob. Connor stops the crowd and gets Risa and the ruler out of the airplane. They fly the ruler to the hospital but get caught as runaway unwinds, or children that are sent to be unwound.

They are sent to Happy Jack Harvest Camp. Risa and Connor freak out when they see that Lev is there. Little did they know he is a clapper, or a person who puts explosives in their body. Right before Connor is about to be harvested Lev's friends clap and cause the building to explode. Risa is on the roof and Connor is inside though they both escape alive but injured. Lev is captured and put in a straight jacket so he can't clap. Clappers and injured kids cannot be unwound so Risa, Lev, and Connor are able to live.

Unwind is not for the faint of heart. If you like gory books then you wont be able to put it down.

★★★★(out of five)

http://www.storyman.com/books/

© 2007 Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers p. 335

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Steward

Reynie is an orphan with no memory of his parents. One day while reading the newspaper with his tutor, Ms. Perumal, he sees an ad that reads "Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?" Ms. Perumal decides he should go since he is brilliant.

Reynie passes the first test wit flying colors. He is told to take the second test at a place called the Monk Building, and he could only take one pencil and one eraser. It takes him a long time to find the Monk Building, but when he does he still has an hour left. Right before the test starts Reynie sees a girl named Rhonda drop her pencil in a sewage grate. Reynie breaks his pencil in half so she still has a pencil to take the test with. Rhonda offers him the test answer but he says no.

When the test director begins handing out the tests Renyie can see fear in everyones eyes. Some kids even start crying and leave the room. When Reynie get the test he becomes pale. He doesnt know any of the answers. Rhonda finishes very quickly. While coming back to her seat after turning the test in, she puts a little square piece of paper on Reynies desk with the answers. He flicks it away.

Reynie is reading the answers to the second half of the test when he comes upon words that were in the first questions. He realizes that the answers to the first half of the test are in the second half and vice versa.

While waiting for the next test he meets Sticky and Kate. The talk about the last test and learn that Rhonda dropped her pencil for each test and figuring out how to get her a pencil and refusing the answers was part of the test.

The kids are taken to a room by Milligan, their bodygaurd, for the next test. They have to cross a room by only stepping on the yellow squares. The yellow tiles are really far apart so u can't just walk to the other side. Kate does acrobatics across. Sticky walks on his ands and knees. Reynie just walks across because the floor tiles are rectangles not squares. Test they must find their way through a maze with rooms that all look alike. Reynie realizes that he must follow the yellow curvy arrows out. The first time is takes him 20 or so minutes. The second time it takes him 3. Kate took the shortcut and went through the ventilation pipes. Sticky made it through by luck and made it faster the second time because he remembered every turn.

Right after the last test they meet a girl named Constance. Mr. Benedict really liked her so she passed all the tests.

The kids were given the chance to join a team to help save the world from the Sender. He was using kids to send out messages to help him control the world. The only way to stop him was to go to the school where the sender in the headmaster. The kids must go to the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened.

This book was really good. I had trouble putting it down. It may look long but it is worth your time. Under the rating is the website.

★★★★(out of five)

http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/features/mysteriousbenedictsociety/index.html

Compound by S.A. Bodeen

The Yanakakis family is one of the richest families in the world. Rex Yanakakis is the founder of YK Industries. Most rich families would spend there money on cars and houses but this family spent millions of dollars on an atomic bomb shelter that they call the Compound. Inside is enough supplies to last 15 years. In this amount of time the radioactivity would disappear.

The Yanakakis children never expected to use this shelter but one day during a trip to their camp in the woods they had to race to the shelter. Once inside they realized that two people were missing, Eli's twin Eddy and Mrs. Yanakakis' mother. Everyone was devastated but Mr. Yanakakis said that life must go on.

6 years later Eli decided he needed to go into Eddy's bedroom. It was an exact replica of his room but there was no dust. Eli was very surprised. Eddy's computer was sitting on the desk. He used to have the same one until his dad updated it. Eli's mom came in at that moment and told him that she had been dusting the room. She allowed Eli to take the laptop and anything else he wanted in the room. He checked for internet everyday.

The food was beginning to run low and expire. The wheat started to smell weird but Mr.Yanakakis still ate it. Mrs. Yanakakis told the children not to eat the bread because she feared for there health.

One day while Eli was checking for wireless he received a signal. He went and told his mom and his sister, Lexie. She didn't believe him and told him to get more prove. Eli went back to his dad's office while he was inside and he received a signal. Online at the same time was twin number 2 or Eddy. He was alive! He was told that the rest of the family had died in an RV crash. Eli figured out that he was being held captive and he needed to get out if he wanted to survive.

★★★★(out of five)

Laurie Halse Anderson

Here I am with Laurie Halse Anderson. She has written kids books, like the Vet Volunteer series, and young adult books, like Chains and Fever 1793.

Below is the link to her website.

http://www.writerlady.com/

Cornelia Funke and I

Here I am with my friend Cornelia Funke at ALA. In my hand is a pre-release of Reckless.

This is one of Cornelia Funke's websites. It is managed by her sister. I hope it comes up in english for you.

http://www.corneliafunke.de/en.html

Battle of the Books

Battle of the Books (BOB) is a program at the school I go to. We are given a list of 15 books and we have to read all of them. We do a bunch of practice questions, then we are quizzed to see who knows the books the best. The children with the best knowledge of the books are put on the team. We do even more practice questions, but this time it is with the team. Finally it is competition time. We travel to one of the other middle schools in our district to compete for the title of Battle of the Books Champion. We are put in a room with a team from a different school. They alternate between asking our team questions and the other team questions. The four teams with the most correct questions move on to the next level. The top two teams out of the teams left move on to the final round. The competition to become the winner is intense. Last year the champion only won by one or two questions. The winning team receives a banner and a trophy.

Below is a list of the 2010-2011 BOB books:

Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen

Code Orange by Caroline Cooney

Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Yancy

Peak by Roland Smith

Schooled by Gordan Korman

Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Downsiders by Neal Shusterman

Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer Armstrong

Wreckers by Ian Lawrence

Black Duck by Janet Taylor Lisle

Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson

Cracker: the Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick

Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikelson

Compound by Stephanie Bodeen

Virginia Readers' Choice

In Virginia we do a program called Virginia Readers' Choice. The Virginia State Reading Association picks out ten good books that have something to do with Virginia. Kids in schools all across Virginia then read those ten books. The kids then vote on their favorite book. All the schools votes are added together and the book with the most votes becomes a Virginia Readers' Choice.

At the school I go to we have to have read and taken AR (Accelerated Reader) tests on at least 5 of the books. We go to a pizza party and vote there.

Bellow I am posting the 2010-2011 middle school Virginia Readers' Choice book list. They also have a list for elementary school kids that has a few picture books on it, but that list isn't in my possession.

After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson

All of the Above by Shelly Pearsall

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine

Breathe: A Ghost Story by Cliff McNish

The Girl Who could Fly by Victoria Forester

Little Audrey by Ruth White

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd

Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell

T4 a novel by Ann Clare Lezotte

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt