Archives for April, 2010

BOOK NAME: I Am the Messenger
AUTHOR: Markus Zusak

Ed Kennedy has nothing going for him… nothing at all. Living in a dirty shack, he’s hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey, and is devoted to his coffee-drinking dog, the Doorman. Ed works as an underage cab driver and plays cards on the weekends with his friends… losing at every game. His life seems to have no meaning, until he unwittingly stops a bank robbery. From there he is different.

“Protect the diamonds, survive the clubs, dig deep through the spades, and feel the hearts.” These are Ed’s instructions. Ever since Ed received an ace in the mail he became a messenger. Ed had a choice, to care or not to care. Choosing to care, Ed followed the instructions helping, caring, and hurting people. Whatever the card wanted him to do.

This book had the common story line of the character’s life changing due to something that occurred, but it came in an unusual form. I’ve never read anything that had to do with playing cards like this one. I enjoyed the personality of Ed and his pathetic friends, Marv and Ritchie. One of the little things I liked about this book was that the author included what Ed thought the Doorman (his dog) was thinking when certain things happened.

There were some things in I Am the Messenger that I wasn’t comfortable with, as the book was in the teens section. However, the story was so great, I am going to read his other book, The Book Thief!

BOOK NAME: Time Warp Trio: The Good, The Bad and The Goofy
AUTHOR: Jon Scieszka

This is part of a series of books about three boys named Joe, Sam and Fred, who have their own book that takes them to any place at any time and they can’t control it. In this story, the magical book takes the trio to a cattle drive in the Old West, where they ride horses and live with real cowboys before being captured by Indians. The tribe decided to release the boys when Joe performed a magic trick that amazes the Indians. However, one of the Indians tried to scalp them before they left, but the tribe’s medicine chief stopped him.

My favorite part of the book was Joe’s magic trick. I’m not going to tell what he did to trick the Indians because you definitely need to read this book to find out.

There are at least 15 other Time Warp Trio books and I’ve read seven of them. These books remind me of the Magic Tree House series (by Mary Pope Osborne) that I used to read when I was younger because in each one the characters travel in time and you learn about different places and history–and sometimes, the future. I haven’t read one yet that I didn’t like.

Researchers at the University of Monongahela have developed scratch and sniff photo technology for the Internet and mobile devices like cell phones. We have added a couple of photos today for you to get a whiff of this cool new discovery. Give the photos below a little rub and sniff the photos on the screen. Can you smell the fragrant flower?