February 2009 Archives

BOOK NAME: Ramona Forever
AUTHOR: Beverly Cleary

This is one of the books of the Ramona series. These books follow a girl named Ramona Quimby.  She is a third grader who gets into trouble a lot. Not serious trouble, but the fun kind of trouble

This is a story about big changes for Ramona, her family and the Kemps, their neighbors. Ramona's mom is going to have a baby, she no longer has to go to the babysitter after school and there is going to be a wedding, only no one knows it yet.

Ramona's mom is going to have another baby and is feeling really tired and needs a little extra help. Her sister, Ramona's Aunt Bea, is coming to help out. At around the same bout the same time, a new visitor comes to the Ramona's neighbor's house. It is their Uncle Hobart. Howie, Ramona's neighbor, had told her that her Uncle Hobart had a lot of money.  But when he drives up in a muddy van, wearing old jeans and a faded T-shirt, Ramona was surprised because she thought Uncle Hobart would arrive in a limousine and be dressed in nice clothes. Anyway, a very strange thing happens. Aunt Bea and Uncle Hobart actually know each other. While they are both living in the same neighborhood, they decide to get married.  

On the wedding day, the ring that Aunt Bea is giving Hobart gets lost. Everybody goes crazy looking for it because the wedding can't go on without it. It's a lot of fun to follow Ramona as she looks for it.  This was the best Ramona book because it has a lot of action and excitement.

BOOK NAME: The Tales of Beedle the Bard
AUTHOR: J.K. Rowling

     The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a fairy tale book only it takes place in the wizarding world of Harry Potter.  The characters always learn from their journey and leave you with a moral.  At the end of each story, Albus Dumbledore tells you the meaning of the story.  He explains why certain stuff is there and he gives you his review of the story.  In my opinion it does get a little boring at that part but it's always worth it in the end.
There are five stories in the whole book.  Here is a look at three of my favorites.  In the story called The Fountain of Fair Fortune there were three witches that were seeking the fountain of glory and they each needed it for different reasons. 

     In the story Babbitty Rabbitty and her Crackling Stump a foolish king wanted power all by himself.   He gets magic lessons from a fake sorcerer then he decides to have a magic show in front of his people.

In the last story The Tale of Three Brothers, which was my favorite, three brothers each wish for three objects: an invisibility cloak, a rock to bring back the dead and a wand of more power than anything imaginable. 
   
     I will have to rate this four out of five.  This book is good for people who like the whole Harry Potter series and fantasy stories like those.  Write back and give me a story topic that you think J.K Rowling should use if she were to make more of these types of stories.

It's time to prove to Mount Olympus just how well you know Percy Jackson and Greek mythology.

If you're up for the challenge, take this Quiz Your Noodle, and we'll tell you how you rank among the gods.

Good luck!



Plus, look out for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 5: The Last Olympian, the final book in the series coming out May 5, 2009! 

BOOK NAME: Sideways Stories from Wayside School
AUTHOR:  Louis Sachar

Seriously! This book is hilarious. It's all about the kids in Ms. Jewel's class at Wayside School. The reason it's called "wayside" school is because it was built sideways. The school was supposed to be 1 story tall with 30 classrooms. But the builder made a mistake and built the school 30 stories high with each story only containing a single classroom. There are a lot of crazy things that go on at Wayside.

Ms. Jewel's classroom is on the 30th floor of Wayside. At the beginning of the year, Ms. Jewel has a substitute teacher named Ms. Gorf. She is mean and can turn kids into apples. I know it sounds weird, but it's true. If you do anything wrong or give an incorrect answer, Ms. Gorf wiggles her ears, sticks out her tongue and then...poof!...you are turned into an apple.    Pretty soon, all the students had been turned into applies by Ms. Gorf.  All of the "apples" demand to be turned back into kids and they plan an "apple attack" on Ms. Gorf until she gives and turns them back into kids again!  After that, Ms. Gorf leaves the school and never comes back and Ms. Jewel comes back to teach her class.
 
This is only one of the stories from the book. There are 29 more chapters in the book that talk about each kid in Ms. Jewel's class. Once they get passed Ms. Gorf and her apple turning magic meanness, Ms. Jewel's class has a pretty crazy rest of the year.   There are 3 books about the Wayside School. I liked them because they were all funny and silly...and made me want to read the others.

BOOK NAME: The Playful Chef Cookbook

 I tried out two recipes in The Playful Chef Cookbook and both were very good. Each recipe said to wash your hands first, which I thought was weird since they'll just get dirty while making the food, but my Dad said it's always a good idea to wash your hands so you don't get yourself or others sick.

The first recipe I tried was for Eggstraordinary Scrambled Eggs. We followed the recipe but then put cheese on top at the end, which made it taste even better. The other recipe was for Holiday Gingerbread muffins. This one took much longer than the eggs to make and it was much harder. I made these for my Cub Scouts den meeting and everyone there liked them. Everyone had at least two. The muffins kind of tasted like gingerbread men except without the frosting. I would definitely make the muffins again.

Besides recipes, the cookbook has Playful Chef Skill pages that tell how to do different things that are important for being a chef, like how to whisk and how to work as a team in the kitchen. I think this book has tons of good recipes, including Chinese New Year Fortune Cookies and The World's Fluffiest Pancakes. I plan to try all of the recipes and you should too.