Lives of the Extraordinary Women

     A couple days ago I finished a great book called Lives of the Extraordinary Women.  This book was packed with facts about women all the way from Cleopatra to Eva Peron.  This book was filled with great facts about these extraordinary women that I never knew!  Each page also had at least one colorful illustration, so the book was fun to read and fun to look at at the same time!  In this book you'll find twenty of the worlds most influential women in history:  Queens, warriors, prime ministers, first ladies and revolutionary leaders!  This book was a really quick read, but at the same time had so many interesting facts!  I'm amazed how the authors, Kathleen Krull and Kathryn Hewitt could pack all of this information into such a small book!  I loved this book and would definitely recommend it! :)




Thanks! :)
-Alyssa

Gateway

I haven't posted for a very long time.  Sorry about that everyone!  Don't think I haven't been reading any of this time, because I've been reading a lot.  It's just that I haven't had time to post.  Anyway I just finished a great book called Gateway by Sharon Shinn.  Gateway is about a young girl named Daiyu who is seventeen years old.  Adopted from China and raised in St. Louis, Daiyu is used to feeling a little out of place.  One day while she's at the city fair near the Gateway Arch, Daiyu spots a gorgeous black jade ring.  And when the elderly vendor tells her that "Black Jade" translates to "Daiyu" she impulsively buys the ring and wears it as a token of her heritage.  It is much more.
Daiyu walks through the Arch on her way home. She never gets there.  Instead, she passes into another world, another version of St. Louis where almost everyone is Chinese.  Now she has more adventure than she ever imagined.  Taken to a safe house, she is trained as a spy in order to help topple the existing government.  Daiyu spends hours learning refined manners, niceties and flirtations to pass among the elite, and steals moments to be with handsome Kalen, the only person in this alternate world whom she truly trusts, or truly loves.  There is only one problem.  Once her task is finished, she must return to her own St. Louis and leave Kalen behind...forever.

This book was really, really good, it's five stars and it was such a page-turner!  I would definitely recommend this book!

Thanks
Alyssa :)

To Kill a Mockingbird

Yesterday I finished a great book by Harper Lee, called to Kill  A Mockingbird.  Now, I know a lot of people have read or seen the movie for this book, but if you haven't read this book or seen it, here's a little summary!

To Kill a Mockingbird is about a young girl nicknamed Scout Finch, (her real name is Jean Louise Finch.)  Scout lives with her older brother, Jem, and her father Atticus Finch.  To Kill a Mockingbird is told from Scout's point of view, and you can see throughout the book, as the story progresses, Scout matures (not necessarily in age)  but she changes from being a careless, innocent girl, to a brave, smart young woman.  The book starts off with the words, "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow."  The whole book leads up to the time when Jem broke his elbow.  But the story doesn't just revolve around that, there is so much more that is in this book, like the case of Tom Robinson, and the mystery of Boo Radley. This book sold more than 18 million copies and it became an instant best seller when it was published.  Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story, today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American Literature!   I would definitely recommend this book, it was AMAZING!  You can also watch the movie which is supposed to be really good too! :)

Thanks
Alyssa :)

Book of a Thousand Days

I just finished a five star book called the Book of a Thousand Days.  The Book of a Thousand Days is about a young girl named Dashti.  Dashti is a maid, her mistress Lady Saren and her, are shut in a tower for seven years because of Saren's refusal to marry a man she despises, the two prepare for a very long and dark imprisonment. As food runs low and the days go from boiling hot to freezing cold, it is all Dashti can do to keep them fed and comfortable.  With the arrival outside the tower of Saren's two suitors, one welcome, and the other much less so, the girls are confronted with both hope and great danger.   Dashti must make the desperate choices of a girl whose life is worth much more than she knows!  This was an amazing book!  It took me only two days to read!  This is my first book of 2012 and I'm hoping I will be able to read 100 books this year!  Last year I got to 81 books, but my goal was only 75.  This book is definitely recommended!  What are your reading goals for this year?

Thanks
Alyssa :)

The Yearling

Yesterday I finished a great, very emotional book called The Yearling. The Yearling is about a young boy named Jody.  Jody lives with his family, his father Penny and his mother named Ory.  They live on a little farm in Florida that is surrounded by dense forests and marshes.  Jody and his father Penny work in the fields planting crops and hunting game for food.  One day when Penny and Jody go hunting Penny gets bitten by a rattlesnake, Penny knows he needs to get the poison out of him, but what can he do?  Penny shoots a deer and takes out it's liver and puts it on his arm to squeeze the poison out of his arm. Jody soon finds the baby deer whose mom had just been killed to heal his father and feels bad for it and begs and begs his mother and father for him to take it home.  They give in and let him take care of it.  No novel better epitomizes the love between a child and a pet than The Yearling.   This is actually the first book I cried in, this book was so sad and you could really see the relationship between Jody and his deer that he named Flag.  The author Majorie Kinnan Rawlings used such powerful words that you actually felt like you were right there with the characters in the book! This book was amazing and I would rate it 5 stars!  Definitely recommended!!

Thanks
Alyssa :)

Sasha Cohen Fire on Ice

Okay guys, I've been really bad I haven't posted for over a whole month! That is terrible! I will try to keep posting as often as I can! Okay, so about a week ago I finished a  great book written by the famous figure skater Sasha Cohen. In this book Sasha Cohen tells her  life story on and off the ice.  Champion figure skater captures the world's attention with her gorgeous spiral and outstanding layback spin at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City.  In Torino, she reigned as the most intriguing contender in figure skating at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games and placed second with the silver medal!  For the first time Sasha tells her amazing story in her own words.  She tells about her discovery of ice at age seven, her comeback from and injury that almost ended her career, and finally her crushing lows and her charming wins.  This book is the official autobiography of one of the world's most captivating figure skaters.  This book was very good, I would rate it four stars.  I would definitely recommend it to anyone, even if your not a figure skater, you are sure to like this book!

Next Review: The Yearling (this is a long book, it might take a while!)

Thanks
Alyssa :)

The House of Dark Shadows

I just finished a VERY, (emphasis on the VERY)  creepy, spine tingling book!  You know how some books just don't pull you into the story?  Well, this book got an A on that standpoint!  This book is about a family of five. A fifteen year old brother named Xander, his littler twelve year old brother named David and their little sister named Toria and of course the mom and dad.  One day the dad decides they should all move to a new place in Pinedale, California.  When the family first gets to the house they were thinking about buying, strange things start to happen, their real estate agent says that the father of the house that lived there before, murdered his wife and kids, also strange sounds come from wrong directions, prints of giant bare feet appear in the dust, and Toria screams when she says she saw a man standing right outside of her room door!  Then the really, really weird stuff starts to kick in, David and Xander find a hidden hallway with portals leading to far off places in long ago times.  Xander is starting to wonder if this kind of travel is a teen's dream come true, or his worst nightmare!!!  This book so far has six books in the series, I can't wait to read the second book!  This book is really good and I would definitely recommend it!

Next Review: Just Listen

Thanks
Alyssa :)