Maya

=**//The Water Seeker//**= By Kimberly Willis Holt Review by Maya Greenholt

Seeing someone for who they truly are is one of the most important things you can do. The worst thing a person can do is to see someone for they are on the outside and not the inside. In //The Water Seeker//, Amos Kincaid first sees a girl named Gwendolyn Winthrop as unattractive and ugly. Her father had a bad temper and was drunk a lot in their old home in London. He whipped her, and even threw a candle at her and burned her cheek. Through and through, Amos starts to see her for who she truly is, and to him, her scars start to disappear. He learns more about her and gets to know her better. The author, Kimberly Willis Holt did a great job of telling this historical fiction novel. It really touched my heart.In my opinion, this is a very well written story. This book had a great moral, and Kimberly Willis Holt did a good job of explaining it. I will always remember this book, as it was a very memorable story. It even touched my mom’s heart when I told her about it. My mind never wandered while reading this book, for it kept me interested throughout the story. It began like any other story, and at times, I have to admit, I did want to stop reading it. As I started to get to the middle, I started to like it a lot. Then, I began to realize how great a moral this book had, and the power of the words the author wrote. I really loved this book, and I hope you read it too!

In //The Water Seeker,// Amos travels with his father for the last three quarters of the book. The beginning was set in a house in the Middle-eastern U.S. Amos was born in that house, and then, when his mother died, was given by his grandmother to his father, Jake, who was a trapper. Jake frequently traveled over the mountains and back to see his son, who was with his uncle Gil, and his wife, Rebecca. They became like his parents, and he found himself loving them sometimes, more than his father. He only saw his father once a year, if that. One day, Rebecca got the pox, and started to get very ill over the next few weeks. She asked Gil to shoot her, to relive her of her pain. He did, and lied to Amos that the Indians, her closest friends, had shot her and ran away. Jake comes back and finds out what happened. Gil doesn’t speak anymore, and just sits by the fire and stares into it. Amos starts to go trapping with Jake, but soon, Jake was offered a job as a scout on his friend’s route to Oregon. The setting really helped to make the story more exciting, because they were always traveling. Amos usually told his opinions about each place, and explained what each place was like.

The problem in this story is the relationship between a girl named Jubilee, and Amos. She enchanted Amos, and he wanted her to like him, but she didn’t. Another girl, named Gwendolyn, had many scars all over her face, eyes that seemed to be uneven, and long teeth. Jameson, Amos’s friend, meets Jubilee, and falls in love. Jubilee falls in love too, and he is all she talks about when Amos is around. Gwen and Amos become better friends, and her scars start to disappear, in his eyes. Her eyes become equal, and her teeth, straight and perfect. Jameson and Jubilee get married, and Amos marries Gwen. At the end of the book, I realized that that book taught me a lot about honesty, and seeing someone for who they truly are. Amos starts to love Gwen for who she is on the inside, and he starts to see her as beautiful. This book had a splendid moral, and I liked it a lot.

The characters really connected with the reader in this story, because they always shared their feelings towards each other, and they weren’t afraid to express their moods and emotions. The reader could easily understand the words and knew how every character felt. The characters also developed a lot in the story. Amos went from a baby to a man, and his friends went from teens to adults. A lot of the characters developed in their minds too. Amos’s father, Jake, married an Indian on one of his trapping trips. A little girl named Daisy, who was Jake’s neighbor as a child, met them again when she was older and was the mother of a young child named Finn. There were many surprises and interesting decisions in this novel. Many things had to be understood quickly, because another event would come. A surprise that was in this story was when Rebecca died, and Jake came to pick up Amos. He came with an Indian wife, and took Amos down to Independence, Missouri to start scouting for his friend Isaac’s wagon train.

I think my friends Emily and Lily would enjoy reading this book because it has a lot about respect and friendship. These two girls are my age, and this age group, sixth grade, is the best time to read it. I loved this book too, because it is a great story, and tells about friendship, honesty, love, compassion, truth, loyalty, and respect. I think that this is a Montgomery book, because it shows Montgomery’s motto, through and through. This is also my kind of story, because it is fiction, and not fantasy. I like fantasy sometimes, but I like fiction a lot better. Another book I read, called Penelope, was almost exactly like this book, because it was all about seeing someone for who they truly were. Penelope was a girl with a pig nose, a curse on a man from a long time ago. If a blueblood loved her for who she truly was, the curse would be lifted. She meets a man who learns to love her, but he is not a blueblood, so he cannot break the curse. In the end, she realizes that __she__ loves herself for who she truly is, and she didn’t care if she had a pig nose or not. She breaks the curse herself, and marries her boyfriend. I really loved this book, //The Water Seeker//, and I hope you choose to enjoy it too!

=//The Wednesday Wars//=

By Gary D. Schmidt
Review by Maya Greenholt

The Vietnam War was a major point in American history, but was never mentioned in other books as much as it was mentioned in this one. In //The Wednesday Wars,// Gary D. Schmidt made sure to tell how much the Vietnam War caused pain and loss, but happiness too. During the Vietnam War, in 1967-1968, Gary D. Schmidt tells the tale of Holling Hoodhood’s life in seventh grade. Holling has a hard time concentrating on the parts of everyday life, but goes through with all of the emotions and strange happenings of life as a seventh grader on Long Island, New York. Since this book was placed in the past, and included the Vietnam War, it was historical fiction.I think that //The Wednesday Wars// was a great story, and there were a lot of adventures and surprises in this book. The characters and the plot were believable, and I had a bunch of fun reading this book. Even though it was hard to concentrate in some parts of the book, in the end, if you added it all up, it was a pretty good book. Most of Holling’s adventures took place at school and on Long Island, New York in his 1967-1968 school year. The setting really helped to make the story more interesting, but an exciting setting, to me, would have been someplace exotic like Hawaii, or someplace that hasn’t held much interest, like Egypt. The setting, Long Island, helped to make the book a little more normal than exciting.

On Long Island, Holling has a normal life with big and small problems. Doug Swieteck’s big brother is one of Holling’s big problems, as he embarrasses Holling more then once. When Holling gets revenge, he is about to get pummeled with ice-balls, when he sees a bus sliding towards his sister, and he rescues her from it. He gets bumped by the bus, and is taken to the emergency room, but was found out to be fine. One of the other big problems is when his sister leaves for California with her friend Chit. The house seems empty without her, and Holling goes to get her back. This book taught a lot about making your own decisions and listening to your heart. I really liked that motto because both of those things mean a lot to me.

In //The Wednesday Wars,// the characters really connected with each other and me. I really understand a lot of their feelings for each other and their feelings on what was happening. There were a lot of surprised, sad, and happy feelings. They had very strong emotions and Gary D. Schmidt did a good job of expressing them. Even though I cannot identify with one of the characters, my favorite was Meryl Lee because she was careful, but smart and friendly too. She and Holling were part of lots of surprises in this book. When you were starting to get bored, something exciting would happen, and you would immediately not be able to put this book down again. Even right now! I look for a word in the book and it pulls me right back into the parts I forgot about. One of the surprises was when Holling found out that he was playing Ariel the Fairy. It was funny and surprising that he would be playing a fairy. The chapters were surprising as well, but did not always end with cliffhangers. Mostly the chapters ended with shocking news, or a happy ending. One example of shocking news was when Mrs. Baker found out that her husband was missing. An example of a happy ending was when Holling won the race and everyone was cheering for him.

I, personally, think the Wednesday Wars was a great book and I think my friend Abby, who lives in Pittsburgh, and my neighbor Serena, would enjoy reading this book. I also think that seventh grade would be a great time to read this book because you would be reading it at the same time as he was experiencing his adventures. I liked this book because it told the story of life in seventh grade. This kind of book is one of my favorite types to read, because it spreads out a school year into months, and shrinks a year into one book. I think that is amazing and this is the fifth or sixth I’ve read that was like this. I really like to read books like //The Wednesday Wars// and I hope you will enjoy it too!

Maya Greenholt Mrs. Mulzet Language Arts November 11, 2010 The Prophet of Yonwood

War is a bad thing. Especially when both sides are very strong. It can get very dangerous, and many people can die. //The Prophet of Yonwood// tells about a girl who lives in a town that has a legendary prophet. The Prophet’s name is Althea Tower, and she was a regular person until that fateful day when she had the vision. She went outside to refill her bird feeder, and she was flooded with the vision. Everything was up in smoke and fire, she was pulled out into space, and saw the Earth rising up in flames. There were no trees, no birds, no nature, and worst of all, no people. She didn’t see anything else, but in the books before, there were survivors. In this book, it tells about a girl who grows up to help the world in many different ways than she thought were possible. Jeanne DuPrau did a great job of telling this science-fiction story, and I really had a fun time reading it. The Plan had been worked on for a while, and now it was being put into action. The group of people who were to be the Builders were gathered into California, to start to build an underground city. The underground city was to be called Ember. Ember was just like a regular city, with streetlights everywhere, and a big machine called the generator, which was built to last for the three centuries that they would be living there for. Nickie Randolph was a normal girl living in Philadelphia, until her great grandfather died and her aunt Crystal and mother inherited it. Nickie and Crystal went to fix up the old house to be sold. Nickie knew that it was a fine old house, and one of her goals was to get Crystal to love it, so she could live there, and Nickie would get to live in the old house. Nickie had a list of goals, and that was number one. Here is her list:


 * 1)  To keep her great-grandfather’s house from being sold so she could live in it with her parents.
 * 2)  To fall in love. She was eleven now, and she thought it was time for this. Not to fall in love in a permanent way, just to have the experience of being madly, passionately in love. She knew that she was a passionate person. She had a big love inside of her, and she knew she needed to give it.
 * 3)  To do something helpful for the world. What that would be she had no idea, but the world needed help badly. She would keep her eyes open for an opportunity.

In this book, Nickie has several adventures trying to figure out who she is loyal to, and how to reach her goals. I give this book 4 and a half out of 5 stars, because it didn’t have that much action in it, and I enjoy more action, doing things instead of waiting for someone to do it for you. The chapters did and didn’t end with cliffhangers, and that is another thing I enjoy about books, not being able to wait for a time to read it again. This book taught me about choices and being patient. This would be a good book to read when you are going through a lot of changes, and are being pressured to make the right choices. I would have enjoyed reading this book when I was moving from Pittsburgh, because even though I was really little, it would have helped the sorrow involved in leaving my old house behind. I really enjoyed reading //The Prophet of Yonwood,// and I hope you enjoy reading it too!

= = = = = = = = = The Fledgling =

Report by Maia Greenholt
 The only thing that I have ever wished for for my whole life is to fly. Flying, to me, would be the most awesome thing in the whole entire world. Georgie Dorian dreams that she can jump down the stairs in two big, graceful leaps. She tries it in real life, and it doesn’t work. It is autumn, and the geese start to fly overhead. One of them, an old, graceful, and beautiful Canadian goose catches her eye. She catches his eye, too. The first time he tries to approach her, a man named Ralph Preek drives by. For some odd reason, he thinks that the goose is going to attack her, so he honks his horn, and scares Georgie’s ‘goose prince’ away. While she waits for her goose prince to come again, she starts to experiment with what she can and can’t do. She jumps off her porch steps, and discovers that she can float as high as the roof. Georgie’s neighbor, Madeline Prawn, Mr. Preek’s private secretary, is very snoopy, and she catches Georgie experimenting. Mrs. Prawn writes a letter to Mr. Preek, saying that she has witnessed a miracle, and that Georgie is a moon child. She thinks that Georgie is a fairy, and tries to get her to sign a contract saying that she blessed some water that she herself had brought. Mrs. Prawn also suggested in the letter that they rent out a parking lot for people to come and watch her magic in. Mr. Preek regards the letter scornfully, and writes a letter back saying that the goose that was trying to “attack” her had had a magnetic force, dragging her up into the air. He decides that he will buy a gun, and shoot down the bird to save the children of his hometown. Mr. Preek is very dramatic person, as you can see, and he likes children that have rosy cheeks and say “thank you” when he gives them lollipops at the bank. Mrs. Prawn is exactly the opposite. She dislikes children in every way possible, and she likes an organized life, with a purpose to it. Jane Langton is a very descriptive writer, and she uses many good adjectives in her text. I think the best thing that she describes in this book is when Georgie flies. She tells it as exciting, but also relaxing, because Georgie relates further into the book to having never been tired, even though she stayed up most of the night flying with her goose prince. She says that flying is like sleeping in a way, because you float on a pillow of air, drifting slowly around. Georgie also teaches herself tricks, like flipping and twirling, as her goose prince guides her. Ralph Preek waits. He waits until the hunting season begins. Then he shoots. Instead of shooting the bird, he shoots Georgie, but it only grazes her skin. Her goose catches her, then proceeds to attack Mr. Preek. Georgie recovers, but she is not allowed to see her goose prince again. Soon after, her goose prince comes to give her a present. The present looks like a rubber ball when it is in the light, but later, it starts to get dark, and the ball starts to glow. She hurries into a dark closet, and the rubber ball slowly floats up, off her hand, and expands. It is a map of the world. Her goose prince had given her a map of the world. As her goose prince stands next to her, Ralph Preek shoots. The bird falls at her feet. I would recommend this book to my friend Lilly, and my friend Allison, because they both would enjoy flying too. I think they would also enjoy the story line, because it tells a lot about Georgie flying, and how the people around her feel about her flying. Preek thinks she is being dragged up into the air by the magnetic force of the bird, and that it wants to take her away and eat her, or some other crazy thing. Mrs. Prawn thinks that she is a moon child, a fairy, and they should capture her. She thinks that the moon people have taken her neighbor’s real child, and replaced her with a moon child, and the moon child will fly away at the full moon.This book is a great book for all ages. The reading level is too low for seventh graders, but perfect for 4th to 6th graders. I hope you will enjoy this book as I did!