Jacob

The Red Kayak by Priscilla Cummings

“The Red Kayak”, by Priscilla Cummings, is a realistic fiction book about three friends and a simple prank that went wrong. “It’s Mr. DiAngelo, isn’t it?...No, it’s his wife. And their little boy.” That was the last thing Brady, the main character, wanted to hear. Especially after earlier that morning he and his friends didn’t say anything to them even though they knew that there was a storm coming in. But it turns out that what happened was more than an accident and Brady must decide whether to tell the truth, or live the rest of his life with a lie. Whichever one he chooses will affect not only him, but everyone around him.

Brady has lived on the Chesapeake Bay all of his live. He lives a life of waking up at four in the morning with his dad to go crabbing. But more recently, the state of Maryland has added more and more crabbing regulations to the already low crab harvest of that year. That means that Brady would have to work extra hard in order to help his family. Because of this Brady knows the waters amazingly well. One day, while at school, he gets pulled out of class because two people are lost on the river. He gets out on his crabbing boat with his dog, Tily, and goes to look for them with many other locals. It was raining, the water was fifty-six degrees, and there is a kid and his mom in the water.

“The Red Kayak” was a very interesting book because it was very detailed and it is very easy to focus on. The book, at only 200 pages, is great for someone who doesn’t really like to read long books. At the end of almost every chapter, there is a cliff hanger. I couldn’t stop reading it because of that. I liked the book because it is about some the same age as me and it is cool to read about someone your own age. I would recommend this book to kids age 11 to 14. There is no book like this that captures such little details to give you a sense of what is really going on. There is truly no book like it. I would give it 3.75 out of 5 because I didn’t love it, but it wasn’t bad.

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Jacob Matus The Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell (Summer Reading)

For my summer reading choice book, I read “Lone Survivor” by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson. The book is about the life of Marcus Luttrell leading up to a Navy SEAL operation. The book is clearly a war novel, but it will touch you in ways you wouldn’t expect from such a book. “Axe still had three magazines left for his pistol when the grenade hit us. But when they finally found him, he was on the last one.” That quote is one of the most inspiring things I have ever herd before. To me, for him to keep fighting after being shot by AK’s and RPG’s multiple times in almost every part of his body, is truly incredible.

The book takes place in Afghanistan, Texas, and California. Texas is were Marcus grew up. He and his twin brother both were raised to become Navy SEALs by their dad and by their neighbor, Billy Shelton. They would run, lift, swim, dive, and do whatever else Billy could think of. In California, or more specifically, Coronado, is were the Navy gets rid of whoever they thing can’t take the conditions of a battlefield of a U.S. Navy SEAL. The drop-out rate is around 50%. Finally, in Afghanistan, four SEALs head out on a mission to either capture or eliminate a terrorist leader. They go in armed to the teeth with Mark 12 sniper rifles, M4 carbines, and extremely powerful spotting scopes and camera lenses.

The first half of the book tells you about the struggles of becoming a SEAL by giving you an amazingly detailed sense of what was going on and how hard it is. Every thing from doing a four mile runs in thirty minutes to “getting wet and sandy.” This means that you have to run into the ocean then drop in the sand to get it all over you so for the rest of the day you have sand all over you and it get very aggravating. In the second half of the book, the mission starts. The goal is to capture or the more likely choice, to kill an extremely smart Taliban leader that is very close to Osama Bin Laden. The life or death of the entire team leads up to a decision that goes terribly wrong.

Lone Survivor is such a great book due to such detailed descriptions, its truthfulness, and even people who are against any type of war would love it. It’s not only about war, it’s about humanity itself and how kind and unkind people can be. I suggest this book for anyone age thirteen and up because it is not a good book for anyone younger because it is very long. One you pick it up though, you can’t put it down. I would rate this book 4.5/5 because it is one of the first books that I actually liked. A similar type of book is “Black Hawk Down” by Mark Bowden. This book is truly amazing because it tells a story of a true American, a Navy SEAL.

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Jacob Matus

Bridge to Terabithia Book Review Book by Kathrine Paterson Review by Jacob Matus  Bridge to Terabithia is a story by Kathrine Paterson about a boy who wants to be the best. By the end of the book, he realizes that being the best isn’t what life is about. The book takes place in the 1970’s in south west Virginia. The main characters of the book are Jess Aarons, Leslie Burke, and Jess’ little sister May Belle. Jess and Leslie create a magical place called Terabithia and it is “A place just for us.” It remains a place just for them until the very end of the book. Jess trained the whole summer to try and be the best runner in the fifth grade. He knew that it would be him crossing the finish line first. On the first day of school, there is a new girl that comes to the school. During recess, and the races, She out runs all of the boys in the grade. At first Jess is mad because she won, but then soon realize that they are meant to be together. They play together and eventually create a kingdom called Terabithia and they are the leaders of it. In the story they fight imaginary enemies, as well as real ones such as bullies. From the second that they become friends, Leslie teaches Jess lesions that he will never forget. The book was based upon an actual event that occurred to the authors son. Her son’s friend was struck by lightning while he was playing outside. She wrote the book because she knew what it felt like for one of her children’s friends to die. It is terrible for this to happen to anyone, but unfortunately it does happen. When it does happen, as the book states, don’t try and forget them, remember them for who they were. People don’t live their lives to be forgotten.a Bridge to Terabithia was written in such a way that there were little, if any cliffhangers or anything extremely exciting about the book. The dialog in the book flows fairly smoothly throughout the book and is written very well. Nothing in this book “wowed” me so I am going to have to give this book 2 out of 5 stars. I would recommend this book for kids fourth through sixth grade because it was a very easy book to read and gives a strong message on what to do when someone dies. The book was not that interesting at all, so I would advise against anyone above sixth grade to read it. []

Jacob Matus The book that I read for my second trimester is called Nation by Terry Pratchett. It is about a boy named Mau, who lives on an island in the pacific. The story starts off when Mau is in the process of becoming a man. He is on his way back from the island where he makes the transition in the canoe that he made, when a wave comes and wipes out his island. As things began to come together, more people came to the island and the first one asked where the chief was and Mau says that he is the chief. In disbelief, the man says, “You are the chief? But you are just a boy!” Mau replies with, “Not just. Not even. Not only. Who knows?” The plot of this story is very believable in almost every part except for the fact that according to Mau, the Nation is the largest island in the area. My point is how people from smaller islands could survive the tsunami, when not one person on the Nation could survive even though there are one or two fairly high points on the island. But Mau briefly mentioned that they may not have been able to reach it in time, but I find this doubtful because you would be able to see a tsunami from quite a distance. Nonetheless, the plot was very well written and was quite easy to stay focused on. The setting of the book is on the island, which made the book very interesting because he had to survive at first, until he found the ship. The beginning of the book started out quite slow, but that didn’t last very long. The second that Mau meets Daphine, the book turn interesting because of how they interact to communicate when they are so different. It is a very interesting book that makes you think and I would suggest it to girls and boys ages 12-15. I would have to give this book three out of five stars because it wasn’t one of my favorite books, but it was certainly very well written and presented.

[] The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Jacob Matus  For the third trimester, I read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. The theme of the book is a story with entries from the actual “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”. The genre is definitely Science Fiction. “For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons.” The plot of this book is fairly complex, but in the end it all leads down to the ultimate answer, 42. The book seemed very random pretty much the whole time, which some people may find interesting, but others might find the randomness just plain stupid. My mind wandered a lot when reading because of all of the random things as well. The story takes place on earth, space, other planets, and spacecraft. The setting changes from place to place in the story and doesn’t always follow around the main characters which I find interesting. The setting also makes the story much more exciting because you are places you could never think of going. The main problem of the story is that earth is destroyed and the main character, Arthur Dent, is the only human left in existence. None of the characters really progressed in anyway in the book except for Arthur. And even he didn’t seem to change much. I think that kids age nine to 13 would enjoy this book if you are into crazy science fiction types of books. I would rate this book 2.5 out of 5. I do not know of any book that is quite like this book of all: it is truly unique. []