Adrianna's First Review

The Great Wide Sea
By M. H. Herlong
Review by. Adrianna Ames

The Great Wide Sea, a novel by M. H. Herlong, is definitely one of my favorite books. People always say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” So I followed that advice when my friend handed me this book. She had read it and told me that it was a really good book.
So I read it.

Ben is the narrator of the story and who the story follows. He is also the oldest of the three brothers. He’s 16 turning 17 and is interested in engineering. Dylan is the next oldest. He’s nearly 12 and his thing is astronomy. Gerry is the youngest. He’s 5, almost 6, and is still attached to his blue blankie. The Dad’s name is Jim. He loves to read poetry and his life-long ambition is to sail to the Bahamas and go from island to island for a year. Before the story began, Christine, the wife and mother, tragically died in a car accident, going to the store for ice cream.

One day, the boys all came home from school and a “For Sale” sign on their front lawn. When they asked their dad what was going on, he told them that he was selling the house and they were going to sea for a year. The boys had a small sailboat out on the nearby lake. They all loved to sail, but leaving their friends, their sailboat and, most of all, their mother’s house was not a positive feeling. They were selling their house and Ben’s small sailboat, and they had to leave school. Ben, being 16, really wanted a car. His mother had promised him a car when he turned 16, but now that she wasn’t there anymore, his father was in charge, and Ben wasn’t going to get his car.

The house sold more quickly than they thought it would. A family bought the house and the sailboat. The movers came and cleaned out the house. In the process of the packing, Ben was having a really hard time, feeling that everything was going to be lost: his mom’s house, her things, and his sailboat. Added to that, he was going away for a whole year, on a trip that he couldn’t get out of. He wasn’t close to his dad to begin with, and now that a year-long voyage was being forced on him, he disliked his father strongly.

The boys packed their clothes in duffel bags and left the next morning. They drove all night down to Key West. The next morning, their dad was down at the marina looking at their new boat. Before sailing that day, their dad gave them each a book. Ben’s was all about engines, cleaning them and fixing them. Dylan’s was about celestial navigation, and Gerry’s was a children’s book on a little sailer boy. He told them that those books were going to be very important to them. While at sea, they would perform those respective duties.

Upon first seeing the boat, Ben, being the narrator, shared his feelings about it. He said, “Chrysalis (the boat’s name) was not big or beautiful. She was only a few feet over thirty. Her white hull was scratched and dull, with a long red streak running almost the whole length of the port side. Sun and salt had bleached and roughened the teak. The joints were caked with black gunk. And there on the stern was her name, Chrysalis, in fancy, looping letters. It was awful” (Herlong 17).

The first day was just a test run. The radio didn’t work, the sails were dirty, bunched up in bags, the engine needed to be cleaned. After the test run, they took a couple days and fixed up the boat, then off they went.

The first island they reached was the island of Bimini. They stayed there for several days, slept out on their boat and took their dinghy to the island everyday. Soon, they began to have some trouble with Ben,. At one island he was so upset with his father that he jumped into the ocean and swam to shore and stayed there for the whole day, just laying on the beach. At another island, they got seaweed stuck in the propeller, and Ben dived down and fixed it. Then it happened again. Jim dove on the prop. There was a lot more seaweed this time, and he needed a knife. While he was clearing the prop, the knife slipped and cut his hand badly.

They were getting ready to head back to Key West but then their dad told them something they absolutely did not want to hear: they weren’t going back to Key West yet. He wanted to sail to Bermuda first. Everyone wanted to go home except him, but he was the captain.

Sailing to each island in the Bahamas usually took all night so that they had shifts for steering the boat. First, Dylan would be on watch from 4pm to 9pm. Then, Jim would follow from 9pm to 1am. Ben had the next shift from 1am to 6am.

On their way to Bermuda, Dylan took his shift, and then his dad relieved him. Ben usually was awakened by his dad shaking him because it was his turn to steer. But he wasn’t awakened that morning. He woke up at 8am, and the boat was strangely silent. He went up on the deck and didn’t see his dad anywhere. He also realized that the one and only EPIRB was gone. Ben woke Dylan up, and neither knew what to do. They didn’t want to wake Gerry up yet, because they knew that he would panic and cry.

They had a log where they wrote the time and speed of the boat and the direction so they could see where they were on the maps. But their dad was gone and nothing was written in the log. They didn’t know how fast the boat had been going; they didn’t know when their dad fell overboard; they had no clue where they were.

When Gerry woke up, he started asking where his dad was. Dylan and Ben had to tell him that they had no clue where he was and they couldn’t go back and find him. They didn’t know what direction to go, how far they would have to travel back, and they didn’t even know for sure that he was still alive.

They are surprised one morning awakening wrecked on a ledge not far from a small island. They take the dinghy to shore with as much stuff as they can fit on, and Ben goes back three or four more times getting everything important off the sailboat.

When I was younger I used to take sailing lessons here on North Haven. My grandmother told me that if I took Sailing lessons until I was a certain age that she would buy me my own sail boat.

I went to camp last summer and while I was there I received a letter from my Dad saying that he had a surprise for me when I got home. So for two weeks I was wondering what it could be. Then when I got home I saw a big navy blue sail boat sitting on a boat trailer in the yard. I was so happy. I named the boat after my mom. Marina Dawn.

I picked this book because I love sailing. I have sailed ever since I was 5. My friend said that she had read this book and she thought that I would like it. She knows that I like adventurous stories because I am an adventurous person, and that I love the ocean and I love to sail. This book was perfect for me. It had me hooked from the first page. I’d read it again. I don’t even remember looking at the pages, I just remember seeing what was going on in the book, picturing it in my head so easily. It’s funny how books can do that to you.

The second I read that the father, Jim, had fallen overboard, I was even more interested. Then it goes to the boys getting stuck in a big storm, and its even more interesting. Then they get stranded on an island! The book’s gripping story goes from interesting to extreme.

Adam's First Review

Adam Murphy
Review of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

As soon as I started reading Sherman Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, I could tell it would be a great, funny, and well-written book. It was easy to read and really flowed well, and it was exactly my kind of humor (teenage boy humor). Overall, it seems like the target audience for the book would be teenage boys.

Arnold, a.k.a. Junior, is an interesting protagonist because of his geeky and very likable personality. The other thing that made him a great character was his brain problems that we learn about from page 1. He has extra liquid in his brain which makes it clog up and get nasty. The best thing about Arnold is his cartoons which help paint the perfect picture for me. Seeing them every few pages would always bring a smile to my face. They were all throughout the book and were very creative, funny, and well drawn.

Arnold lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation (or in the book they call it the “Rez”) in a town called Welpinit. From what he tells us about Welpinit, it’s a beautiful place full of pine trees and has a big lake that Arnold has swam in. Although people don’t usually swim in it because of an old story told in the book.

The Reardan school is big and coming from the rez it’s supposed to be filled with super smart and athletic wonder kids. Arnold seems quite out of place when he gets there coming from his smaller school at Welpinit. When he tries out for the basketball team there were 40 kids and only room for 24 kids, so 16 had to be cut.

Arnold starts out in the story going to the Welpinit school, but soon after he leaves the rez and switches to the Reardan school consists mainly of not Native Americans but white kids. Soon after the switch he finds a new friend named Gordy. Gordy is probably one of the nerdiest characters in a book that I’ve even read about. He also meets Roger who is the nice and happy version of Rowdy and is the star basketball player for Reardan as Rowdy is the star player for Welpinit.

This book is also great for anyone who loves basketball. It is a very big part of the characters lives because Arnold, Roger, and Rowdy all play throughout the story. You can tell that Alexie knows a lot about basketball. Alexie can make you feel like you’re actually there playing in the game through Arnold's eyes. It was very surprising to me that Arnold played ball because of his geeky personality, being smart and small, but he does play and he plays very well. The tryouts were the opposite of what my town has with the Reardan having tryouts with 40 kids, here we have so few kids everyone gets to play and gets better no matter what their skill level to start was.

Arnold also has a very colorful family in his mom, dad, sister, and grandma. They’re a very poor family living in one house. His mom is very loving and caring for him, as is his father, though his father usually isn’t sober. Throughout the story, Arnold’s narration about his sister doesn't’ reveal much, except that she has graduated from school and lives at home. The grandma is the most dynamic family member in my opinion because she’s funny, she speaks her mind, and her views of the world are both joyful and inspiring.

I highly recommend reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian if you like to play basketball and laugh a lot. I even liked it so much that I have started reading another of Sherman Alexie’s books The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and, so far, neither of these books have disappointed me!

Natalie's First Review

Demon Glass
By Rachel Hawkins
Reviewed by Natalie Carrier

Demon Glass by Rachel Hawkins takes place in both Georgia (the one in the United States) at a school for witches, vampires, werewolves, fairies, and demons and in England, during the hot summer. Sophie, a demon girl, travels with her father, her best friend and vampire, Jenna, along with a Warlock named Cal to England for a summer. Former crush, Archer Cross, now a known enemy of Sophie and her group of friends and family, has been told to be around the same area. When Sophie arrives in England, she finds out that she and her father are not the last demons left in the world. People have been raising demons illegally. The demons owners can then control demons and use them as weapons.

A few weeks after Sophie arrives in England, she finds herself in danger. She is then saved by Archer Cross. When she and Archer want to be together, she puts her family, friends and prearranged marriage to friend Alexander Callahan at risk. When Archer comes into the story Sophie doesn’t know whether to be with the person she’s supposed to marry or the enemy who she’s in love with.

Archer and Sophie then set out to find who’s raising the demons and what happened to their former dark witch friends Chaston and Anna. While on their journeys, Sophie and Archer find things out about their school and what’s going on that they couldn’t even possibly imagine. They then discover that people they thought were friends, really were their enemies.

What I like about this book is that Hawkins really had me feel like I was really there. Rachel Hawkins describes things such as the house in relationship to things that people reading the book could relate with, for example, she wrote, “Although, calling it a house was like calling the Mona Lisa a painting” (Hawkins 36). That gives me a good description that the house is supposed to be extremely large. The setting of the house, and the background, was very good. She gave me a vivid image of what the house is supposed to look like, with its, “golden-colored stone that looks warm to the touch” (Hawkins 36). At the beginning when Hawkins describes Hecate Hall, I can definitely see the difference between the atmosphere of Hecate Hall and Thorne Abbey.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Demon Glass is a book that kept me wondering what was going to happen next. It is a suspenseful book with a romantic twist of who Sophie’s supposed to fall in love with and who she falls in love with. Its also a book about family and friends, and what’s best for both Sophie, and her family. This book sets itself apart from other fantasy high school books I find because Sophie’s crush, Archer, wants to kill her and she loves him anyway, or so she thought. I recommend this book to people who do enjoy romance books as well fantasy. I must admit, though, that this book does come to an unexpected, abrupt ending. It’s a good way, I find, to bridge into the next book of the series which is suspected to be coming out some time next year.

Avery's First Review

Animal Farm
by George Orwell
Reviewed by Avery Waterman

I have never thought about animals running a farm by themselves, but in George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, I feel like it is now possible. This book takes place in England, a long time ago. The Manor Farm is where all the animals are living, and they are very unhappy with the owner, Mr. Jones. The animals get so mad that they want to start a revolution. They force Mr. Jones off the farm, but Mr. Jones is not giving his farm up that easily to a bunch of animals. He’ll be back, but as of right now, the animals are trying to figure out who will lead.

The pigs take on this lead roll, but two in particular, Snowball and Napoleon, can not agree on anything. Napoleon soon runs Snowball out with deadly force, which becomes a part of Napoleon’s power. After this confrontation, Napoleon becomes the supreme leader of the farm. The animal’s government makes rules and seven commandments, but since most of the animals can not read, the pigs change them to what suits them best. The pigs soon become more privileged than all the other animals on the farm.

In life, people use the metaphor “you're a pig” for a negative reason, but actually pigs are very smart animals. I think this is why he made the pigs in control. Pigs are perfect for this roll, because in the world there are lots of greedy leaders out there, and a pig is greedy and takes all the food and supplies, but yet they are actually very cleaver animal. The sheep in this story just do what they are told, like in real life where they need to be herded, so in the story they do what the leaders say. The horses plan and are simply power houses, brave and can take care of themselves, hard workers. The goats are stubborn, like they would be if you had goats on your farm.

Whenever anything goes wrong on the farm, Snowball is blamed. When something right goes down on the farm, it is because of “leader Napoleon.” Other farmers become aggravated with the animal farm and get angry about the farm and the animals and how it is run. Rumors, lies and suspicions arise among the other farmers. They want to plot an attack on the farm.

The animals on the farm are hard at work building the windmill which Napoleon has claimed will generate heat and light to the farm houses, but during a nasty storm the windmill blown down. Determined, the animals start the windmill over again, only this time they will make the walls thicker and stronger than last time. The horse, Boxer, the worker, labors night and day on the windmill and any other jobs that need to be done. He is the roll model worker on the farm, but sometimes he works him self too hard. This eventually catches up to him as he gets older and older.

The neighboring farmers finally plot another attack, and ruin the animals’ hopes and dreams. But still the animals will not give up. The farm turns into a republic, which Napoleon won, because he was the only animal to run for president.

The ending of this book is sad, but yet peaceful and happy in some ways. It has very clear and subtle ending. It will not disappoint and is an easy, yet fun book to read, you will soon not be able to put it down.

Middle School Book Reviews

Soon, the NHCS middle school will be posting book reviews through this site. As a newbie to the blogosphere, I expect to have some technical difficulties. Alas, I also anticipate that in time, this will become second nature. Hopefully, we can grab book jacket images and other interesting graphics to spice up the final product. It's a great way to share student writing, warts and all. Any edits that students want to consider or reconsider are always welcome.

Keith

Rhys

Interesting. Here I am, visiting Mr. Wirth's Creative Writing class at Searsport District High School, and Rhys, a freshman, has just helped me to establish a blog. This is a new tool that I hope to use in order to enhance my on-line communication skills. Not only that, but this is a great tool to enable students to publish work. After all, why do all this writing if we never publish it? Well, that could be an entirely different discussion.

Thank you Mr. Wirth; thank you Rhys; hello, blogosphere.