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       Since fall has arrived, I decided to read one of my favorite cozy classics: The Little House series. If you don’t know, the hit show Little House on the Prairie was based on these books.       The first book in the series, called Little House in the Big Woods , follows a little girl named Laura. The book is set in the 1870s, which is right in the middle of the American Westward Expansion. Laura and her family live somewhere in rural Wisconsin. In Laura’s words, she lives right in the middle of the woods. No neighbors, and there are trees as far as the little girl can see.      The book just follows her life throughout the year and experiences she has. So the book starts in fall, when it is harvest season. We see the hunt Laura's Pa brings home, and all the preparations Laura and her family make for winter, such as smoking/salting jerky and storing vegetables in the attic.      A common theme throughout the boo...

  The Super Life of Ben Braver by Marcus Emerson is a story about an 11 year old, Ben, who discovers he may have superpowers during a summer vacation. The story begins with Ben, a normal lonely 11 year old boy just chilling and playing video games. On his way to grab a snack from the nearby gas station, he sees someone, Dexter Dunn, bullying another kid. He decides to stand up to Dexter, which turns out to be a bad mistake; he gets sent to the hospital because of a concussion Dexter gave him, after had used some sort of power to shoot ice crystals at him. When he wakes up, everything is explained to him by the headmaster of a school, Donald Kepler. He soon finds out that Kepler isn’t the headmaster of a normal school; he’s the head of a school for children who have superpowers, and Kepler believes Ben has one. At first, he was unsure whether to believe him, but after the headmaster showed his own ability to Ben, he got really excited; this was his dream come true! He agrees to go t...

 Hello all,      This is Alton and I'm going to be giving my opinion on the Venom  series by Donny Cates. One of the reasons I liked this series so much is because the complicated relationship between Venom and Eddie Brock is really shown as Eddie faces his problems with or without venom. Some examples can be seen in volumes 1 and 3 where we see Eddie's reliance on Venom to fulfil his needs all the time, transition into his mind being so attached to Venom that even after losing Venom temporarily Eddies mind still uses the thoughts of Venom screaming in Eddies ear to get Eddie to make the right choices.     I think one of the other reasons I enjoyed this take on Venom so much is because of the realism that Donny Cates brings to the story. When Venoms thoughts get too loud Eddie drowns them out with anti-psychotics. Small details like this that add another layer of realism to Eddies character are what make it so easy to think of yourself in Eddies positi...

Do you ever get worn out by reading? Maybe because the books you read are too difficult to understand and take a lot of mental energy? Or maybe you just want to kick back and let your mind rest. If you like easy-to-read books with good character development, then this might be the book for you! A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass is a fictional story about a 13-year-old girl named Mia Minchell who has a condition called  synesthesia . Synesthesia is a phenomenon that causes sensory crossovers. In her case, Mia sees colors and shapes from hearing sounds and reading letters and numbers. Mia has difficulty hiding her condition and eventually must accept who she is and let others around her know. Throughout the book, Mia learns more about her condition and meets others like her. Grief is a large part of Mia's story, as she learns to overcome the past and move forward. A lot more happens; I honestly haven't read this in several years :) I found this book in 6 th grade while search...

        A couple weeks ago, I was hunting for a new book at the school library. After scanning for a couple minutes, I chose a book called Our Wayward Fate by Gloria Chao. I chose it because the book didn’t seem too long, and sounded interesting.  Our Wayward Fate is about seventeen-year-old Ali Chu. Though her parents are from China, she lives in Indiana. She describes the town she lives in as “dry toast”. Her town is not diverse at all - in fact, according to Ali, she’s the only Asian in town. Her teachers and classmates always make racist comments about Asian people, but she never stands up for herself. That is, until Chase Yu moves there.  From the second he gets to school, people are already shipping Ali and Chase, just because they’re both Asain and would be “perfect together”. Ali shows no interest in Chase, because she doesn’t want to prove all the people at her school right. But through kung fu and nerdy puns, they grow fond of each other....