Tuesday, December 8, 2009

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins


Katniss and Peeta are selected to play The Hunger Games, a grisly reality TV show sponsored by the totalitarian state of Panem.  Twenty-four players between the ages of 12 and 18 are selected by lottery, then forcibly taken from their families to prepare for the Games. Only one will return. The rules are simple. The last player left alive wins.

Katniss and Peeta know they have to kill to win, but there is a connection between these two. Peeta kept Katniss and her family from starving during the terrible time following the death of Katniss's father, so she owes him a debt of gratitude. And Peeta loves Katniss.

How can they kill each other?

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel


Imagine a world which is almost like ours. Airplanes do not exist. Instead, people travel in leisurely luxury to their destinations on huge airships. Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on one of these magnificent airships named the Aurora.

One night, when Matt is on watch in the Aurora's crow's nest, he and the crew rescue a balloonist, who dies, leaving behind a puzzling journal filled with drawings and detailed descriptions of a strange, never-before-discovered flying animal. Much to Matt's surprise, on their next voyage out, one of the passengers, young Kate de Vries, turns out to be the grand-daughter of the dead balloonist. She is intent on proving the truth of her grandfather's story of the strange new animal, even though her parents and scientists think her grandfather was hallucinating when he wrote of his find.

Kate enlists Matt in her quest for evidence that will prove her grandfather right. Along the way, they battle Kate's domineering but dim-witted chaperone and crafty and evil pirates.

The author takes you from one edge-of-your-seat, hold-your-breath adventure to the next in this strange and beautiful parallel world.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Tips for Posting to Bibliosmile

Here are some tips for successful submission of your book review to Bibliosmile.

  1. Use your email account to store the draft of your book review. That way, you can work over the course of several days, choosing the best words, checking your grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
  2. Put the title, author, and the genre of the book in the subject line of the email. 
  3. Put your name, age, and/or grade at the end of your email. I need this in order to give you author credit for the post.
  4. When you are done, send your email to Melinda.Buterbaugh.bibliosmile@blogger.com.
  5. If you don't have an email account, see Mrs. Buterbaugh. She will give you an email account. 

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Mo can literally bring books to life. Objects and people come out of the books when he reads aloud. He hasn't read aloud in years because of his fear of his great power. For not only does Mo bring characters and objects out of books, but for every person or thing that comes out, something or someone from our world goes in.

Villains that he read out of a book (a book also titled Inkheart) catch up with him and kidnap him, his aunt-in-law, his daughter, and the author of Inkheart, and demand that Mo read treasure out of books for them.

People often talk about the vivid world of books, of being able to enter new worlds through books, of being "lost in a book." But what if the opposite were true, that book characters could become lost in our world? That villains could enter our world and work their nefarious deeds on this side of the page? Cornelia Funke explores this intriguing possibility and weaves a tale that is totally engrossing.

A movie was made of Inkheart (2008) starring Brendan Fraser, Helen Mirren, and Paul Bettany.