Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Summer Reading Reflection

Over the summer, you were asked to read at least two novels of your choice.

1) Briefly tell me what you read, including the titles and authors.
2) I want to know what you liked about the books, what you learned and, more importantly, what matters to you about the books' content.

*Make sure to adhere to proper conventions and proofread your response. If, for some reason, you did not read two novels, tell me about two novels you have read and answer the above. This blog post must be completed by 2:30p.m. on Friday, August 19th, 2011.

31 comments:

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Anonymous said...

I read "Glee: The Beginning", and "Beach Blondes". When I read the Glee book, I absolutely loved it, because I'm a big 'gleek' (thats the nickname for glee fans). It was a about what happened at the school before glee came in. It gave me a chance to get to know the characters on one of my favorite shows that much better. I really figured out the way they thought about things and why events in the show happened the way they did at the time they did. The second book I read was a bit different. It started off pretty cutesy and fun, kind of like a 'chick-flick'. But as I read on, the author started throwing in all these different twists in the story line, and a lot of characters started revealing secrets about their life that the main character didn't know. The way she wrote this book, I felt like I WAS Summer, the main character, and I was actually in the plot, living her life.

Anonymous said...

The two books I read over the summer were Burnt Orange and Pitch Black, both by Melody Carlson. I liked the lessons that they taught in the books, and how it relates to real life. Burnt orange was about a teen girl who got into bad things like drinking and it took a lot for her to stop. Pitch Black was about a girl who's best friend commit suicide, and her and all of her friends wanted to follow what he did. From Burnt Orange I learned not to get into bad things, and in Pitch Black I learned that things can get really hard in your life, but you should never give up. The books were pretty easy to read, and they were really interesting. They were really detailed and well written.

tonij25 smurfet said...

I loved reading Ice Bound by: Deen Koontz this summer. it is such a good book. It is so intense.if I could I would read it over and over again. it is suspenseful.

Anonymous said...

I read Where She Went by Gayle Forman and Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick
I like the strong emotion that you really feel in both of these books. In Crescendo I love the danger that seems to be present in the book. In Where She Went I liked the the way the author kept you guessing all the way

abbeys said...

:)

Anonymous said...

Over the summer I read 2 novels. The first was "For Keeps" written by Natasha Friend. The second was by the same author and titled "Bounce". Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed both of these books. I think this is due to the fact that they were both very relatable. This author writes about teenagers, mostly girls and the struggles that every one of us faces. But also she incorporated these struggles and characters into unique situations. I felt for the characters, connected with their emotions, and understood their situations. In these novels the things that mattered to me were the raw feelings and connection I felt with the characters. These things made these great choices for me to read.

Anonymous said...

I read graveyard and a child called it. I don't know the authors and unfortunately don't have the book any longer, but i will tell you what i liked. I like how the graveyard wast a mystery and how a child called it. That was a true story about a very abused child and it was really good. The auther was the child who was abused also.

Anonymous said...

This summer I read "A Shore Thing" By: Nicole "Snookie" Polizzi, and "Dear John" By: Nicholas Sparks. I enjoyed reading these books because they stayed interesting. Neither of them really dragged on with boring detail. Also both books had interesting topics, I find it hard to read books when I'm not interested in the topic of it. I didn't really learn much from the Snookie book, I learned not to drink alot because bad stuff can happen. And from Nicholas Sparks "Dear John" I learned that you shouldn't plan every little detail in your life, sometimes it's better when things are un-expected. Like I said earlier I like that I could read these books without getting bored. Its really hard to read books I'm not really interested in.

Anonymous said...

Over the summer I read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. This book is about a high school girl that gets ridiculed by her fellow classmates. As a reader, the main character gives you subtle hints as to what happened to make people so angry at her. Towards the end of the book she tells a story of a girl at a party, the girl goes up to a bedroom and a boy walks in, the two talk for a while and then he rapes her. She didn't know what to do, so she called the cops and they broke up the party and arrested some people. It becomes fairly obvious that she is the girl in the story. She tries to tell someone who was once her friend, but the girl doesn't believe her, until of course, the boy tries to rape her again in a janitors closet. Someone hears her scream and comes to her rescue. The girl then goes home, and tells her parents. And the book ends.


The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
This book is about a girl living in a post-apocalyptic world full of the Unconsecrated. She flees the safety of her village after a breach. The book is about her adventure through The Forest and how she is torn between the two brothers, Harry and Travis. The story ends when she leaves the fences, her friends, family and the loves of her life and finds the ocean.

Anonymous said...

I read the books Black Hawk Down by Mark Dowden and The Angel Experiment by James Patterson this summer. I really loved The Angel Experiment it’s a fast paced fictional story about kids with wings and was a pretty easy read. I didn’t love Black Hawk Down as much though, it was a nonfictional book about the war in Somalia in 1993; and was pretty gruesome. It also explained in depth how the soldiers got to their ranking, and a lot of other typically used military terms. I wouldn’t recommend it for the weak stomached though because everything is historically correct even the parts where people fall to their death out of helicopters and get splattered in the blood of their fellow soldiers.

Anonymous said...

This summer I read "The Notebook" and "A Walk to Remember" by Nicholas Sparks. I liked both of these books because I could not put them down! Their story lines were attention grabbing, and I realized not even death can rule over love.
"The Notebook" is told in two different times. The present day when Allie and Noah have grown old and live in a home; the other is the story Noah reads from the notebook in which he tells how he and Allie met, fell in love, lost each other, and then found each other again. The end of their love story is tragically shifted by Allie’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, but even that has no power over their love.

"A Walk To Remember" is about two high school students who are complete opposites. Landon Carter and Jamie Sullivan who help Landons ex-girlfriend at Homecomming when she gets drunk. Through the year the two fall in love and Jamie is diagnosed with a fatal cancer. Landon proposes and not even death can seperate their love.

Anonymous said...

During the summer i read the two novels of New Moon and Eclipse both written by Stephanie Meyer. I loved these books, they had such great wording that it painted a picture in my mind. Eclipse was filled with action,romance and drama, and New Moon was filled with dramatic love. I could not drop the book down for 1 second! These books really give a lesson to the reader, however; if i was to take lesson out of both novels would be, “Never give up on something you cant go a day thinking about.” What matters to me about the novel would be how the author portrays the charcters and figurtive language used because without both of those the novel is really ever “complete.” When i read both of these books i felt like i was with them seeing every little deatil that was happening, i was an incredible novel.

Anonymous said...

I read two very good novels over the summer. My favorite was called "Unwind" and it was written by Neal Shusterman. This book was set in the future in a society where all abortions were outlawed after a civil war over reproductive rights. The compromise that was made was that parents could choose to "unwind” their children at the age of 13 for any reason. The "unwinding" is a medical procedure where the child's organs and tissues are harvested for others who need them, so that their "life" is never really ended. There is a description of an "unwinding" in the book that was really terrifying! The main story centers on three different young people who are chosen to be unwound for different reasons and how they try to escape the horrible fate.

I also read "Divergent" by Veronica Roth. This book was also set in the future, but the plot was very different. In her idea of the future, society is divided up into "factions" based on character traits like bravery (Dauntless Faction), intellect (Erudite Faction) and so on. When the teens in this book are sixteen, they are tested and then told which group they should belong to. Although they are allowed to pick out another faction than the one they tested for, they are really supposed to chose what they match with in their testing. The “Divergent” kids are the one who don’t “fit” perfectly into a category.

I liked both books because they both were good stories but also made me really think about what the future could look like when you think about how many ways we disagree on things in our country. Both books were about very extreme things happening when the views of people become too divided in a society. I also liked how the main characters in both books fought back against being forced to conform.

Anonymous said...

The two novels I read were The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and Tuesday’s With Morrie by Mitch Albom. I loved both of the books, they were truly inspiring and very insightful. The Secret Life of Bees was a story about accepting yourself and one another and finding out who you really are. The characters were emotionally complex which kept me wanting to read more. Tuesday's With Morrie was very inspiring, and while telling a story it gave me life lessons. The book tells the true story of a middle aged man who is a workaholic and his old dying professor. Throughout the book the two men talk with each other about the meaning of life and how to make the most of everyday. The author did an amazing job of making me compare what the characters were saying with my own life. It made me think about my life and how I want to live. Both of these books are now two of my favorites!

Anonymous said...

Over the Summer I read the book Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, and Dear John by Nicholas Sparks. Twilight is a love story between a vampire and a human. Dear John is a novel of a man in the military, and the life he has outside of the military. I loved the drama, suspense, and romance in each novel that I read over the Summer. In Dear John I learned that life doesn't always turn out the way you planed it to. In Twilight I learned that love always has a unique twist to it. What mattered to me in the book's content was the morals I learned in them, they both taught me things and had some unlikely twists that made it interesting and unique.

Anonymous said...

Over the summer I read The Notebook and A Wallk to Remember, both by Nicholas Sparks. I thoroughly enjoyed both books because they were pages turners. I couldnt put them down! They kept you wondering about what was going to happen. Both books depict relationships that have their share of troubles, but both books show how they got through it. The books showed me a common theme, trust and honesty. In the end everything is solved and was done for the better. A Walk to Remember tells how Hegbert learned to trust Landon, and give Jamie the best experiences possible. In The Notebook Allie told Noah the truth about her engagement, and Noah was able to show Allie he was the right man for her.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Two of the novels I read this summer were The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Matched by Ally Condie. They were both about future worlds that used to be North America. I think it is very interesting to read about two completely different ideas of our future. The Hunger Games is about a society where the capitol rules all the outer districts. To show their power, they hold an annual ‘hunger game’. They pick a boy and a girl from each district and make them fight to the death. The book takes you through an amazing journey of a girl who was picked to go into the arena. I love reading books that have different twists in the plot, and are unpredictable in ways that surprise me. It makes me think about how different our world could be and how much we take for granted. We are lucky to live in a stable and protected country and this particular book emphasizes these thoughts.
Matched was about a world where society took a drastic change. In this civilization, the government decides everything for you. They decide where you live, where you work and whom you spend the rest of your life with. They decide who you are. The book is written from the point of view of a seventeen-year old going through all these problems and discovering new secrets that the officials have been hiding. This book was very well written and since it is part of a trilogy, I am looking forward to reading more.

Anonymous said...

Over the summer I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rolling. This book was the second book in the eight book series. It was about Harry returning to Hogwarts. While he is there he is hearing Voldemort speaking to him and he is trying to tell him the Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Harry then has to get into the chamber of secrets and defeat Tom Ridle (Voldemort). The other book I read was Soul Surfer by Bethany Hamilton. This book focused on Bethany Hamilton's life of surfing before her attack, during the attack, and after the attack and the way she was so strong. When Bethany Hamilton was about 13 years old she had her arm bitten off by a shark while surfing off the coast of Kaui, Hawaii. The book tells about how show stayed strong through everything and never gave up on her dream of becoming a pro surfer. I loved both of these books because of their exciting events. Both of these books also had great endings that made me want to know what happened afterwards.

Anonymous said...

Over the summer I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rolling. This book was the second book in the eight book series. It was about Harry returning to Hogwarts. While he is there he is hearing Voldemort speaking to him and he is trying to tell him the Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Harry then has to get into the chamber of secrets and defeat Tom Ridle (Voldemort). The other book I read was Soul Surfer by Bethany Hamilton. This book focused on Bethany Hamilton's life of surfing before her attack, during the attack, and after the attack and the way she was so strong. When Bethany Hamilton was about 13 years old she had her arm bitten off by a shark while surfing off the coast of Kaui, Hawaii. The book tells about how show stayed strong through everything and never gave up on her dream of becoming a pro surfer. I loved both of these books because of their exciting events. Both of these books also had great endings that made me want to know what happened afterwards.

Anonymous said...

I read "Dash and Lily's Book of Dares" and "Twenty Boy Summer". Both of the books i read were cute girly books, but completely different. "Twenty Boy Summer" was about two best friends who suffer a tragic accident. Then go to California and discover things they never knew about there friends family and each other. While on the other side "Dash and Lily Book of Dares" is about a winter romance. Two strangers fall in love over a small red notebook. They had never met each other and only communicate threw the notebook until, they finally meet.

I liked that both books can relate to real life. Both books were wrighten by different authors but they had similar wrighting styles. As i read the books i felt like i was part of the story and there living the story i was reading.

Anonymous said...

Two books that i read over the summer were Brian's Return by Gary Paulsen and Where She Went by Gayle Forman.These books were very intersting. Brians return was about a boy who loved the wilderness so much he lived there for a summer. The wilderness was his way of life. He didn't want anything to do with the big city.It was peacful and quiet. this is what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. This was very interesting because people now a days can't live with out the city. They love to go camping but just the though of living in the wilderness for a long time , not very many teens like that. Where she went, was also a very fun and good book. The author kept you gessing. You thought somthing was going to happen and the opisite thing happend.In the book a girl is playing the cello in a consert for juliard when her and her ex boyfriend meet again. They spend the eavning together having fun. she was in a great car crash and lost all of her family. Her ex was also a musicion.they fell in love again and it was juat a raelly great book.you never new what was going to happen in ethier book.

Anonymous said...

I read "One Day" by David Nicholls, and "Playing hurt" by Holly Shindler. I personally liked One Day more. One day is becoming a movie coming out August 19,2011. Its a love story based on the 1980's and they spent one day together and can not stop thinking about eachother. Also i love what they taught me through both of the books. They were both well written.

Anonymous said...

the two books i read were "Bad Girls don't die" by Katie Alender and "Revelations" by Melissa Da La Cruz. i really enjoyed both of these books because i love book that are mysterious, suspenseful and a little creepy. "Bad Girls don't die" is about about a girls named alexis and her 13 year old sister Kasey who finds a doll in their basement from the previous owner and the doll ends up being something a little different then what anyone could expect and it changers Kasey for the worst. "Revelations" is the third book in the series "Blue Bloods", its about a girl named schuyler who is a vampire. she is continuing her journey with some of the other blue blood vampires to find the corrupted and evil, silver blood vampires and kill them before they kill everyone else. These too books really made me feel as if i were there in the book playing the main characters in each book, Alexis and Schulyer.

Anonymous said...

over the summer i read "out of my mind" and "mocking bird" both of these books were about kids with disabilities who were struggling threw school. in "out of my mind" it was about a girl who couldn't walk, talk, or even go to the bathroom on her own. she would make random noises and couldn't control it. people thought she wasnt smart because she couldnt talk. they had no idea she was the smartest kid in the class. eventually she finally gets a machine that can talk for her just by her pressing buttons. everybody was shocked, she went to state competitions because she was so smart. but then her life turns upside down. her class leaves her behind in the state competitions in d.c and her baby sister gets hit by a car. in the book "mocking bird" its about a girl who is struggling with the loss of her brother and her dad is depressed all the time. she has a disability and it makes it hard for her to make friends she finaly makes a friend but she still is confused on what the word closure means and how to find closure in her life.

Anonymous said...

Over the summer I read the books My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult and New Moon by Stephanie Myers. I had heard people comment that My Sisters Keeper is an excellent book and I decided it would be a great book to read over the summer. My favorite part was that each chapter was a different character in the book and I liked that because I had a chance to see each characters’ prospective on what is going on in the book. Something I learned that was shocking to me was that no matter how old you are, you have a lot of choice. The books content that really mattered to me was that no matter how bad the situation was they still had hope that their daughter would get better. In the book New Moon, I enjoyed the plot and how the author really tried to connect with the reader. I learned how true people can be to each other even if its life or death. Lastly, the content on the book that really stood out to me was how much a person could care for another and how they will do anything for the other person because they love them.

abbeys said...
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abbeys said...

I read The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks, and I read Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks. Sparks is my favorite author, due to his heart warming love stories and intense action, and chapters, he has kept me reading all summer. These two books were about true love. They all had their "awwwww" moments, but they had the intense moments when i was on the edge of my seat while reading them. Safe Haven was about a woman who had escaped from her abusing husband. She escapes to a small town and falls in love with another man. Her husband tracks her down and finds her. He attacks the man, her and the man's children. In the end the husband is gone, and they all live happily ever after. The Last Song was somewhat different. The main character Ronnie moves in with her dad for the summer. she eventually finds true love, but she learns her father gets very ill. Things get tough but in the end she spends the rest of college with her boyfriend. I learned that you need to cherish life from these books, because you don't know if you get to do the things that you want to do.

Anonymous said...

hi