The Mysterious Benedict Society part 2

        I'm sorry that I don't have another book to blog about, but I haven't been able to finish this one yet.  Where did I leave off?  Oh yes, I left off where Raynie just finished his first test.  Remember how I told you that he was nervous. Well, there was nothing really for him to be nervous about becasue he was the only one who passed the test in that class.  When the "Pencil woman"- the woman that Raynie nicknamed who gives out the tests- told the class this, they went balistic.  They were so distressed and confused that they were yelling all over the room, but in the end the finally left.  The Pencil woman told Raynie there was another test and that he must be at the Monk building at 12 o'clock and he can't be late or have more than one pencil or he will fail, and then she left.  Of course, she didn't tell him where this building was, as it is still part of the test, so Raynie went out to search.  When he finally finds the building, Raynie encounters a girl named Rhonda who lost her pencil down the gutter.  With nearly time running out Raynie makes the decision to help her.  He breaks his pencil and gives her the sharpened end, because the pencil woman said there would be a pencil sharpener at the testing area.  In return the girl offers the test answers to him, but he politely declines.  

      Upon recieving the test, Reynie wishes he should have taken those anwers; the questions were impossible.  In the end however, he follows directions and reads all of the questions and finds a pattern.  The answer to question number one is in question number 20.  He again, is the only one who passes the test, even though the girl had the answers; which puzzled Raynie.  Now he is told to wait there for others who passed.  He meets a shy boy named Sticky who didn't find the puzzle in the test and just knew the answers already, and a loud, adventurous girl named Kate; they all immediately become friends.  The wierd thing was that Sticky and Kate both encountered Rhonda too.  They try to ponder this, but can't come up with the correct reason why.
    After doing two more rediculous tests-one where they had to find their way through a house full of rooms that looked exactly the same, and another one where the had to make their way across a floor where they could only touch yellow squares- they were finally ushered into a room where they found out a little bit about what the heck was going on.  They also met a new comer named Constance.  If you want to know why they had to take those rediculous tests, then you should read the book! It is really interesting and the ideas for the tests are really cool; I don't understand how they came up with them.
     So Far I am in love with this book, it is like a mystery, because you never know what is going to happen! You would love the book too, and there are two more after this one, so give it a try.

The Author



This is the books official website: http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/features/mysteriousbenedictsociety/index.html

If you would like to purchase this book on amazon here is the link:
http://www.amazon.com/Mysterious-Benedict-Society-Trenton-Stewart/dp/0316003956

Barns and noble interview with the author, Trenton Lee Stewart:
http://media.barnesandnoble.com/?fr_story=b76229daab3e9d0539498b44eb4549bf835bf2cf&rf=sitemap

 

The Mysterious Benedict Society

     I have just started a new book called The Mysterious Benedict Society and so far it is good for the 12 pages that I have read.  The novel is about a boy named Raynie who is orphaned. He is an 11 year old boy, is "of average height, of an average complextion, his brown hair [is] of average length, and he wore average clothes,"(pg. 7) and yet he is beyond average.  This boy is very special in smarts and maturity.  He is poilite and kind to everyone he meets and yet, he gets bullied at his orphanage for being different.  Raynie is ment to be at an advanced school, but the orphanage director, Mr. Rutger, "insisted Reynie would be far better here, with a tutor, than at an advanced school,"(pgs. 5-6), and that he believed Raynie was comfortable at the orphanage; when really Raynie only felt alone. 

       Insted of going to an advanced school, Raynie got the privledge of having the nice tutor, Miss Perumal.  They have tea and read the newspaper in the morning and work throughout the day on the rest of his studies.  She is even teaching him Tamil and usually speaks Tamil to him when telling stories.      
        One morning while reading the paper, Raynie catches a headline saying how "things have gotten desperatly out of control...the school systems, the budget, the pollution, the crime, the weather...why, everything, in fact, was a complete mess, and ctizens everywhere were clamoring for a mayor-no, a dramatic-improvement in government,"(pg. 3). Then, he catches a headline adressed to children stating, "ARE YOU A GIFTED CHILD LOOKING FOR SPECIAL OPPORTUNITES?"(pg. 3).  At first Raynie is iffy on the decision and thinks this might interest him, but his tutor convinces him completely by telling him how special and talented he is. 
       By getting a little approval from Mr. Rutger, because Raynie convinced him that he just wants to see what its about and Mr. Rutgar believes there is no harm in that, Raynie gets to take the test.  He is driven in the morning with his tutor to the testing building and is left there with luck and a pencil.  Raynie finishes the test just in time but doubts he did well by overhearing other students talk about their answers.

       That is how far I have gotten, but I predict that Raynie will get 100% on the test.  I believe he has potential and also that the book would really stink if we didn't know what the special opportunities were.  I also predict that the mysterious benedict society is made up of the kids who pass the test and maybe adults who are already enrolled and are trying to make a new society because theirs right now is in chaos. 

         The author of this book is Trenton Lee Stewart and this book is also a New York Times Bestseller.  If you would like to learn more about this interesting novel go to: http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/features/mysteriousbenedictsociety/index.html 

There are also two other books in the series called: The Mysterious Benedict Society ans the Prisoners Dilemma and The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey.

The Invention of Everything Else...by: Samantha Hunt

     This story takes place in the Big Apple; A.K.A New York City.  It starts by showing the life of a 80 something year old man, who just happens to be the inventor of the radio.  He doesn't have the life that people would of thought he would have.  He lives in a hotel room, and not a Penthouse either.  Why is he living like this? Well, the 80 year old man, named Nicola Tesla, said that it was all because a man named Guglielmo Marconi stole his idea and told the world that he was the one who invented the radio.  So insted of living the good life, Nicola spends his days cooing to pigions and even talking to them; like he can hear so well that he can hear the voice vibrations coming from pigions. 

    In the next chapter the reader is introduced to a new life, the life of Louisa and her father Walter.  Louisa is a grown woman who lives with her father in a apartment in NYC.  Louisa works in the Hotel New Yorker; which happens to be the same hotel Nicola Tesla resides in.  She discovers Mr. Tesla on her daily rounds as a maid and he facinates her. She found out about him when he was doing one of his experiments that sucked all of the power out of the whole hotel. That didn't make the hotel very happy, but he still remained a mystery to Louisa.

       One night her dad tells Louisa that they have to go to this live radio station viewing which talks about science related topics.  He says that his good friend Azor Carter is going to be on it and has invited them to come and see him.  When they get there they find out why he is being interviewed, he created a time machine and it actually works.
        The book then goes back to the life of Nicola Tesla before he thought of the radio and how his journey first started.  He first had to come to America and was requested by a high powered man from where he lives to go to Mr. Edison about his idea about the radio.  Mr. Tesla comes across this idea when his ears become super sensitive to everything around him.  Then he learned to accept it and saw the contraption right before his eyes that would make the radio work, an alternating current engine.  So, Nicola goes to America and works with Mr. Edison for a while, but when he brings up his idea, Mr. Edison just laughed at him.  This made him mad so he quite and insted went, i think to a construction company, and dug a hole for two years.  After the two years a man called down to him to tell Mr. Tesla that Mr. A.K. Brown of Western Union Telegraph Comany wanted to start the Tesla Electric Company with him.  His waiting finally paid off.
        So far, this is all I know about the book, but I will continue on to find out more about Louisa and Nicola.  This wouldn't of been my first choice of books, but as I read it, I found it actually really interesting.  I have to mix the book genres up every once in a while, so I thought, why not give this one a shot.  It takes a little longer to read then my previous books, but it is paying off in the end.  Right now I feel really bad for Nicola, because he is just an innocent man who was robbed of his fame for the invention that he had created.  I predict that Louisa will use the time machine and go back in time to find Mr. Tesla and then she will finally know why he s a little wierd.  Then I think the two of them will become good friends. I can't wait to read more and meet the Guglielmo Marconi that stole all of Mr. Tesla's work. 

Here is a New York Times book review of The Invention of Everything Else-

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/books/review/Thomas-t.html

More reviews about this book at-
 http://www.bookbrowse.com/arc/arc_reviews/detail/?arc_number=17

Samantha Hunts website that gives book reviews, about the author information, you can purchase the book on her site and more- http://www.samanthahunt.net/tesla2.html

Samantha Hunt

If you would like to purchase this book, the hard cover is $18.72 and the paper back is $11.16. Here is the website that brings you to purchacing the book on amazon.com-

http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Everything-Else-Samantha-Hunt/dp/061880112X    

Here is a website for purchasing it on Barns and Noble- http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Invention-of-Everything-Else/Samantha-Hunt/e/9780618801121            

        

                                      

The Luxe, The Best Book Ever

     New York City, 1899.  High societies, ball gowns and strict manners.  This book ecompases the world of wealthy, well-to-do families and the inferiors who live in their shadows. 

      Elizabeth Holand, of the Holands, is one of these wealthy people.  She is the most proper and well raised 17 year old that you would of ever met.  This girl is also a fatherless daughter.  The one thing that the Holland family didn't know however, was that the father of the Hollands had a huge debt before he died.  Mrs. Holland relayed the news to her two daughters, Elizabeth and Diana, but what she really wanted to tell them is that Elizabeth is the only one who can save their family.  If she marries rich, then they will be fine.  

        Another wealthy man, Henry Schoonmaker also has a problem.  His father is making him go and marry Elizabeth because he wantes his son to have a respectable wife and because he is running for office.  Elizabeth has to accept the offer, even though she hates Henry; Henry is secretly in love with Diana(Elizabeth's sister) and Elizabeth is secretly in love with her coachman, which is very forbidden.  Will Elizabeth do what's best for her family? Will Diana steel Henry away from her sister? Will Elizabeth run away with her coachman? Who really knows in this society.

   So far I am head over heels in love with this book.  I love the time period it takes place in.  I wish that I could live in this period; I've always wanted to go to a ball.  It is also ver interesting how some of the rich people act.  There is one part in the book where a weathly girl named Penelope thanks her new maid and then curses to herself because she knew she shouldn't of gave her too much praise. Isn't it shocking how rude she was? I guess back then there were two types of people, the wealthy and the poor, and when the rich talked to the poor, which wasn't often, the rich had to put them in their place; how sad. 

free read reading review

I just finished another one of my free reads......shocking, I know. Hahaha... This one was the second book to Leaving Paradise, called Return to Paradise.  If you like books that are romantic, but adventurous at the same time, then this book is for you.  Well, of coarse you have to read the first book first, but you can look forward to this one :).  I don't want to give too much information out since this is the second book, but basically it is about a girl who got hit by a car and is trying to get through her bad memory by going to a RE- start program.  The boy that supposibly hit her actually had a fling with her, but left (first book), he thought that if he left then everyone would be better off.  Boy, was he wrong! He was living on his own, but happened to be spending the night with the wrong crowd, drug deelers.  To make sure he didn't have to go to juvie again, he had to join the RE-start program.  You probably know what happens next... the girl(maggie) and boy(caleb) reunit, but it isn't as tearfull as you may think. I am not going to say anything else, or I will be giving the book away.  Let me just say that the relationship between these two people isn't the most realistic relationship compared to everyday boy-girl relationships, but it is certainly a book that can't be put down!

One of my choice reads

What my choice read was and I just finished was called Impossible.  To tell you the truth, it wasn't the best book for me, but maybe those who read this might find intrest.  It all starts out with this girl named lucy who lives a semi normal life with her foster parents.  What's not normal is that her crazy mother who lives on the streets named Miranda keeps popping up in her life.  Lucy doesn't know why and its driving her crazy because every time Miranda makes an appearance, it brings her whole family down.  This is because her parents were once friends with Miranda before she went crazy.  All Lucy knows is the folk song that Miranda always sings and Miranda told Lucy's Dad, before she went crazy, that she wanted Lucy to know the song too.  The song tells of nearly impossible tasks a woman must do for a man and if she doesn't then "she and all of her daughters will be treasures of mine".  One day Lucy finds Miranda's diary and everything falls into place.  The song that has haunted her from birth is a curse that each daughter that is a scaterbourgough (not sure if I spelled her last name right) has.  Every daughter gets pregnant at 17 and if she doesn't perform the tasks she too will go crazy.  This story tells of the struggles, and new truths of this one girl and when her old friend Zach comes to live with them from college..It just adds a whole knew level of realization for Lucy .  For me, I didn't like the whole crazy Mom part, it kind of made me sad. But I have to tell those who might look into this book, it gets better by the end, I swear!

The Reading Roller Coaster

     Reading was never in my vocabulary growing up.  I used to cringe away when someone pulled out a book, or go crazy when I HAD to read something for school.  I remember in fourth grade reading a book on the couch and calling to my mom, "Moooommmm, I just finished two pages, can I stop now."  I guess you could of called me the biggest anti- reader in the world. Well, I was until seventh grade. 
     In seventh grade my whole world changed when I had to read Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.  Technically it was the summer of seventh grade, and having the experience I've had with other books, I was looking at this one just the same.  I was saying to myself, I am going to agonize and suffer my way through the next 200 pages, or so, until I want to kill myself (not literally).  I was proven wrong, as I opened that book and started to read, I was hooked. I was in the story for the first time. My mom was always an avid reader and tried to tell me that you go away to another world, and now I finally understood what she meant.  I wasn't reading for school anymore, I was reading to find out how Percy Jackson fights the monsters, his crush on Annabel, and about his buddy Grover.  Then all of a sudden there were no more pages left.  I was crushed.  So, I said to myself, what do I do now.  Well, I did what any hooked reader would do, run to the book store.
      I kept reading the Percy Jackson series till I had to keep waiting for the books to come out.  Don't get me wrong, I eventually finished the series, but it was taking FOREVER, and I am an impatient teenager.  I started to read the book, The Outsiders, with teenage boys who were in gangs, but I soon flew through that one too. 
      Now I knew I had a problem, and the only way to fix this problem was to get another book.  To fill the emptiness that I felt, on vacation I happened to stumble by a book store.  I thought, what the heck, and went to the teen section.  There on the shelf stood the one book that has curved my reading habits until now, Twilight.  This was before it became popular.  I heard about it from one of my friends and decided to check it out.  When I got to the house that night I started reading, and reading, and reading.  All of a sudden I'm like 80 pages in.  I didn't want to do any more activities outside, (water tubing, fishing and water skiing), all I wanted to do was read.  It was romantic, adventurous, thrilling and I had it all in the palm of my hands.
      From then on, I have been reading those action fiction romances for teens.  Also with reading Twilight, I grew to love books about vampires.  As my reading desire intensified, it also expanded.  I started reading books about witches and immortal beings as well.  I was just spell bound by these teen romance novels, and I still stand in that position today.
      I want to keep reading all of my life. I want to travel the world without leaving my house.  Reading has truly changed my life and my friend's as well when I showed her Twilight.  We love reading so much that sometimes when we hang out we just read.  Aren't we exiting people? Hahaha.  I guess my goal in life for reading is to have a huge library in my house with all of the books that I have read, and more that have to be read.  I would refill it every month so the adventures live on, because I don't read a book more than once.  You are probably saying, "WHAT!! You don't read a book more than once?" Yes, I don't.  This is only because I feel like I already know what is going to happen, so I want a new adventure. 
      Right now I am currently book less, and am slowly withering away inside, I guess that's my problem kicking in.  You know what that means :) BOOK STORE!!!!!