An Enthusiastic Reader

A Great Student

Saniya is just starting grade eight, but already she is busy writing about the books she is reading. She has set high goals for herself this year, and she is well on on her way to achieving them!

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   I recently read a spectacular book called The Writing on the Wall by Wendy Lichtman. The main character, Tess, lives in a small community, spending most of her time at her school where she faces a dilemma: across from her school there is a wall with graffiti on it and when math loving Tess solves a secret math code, she discovers the word ‘arson’. After sending messages back and forth through math graffiti, Tess was given a knife drawing and the words ‘Hi Tess’. Once she was aware that this person knew her identity, Tess was a little frightened but still eager to discover who this mysterious person was and who started a recent fire at her school. But graffiti is illegal and one day when she was so close to getting her answer, her paints were discovered and she was suspended from school. There are all sorts of complications. At the end, Tess discovered that this math and graffiti genius was someone close to her and that the arsonist was no criminal but he was seeking innocent revenge on his mean and sarcastic teacher. I can tell you that this book was one of the most irresistible books I’ve ever read and I think it’ll blow you away too!

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   Have you ever felt wrong or guilty? Have you ever fallen in love? Then you’ll know exactly how Mary Lou Finney feels from the novel Absolutely Normal Chaos by Sharon Creech. Mary Lou was overwhelmed with guilt when she realised that she had misjudged her cousin. Carl Ray, Mary Lou’s cousin, came to visit the Finney family in eastern Ohio and immediately Mary Lou came to the conclusion that he was boring, lazy and simply weird. But what happens when she discovers that he came into town to find his real dad who died just a few days after he met him? On the side, she’s love-struck! Mary Lou knew Alex Cheevey from school as the guy with rosy pink cheeks. Everything changes when they start hanging out and Alex admits that he likes her. With this family drama of Carl Ray’s real dad and Mary Lou and Alex’s little romance what will she do? Read this suspenseful novel to find out! 

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You can learn a lot about life from books.  I learned some useful information from You Just Can’t Help It! by Jeff Szpirglas (Maple Tree Books/ Owlkids Books, 2011). Did you know that your pupils will dilate when you come across something you find interesting? Also, a shade of pink called Baker-Miller Pink is known to upset people causing them to lose focus. Another interesting fact is that tears contain water, oils, proteins, manganese, glucose, salts, mucin, and urea.  Most importantly, I learned that laughter has many benefits including boosting your immune system, giving your heart muscles a workout, lowering your blood pressure and relaxing you. Books are an awesome way to expand your general knowledge and to help you carry along facts that can help you in life.  And this book is a fantastic one to read if you want to learn about the wild and wacky things you do and why you do them!

If you want to learn how to write books responses, click HERE for some useful templates.