Friday, March 1, 2019

Semiprecious Book Review


The book Semiprecious by D. Anne Love takes place in Texas in the early 1960’s and is about a twelve year old girl named Garnet Hubbard who is dropped off with her aunt, along with her older sister, Opal, while her mom pursues her dream of becoming a singer in Nashville. Even though her mom promises to come back for them as soon as she can, the girls come to realize they’ve been abandoned in their aunt’s small town in Oklahoma. In their new school, beautiful Opal falls into the popular group right away, but Garnet struggles to fit in. When Garnet finds her aunt is very poor and can barely afford to feed them, Garnet decides it’s up to her to knock some sense into her mother and bring her home. This book is a story about a girl who faces the challenges of near poverty, social acceptance, and self-identity, all while trying to patch her family together.
                D. Anne Love does an excellent job writing this story. The language she uses is very easily understood and is an accurate representation of how people talked in the south in the 1960’s. It contains some bits of information that pertain to the politics and problems going on in this time period, such as racism, communism, and putting men on the moon. These topics aren’t the main focus of the novel, but enrich the reader’s experience as they go through the storyline. People aged 10-14, particularly middle schoolers, will especially love and relate to this novel, but anyone is capable of enjoying this work of literature. Garnet is a funny, relatable character that readers will have fun getting to know, and the book causes the reader to question how they would react in Garnet’s place. Overall, this book is absolutely worth having in the library collection because not only will readers be absorbed in the plot of the story, but they will find the characters pleasantly relatable and will be thinking about the book even when they have finished. Lilia L.; Teen Reviewer

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Sir Charlie Book Review


Sir Charlie can be best described as a biography with a twist. Throughout the novel, much information is offered about Charlie Chaplin, but is portrayed in a more entertaining fashion.

The author, Sid Fleischman, uses exquisite language from chapters 1 to 38, from the childhood of Charlie until his death. Sid Fleischman ends every chapter with a segment of Charlie’s life, strongly gripping the reader into the next chapter. The author described each part of Charlie’s life, and is sure to scrutinize carefully. He carefully described how he is a perfectionist who had multiple wives, mostly met from his film set. According to the book, some scenes he would re-shoot up to 100 times, which the author is sure to include. He even described how he was forbidden from going back to the United States, yet was put on a star in Hollywood. Besides all the drama Charlie was involved in, he was quite the comedian, as the book states on the cover, “Chaplin, The Funniest Man in the World” and had quite the salary, also. The author includes these important details briefly, especially how he went from rags to riches. 

Clearly, Sid Fleischman is a skilled writer who has the ability to shock his or her readers with his advanced language, and the complex life of Charlie Chaplin. I surely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the lives of 20’s icons. Tyler M.; Teen Reviewer