Maus

Oscar: Maus is a two-part graphic novel about how it was during the time of the Nazis. It is pretty much about a family that goes through concentration camps. They eventually end up in Auschwitz, the most infamous of all concentration camps. The main character is also the author who is talking to his father about his experiences. I would recommend it to people who want to learn about the Holocaust and are not afraid of getting devastated by the consequences of learning about it.

HM: Yeah, pretty much I recommend it to people who don’t get scarred from the things that happened. It is non-fiction and after reading the books, you can see that Art Spiegelman, the author of them is also a journalist of his father’s history. And his father in the book is constantly riding a stationery bike which shows how he’s stuck in a place, going in a circle. But it’s a really good graphic novel about pretty much the time of the Nazis, the Jews and concentrations camps and the horrible things that happened in there. Pretty much everything is horrible. It’s horrible and terrifying and makes you cry.

Reviewed by Oscar and HM – 10th & 12th grades

Find Maus at the library.

How I Built This

How I Built This – this is a really good podcast, too. It is also on NPR and it talks about start-ups. They interview people who started successful businesses like Airbnb and Ben & Jerry’s and Clif Bar and Patagonia? A typical segment is probably 15 minutes but the whole podcast is longer. They do these in little segments and you can skip the ads and basically it’s really good and interesting. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in small businesses or just inspiration of how companies run, I guess.

Reviewed by Lucky – 15th grade

Code Switch

I am going to recommend some good podcasts here. The first one is Code Switch – it’s really good. It talks about microagressions and cultural/race topics. They do a really good job about getting all the way there, answering the question. They have a beginning question and a little bit at the beginning, and you think “that’s easy enough.” But it’s not; it’s never that easy and they’ll just keep going. They really interview a lot of different people!

Reviewed by Lucky – 15th grade

The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Lawrence: I’d like readers to read The Omnivore’s dilemma where they give you specific details of what’s in your food and what are called genetically modified organisms. GMOs can be cancerous towards your health and to the community at hand. Basically everything you eat is made out of corn and not 100% real. I definitely recommend this book to people who like health and fitness and I would also recommend it to people who like to eat and wonder what’s in their food. The book is a non-fiction book, so that’s true, too.

Jonathan: Me and my brother both read this and I learned that they put gunpowder and the stuff you find in nukes into the fertilizer that they use to grow food. And also sometimes when they run out of food for cows they feed them cow brains and that is what caused mad cow disease. And also to get good beef they have to feed the cows corn and once the cows eat the corn they make poop pyramids which they all step in. It’s very unsanitary. The author said that most likely after reading the book you might become a vegetarian, or a vegan; I don’t want to become a vegetarian, though. But I do not want to eat McDonald’s cheeseburgers anymore.

Reviewed by Lawrence and Jonathan – 9th & 11th grades

Find The Omnivore’s Dilemma at the library.

A Long Walk To Water

Lawrence: This book, ok, it’s not happy. Well, actually it is a little happy and sad. It’s about a boy named Salva and how he lived in a wonderful village in Sudan. But then his home got invaded by another tribe and he got separated from his parents and that is how he became known as one of the lost boys of Sudan. Later in the book it has a happy ending but mostly I would recommend it to people who like sad and depressing books. And mischief.

Jonathan: Wait, tell them about the second part of the story too.

Lawrence: No spoilers!

Jonathan: No, not that. I mean how there are two people in the book – there was one side and there was another – the girl.

Lawrence: Oh yeah! It was a two-part story about a fictional girl and a non-fictional man. (That is Salva) but I forgot about Nya.

Andrea: So what do we need to know about that part?

Jonathan: Well, it explained the hardships of living in the Sudan after the events of Salva Dut’s story. Much later he becomes something I can’t explain without spoiling. But after maybe 18 years there is a little girl named Nya and she lives in a village but all the water there is dirty so usually she has to walk all day and night to fetch water. But it doesn’t end like that. What happens between Salva and Nya with the water – that’s the story.

Lawrence: This is the first story I’ve known where historical fiction and non-fiction intertwine at some point and it’s really interesting. And it does have a happy climax, though, as he finds his family again and he’s living with an American family in New York.

Reviewed by Jonathan and Lawrence – 9th and 11th grade

Find A Long Walk to Water at the library.

Unbroken

This book is about Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner. And one day he has to go to war in WWII. And he becomes a POW – true story. Well, based on a true story. I want to recommend it because it’s full of action and I like action books and they’re really fun to read. I would recommend it to people who like military or war books. But it’s not a happy story – it’s a story that’s full of pain and perseverance.

Reviewed by Lawrence – 10th grade

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I Am Malala

I am Malala is about a girl who lives in Pakistan. There’s a lot of war there and the girls her age can’t go to school so they don’t have education. Her dad owns a school there and she refuses to just stop learning and going to school. So every day she goes to school, no matter how many shots she hears outside or anything. She’s determined to go to school. But the thing is that there’s a Taliban and they go around telling people what they can and can’t do and so girls can’t really go outside from their homes because the Taliban would hit anyone that didn’t follow their rules. They would kill women who didn’t follow the rules either. She had a little blog that she would write on every day and one day the Taliban noticed it. They didn’t know who it was at first but then they found out it was Malala. So one day she was going to school in a bus with her friends and…well, read the book.

Reviewed by Celine – 8th grade

Find I Am Malala at the library.

Unbroken

This book is about a very energetic child who loves to run. But as he grows up he runs around stealing stuff and breaking into places and he is just all over the place. At one point he gets chased by the police and his brother realizes that he can really run. But he also realizes he doesn’t have to run for those things or from those things, he can just run! When he gets in trouble with the Principal he is told he can’t be on any sports teams, but his brothers asks if he could be put on a running team. The Principal finally gives in and puts him on a running team and he loves it. He loves it and he’s good at it and he eventually goes into the Olympics in Berlin. But World War II breaks out and he has to join the Air Force and fight against Japan. And this is where the book starts getting really sad. Lots of people die and his plane crashes. But he survives and ends up on a raft for 47 days without any food. And then finally he gets captured by the Japanese and has to figure it all out. And that’s where I will stop because I don’t want to do spoilers. But I loved this book. I recommend it to high schoolers and older teens and grown-ups because it is more sophisticated. And it’s not all serious, there are some jokes in there and things so it’s also funny, kind of. It was a good book and a true story. It was really good as an audiobook because the narrator has such a unique voice. I’m really scared to see the movie because it’s really depressing and scary and think the dark parts might be too dark as a movie. But you should read the book!

Reviewed by Anna – 9th grade

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Bite of the Mango

Bite of the Mango is about a girl who lives in a village in Africa. Her parents both die and her uncle takes her in but he’s harsh. He says that she is ugly and because her skin has spots he can’t sell her, and so he gives her to an orphanage. In that orphanage she gets raped and abused; she has her baby but he dies. Then while traveling to a neighboring village she gets attacked by rebels who cut off her hand.  There was a LOT going on. But eventually she makes it to Britain and this is the story of how she goes from being by herself in an orphanage in Sierra Leone to being in Britain.

I liked that it was kind of sad and it made me feel some type of way toward her. It is a true story and it made me empathetic. It is pretty graphic so I recommend it for 7^th graders and up. I haven’t read any book like it or see anything like it.

Reviewed by Celine – 8^th grade

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100 Questions You’d Never Ask Your Parents

I liked this book about sex because it tells you what happens. In there it teaches you how to have protection and what you should allow and what you shouldn’t allow and what you’re supposed to do and different things like that. I recommend it to pre-teens and teenagers. Adults aren’t teenagers but they could read it to teach their children, too. It is an instructional non-fiction book about physical bodies and emotional bodies and relationships – all of it.

Reviewed by AS – 7th grade
Find 100 Questions You’d Never Ask Your Parents at the library