So, with the review written for this book, now exactly 50% of my rated books are reviewed. Note to self: 01/10/11, Goodreads member since 05/07: This is my Goodreads review #1499 and my 2,998th rated book. I can see some adults being irritated by this book and some kids not being incredibly enthusiastic, but it worked for me. It is a good read aloud book with a lot of opportunity to use voice inflection and acting as the reader reads. I could see discussions starting about numbers & counting, working collaboratively, connections between those with differences, and on and on. There is a story, and for some kids it will serve as a springboard to practicing counting, and some will appreciate the story on its own. The book is colorful and the pages are appealing to view. Two through nine stay in the same bright colors on every page. Zero is gray, as is one, which is a slightly different shade of gray. My favorite line is “Zero felt empty inside.” Zero is a character with a personality in this book. The counting starts from 1 to 7 then 1-9, then 10, 20, etc. I was sufficiently impressed that I just reserved One at the library, another earlier book by this author that seems to be a companion book to this one. The story and illustrations are enjoyable and educational and a bit philosophical. I loved the premise and liked the execution well enough.
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Romance makes way for enchantment, action and violence as the heroines fight for their happy endings and all is not what it seems. Written by three popular YA authors - Liz Braswell, Jen Calonita and Elizabeth Lim - who all love fantasy and fairy-tales, the Twisted Tale series has the magic of the Disney films but with dark and creepy twists. What if Aladdin had never found the lamp, Sleeping Beauty had never woken up or the Sea Witch had never defeated the Little Mermaid? Would Jasmine and Aladdin turn freedom fighters against oppressive Jafar? Could Aurora find a way to control her dreams and defeat Maleficent? And would Ariel be able to return to a world she never thought she’d see again, overthrow the villain and win back her voice? Disney's Twisted Tales take our favourite heroines: Ariel, Belle, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Mulan and Princess Jasmine and imagines a very different story unfolding for each of them. Have you ever found yourself wondering about the back story behind your favourite Disney heroines? What if things weren’t really as they seemed? This series that turns the classic fairy-tales on their heads is a must for Disney fans and a delight for all Young Adult readers. On her first day, Abigail finds herself in the midst of a thrilling case: A serial killer is on the loose. Abigail has a gift for noticing ordinary but important details, which makes her perfect for the position of Jackaby's assistant. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained with a keen eye for the extraordinary-including the ability to see supernatural beings. Newly arrived in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892, and in need of a job, Abigail Rook meets R. Jackaby, investigator of the unexplainable, and his new assistant, Abigail Rook, against a supernatural serial killer. The police are convinced it's an ordinary villain, but Jackaby-who has the ability to see supernatural beings- knows that the foul deeds are the work of a supernatural creature.īook Synopsis The first book in the New York Times bestselling paranormal mystery series pits R.F. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained. Abigail Rook, a newly hired assistant, helps R. About the Book A serial killer is on the loose in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892. "Second president of the United States John Adams. There were too many great horror comics to fit them all into October's buddy reads, so we're just kind of reheating the leftovers. I have the second volume, so we'll see how it goes from here. I liked all the characters minus the John Adams musical bullshit. I can feel the Hamilton fans swarming me now. So when I read the author's note at the end and he said he got the idea from Hamilton, I actually laughed out loud. But I just assumed there was something pertinent I was missing because, let's face it, I'm usually missing something pertinent. The main thing I couldn't figure out was why John Adams as the head vampire? To me, it seemed kind of random and smelled a bit of that Hamilton musical. The angry father/son stuff felt familiar, but the cop thing with the vampire spin on it pushed the dynamic far enough away from other things I've read that it made it seem like a very fresh sort of story. I actually liked this quite a bit more than I thought I would. They ward off evil spirits.” Someone had thrown his shirt over the head of one of the beasts. There was a nisei in their platoon, Sato, whose older brother had fought with the 442nd Infantry Regiment in World War II. The whip-crack of the shots had flayed the outermost layer of courage from their backs they were closer now to their bones.Ī pair of stone lions guarded the entrance to the pagoda, lichen-clad beasts with square heads and heavy paws. Earlier that day, searching an abandoned village, they had taken sniper fire. He passed olive shirts and trousers drying on rocks and bushes, spread like the skins of killed beasts. He walked up the hill toward the accordion-roofed temple where they were billeted. His bare feet stood white-toed on the curved backs of the stones, eon-smoothed, so like the ones on the mountain of his home. Rory stood from the pool, feeling the cool water stream like a cloak from his form. Their dog tags jingled at their necks, winking under the Korean sun. Still, the Marines washed quickly, feeling like prey without their steel helmets and green fatigues, their yellow canvas leggings that laced up at the sides. Howitzers were perched on the hills around them, like guardian monsters. They crouched in their skivvies, soaping and scrubbing the August grit from the creases and crannies of their bodies. The platoon had dammed a pool in the stream. There was the stone pagoda, three-tiered, built on a small hill over a stream that shone like pebbled glass. Wildly new and adventurous, Yu's debut is certain to send shock waves of wonder through literary space-time. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him - in fact it may even save his life. It's called, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he's the author. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. When he's not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. That's where Charles Yu, time travel technician - part counselor, part gadget repair man - steps in. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award winner Charles Yu delivers his debut novel, a razor-sharp, ridiculously funny, and utterly touching story of a son searching for his father. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu One who treats the team and pretty much everyone else around him like shit. He’s 12 years her senior, but as soon as she lays eyes on him, all the feelings of love an admiration she felt for him as a fan come flooding back. And then her coach makes an announcement: Kulti, now two years into retirement, is coming on board the Pipers as an assistant coach. Thanks to an off-the-field scandal with a former teammate that led to her getting booted from the national team, and the general manager of the Pipers’ not-so-thinly-veiled disdain for her, Sal has been unable to evolve as an athlete in the way she dreamed. Now in her late 20s and playing soccer professionally for a team called the Pipers, her athletic career has started to plateau. Houston-based Sal and her family grew up worshipping soccer superstar Reiner Kulti - think: David Beckham, but German - to the point that Sal was inspired to take up the sport herself as a kid. At one point I was impressed that they actually broke into a lab and used chromatography to identify myristicin, a hallucinogenic chemical derived from nutmeg. Considering what it is, I found it to be suitably entertaining. But the plot of this one is quite different from the 1939 movie of the same name. In spite of that she still manages to work on solving the mystery and it does indeed involve the discovery of a hidden staircase in the home of an old grand aunt of one of her classmates. So the story involves Nancy getting in trouble, enough so she has to do community service. That angers some who have a lot at stake financially and that causes the tension in the story. There a company is trying to establish a railway line through the town and Nancy's dad is one of those fighting it for the sake of the community. Her mother has died, she and her attorney dad move from Chicago to a fictional community, River Heights. In the extras the actress herself calls this an origin story although that might not have been the intent. Cute freckled Sophia Lillis is Nancy Drew in this modern version. Key to solving the mystery was a hidden staircase in the old house. It involved a house that someone was trying to get the occupants, two old spinster sisters, to leave. In 19 four Nancy Drew movies were made, one of them had this same name. The CW network has a darker, young adult Nancy Drew weekly TV series so I watched this one to compare what is done with Nancy as a 16-yr-old vs a young adult. I watched this at home on BluRay from my public library.
Welcome to the life of an audiobook narrator-a voice inside your head for hire. Daunting? Are you psychosomatically parched? Keep going. Now, think about reading a full page out loud. It's just three meager sentences, but your mouth is probably feeling a little dry. There aren't any big words, foreign terms, or unruly surnames, though vocalizing it is still a chore. As a test, take the paragraph above and read it out loud. You guys make a great team.Īttempt to read something aloud, however, and that quiet teamwork is torn to shreds. You have your own little narrator inside your head who probably sounds like you think you sound (or how you would like to sound), and you’ve likely developed a pretty good rapport with him or her over the years. Internalized reading, like what you are doing right now, is a pretty comfortable pursuit. |