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Showing posts from August, 2014

Look Again by Lisa Scottoline

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Look Again by Lisa Scottoline Ellen Gleeson adopted her son, Will, almost two years ago. He was a patient in the cardiac intensive care unit at DuPont Hospital undergoing surgeries for a hole in his septum. Will's mother rarely visited and Ellen learned from Will's caseworker that adoption was a possibility. Ellen legally adopted Will with signatures from both his mother and father and with Will's heart repaired, they were living a happy life as mother and son. Then one day Ellen recognized a face on the white card she received in her mail entitled "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD?" A photo of young boy named Timothy Braverman had an uncanny resemblance to Will. The young boy in the photo had been abducted when he was only a year old. The photo provided was age processed to show what Timothy would look like at his current age. Disturbed by the similarities between the two boys, Ellen begins to investigate into the devastating possibility that the son she believe

Banned Books: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne                 The scarlet letter ‘A’ must forever adorn the chest of Hester Prynne.  She has committed adultery against her husband who she has not seen in over two years, the proof of which is the young child she now holds in her arms. The father of the baby she refuses to disclose adding more ridicule to the situation. But she has chosen to bear the guilt on her own, fully aware of the damage the truth would do to the reputation of the father. Her husband has arrived to the town to find his wife the victim of scrutiny and scorn. Embarrassed and ashamed he chooses to go by a different name, Roger Chillingworth, swears Hester to secrecy and vows to find the man that put him in this position to exact his own revenge. Time in New England passes and the young child, Pearl, begins to grow and experience her life as an outcast next to her mother who wears the highly adorned scarlet letter.                 Hester, though stronger in spir

The Child Thief by Brom

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The Child Thief by Brom               Nick didn’t have any hope of getting away this time. The guys sent by Marko were all too willing to bring him back to the house and be praised for not only bringing the boy alive, but for also bringing the thousands of dollars’ worth of drugs back to the house too. Luckily for Nick, Peter was on the lookout for runaways and had been watching everything unfold. He wanted Nick and he knew saving his life would help Nick trust him. So he killed the guys, setting Nick free. With nowhere else to go, Nick followed Peter to a place where there were no grownups and he would be with other boys just like him. He would have to follow Peter into the mist willingly if he wanted to begin anew. Nick had nothing and no one to go home to so he followed Peter into the Mist and into a world unlike anything he had ever experience before.                 The Child Thief was not at all what I was expecting. When I first heard about this book I knew I woul

Banned Book: Paper Towns by John Green

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Paper Towns by John Green Quentin Jacobsen has lived next to Margo Roth Spiegelman since they were two years old. When they were nine they discovered a dead body together in Jefferson Park. By the time they reached their senior year of high school they barely knew each other. The social circles of life having led them in different directions. Then one day she randomly knocks on his window asking for a favor, which was really an adventure around town. But the next day she has disappeared. She has ran away again to the dismay and anger of her parents. The Spiegelmans have given up on her. Quentin though hasn’t lost faith and is determined to find her. Margo has left clues before when she has disappeared and this time is no different, except they are left for Quentin. He has no idea why she has disappeared or why she has left bread crumbs for him to find but he is hoping he can be brave enough to follow to the end. No matter what he may find. So Quentin Jacobsen is that not po

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

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Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie It was a Friday evening when Peter Pan flew through the window of the Darling family residence, looking for his shadow. He had lost it before when visiting the children and now was searching desperately for it. Once found he tried to stick it back to his foot with a bar of soap. It was in a moment of despair, as he sat there crying, that Wendy Moira Angela Darling woke up from her sleep. And so the adventure began. Peter wanted a mother that could tell him and the Lost Boys stories like that of Cinderella. Wendy wanted to learn to fly. John and Michael wanted adventure. Neverland is where Wendy, John and Michael went with Peter Pan, the boy who never wanted to grow up. What an amazing story of adventure and fancy. This book felt like a taste of whimsy and fantasy. Here is a world where mothers can look into the mind of their children and see their innermost thoughts. A world where dogs can act as children’s nurses with all of the caring and competen

Banned Books:Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain                 Huckleberry Finn was once part of a gang with his best friend, Tom Sawyer. They found some treasure and now he’s got six thousand dollars just sitting in the bank until he’s older. He lives with the Widow Douglas right now and all she wants his for him to be civil, go to school and be educated. She also wants to keep him safe. Huck’s father is a drunk and he’s back in town. He wants his son and his son’s money. After Huck’s father takes custody from the Widow Douglas, Huck eventually comes up with an ingenious plan to get away. He fakes his own death and heads down the river where he finds Jim, Ms. Watson’s slave, on a run for freedom. And so the adventures begin.                 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a story about friendship, trust and loosened morals. Huck isn’t the most reliable narrator. He lies throughout the story and is great at exaggerating points. Jim is a more trustworthy cha

Moloka'i by Alan Brennert

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Moloka’i by Alan Brennert                 The year was 1891. The leper colony, Kalaupapa, located on the island of Moloka’i had been established a few years earlier to isolate those diagnosed with the disease from the rest of the Hawaiian population. Rachel’s uncle, Pono, had been diagnosed and placed in Kalihi hospital undergoing different tests and treatments. Now the health inspector was knocking on Rachel’s door. She had seen this man and others like this one at her school, checking the students for any of the telltale signs of the disease. Her mother, Dorothy, has bandage the small red soar on Rachel’s leg for weeks hoping and praying that it wasn’t leprosy but the marks remained. Rachel was to be taken to Kalihi hospital, just like her Uncle Pono, and if there was no change their greatest fear would come true: Rachel would be sent to Kalaupapa where the disease would eventually kill her as it had so many others.                 Moloka’i is a historical fiction novel th

Banned Book: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley The year is A.F. 632. It is a time of stability. The population is being manufactured so that a certain number of the population is created for each caste system. Children are raised in a State Conditioning Centre where electroshock therapy may be used for conditioning. Hypnotherapy influences the ideas of the population, are executed according to class and change with each age range. Individuality is not promoted. Thinking is not promoted. Everyone is conditioned to feel and act a certain way. Bernard Marx, an Alpha, spends way too much time by himself. His lone activities have made him a source of ridicule. Most people assume something went wrong while he was being created, which would explain why he is so short for an Alpha and why he doesn’t socialize as much. Is he an individual? Bernard ponders that question along with many other ideas. But that’s not what he is supposed to do in this new world. Here everyone belongs to everyone and

The Dinner by Herman Koch

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The Dinner by Herman Koch                 Paul Lohman is at a very prestigious restaurant with his wife Claire, his brother Serge and his Sister-In-Law Babette. Serge, who will be running for Prime Minister in seven months, has invited Paul and Claire to dinner in this unnamed upscale restaurant. This is no ordinary dinner. This dinner has to do with the future of the Lohman family, and not just Serge and his career but the future of Michel, Paul and Claire’s son, and Rick, Serge and Babette’s son. The fifteen year old boys are in the middle of an extremely harmful situation that will severely affect everyone’s lives. It’s time to lay everything on the table to find a solution to their family problem.                 The Dinner was an intense novel filled with family secrets and unimaginable choices. When the unimaginable happens and it involves your child, how should you as a parent react? It’s a very complex question and it is discussed within the pages of this novel.