Mia Inzuzna submitted "Catching Fire" by: Suzanna Collins

Catching Fire is a violent, and sad story about a girl and boy named Katniss, also known as "The Girl on Fire" and Peeta the love interest of Katniss, who just won the hunger games. Which is a survival game between districts1-12. When Katniss and Peeta go back home they realize there is a rebellion starting. Katniss and Peeta notice that they may of helped create this problem. They have started an uprising. 

I recommend reading this book for people that like action adventure books. This book is exciting, thrilling, sad, and romantic at the same time. Towards the end of the book something big and important happens. I just couldn't believe it.

Thank you for submitting your review, Mia!  I quite enjoyed what I read of The Hunger Games series.

Cool

Cool, cool, very cool. I finished all 5 books and wrote reviews.
That was super stressful. Maybe I should stick to watching cartoons.

But NAwW, reading's super fun, I mean, better than writing, right? In writing, you have to pay attention to all these ruuuuules and grammmaarrrr and there's no fun in that, is there? Then you go to read books and it's like, wow, this author has a lot of grammatical errors, did she even go to school?

Then the whole world is thrown out of balance. 

A tidal wave knocks over your house. But something is wrong.  You live nowhere near the ocean. You scream and reach for the feather pillow you hold so near and dear to your soul.  It is being drenched in salty wave water. Then you are under the water. Bubbles come out of your mouth and you laugh. You look to see that you are now a merman. You talk to your new fish tail. "Noah's ark," you say in a happy tone, except it's all bubbly because you're underwater.  You'll have to get used to that, but for now it's your house that's the problem. It's still on its side from being knocked over. You call your army of fish to push to get the house right again, but they're all wimps so they can't do anything.  You cry. You're happy you're underwater so your tears blend in. You're a manly man merman.

AND I JUST WROTE THAT STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND DUDE, IT WAS STILL BETTER THAN SOME OF THE BOOKS I'VE READ. IT HAD IMPROPER GRAMMAR, CHOPPY SENTENCES AND RUN-ONS JUST LIKE THIS ONE BUT JUST BE UNIQUE OKAY? THAT'S ALL I'M GOING TO SAY. BE UNIQUE AND I DON'T CARE HOW GOOD YUOR WRITING IS, YOU'RE A DIAMOND IN MY EYES.
I JUST- PLEASE, CAN A BOOK JUST CATCH MY INTEREST FOR ONCE? SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Review of: Justin Morgan Had a Horse

No.

I really didn't like this book.
I really did not like this book.
Do you comprehend how much pain I went through reading this?

I'm not a horse person, and this book actually made me sit there and think "wow, reading really sucks" because that's how bad it was.
It told the story fine, but it was just so boring! I can't write a formal review of this book. 
Gomenasai. (Nihongo o naratteimasu)

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Please email any book reviews or comments you have overall to students@valleycharterschool.org
If they're good, I'll publish them.
That is the new only way.

Review of: Legends of Animation: Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is my all-time favorite animator and Studio Ghibli is my favorite film studio. His works inspire me to follow my dreams and to never stop being the quirky, creative girl that I was born to be. I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way.  His movies have touched so many. It's really fantastic.

Miyazaki was born on January 9, 1941 in the town of Akebono-cho in Tokyo. His views on the world were shaped mostly by his mother. She would often question things that were socially accepted. Hayao had 3 siblings, and his family owned Miyazaki Airplane, which made rudders for fighter planes during World War 2. These planes were the influence for many creations to come.
In his young life, Miyazaki loved comic books and wished to become a manga artist when he was older. One of his favorite manga artists was Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy.
Later on he decided he wanted to look into and study animation more instead, although he has done some comics throughout his career.

Miyazaki joined other projects before Studio Ghibli and did character designs for television shows and other little things like that.  He always wanted to do more, and was at times disappointed at the lack of originality presented.

His first major film was Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which was adapted from one of his popular manga. It's success led to the formation of Studio Ghibli where Miyazaki could continue to make movies in his vision. American audiences soon caught on and the studio's fame spread worldwide.

The first movie of his I saw was Spirited Away while I was on a field trip with my class in 3rd grade. The beautiful, unique animation caught my interest and I couldn't look away. It was a little weird, but nonetheless gorgeous. From then on, I've been a fan. I saw Ponyo, then Kiki's Delivery Service, then Howl's Moving Castle, and so on. 
I truly believe his films will live on as undying classics.

Review of: Bram Stoker's Dracula

Vampires have been such a huge deal lately with all the movies, books, and tv series' being made about them. You have your Twilight, your Vampire Diaries, your True Blood and all that, but what brought them your way? Who inspired the interest and shaped our modern day vampire dreamboats? I'll tell you right now. Dracula - Bram Stoker's Dracula, that's who, that's what. Somewhere along the line, I'll tell you how too.

Dracula is an old book, published in 1897, so like most of the oldies I've read it's got a lot of words. Most of the novel is written in journal entries by the characters, and other times letters or notes. While this makes for interesting story-telling, sometime during the middle the details get to be a bit too much for someone interested in the key points of the plot.  I felt I would enjoy it better if there was less rambling in between the good stuff. 

Some transitions in between character journals got on my nerves as well. It'd switch from suspense to romance to friendship to horror all without comfortable transitions. I get that characters were experiencing different things at each point in the story, but the abrupt change in tone disappointed me when things were getting exciting, and those were treasured times for how slow the in-universe journalists chose to tell it.  I know that I can't recommend reading Dracula to anyone who likes fast action and events.
The pacing reminds me very much of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, another famous monster novel that I enjoyed thoroughly.

The most memorable part for me would be Jonathan Harker's stay at Castle Dracula (which to my great surprise wasn't the entire book). It was suspenseful, eerie, and at the same time kind of comfy. I can't put my finger on if it was because I liked the setup or what.

What interested me most from my time spent on the book was realizing the symbolism and metaphors hidden within the text. Entire essays have been written about Dracula's many themes and probable influences for them. To keep it PG, I won't go into too much detail.  Most of these themes have to do with sexuality, a couple homosexuality, and others to do with women's role in Victorian society. Even the Count himself was a metaphor.

Stoker's novel was the first piece of literature to present vampires as alluring. However Dracula is no Edward Cullen, believe you me. No, not even close!  In fact, he's not even Hollywood's vision of Dracula. Stoker wrote him as an old man, bald with a white mustache. Still, characters were drawn to him like he was the handsomest guy around.  Who'd have thought?

So I've said my piece. I suppose it's time to end it here. Did I like the book? 
Yes. 
It was fun to delve into the origins of vampires and where all this stuff came from.  Plus, by doing so I understood a few references in a recent animated film... bonus points for josie

Review of: The Phantom Tollbooth

Any kid who enjoyed reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and/or The Oz Series will likely adore this book, as I did myself.  If you're familiar with them, it ends up being like a mixture of the two, borrowing Wonderland's craziness at every corner and set up to tell an epic tale like in Oz.  I'm absolutely crazy about both of them so reading The Phantom Tollbooth was quite a treat.  It had its own world and characters, but the type of fantasy and style of writing was oh, so familiar.  There's no doubt in me that it was influenced by at least one of the two.

There's one word that comes to mind when someone mentions this book: wordplay.  It's STUFFED with wordplay, every page, every chapter, that's most of what you'll find.  And I found it hilarious actually.  There's two princesses named Rhyme and Reason, a king of the alphabet named Azza, a math king called the Mathemagician, a literal sea of knowledge, an island called Conclusions (that people jump to) a bleak place called the Doldrums (where nothing happens), and that's all I'm going to list because there's just too many.

The plot, you say? That's not what makes this book special. pfft.  Go read a Wikipedia article if you want to know the plot.  Let's speak of more important things such as

"He was beautifully dressed with a well-pressed shirt and tie. His shoes were polished, his nails were clean, his hat was well brushed, and a white handkerchief adorned his breast pocket. But his expression was somewhat blank. In fact, it was completely blank, for he had neither eyes, nose, nor mouth."

That is Slender Man, a new thriller star and internet meme.  The Terrible Trivium in The Phantom Tollbooth looks exactly the same.  I gasped out loud when I saw the picture and then I read his description and, well... That's Slender Man alright.

It turned out a lot of things in the book reminded me of characters and, shall we say, stuff from popular media.  It goes to show that this was either a ridiculously popular book that many artists were influenced by, or our generation is getting weirder by the decade.  Not that I'm complaining.  A book without a twisty reality can only keep my interest for so long.  I'm lucky there's so much creative fiction out there or I'd be lost.  I'd probably hate writing too.
~~~~
As much as I loved reading the book, I seriously didn't understand the ending.  It was one of those classic "oh it's so good to be home again!" endings that I'm used to getting from these types of stories.  Not saying it was bad, but really? Milo's journey to a faraway land greater than his own made him like his own land better upon return? I would want to stay in that magical land if I were him. Oh well. Life is pretty great, I suppose.

Stars: * * * * *
(I felt this book deserved a star rating)