The Devil Wears Prada gives a rich and hilarious new meaning to complaints about "The Boss from Hell." Narrated in Andrea’s smart, refreshingly disarming voice, it traces a deep, dark, devilish view of life at the top only hinted at in gossip columns and over Cosmopolitans at the trendiest cocktail parties. From sending the latest, not-yet-in-stores Harry Potter to Miranda’s children in Paris by private jet, to locating an unnamed antique store where Miranda had at some point admired a vintage dresser, to serving lattes to Miranda at precisely the piping hot temperature she prefers, Andrea is sorely tested each and every day—and often late into the night with orders barked over the phone. She puts up with it all by keeping her eyes on the prize: a recommendation from Miranda that will get Andrea a top job at any magazine of her choosing. As things escalate from the merely unacceptable to the downright outrageous, however, Andrea begins to realize that the job a million girls would die for may just kill her. And even if she survives, she has to decide whether or not the job is worth the price of her soul.

 Ch’ulp’o is known for its pottery. Ch’ulp’o is located in a clay region allowing potters to perfect their works. Tree-ear enjoyed hiding in bushes and watching an old pottery master, work. Min makes his pottery perfect but he is one of the slowest workers in the village. 

One day, Tree-Ear finds Min away from home and proceeds to go into his yard and observe his works more closely. As Tree-Ear is looking through his pottery, he accidently drops one. When Min returns home, he is furious to find one of his pieces shattered. Tree-ear offers to pay him back by working for him nine consecutive days. Tree-Ear, hoping he will be taught how to be a potter, ends up cutting firewood. This job was difficult for Tree-Ear leaving him with many cuts, and blisters on his hands. When Tree-Ear is done working for Min, he returns to Crane-Man and has a meal of scavenged food. When Tree-Ear finishes his nine days of work, he ends up offering to work for Min permanently. Min accepts this offer but refuses to pay money. Tree-Ear still hopes Min will teach him how to make pots. Min sends Tree-Ear to go down to the clay pits and return home with clay.  Each day Min’s wife makes Tree-Ear a mid-day meal. Tree-Ear saves half of his meal each day to bring back to Crane-Man.  In time Min’s wife realizes what Tree-Ear is doing with his mid-day meal and fills his lunch pot up while Tree-Ear is not looking, so he has a full meal to take back Crane Man.  

 Tree-Ear learns that Min struggles to earn money because of how slow he works. While scavenging,Tree-Ear noticed another potter working in secret, Kang, who invented a new way to make pots more beautiful before anyone else does. He knows that this technique will become a popular method. 

Word gets around that an emissary of the king is going to award royal commissions to the best potter. Everyone in town begin making their best works to win. When the the king’s emissary arrives to town, everyone sets up their work. Min has the smallest display but also receives a lot of attention from the emissary. The emissary leaves but returns a month later. Min begins working and when he is finished with his product, there are brown stains covering the pots and he has to restart. The emissary arrives before Min can finish, but offers Min a commision if he brings one of his completed pieces to the capital. Min said he can’t accept because he is too old to travel a long distance. Tree-Ear ends up offering to do this for Min. While Tree-ear is making his way toward Songdo, he gets attacked by two robbers.  The robbers take his his jigga, a backpack made out of reeds, and toss over a cliff.  Tree-Ear climbs down the cliff and retrieves a single shard left from one of the broken pots.  He continues walking to the emissary and shows them the broken shard of his master’s work.  The emissary offers a commission.  

Tree-Ear travels back to Ch’ulp’o where he gives Min and his wife the good news about the commission.  Min talks to Tree-Ear and tells him about the Crane-Man’s death.  This news devisates Tree-Ear.  Min’s wife asks Tree-Ear to live with them under the condition that his new name is HyungPil, which means he is a brother to the deceased son of Min and his wife.  Min tells Tree-Ear, now Hyung-Pil, that he wants to teach Hyung-Pil the work of pottery, as he would have done with his own son. 

Comments:
A heart-warming, and at times distressing, story about a 12 year old orphaned boy in Korea in the 12th century. After months and months of hard work, he finally finds a family that will love and protect him.

Author - Louis Sachar

Publisher - Farrar, Straus and Giroux (US) Bloomsbury (UK) Ediciones SM (Spain)

Year - 1998

Summary 

One day a boy named Stanley Yelnats is running home from school when a pair of shoes "fall from the sky" and land right in front of him. In Stanley's family, they are known for having bad luck so it just so happens that these shoes landed in front of him. All of a sudden the cops showed up and said "hold it right there boy". Stanley looking confused and not know what's wrong says "why". Apparently those were a famous baseball players shoes that fell down and they thought he stole them. After the court ruled him guilty, even though he wasn't he was sent to a camp called, Camp Green Lake. Now at first Stanley thought this wasn't going to be so bad, I mean Camp Green Lake sounds like a fun place. But it wasn't. When Stanley arrived it was dried up waste land covered in holes tons of holes. After he got there he met the Warder Walker. She seemed like a mean tough lady and she was. The next day Stanley and the other people where to get to work by digging a hole as long and deep as the shovel they were given. Like many new inmate story the new guys gets tossed around but luckily Stanley met a boy named Hector Zeroni who was there and stood up for him. After a while hector was fed up with working there and question the warrens motives so they run way to find out why all the holes. 

Comments

I think is a great read. It is full of different things that come together half way through or at the end. At first it as a little slow but maybe that's just my opinion. I encourage you to give it a try and you might find a fun new book to read

I thought this book was a very good read. It taught me that you should not spread gossip, even if it is true, because it could have a really big impact on someone's life. It also made me think about how much of what I hear people say about each other is true or not, and that I should not assume something is true just because someone says so.  This book was very suspenseful and interesting and I would highly recommend it to anyone I know.

Title: The Glittering Court

Author: Richelle Mead

Publisher: Razorbill

Year: 2016

Summary:

The seventeen year old countess Elizabeth is searching for an escape in her life. For royal connections, she has an arranged marriage planned with her distant cousin.  She sees an out when her maid, Adelaide, isn’t interested in attending the Glittering Court. The Glittering Court is a program for girls to go get a proper education and be sent to the new countries where they get bids to marry the man of their choice. Elizabeth helps Adelaide escape to her family and takes her position in the Glittering Court. Elizabeth takes Adelaide’s identity and goes by Adelaide for the rest of her life. At the Glittering Court, makes new friends and meets Cedric. Cedric and Adelaide fall in love, but when they are taken to the new land, Adelaide gets many marriage offers and realizes she will have to leave Cedric. Eventually, Adelaide runs away with Cedric to go live in the country and get married. Later on, Cedric starts working for Warren, one of the men who wanted to marry Adelaide. Warren tries to kill Cedric and take Adelaide for himself. When Adelaide finds out, they run away and eventually get Warren arrested. Now Cedric and Adelaide can live happily.

Comments: I enjoyed reading this book and I liked the story a lot. At some parts, the book was confusing and I didn’t really know what was going on. This book has a great message to fight for what you believe in and to take chances. The story was very interesting and had many twists and turns. I would recommend this book.

Author - Jo Whittemore

Publisher - Amulet Books

Year - 2017

Summary

Regular citizens are getting superpowers in National City. Kara and the DEO don’t know how. At the same time an Atlantean has washed up. The super citizens as they are called have been causing some trouble. They take advantage of their new powers to rob banks, mug people, and cause problems for Supergirl, Mon-El, and The Martian Manhunter. The Atlantean known as Pryll is on land to take back a treasure to Atlantis, orichalcum. Just in case the DEO has the Atlantean, named Pryll, held in containment. Mon-El and Jimmy Olsen go to a scientist with a sample of the orichalcum to see if he can figure out what it it. They then realize that the cause of the powers is ingestion of orchalcum. The people who get powers get them from their profession. For example, is someone was botanist they would be able to control plants. After several confrontations with the Dominants, which are super citizens with the dominant powers. The DEO tracked the Dominants to their lair, a movie theater under construction. They launch an attack the base. Supergirl, Martian Manhunter, Mon-El, and a team of DEO agents. After the Dominants are defeated Pryll comes out of containment. Pryll then left for Atlantis with the rest of orichalcum. 

Title: Holes
Author: Louis Sachar
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, Giroux
Year: 1998
Summary:
There was a boy name Stanley Yelnats and a curse was put on him by his great, great, grandfather. He was sent to a juvenile camp called Camp Green Lake in the middle of a desert. There are many other kids at the camp that he meets. All of the kids including Stanley have to dig certain sized holes as punishments. He was really put in this camp for something he did not even do. The warden was searching for something in the dirt and that is why he had all of the kids dig holes. The main characters are Zero, Stanley Yelnats, X-ray, and Rex Washburn. X-ray was for sure the leader of the bunch. Stanley tries to be nice to X-ray and kind of stay away from him. Stanley and Zero become better friends as the story goes on. Later in the book Stanley finds out Zero runs away from the camp so he goes a few days after in order to find where Zero is. Stanley eventually finds Zero by a stream of water. They get as much water as they can and then head up the mountain. It is a bit of a struggle because they have been in the camp digging holes. Zero is way weaker then Stanley so he has to basically carry Zero up this mountain.  They have been surviving on onions for the past weak and then return back to camp in order to find the lost treasure. Stanley and Zero end up finding a suitcase which has valuables in it. The warden tries to take the suitcase from the two of them. Stanley's lawyer shows up and proves Stanley innocent from the "crime" he committed so Stanley and Zero can leave with the suitcase. In the end both of the kids reunite with their family's.

Comments:
I enjoyed this book very much. I recommend this book to any kid of the right age. If I were to rate this book 1-5, 5 being the best I would rate it a 4.5.  In some parts of the book I got a little confused but over all the book was very well written.

Author: Susannah Cahalan 

Publisher: Simon & Schuster 

Year:  2012

Summary:

Brain on Fire is an autobiography about a 24-year-old reporter named Susannah Cahalan who works for the New York Post. Susannah is in the prime of her life, when she starts to have mysterious physical and emotional symptoms.  She starts off with symptoms that resemble seizures with numbness only on the left side of her body. She goes to her doctor for answers and he diagnosis seizures at first. Her symptoms began to increase in frequency with different manifestations, like staring into space.This  can be a form of seizures. This happens a lot during her month of madness. 

When she doesn’t get better, but in fact gets worse with psychotic paranoid behaviors with increased numbness and emotional outburst, including ticks her mom grows more concerned. At this point Susannah starts to get emotional over anything and she claims to have an out of body experience. She also starts to believe her dad killed his girlfriend with a chair. Her mom  decided to put her into a hospital and get a second opinion. Susannah gets worse while in the hospital and tries many times to escape. After several weeks, and nearly dying she finally meets a doctor who would not give up on her his name is Dr. Souhel Najjar. He suspected a rare condition that needed a  brain biopsy to confirm. At this point Susannah is no longer able to communicate with anyone so it is her parents decision. They decide to go through with the operation. After the operation she was diagnosed with Autoimmune Encephalitis. She was treated and after several months of rehabilitation she was able to return to her normal self.

Comments:

I enjoyed reading Brain on Fire. This medical mystery kept me on the edge on my seat. I would recommend this book. 

Comments:
     I thought Murder on the Orient Express was an amazing mystery! Hercule Poirot was my favorite character in the story because he could think of the solution to the mystery just by sitting down and thinking. This book kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time reading it because I couldn't figure out who the murder was. The ending was my favorite part because it had a huge plot twist. I also loved the Murder on the Orient Express movie that came out last year. 

Publisher:  Atheneum Books

Year: 2005
Summary:
Fatima is a child slave in Pakistan. Bonded to Hussain Khan three years earlier to pay her parents dept. Fatima spends each day weaving carpets in a factory with other children. At the end of each day, if the work is up to Hussain Khan standards he erases one of the lines. Somehow all the lines on Fatima's slate are never erased, nor are any of the other children's lines. Then Iqbal arrives. Then the next morning foreign buyers arrive at the factory. Hussain Khan wants everything to be perfect, but Iqbal deliberately cuts the Blue Bukhara into several pieces. Then Iqbal secretly tells her that someday he will run away and take her with him. The next morning foreign buyers arrive at the factory. Hussain Khan wants everything to be perfect, but Iqbal cuts his Blue Bukhara pattern into several pieces. The damage is irreparable, and Iqbal is dragged into a Tomb.Unsure of where to go, the children are taken back to the Liberation Front headquarters until they can be returned safely to their families. 

Comments: I thought the book had given me a strong understanding of what slavery was like. But the story was very long.