The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

I just started a new book called The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, by Ann Brashares, but I have only read a few chapters. At the beginning of the book, one of the girls, Carmen, buys a pair of jeans at a thrift shop. Carmen and her friends -- Lena, Tibby and Bridget -- each try them on and they look great on all of them. They think it is weird how the jeans fit each of them because some of them are short and others are taller. So, they decide they are magical and to share them over the summer because they are all going to different places. Tibby is staying home. Lena is going to Greece. Bridget is going to a soccer camp and Carmen is going to stay with her Dad in South Carolina. This is the first summer they are going to be apart and they have been best friends since they were born.

The night before they leave they go to Gilda's, the aerobic study where their Mom's met before they were born, and break into the studio to hang out. They bring food and a bobby pin to pick the lock. During the night, they set the rules for the pants and how they are going to share them over the summer. Some of the rules are funny (like you can't pick your nose in the pants but you can sratch your nose). Other rules are more serious (like before you send the pants to the next girl you write the most exciting place you have been in the pants on the left and the most imortant thing that happened on the right).

I am excited to learn more about how the pants travel and what everone does in the pants. It will also be interesting to learn who the girls meet when they are wearing the pants. I wonder if the pants will help them stay connected during the summer. I think that each of the girls have different personalities so that different things will happen to them while wearing the pants.

I found this book because I noticed that a lot of my friends are writing their blogs about it. I think it will be a good book to read now and over winter vacation. I also know that there is a sequel that I can read when I finish this.

The Hole We're In

Last week, I started to read a new book called The Hole We're In. I found this book because it is by the same author (Gabrielle Zevin) as another book I recently read named Elsewhere. It caught my eye because of that. I noticed since I have been reading this book, that the author is not writing in the same way as she did in Elsewhere. In Elsewhere, the main character is talking and explaining and we only know what is happening from her point of view. In The Hole We're In, there are two main characters and the author writes in both of their voices. As a result, we know both character's points of view.

At the beginning of The Hole We're In, one of the main characters, Roger, is at his second son's high school graduation. Roger was the Vice Principal of the high school is son went to. During the graduation, Roger is thinking that if he got a PhD he would be more successful and make more money. So, he goes to school to get a PhD and he and his wife move but since he is not working anymore, the wife Georgia has to work as well. Even with her job, however, they are still not making that much money. The timing could not have been worse because it is their daughter's wedding soon. The daughter keeps nagging Georgia about getting wedding invations and other things that are very expensive. Georgia is very worried about how to support her family. Meanwhile, Roger gets a promotion to write a book with a very famous author. He is not sure if he should take it because it will require a lot of work and he will only get half of the money. His family needs money. He decides to take the job. He is very excited to write the book and also worried.

In this book, the characters are very interesting and they seem very alive like they are real people. The book is ok, but I am not sure if I am going to like it because the subject matter seems a little boring. I have a feeling it will get more interesting.

Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall

I recently started reading the book "Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall." I found this book when I looked on the back and it seemed a lot like the book I just read, "Elsewhere." In both of these books, there is a girl and she is dead. She is trying to figure out where she is in both books. In "Elsewhere," a girl named Liz is on a boat and ends up in a place called Elsewhere. But in "Heaven Looks a Lot like the Mall," the girl Tessa is in her hometown mall. Tessa realizes right away that she is dead because she remembers that she was playing dodgeball and she didn't duck before ball hit her and snapped her neck. But in "Elsewhere," it takes a long time to figure out Liz is dead because she was hit by a car and her death came fast. In "Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall," Tessa is wondering why she is in the mall by her house. She realizes that nobody is there, but she goes to the hot dog stand and a hot is right there, waiting for her with her name on it. Then she wonders if the mall is heaven for her because both of her parents work there on earth and she loves it. But then her dad's heaven would be a bowling alley because he loves bowling. But then she goes to bed and wakes up laying in a hospital, and then a couple seconds later she is in the mall again. She keeps getting visions that she is in the hospital. Then when she is in the mall, she goes out to look for somebody. She finds a boy and asks if she is half-dead because she is healthy and normal in the mall, but hospitalized on earth. So she thinks she is half-dead because she is in heaven but still sick on earth.

The book Heaven looks a lot like the mall is by Wendy Mass. I think this book will get very good and can't wait to finish it

The Magician's Elephant

Over the summer I read a great book called the Magician's Elephant. It is about a boy name Peter. He lives with an old soldier named Vilna Lutz and his parents and sister are dead. He thinks his sister is dead until one day he goes to the market to buy food, but uses the money Vilna Lutz game him to buy food to go to a fortune teller. He asks one question to the fortune teller: "Is my sister Adele still alive?" The fortune teller tells him: "You must find the elephant who will lead you to her." Peter has no idea about an elephant because there isn't one in the entire village. Later that evening, in the Opera House there is a magician. He tries to do a trick to magically appear flowers and instead an elephant magically falls through the roof of the Opera House. This is a suprise to many people in the Opera House. Once Peter hears about the elephant he immidiately wants to see him, but nobody can see the elephant. Later in the book, Peter starts to dream about Adele and where she is now. Soon Adele starts to dream about Peter. This is a great book because it is about how two people who didn't even know the other was alive, come back together.

I have also read another book by this author, Kate DiCamillo, which I really like. She is a really good author and her stories are very creative and engaging.

In my last blog entry, I wrote about the book Elsewhere. This time I am going to write about how I chose this book. I chose the book Elsewhere because I read the back and it sounded very interesting. The back had a letter from one of the main characters, Elizabeth, that was to her science teacher saying that she is dead and that she will not be able to make it to the science fair this year and is sad about it. At the beginning of the book, Liz gets to look through binoculors to see her funeral and she sees that her science teacher is not there and was sad. So she also includes this in the letter on the back of the book. This made me curious because I was wondering why if she is dead how the science teacher got the letter and how did she wrote it.

Now that I am reading the book I am learning more about Liz. By looking in the binoculors she finds out that she is dead. She was killed because she got in a bicycle accident. I also learned that the reason her head was shaved (that I talked about in my first blog entry) is because she was in an operation after her biking accident. She still has a hard time believing that she is dead until she looks in the binoculors and knows that it is really true. Now she has to learn to live in a place that is different.

Elsewhere Report

I am reading a book called Elsewhere. It is by Gabrielle Zevin. I have never read a book by her before. I just started reading this book. I got this book because I thought the back sounded interesting. The book is about a girl named Liz who wakes up one day in a place where there is a girl sleeping on a bunk on top of her and she doesn't know where she is. She thinks she is dreaming but she is not. The girl wakes up and asks Liz why don't you have any hair on your head. The girls name is Thandi. Then Liz suddenly remembers her mom shaving her head. Then she remembers being in a car accident. When she wakes up she still keeps thinking that she is dreaming. She goes to breakfast with the girl named Thandi. They realize they are on a boat going down the Nile river, like a cruise. At breakfast they notice that everyone else is alot older than them and they are wondering why. I know the book is going to be about Liz being dead, but Liz does not know yet that she is dead is she is going to have to adapt to not being alive. I think Liz is an interesting character and I'm very excited to find out what is going to happen in this story.