Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
mom's review, January 15, 2007
I am a mom of an avid reader, aged 9. I am always concerned that, because she can read well, she will choose books that may be challenging in length and context but may be too advanced for her socially and emotionally. I just finished this, book 1 of the series, and am happy to say that this looks like a series I can get behind 100%. The series revolves around the friendship and loyalty of a group of diverse middle school girls who create a club in an attic. In book 1, the author tackles the subjects that kids at this age deal with (diverse backgrounds and interests, snobs, crushes, learning diabilities - one girl has a laptop not because she's a rich snob but because she has a learning disability)in a language they understand...hip slang, cyberspeak, etc. The values of loyalty, honesty, civic duty and friendship are paramount in this story. Moms and Dads, fret not. Only positive messages found in this book. I look forward to my daughter reading these and getting hooked on a series based on strong girls and their friendship.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great age-appropriate story!, July 12, 2009
This review is from: Worst Enemies/Best Friends (Kindle Edition)
Clearly, I'm not the target market for this book. :) However, I am an eclectic reader, and I got this one for free, so I thought I'd try it.
I was pleasantly surprised. It was well-written, with fully-realized characters. One of the characters in particular reminded me of a friend of my child's.
The story concerns Charlotte, a new kid in school. Charlotte has lived in different places around the world, and always has a disaster on her first day. She and her Dad are living back in America, and this is not just any first day, but the first day of Junior High...a challenge for anyone, whether you have a "first day curse" or not.
The book tells the story from different perspectives, although each chapter moves the story forward. We are told at the beginning of the chapter who is speaking, but the main friends are distinctly drawn, so you could figure it out quickly even without that.
There is a bit of a mystery, lunch room embarassments, building friendships, and talk about boys and girls...but nothing that would be inappropriate.
I'd recommend it, especially for girls who are going to be interested in reading about Junior High (even if they are a bit younger than that themselves).
---
While clearly adapted from a paper edition (there is a bookplate, even though you can't really interact with it), it has been well-designed for reading on the Kindle. It does have chapter marks, which means you can "flick right" on a Kindle 2 or Kindle DX and jump to the next chapter. It has an interactive Table of Contents. Other features include a Who's Who, trivia, and a vocabulary section (supposed written by the main character, and called a "Word Nerd Dictionary").
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Look for the humor and lessons within......, November 23, 2005
I bought this book for my daughter for many reasons; one was in the first line that "Stars and books have been my best friends. My books go wherever we move. And the stars, they are always there when we get there".
I could see my 12 year old daughter and her friends in the lives of the characters in many ways however fictional they were. Back to the book, there are four friends Maeve (parents own a movie house so watches free movies), Katani (has three sisters and lives with parents and her grandmother is school principal), Charlotte (the girl I told you about above who has moved around a lot, lives with her Dad her mum is dead) and Avery (adopted from Korea. Said her most embarrassing moment is when asked where babies come from and said from aeroplanes but that is what she had always known because she had a video given to her about the day her parents got her and there was this woman coming out of an aeroplane with many babies).
The book is both serious yet funny and I will highlight a little section. Maeve is at the stage where she thinks boys are so cool (too many movies) and the rest believe they are buddies, romance is still too foreign to them. So Maeve wants to go out with Nick who is a classmate and his parent's own the local bakery where he helps out after school, here is her conversation with Charlotte (edited a little):
M: Tons of girls want to go out with Nick
C: They do? Why?
M: Cause he's..I don't know..really cute..I don't know
C: So can you just ask him to do something?
M: Of course not! Are you crazy? Would Scarlett Ohara (in 'Gone with the Wind') do that? It's all about strategy. You've got to..drop hints first. Let him know by accident that you like him. Tell his friends or you IM someone and they IM someone else and he finds out about it. You just can't ask someone out. Never!
So of course she goes about her strategy and wants to get him to go watch 'Going with the Wind' at the movie house coz it is SO ROMANTIC. Here is her 'Romantic Evening Recipe Card':
Ingredients:
1 Romantic Boy (if too hard to find, substitute 1 unsuspecting boy)
1 Romantic girl
I frozen hot chocolate, Maeve style
2 straws
2 free movie tickets (easier if you don't mention it's a romantic movie)
Directions (read the book and have a laugh!!!)
In a nutshell, she convinces Nick to go to the movies and she has free tickets for `Gone with the Wind' which he doesn't know. They arrive at the movie house and he notices 'Spiderman' is on the marquee so gets excited thinking that is what she was talking about and he has seen it five times and it is really the greatest. "This is not going well" Maeve thinks. So she convinces him that it would be pointless to watch it a sixth time so why don't they watch 'Gone with the Wind' instead and Nick wonders isn't that kind of old and kind of long. So she says since he is the guest they can watch 'Gone with the Wind' but if he gets bored they can move across to 'Spiderman'. When Scarlett and Rhett are about to kiss, Nick wondered what was going on in the movie and Atlanta started burning, he stood up and declared that they go watch Spiderman! In Maeve's words "It was absolutely the most depressing moment of my life. That's when it hit me. True romance is wasted on seventh-grade boys".
On a more serious note, I also love the teaching style of their class teacher and there is a lot to learn on how she resolves issues. Read the book!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
