Ages 9-12 Books - Page 5

The New Way Things Work

David Macaulay

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Subjects -> Children's Books -> Science, Nature & How It Works -> How Things Work

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Ingenuity. Imagination. Depictions. Diagrams. 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 24 people found this review helpful.

Put these four things together--ingenuity, imagination, depictions, diagrams-- and you have a double ID toward understanding how things work. David Macaulay and Neil Ardley put together a magnificent volume for children and children at heart containing a way of understanding the laws of physics and mechanics.

The first illustration even shows God busy creating the rotation of the earth. Then they go to the earth where wooly mammoths lived and pick up one to take us through the history of mechanics, machines, and the like. Dozens of movements in five sections: waves, electricity, automation, digital domain, and machines show us just how easy these things are to understand done in drawerings.

Just as in child's play, there is no seeming order to the arrangement of items in the book. For example here are a few pages next to each other: vacuum cleaners, aqualungs or oxygen tanks, the toilet tank, the water meter, dishwasher, spray nozzle, fire extinguisher. Are you seeing an order? Yes, so am I.

Flipping over a hundred pages, I find the jet engine, rocket engines, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, fallout, nuclear reactor. OK, a definite pattern. Another hundred pages show these topics: movie camera, movie projector, printing, paper making, printing plate, printing press, bookbinding. More discernible order and logical arrangement.

One last check: scanner, bits and bytes, flash memory, magnetic storage, microchip, processor, software. We know where we are and recognize the order--a computer and its parts.

This reviewer has a suggestion for the reader. Once you have this book in hand, take it home, take it out every night and read a comfortable number of pages. If you have a child, read one page, discuss it, put this one away and take out a night-night book to read. If this is just your book, read several pages. By the time you have finished the book, you will have added dozens of operating systems to the computer banks in your own brain, making your child and/or yourself an expert in the way things work.

Editorial Review:

The information age is upon us, baffling us with thousands of complicated state-of-the-art technologies. To help make sense of the computer age, David Macaulay brings us The New Way Things Work. This completely updated and expanded edition describes twelve new machines and includes more than seventy new pages detailing the latest innovations. With an entirely new section that guides us through the complicated world of digital machinery, where masses of electronic information can be squeezed onto a single tiny microchip, this revised edition embraces all of the newest developments, from cars to watches. Each scientific principle is brilliantly explained--with the help of a charming, if rather slow-witted, woolly mammoth.

Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2521 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

Feelings Book: The Care & Keeping Of Your Emotions (American Girl (Hardcover Unnumbered))

Lynda Madison

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A book for every one! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Don't get misled by the cover. This book is for girls at any age. . . Really.. As we grow older, people assume we know things that we are not supposed to know. For instance, how to keep and take good care of our emotions and feelings.. This is the book that will get you started..

Great Book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book for my eight year old daughter who has always been very emotional. She loves it. It has really helped her to understand why she feels the way she does sometimes. Thanks.

My Step Daughter Loved it!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I got this book along with the "What would you do??" book for my 12 years old step daughter and she loved it...I noticed its hard for her to communicate with us and being that our marriage is new to her and the possibility of having a little brother and sister someday is making her worried that she will no longer be the only child, a book about expressing feelings seemed perfect...She sat down with us to read through the books...THANKS AMERICAN GIRL this book is great!!!

The feelings book brought me a tear..of satisfaction! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This was quite helpful and informative for a book aimed at preteens, yet highly accessible and understandful. It offers great tips and advice, especially on dealing with feelings and seeing them in a healthy, real perspective. I even used this for an essay I had to write!

J'adore! ^_^

(p.s. everyone should real Twilight.)

Inkheart

Cornelia Funke

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 478 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

I wish I could give it a 4 1/2 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Meggie and her dad Mo (a traveling book binder) live a semi-nomadic existence moving from town to town all over Europe healing old books in need of new bindings. They love reading, living most of their lives in books, but to Meggie's chagrin Mo never reads to her. Upon the arrival of a vagrant called Dustfinger, Meggie learns why her father never reads aloud. The two are catapulted into a perilous adventure that Mo had tried to protect Meggie from all of her young life in which evil villains from a book are want Mo to work for them. Why? Read the book and find out how they got out of the pages of fiction, where Meggis' missing mother is, and what the power of words can mean in a world that often seems empty and boring.

This is one of the most fun and imaginative books I've come across in a long time. The characters are well drawn, the action is compelling, and it is just fun to turn the pages to see what is on the other side of each piece of paper. For lovers of books and those who are just getting into reading this is a great piece of fiction. Parents it is a bit intense for very young readers, but for adoloscents to people in their Golden Years I highly recommend this memorable book.

Editorial Review:

One cruel night, Meggie's father reads aloud from a book called INKHEART-- and an evil ruler escapes the boundaries of fiction and lands in their living room. Suddenly, Meggie is smack in the middle of the kind of adventure she has only read about in books. Meggie must learn to harness the magic that has conjured this nightmare. For only she can change the course of the story that has changed her life forever. This is INKHEART--a timeless tale about books, about imagination, about life. Dare to read it aloud.

Queste (Septimus Heap, Book 4)

Angie Sage

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Parents will like it too! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

My son has over 150 books and he hasn't started school yet. He loves to be read to. I bought this series thinking it would keep him entertained for a while, but soon found myself reading ahead. Not just another Harry Potter knock off. They may be a little predictable, but are a lot of fun and family safe.

Editorial Review:

There's trouble at the Castle, and it's all because Merrin Meredith has returned with Darke plans for Septimus. More trouble awaits Septimus and Jenna in the form of Tertius Fume, the ghost of the very first Chief Hermetic Scribe, who is determined to send Septimus on a deadly Queste. But Septimus and Jenna have other plans—they are headed for the mysterious House of Foryx, a place where all Time meets and the place where they fervently hope they will be able to find Nicko and Snorri, who were trapped back in time in physik. But how will Septimus escape the Queste?

Queste, like all the books in the Septimus Heap series, is filled with nonstop action, humor, and fantastical adventure as Septimus continues his journey of Magykal self-discovery.

Today I Feel Silly & Other Moods That Make My Day

Jamie Lee Curtis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 82 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Love it! 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I gave this to my daughter when she turned 5. It is a fun book, but helped my daughter express how she is feeling. There is a face in the back of the book that they can change to show different feelings. I recently bought two more of these books as gifts for little girls turning 5.

Children's Book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The Grandkids love this book! It's fun toread and they think the pictures are funny.

Might be better for older children, but what 4 yr old has a boyfriend? 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book for my 3 year old and after one read I have put it away for a few years. Talk of boyfriends and crushes is something that can wait until she is a bit older. The illustrations are nice and the concept is good, but it is off the mark for the younger ones.

Feelings are oh-so important 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Recognizing our feelings and being able to name and claim them is so important to our emotional health. A meaningful book that travels through the variety of feelings a child may encounter in any day - from angry to joyful to confused to lonely to.... A wide range of feelings are included in this charming rhyme. This is a fun book which can start discussions about how we are feeling while emphazing to children that all feelings are valid. Ben Keckler, author of Incredibly Lonely, That's Me

Editorial Review:

A child's emotions range from silliness to anger to excitement, coloring and changing each day.

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (Harry Potter)

J. K. Rowling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5176 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A little darker... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is when the Harry Potter series starts to get a bit "darker". The ending will make you buy the next book. You will want to know what happends.

An amazing novel 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Without a doubt this is my favorite novel of the series so far. The action in this novel was intense and I finished the novel in a couple of days. JK Rowling always does a great job of mixing foreshadowing and mystery. With each novel, I have begun to realize that nothing is as it seems. I thought I finally figured out the plot, only to be completely surprised in the end.

The novel comes after the Prisoner of Azakaban, where we learned that Sirius did not murder Harry's parents, and that wormtail was the actual villain. Wormtail escaped at the end, though, with an oracle that he would nurse Voldemort back to health. That is where the forth book picks up, Voldemort and Wormtail have returned to the house of Voldemort's father to regain health. Additionally, armed with information from a ministry employee, they seek to destroy Harry Potter again.

An old tournament is reborn, and Harry is chosen to compete although it should have been impossible. He competes and his luck remains with him until the end. Questions will be answered in this novel. Will the Death Eaters rise again? Will a student die? Will Hogwarts stay open? Will the Ministry oppose Voldemort? The Goblet of Fire is a great read.

Editorial Review:

A special library binding for the Harry Potter series

The Prophet of Yonwood (Books of Ember)

Jeanne Duprau

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 72 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

It’s 50 years before the settlement of the city of Ember, and the world is in crisis. War looms on the horizon as 11-year-old Nickie and her aunt travel to the small town of Yonwood, North Carolina. There, one of the town’s respected citizens has had a terrible vision of fire and destruction. Her garbled words are taken as prophetic instruction on how to avoid the coming disaster. If only they can be interpreted correctly. . . .

As the people of Yonwood scramble to make sense of the woman’s mysterious utterances, Nickie explores the oddities she finds around town—her great-grandfather’s peculiar journals and papers, a reclusive neighbor who studies the heavens, a strange boy who is fascinated with snakes—all while keeping an eye out for ways to help the world. Is this vision her chance? Or is it already too late to avoid a devastating war?

In this prequel to the acclaimed The City of Ember and The People of Sparks, Jeanne DuPrau investigates how, in a world that seems out of control, hope and comfort can be found in the strangest of places.


From the Hardcover edition.

Where the Red Fern Grows

Wilson Rawls

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1208 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Favorite book ever! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I bawled my eyes out for about a week after reading this. Despite, it's my favorite book of all times. It's a must read for any dog lover.

An Ozark Requiem - Where the Red Fern Grows 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Being an avid reader my whole life, I don't know how I skipped over this book as a kid. Recently I decided to brush up on some classic literature, and I grabbed this off my bookshelf...wow. This has to be one of the most AMAZING American tales of all time...and it's definitely in my top five books ever.

Warning: it has a little flavor of Bridge to Terebithia in it because of it's terribly bittersweet ending...but it is well worth it.

The writing style is so easy to read and so engrossing, it's like the author is actually sitting across from you telling you the story.

This is a slice of Americana that all kids should read...it captures the Ozarks and the heart of a little boy who loves his dogs so well! The fact that the main character had to work so hard for what he wanted is such a wonderful message to kids today.

Where the Red Fern Grows is a little piece of the American dream, and it is a must read for everyone. No questions asked.

Editorial Review:

A loving threesome, they ranged the dark hills and river bottoms of Cherokee country. Old Dan had the brawn. Little Ann had the brains, and Billy had the will to make them into the finest hunting team in the valley. Glory and victory were coming to them, but sadness waited too. Where the Red Fern Grows is an exciting tale of love and adventure you'll never forget.


From the Paperback edition.

Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban

J. K. Rowling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2598 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Dive deeper into Harry's personal life 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Harry does have family! A "crazy" god-father that he is completely unaware of having until this book. A great mystery book in the series. It will have you wanting more!

Good plot advancement but some weak elements 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Summary: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third book in the Harry Potter series. The book introduces some key characters for the later books and gives the reader more backstory on Harry's parents. The writing seems as if J. K. Rowling was debating on doing more description or keeping the book length down -- I would have gone for more descriptions and more pages.

Setting:
The world of Harry Potter continues to expand into a more interesting fantasty setting with each book. Rowling does a good job of creating the setting using existing fantasty elements with a slight tweak to keep it non-cliche (for the most part). The Marauder's Map is a fantastic idea! It will be interesting to see if it is re-used in later novels. Note: There is starting to become a bit predictable in that each book has a new magic item which is central to the story.

Characters:
Sirius Black is introduced to the setting as a murderous wizard. The Sirius Black character is developed to a certain degree but when he has some actual dialog near the end of the book, he comes across as a bit out of sorts (Understandable after being in Azkaban for 12 years). I saw the movie version before reading the book which has colored my opinion of book and the book's characterization of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. I do prefer the movie adaptation a bit more; it could be the actors did a fantastic job.

Harry, Ron and Hermaine continue to develop a bit. Their character development is secondary to plot advancement.

Action:
The action is typical Harry Potter style where things get hairy but everyone comes out ok. The description of the mass dementor attack was weak and really should have been more developed as this is a critical scene showing what Harry can do magically and has some connection to his parent's spirits.

The relative danger level to the character is weak but appropriate for what is going on in the story.

Prose:
The prose is tight and to the point. The descriptions are not very detailed which is a bit frustrating as I keep wanting more hear with each book especially to see a difference in the movie set work (which is amazing) to see if there was something the set designers did not do for the movies. Generally, a book does a better job of describing a world than a movie -- kudos to the movie setting designers and craftsmen.

Overall: 4 stars
Setting: 5 stars
Characters: 2.5 - 3 stars
Action: 3 stars
Prose: 2.5 - 3 stars