Middle School Is Worse Than Meatloaf

It was the title that first caught my attention. It was pretty catchy right? I'm far from being a middle school student but I only have great and not so great memories from my own experiences. When I opened it, I was surprised. It wasn't like any other ordinary books because instead of regular texts, the story is told through to-do lists, notes, instant messages and report cards! I think I'm gong to love Jennifer Holm more starting from now. She captured the very essence of middle school life.

The main character of the story is Ginny Davis who thinks that the worst thing she will face in middle school is the school meatloaf. Yes. As simple as that. Upon further reading I learned more about her and her family through IMs. I found out she likes ballet and hopes that her mother remarry, her older brother is described as a mess, making his family's life more miserable. This is really a wonderful book that should be read by every middle school student and those who've been through it. They will certainly relate to Ginny's experiences at one point.

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

This very book is everything that I have envisioned as a child. Food dropping from the sky like rain, isn't that wonderful? I often wonder what it would feel like walking on a peanut butter and jelly road. Slippery I guess. But hey, you don't have to worry about what you're going to eat and the hassles involving cooking because it'll simply just come down from the sky, regularly.

Such is the odd case in the town of Chewandswallow. Weather comes regularly in the form of food and beverages. It rains of soup and juice, snows are made up of mashed potatoes and blowing storms of hamburgers. Surely, people are served with different meals three times a day. But what would happen if giant pancakes falls down from the sky and it begins raining ketchup? Or if Chendswallow got covered with peanut butter and mayonaisse? These weather change had pushed the people to abandon their homes and with huge sandwiches as their boats, they searched for a new town that is normal and unlike the one they left behind. This has got to be one of those books on top of my list. What a gem!

A Bear Called Paddington

Nearly everyone I knew grew up with a Padding ton Bear book in their shelf or lying somewhere in the attic. He is such a classic character that every kids are sure to love him, a well-meaning bear that just cannot help getting into a mess. Like Paddington Bear, I'm also clumsy that's why I love him so much. Written in 1958 by author Michael Bond, he was a bear that came from Peru and was picked up by the Brown family in Paddington Station while sitting on their suitcase with a tag that says "Please look after this bear".

The Browns took him and named him after the station where thay found him and becomes part of the family. It was followed by more adventures with the family and Paddington's stories of overcoming situations that involve his clumsiness. This classic book is perfect for young readers because of the simple pictures that makes the reader and listener giggle and smile. Someday, I will also read this to my future kids the way my parents read it to me dutifully when I was a kid.

How To Be Lost

A family torn apart by the disappearance of the youngest child. How do you recover from that? The Winter family was not an exceptional family even though behind their home a small expanse of wooded land can be located, the kids attend an excellent school and the three sisters are all adorable and energetic. Mr. Winter though is a mean drunk who causes great fear upon his children, leting them think of running away. That was when 5-year-old Ellie disappeared. Mr. Winter drank himself to death, depressed Mrs. Winter got obsessed with her annual festivities with her two remaining daughters, Caroline became a hard-drinking bartender and Madeline growing apart from her sister.

Fifteen years after that tragedy, Caroline heads out to Montana after seeing a photo in People magazine of a woman in a rodeo that closely resembles Ellie or what Ellie would have looked like as a 20-year-old woman. I say this book is a perfect companion while on a vacation, an easy and steady read that you couldn't put down if you want to. Because I didn't.

The Book of Bright Ideas

After reading the summary flap, I was hooked. Mainly I was intrigued and it's killing me not to know what would be the outcome of the story hence the recent purchase of Sandra Kring's novel. I think the biggest part of the book's charm are the two little girls: Button and Winnalee. I love it when kids are the central characters of the story. The story is about the arrival of two free-spirited sisters Winnalee and Freeda in the quiet rural Wisconsin. Many people's lives were changed thanks to the arrival of these sisters and despite all the negativities thrown at them, they settled to make that town their home too.

It is such a heartwarming book, one full with lively characters coming together whether on a cookout lunches, community sales or gossips. The author uses such simple conversational language, making you feel that the kids really wrote the book. The Book of Bright Ideas is surprising in the sense that it has many twists and unexpected bends that won't let me allow to bring the book down. I suggest that you read this if you ever get the chance, better yet, grab the book and sit down on it every afternoon or during your free times.

The Alphabet Sisters

It tells the story of the Quinlan sisters: Anna, Bett and Carrie who also sang as a trio, identically dressed and calls themselves The Alphabet Sisters. Aside from being sisters, they are also best friends with each other but sadly, that all ended up three years ago. It might probably have started with the announcement of Carrie and Bett's fiance that they were in love and is going to be married. Since then they haven't talked with each other.

The sisters' grandmother Lola wants her granddaughters to reconciliate, inviting them all back home to celebrate her eightieth birthday knowing that she's the only one who can summon the Alphabet Sisters back. This book is a wonderful tale of three feuding sisters and the baggage that they are all carrying after the reunion. Scenes from the book almost feels real, like the author is truly speaking from experience with characters that are so warm and fascinating you can't help but love them.

Love The One You're With

How do you know if you’ve found the one? Can you really love the one you’re with when you can’t forget the one who got away?

Funny how these kind of mush prompts me to pick up a book and head straight to the cashier. I like reading about dramas, people that should be together who aren't together. Somehow it falls into that, but not really. It is about a newly married wedding photographer who lives in New York City. She is quite happy and deeply in love with her husband who is a lawyer at a big firm in New York. But one fateful afternoon, Ellen runs into Leo for the the first time in 8 years. Leo was her first love, the one who left her heartbroken without explanation but still the one she could never forget.

Their meeting sparked her long ago emotions and Ellen starts questioning whether the life she's living is the one she's meant to live. It's a story about a woman who isn't quite sure of what she wants or of who she is. A lot of people may not have like it because of the author's departure to her usual writing style, I think it is still a good read. A complex story of feelings, grappling with love, lust, duty and honor.