Category Archives: Books

8 For 8 – The Island Book Trailer

This is a follow-up of my first 8 for 8 post. If you haven’t read it then it will help you to understand this page.

When I’d read all of the 8 for 8 books, my favourite was The Island by M. A. Bennett. The Island is about a boy called Lincoln (Link) who is a nerd and moves to a new school from being homeschooled by his parents, who were professors at Oxford University. Link is bullied at the new school, because he came last in a run, which determines where you are in the school hierarchy. He got the lowest time ever. This means that he’s treated like a slave and has to follow the instructions that the fastest runners give him.

When Link gets stuck with his classmates on a desert island after a plane crash it seems like it might be hell on earth. However, Link is the one giving orders now. Who knows what might happen to the people on the island now?

This book is based on BBC’s Desert Island Discs and has a Lord of The Flies theme.

I decided to make a trailer for this book. I used some LEGO to make the scenes as well as a camera and iMovie to make it look good.

Enjoy,

I enjoyed making this video, as it was fun and challenging!

The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart

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13 Chairs by Dave Shelton

Thirteen chairs by Dave Shelton is a horror book with lots of different stories inside. However, instead of having a collection of stories on their own, Dave made a story to tell the stories to try and make the reader feel more scared and hooked to the book. The stories are all written in a different style. They are also true to the characters that are telling them to the audience.

I didn’t like all of this book because I couldn’t understand the old language in one of the stories. And I don’t particularly like horror stories. I also didn’t like the cliffhangers that were never finished, because it gives you a sense of anger at the book, with the reader thinking ‘ARRGH what happens next?! I want to know! I NEED TO KNOW!’

My favourite character was the main character, Jack. I liked him because he was being brave and scared the ghosts who were trying to scare him. The ghosts were telling spooky stories, but Jack told them about being alive and well. This made him special and different from all the other characters, as he was not scared to death as he was supposed to be but outplaying the ghosts at their own game.

In conclusion, I don’t like all of this book and would give it three of five stars. I would recommend this book to advanced readers and people that like horror stories.

This is part of the 7 for 7 book challenge. To see the main 7 for 7 post click here.

The Girl who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

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928 Miles From Home by Kim Slater

928 Miles from Home

This book is about a boy called Calum Brooks who is forced to put up with a stranger called Sergei Zurakowski who is moving into his flat along with his mum, Angie. When Calum gets run over, the two of them must work together to solve the mystery of who is vandalizing the Expressions community centre and who ran Calum over.

I particularly liked the book when Sergei and Calum are forced to work together and befriend each other. My favourite character was Sergei because the school bullies kept picking on him, and he was patient and kind with Calum when he was in an attitude. The story is full of mystery and adventure you never know what’s coming next. The story makes you feel really emotional through the speaker’s feelings. And you just wanted to keep reading the book because you can’t wait for what’s coming next!!!

I didn’t like the fact that the book ended because it just makes you want to know what happens next in his life.

I’d recommend this book to more able readers because of the words and vocabulary in the book. People who are fans of drama, comedy or mystery stories would like this book. I would compare this book to The Goldfish Boy and The Light Jar by Lisa Thompson.

The Goldfish Boy The Light Jar

This is part of my 7 for 7. To see the blog post about 7 for 7 click here

7 for 7

At school, there is a book challenge called 7 for 7. It is designed to make participants better at writing about what they are reading. To complete the challenge, specially chosen Year 7’s (including me) have to read 7 books and write reviews about all of them.

The books are

To see my reports on these books click on the name. If it doesn’t work I haven’t done a review on that book yet.

My Grand Trip to Germany Part 1

In the summer holidays, I went on a fantastic holiday to Germany 🇩🇪 here are the highlights:

Day 1

When we arrived in Germany, rented a car and went to a lake beach.

lake

We relaxed for a bit, then we went to a park called britzer garten. I got into a load of water sprays and got soaked, then we had a wiener (Pronounced v-ee-n-ur.) A wiener is a hot dog.

park

When we got in the car we were all looking forward to having a schnitzel.

After the park, we went to Felix Austria, a place for delicious schnitzels. Then we went to our apartment with our bellies full up of schnitzels.

schnitzels

Day 2

The next day, we went to a Peacock Island ( Pfaueninsel) and we had to get on a boat to get to the island.

sign to peacock island

boat

On the island, we had a picnic and went into a white castle.

white castle

The island’s peacocks were beautiful and shy.

peacock

peacock and me

When we went back to main land we went to the apartment for a bit and then went to The Bird for burgers. They were delicious. Afterwards, we went to BrewDog for a few drinks.

Day 3

We went to Mount Mitte, which was a really high climbing thing, and I really enjoyed it!

After that we went to a fast food restaurant to have currywurst (pronounced curry-vurst) – a sausage covered in curry sauce – YUM.

Next we went to Stone Brewing to go on a brewery tour.

stone

The restaurant was really fancy with fans and trees everywhere. One table was even carved into a tree. The food was really nice.

Day 4

We went to the wall museum on the fourth day and learnt about the German division.

wall museum

Later onwards, we went to Mogg & Melzer a jewish restaurant and had some delicious sandwiches.

Afterwards, we went up the Berlin TV Tower and got some amazing panoramic views of Berlin.

lift shaft

Then, we went to see part of the wall that was left up. For tea we went to a street food festival and had currywurst.

That’s it for now but I’ll be back soon with the next few days in Germany.

The Planet Problem

National Young Writers Award

At school we had this competition, the National Young Writers Award, where you had to write a 500 word story about what it might be like in 3017. Here’s my story:

The Planet Problem

Over the hills, there was an enormous banana milkshake house with a Kitkat poking out of it and who lived in it you ask? Well, only a man called Shakana or as his friends called him Nana. Nana was a Gaygun, a species of human, which can live to be nine hundred and ninety nine million years old. Nana was a kind, elderly worker who sold… yes you guessed it: Banana milkshakes with Kitkat’s in! Shakana also invented a suit (that he used often) called the Inveople. The last Inveople had not done anything, this new one worked when it had been filled up with banana milkshakes. First, let me tell you what the Inveople does; the Inveople makes you really strong and Invisible, when wearing it! Shakana also had the latest transport: the Rhubarb, powered by rhubarb crumble. In all, Shakana was a happy man and got lots of customers because, he made the best milkshakes in the world. He had robots, which sold milkshakes in every town, village or city.

After he’d bought the rhubarb, he decided to swap the Earth and Mercury’s positions so; he could see life develop in different years. However, there was one problem: he would wipe out all the organisations on Earth and that would be horrendous!!! Swiftly, he made nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine litres of rhubarb crumble. When he had stored it all in the fuel tank of the rhubarb –it can fit anything in- he let the Earth in. Although afraid, the people on Earth, stupidly, didn’t try to do anything. “THIS IS BAD!!!”Everyone was saying. Everywhere was chaotic. Even though, the world was about to end, lots of people tried to get on with daily life. They did it to get enough money to make rhubarb crumbles to power their rhubarbs and to calm down. Everything was being sold; people were crazy but every one decided to get one thing especially: the Producer. The Producer produces anything in an instant and’s very small and handy.

Well, because everybody was buying a Producer all was bad; people had to make more Producers by using a Producer to make a Producer to give to the people without a Producer. The stalls were nowhere near as chaotic except all Nana’s milkshake stalls. You couldn’t get any in Producer’s because they were too hard to make, so everyone was buying them. Anyway, Shakana was having another problem, he couldn’t move the Earth or Mercury. Thank goodness, the worlds were saved, which was an enormous relief for everyone as they could live on. Shakana was furious so he packed up and decided to go to Mercury with his milkshakes for aliens (aliens love milkshakes.)

Shakana knew that aliens loved milkshakes. He got into his fully loaded (so he thought) rhubarb and it wouldn’t go. He tried again. Nothing. He checked the fuel, empty. His storage of rhubarb crumble? Empty. OH NO…

Hope you like it.

Book Review – “Mum…” by Morty Sey and Scott Chegg

This is a good book because it’s funny. It rhymes for effect and has brilliant pictures.

This is the front cover

The alarm doesn’t go off, so Mum is late, loads of disasters happen like: “Why aren’t you dressed yet?”, “She hasn’t got time to do her make-up!”, “She’s got nothing to wear and she can’t do a thing with her hair!” When they’re nearly ready to go, she has to change a nappy! Half way down the road she realises she had no phone and no purse, she can’t find a parking space! It’s no longer a school run but a race!!!

The book follows Mum as she tries to get ready for the school run, with a surprise twist at the end.

This is my favourite picture in the book – My Mum NEVER looks like this 😉 :

This is my favourite picture in the book

Even though i’m a bit too old for this book now I still enjoyed it and I would recommend this book for EYFS and year 1 and 2.

I would rate this book 4 out of 5.

My Brilliant Half Term

Monday

Rivington Pike

On Monday we went to Rivington Pike up to the top and I only had one rest on the whole journey which was at the top of the Pike, so I was exhausted by the time I got to the top! The view was the best I’d ever seen it I could see so far out!

This is the view from the pike.

We were going back down the Pike, but we went a different way I’d never been before. At last we were at the bottom of the Pike and then we went and had a drink in the Great Hall Barn and I had a hot chocolate. Mmmm! 🙂

Tuesday

Grandad Comes

On Tuesday Grandad came to babysit and bought us each a Galaxy Chocolate Flurry that was delicious. After tea we played a game of Bugs In The Kitchen and two games of Monopoly Deal.

Wednesday

On Wednesday we watched ” Honey, I Shrunk The Kid”, which was really good I’m really looking forward to watching the next one “Honey, I Blew Up The Kids “.

Friday

Spending WHSmith £20 Gift Card

On Friday we went to WHSmith in Manchester to spend our £20 Gift Cards from Uncle Bob Auntie Lauren and Brandon. First we went to Debenhams for Georgia to spend her £25 voucher and I looked at a lot of things that I really liked there were so many of them!

Then we went to WHSmith and I bought three books for the price of two which were The Person Controller, Tom Gates Everything’s Amazing (sort of), Tom Gates Genius Ideas (mostly) and a Brainbox The World.

BrewDog

Afterwards we went to BrewDog and I started reading Tom Gates Everything’s Amazing (sort of) and had a apple fritz which was delicious.

Yard And Coop

After that we went out for tea at Yard and Coop and we had buttermilk fried chicken, sweet potato chips and normal chips and sauce for mains, I had a Mama Mia sauce which is just an Italian pasta sauce which was really nice.

My buttermilk fried chicken, sauce and sweet potato chips

Our sides were Not chicken which is Halloumi in breadcrumbs, slaw and amazeballs which are corn balls.

The amazeballs and slaw

For dessert we had two brownies which were amazing.

The brownie

I really enjoyed the whole of my half term and would love to do everything again! The buttermilk fried chicken was delicious and so were all the sides, Friday was probably the best day of the whole week and Yard and Coop was probably the best thing!!!