Student Saturday: The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Student Reviewer: Alexia R.
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Animals

I think this a a good book for everybody, even adults and small children.  This is a book about Ivan, a silverback gorilla who has spent most of his life in a small shopping mall in a cage. Ivan made friends over time like Stella who is an elephant, Runy who's a baby elephant and Bob a stray dog who spends a lot of time with Ivan in his cage.  Over time the animals became depressed, do you think they will ever get out of the small cage and get moved to a zoo?

This is an incredible book. It teaches a lot of lessons to people of how we treat animals for the good and for the worst. This book is really sad and funny and I recommend this for all ages because this book can teach a lot to people of all ages.

Great Stories by some Great Authors

Genre: Children's Picture Books

Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinion expressed here are my own.

Fribbet the Frog and the Tadpoles by Carole P. Roman

This is the next book in the Captain No Beard series. When Cayla drops a bucket of dirty water on deck, everyone realizes Fribbet the frog is missing. They find him and learn he is distressed. It seems Fribbet’s home is invaded by tadpoles. As a reader we learn about the changes a frog goes through from egg, to tadpole, to frogs. We learn how valuable a lesson it is to listen to others and help them through their problems. This invasion of siblings for Fribbet is something Captain No beard can identify with. He also shows how special it is. The ending has a surprise for one of the other crew members. Another wonderful way to teach children simple lessons.

Stories For Children 5 by Francois Bissonnette

This book contains two fairytales. They are based on original stories by the Grimm brothers. The first story is a retelling of “Snow White”. In this version Snow White is taken far north by a servant and dumped in the snow to freeze. The Snow Fairy sends a mother polar bear and her two cubs to rescue her. The king is saddened when his wife tells him his daughter has run away.  Many yhears later he sends out eligible princes to find her promising them her hand in marriage. The queen creates a poisoned apple and places it outside of the polar bear’s cave. The cubs roll it in to Snow White where she takes a bite and falls asleep. You must read this to find out how it ends. It is quite different from the Disney Version.

“The Magician” is based on “The Rich and the Poor”

A magician traveling to a magician’s meeting stops at the house of a rich man and asks to spend the night. He is turned away because of his appearance. A poor man sees this and offers him the best of everything they have. The next day the magician gives them three wishes. They ask for health, food every day, and they were given a new house. The rich man learns who he turned away. He rides after the magician seeking both forgiveness and three wishes. Read to see what he will do for those wishes.

Stories For Children 6 by Francois Bissonnette

“Lily and the Prince” is the story of a mother named Helen and her daughter Rebecca who were very rich ladies. Helen was so greedy she adopted a girl named Lily to do all of the work. They didn’t want to pay out the money to a maid. Helen decided her daughter should marry the Prince. Every day they went to town to look for him. One day the Prince stopped by Lily’s house.  He had a problem with his horse. Lily fixed up the horse. The Prince was so impressed he asked to come back the next day.  This continued for a long time. They fell in love. One day Lily’s mother came home early and when the Prince said he was going to marry Lily her mother refused. They rode off anyway. Helen cast a spell on the Prince to stop the marriage.  I loved this Cinderella type story. But, will it have a happy ending?

“The Princess and the Frog” 

This is the story of a beautiful princess  who liked to sit by a lake and read the inscription inside the ring her father had given her. One day the ring fell into the lake. A frog offered to dive down and get it if she would let him be her companion. She agreed. When the frog returned the ring she took him home and explained everything to her father. The frog dined with them. However, he asked to share her warm bed and she refused. He offered her a way to get rid of him. Is his request too much for the Princess?

Executive by Leslie Wolfe

Genre: Adult, Thriller
Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinons expressed here are my own.

In this young adult thriller you have a corporation that manufactures drones. Then you have a company that sends people in to help fix companies in trouble. Alex Hoffman is one of those up and coming  people sent to work undercover in the company that makes drones.  Two military drones have crashed killing a lot of innocent people.  Her job is to pretend to be an IT person and find out what happened.  She is faced with a lot of arrogant executives who abuse their powers.  The question is, will she be able to do her job, or will she be discovered?

This is definitely a book that will keep you on the edge of your seat turning the pages as fast as you can.  I did feel like the author had a negative outlook on big corporations. It kind of came through in the pages of the story.  I could be completely wrong.  This was not a big enough deal to make me not enjoy the storyline.  I believe there is enough here to love that any lover of thrillers will enjoy this book.