chrisholliman

Children's Librarian

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Category: Book Reviews

  • “Pax” by Sarah Pennypacker

    The Plot In 5 Sentences Or Less:  War is approaching and Peter’s father must go off to fight.  Before he leaves, he forces Peter to leave his pet fox, Pax, in the woods; it is not welcome at his grandfather’s house where Peter must stay for the time being.  After leaving Pax and traveling to…

  • “Liar & Spy” by Rebecca Stead

    The Plot In 5 Sentences Or Less: Georges is a 7th grader in Brooklyn whose family has just experienced job loss and moved from a house to an apartment building. Life at school isn’t much better because he is lately the target of the class bullies.  At the new apartment building, a strange boy named Safer…

  • “Greenglass House” by Kate Milford

    The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less:  It is Christmas break and Milo is hoping to use his time off from school to rest and relax.  Unfortunately, he lives with his parents in an old house turned inn located in the town of Nagspeake.  As soon as he settles in with his books and hot…

  • “Wishtree” by Katherine Applegate

    The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less:  Red is a scarlet oak that has stood in a neighborhood for 216 years.  The local people use Red as a wishtree, writing wishes onto scraps of paper or cloth and tying them onto the branches.  When a Muslim family moves into a house close by, Red and its…

  • ‘The Ethan I Was Before’ by Ali Standish

    The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less:  Ethan and his family are moving from Boston to a small town in coastal Georgia, seeking a new start after a traumatic experience involving Ethan and his best friend Kacey.  As Ethan learns to adjust to his new settings and to try to make peace with the past,…

  • “The Girl Who Drank The Moon” by Kelly Barnhill

    The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less:  Every year the members of the Proctectorate have taken an infant and left it in the woods as a sacrifice to the witch.  Unbeknownst to them, the witch, who name is Xan, has shepherded each baby to another town so that it can be raised by a loving…

  • “Wolf Hollow” by Lauren Wolk

    The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less:  Annabelle is a 12 year old girl living on a farm in rural Pennsylvania in the autumn of 1943.  Betty is a new girl at school who jumps Annabelle on her way home one afternoon in the deep recess of Wolf Hollow, a low, dark place that runs…

  • “The Lost Track of Time” by Paige Britt

    The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less:   The one thing that Penelope wants to be is a writer, but she has no time in her busy schedule to put her thoughts on paper.  But that’s all about to change, because one day, while looking at her schedule, she falls into the Realm of Possibility.  It’s…

  • “Stick Dog” by Tom Watson

    The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less:  Stick Dog lives in a pipe that runs under Highway 16.  His favorite pastime is playing with his four friends Karen, Stripes, Mutt, and Poo Poo.  One day when the dogs are out playing, they catch a whiff of hamburgers being grilled over in the park.  This starts…

  • “Snoop Troop: It Came From Beneath The Playground” by Kirk Scroggs

    The Plot In Five Sentences Or Less: Logan Lang is a 4th grader super sleuth at Murkee Elementary who loves solving crimes almost as much as she loves reading about them in the school library.  Gustavo Muchomacho is a fellow student who was raised on crime fighting TV shows and has a set of specialized…