Good Reads: Aberdare Girls’ School
Thanks to Elaine Hempstead, School Librarian, and Linda Bird, Cath Cole and Lorna Mackintosh in the English Department.
Strange Brew
B Haynes, HarperCollins ‘Bone Chillers’, 0 00 675218 7, £2.99 pbk
In the book Strange Brew the main character is Tori. She is just bored sick of everything so then one day Tori finds a mysterious notebook and each time Tori opens this mysterious notebook a magic spell appears. Then every time Tori says one of these spells everything starts going haywire and all sorts of silly stupid mysterious things start happening.
I like the book because I like scary mysterious books and this particular book is everything. The part I like best is when Tori is in a café when she says the spell:
‘Belch, Burp, Puke,
Slobber, Spit, Spew,
There’s not a single thing
That you can do.’
and then everyone except Tori is feeling ill and being sick. I think I would recommend this book to a teenager because the book is fun. Also I would give the book about 10/10 because the book is very good and I would read the book Strange Brew again and that’s for definite.
Kate Withers, Year 7
The Secret Lives of Teachers
Edited by Brian Moses, Macmillan, 0 330 34265 7, £3.50 pbk
The book that I am writing about is called The Secret Lives of Teachers . It is an extremely fun poem book about school and about the teachers but they put it over to you in a funny way.
Some of the poems I like but some of the poems I find quite confusing. My favourite poem is called ‘Through the Staffroom Door’ and it is about what teachers do while they are in the staffroom – all things that you wouldn’t expect of teachers. Another one of my favourites is a poem called ‘The Headteacher’s Flipped Her Lid’ and it’s all about a headteacher that has gone absolutely crazy and is acting like a child and does nothing but play practical jokes on the pupils and other members of staff!
This book is definitely one to read and I would recommend it to anyone. It is a book that you could read over and over again and still laugh your head off. I would give it a definite 10/10 – it is one to read.
Emma Aldred, Year 7
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens, Penguin Classic, 0 14 043494 1, £3.99 pbk
I found that this book was interesting but very emotional. The book was about David’s life and it starts off with his early years being happy ones with just his Mother and his maid, Peggotty. However everything seems to fall apart when his mother remarries a barbaric, cruel and unjust man. The story tells of his sad teenage years where he is moved from one place to another with no one to care for him. Eventually he finds true love and a family of his own.
The best part of the book was when David Copperfield was married to Agnes at the end. It was very exciting and happy to see them together. Some of the words in this book were hard to understand but most of it was very enjoyable. I would say that this book is for thirteen years plus and that most people would find it very entertaining.
Lydia Poloha, Year 9
Chinese Cinderella
Adeline Yen Mah, Puffin, 0 14 130487 1, £4.99 pbk
Chinese Cinderella is the moving story of Adeline Yen Mah’s childhood. The biography tells of her life in which she suffered betrayal from her own family and how she coped with her pain and hardships. The story is captivating yet it also provides the history of China and how her family and herself managed and adapted to their new surroundings.
Adeline was known to be unlucky all her life as her mother died after giving birth to her. This led to her father remarrying and Adeline’s stepmother, known as Niang, brought terror to Adeline’s life.
The many emotional tales in Chinese Cinderella is going to bring a tear to every reader’s eye, as it did to mine. The way in which the book was written made me want to keep reading and never put it down.
Alison Ng, Year 10
