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Showing posts from November, 2014

Hunger by Michael Grant

Brief synopsis The isolation continues of the Fallout Alley Youth Zone. And now they're running out of food. Sam is overwhelmed by demands on his attention. Little Pete is fighting an unseen monster. The leaders of the group are stretched in too many directions. And hunger is driving the group apart from within. Category YA fiction Why I chose this book Next in the series My personal opinion The author does an excellent job conveying the feeling of hunger, desperation, despair, hopelessness, and fatigue of the characters. I was a bit discouraged by the introduction of even more characters- the list was already long. But they were worth getting to know. Warnings Violence: frequent, not in great detail Language: none Adult situations: none, just feelings Death: frequent, some major characters Movie rating equivalent PG-13 Protagonist description Sam tires of being in charge, constantly having to solve everyone's problems. But he's still the hero. Point of vie

Gone by Michael Grant

Brief synopsis (no spoilers) Suddenly, all the adults in town disappear, and the kids are left behind to take care of themselves. Chaos is the norm at first, but order must be established. Heroes and bullies grapple for power. And then there's the element of mutation. Some kids develop special powers. Some animals gain deadly abilities. And the chaos doesn't end: as kids turn 15, they disappear too. Category YA Fiction Why I chose this book I saw the series on a shelf in my son's school classroom, and I'm a sucker for series My personal opinion (the review) I loved most of it. Special abilities, romantic interest, coming of age, gripping story line, sub plots, hard to put down. I love the hero-villain matches. Every "good" character has an equally matched "bad" character. But the violence was done on little kids. Starvation, murder, accidents- they all happened to kids under the age of 15. That sort of thing is hard to stomach. War