A Magic of Dawn by S.L. Farrell

Allesndra Ca'Vorl has become Kraljica of the Holdings of Nessantico. The country had been ravaged by war with the Tehuantin, and her only son, Jan, had only given her Nessantico as an insult. However, Allesandra rebuilt the city of Nessantico, making it nearly as beautiful as before. Now, the Tehuantin again threaten the Holdings, and Allesandra must take extreme measures to ensure the city's relative safety, even if it means using black sand in contraptions called sparkwheels, and naming her son as heir to the Sun Throne. But will these things be enough to save Nessantico? And will Allesandra, the Kraljica, survive the imminent war?

I was slightly annoyed when the back of the book said it was the third book in a series. Luckily, this was a book that worked fine on its own, and there was a timeline in the back to give a general idea of the first two books. A MAGIC OF DAWN doesn't seem to have a set genre, since it's part fantasy, part adventure, and part mystery, as well as a great many other things. This book was more of an adult book than I expected, but that didn't diminish the beauty of the writing. The way it was written made it seem like the author had actually interviewed the characters who provided the view into the story. I would recommend this book to older experienced fantasy readers who are used to following intricate plots.

Reviewer Age:12

Reviewer City, State and Country: Lake City, IA USA

Eye of the Desert by N K Bauer

Elizabeth Stanford's grandmother has been missing for five years. Many believe she is dead, but Elizabeth is certain her grandmother is just lost. She leaves for Egypt to look for clues as to where her grandmother Victoria might be, taking Victoria's journal with her. When she arrives, she meets Violet Teasdale, who allows Elizabeth to stay with her. Elizabeth finds a dirty old amulet in a store, and the moment she puts it on, it becomes like new. An earthquake occurs a few days later, after which Violet takes Elizabeth to see Unas and Iraeus, a pair of strange museum curators. These people tell Elizabeth her journey will be much more than rescuing her grandmother. With help from an oracle and a mysterious benu bird, Elizabeth must conquer a great evil. However, if Elizabeth rescues her grandmother, can she stop the evil from stealing Victoria away a second time?

I do not usually like books portrayed as mysteries, but Eye of the Desert was amazing, and seemed to be more adventure than mystery. The author chose an intriguing point of view to tell this story. I liked how each character had a different ability, such as Elizabeth bonding with the benu bird. It was an interesting twist when Elizabeth's friend turned out to be a powerful and evil magiana. I was only slightly surprised to learn that the Tetrad were forms of some of the Egyptian gods. I would recommend this book to anyone unless they truly dislike the supernatural or odd events, such as pouring rain in Egypt.

Reviewer Age:12
Reviewer City, State and Country: Lake City, IA USA

The Look Book: 50 Iconic Beauties by Erika Stalder

Have you ever wanted to explore a career as a makeup artist or just wanted to change up your look? If so, The Look Book: 50 Iconic Beauties And How To Achieve Their Signature Styles by Erika Stalder is the perfect resource for you! The book covers 50 beauties throughout the last 100 years and gives you a brief bio highlighting their achievements and beauty innovation. Even if you aren't interested in makeup design, the bios offer a fun and informative glimpse into the beauty standards of bygone eras, and also today. There are also illustrated run throughs with expert beauty tricks to help you achieve each beautys iconic style. From Marilyn Monroe to Kat Von D this book is the ultimate go-to beauty guide!

This book was a great read because of all the interesting facts and tips it provided! I learned so much about beauty of the past and present, and I had fun while doing it. Even if you never actually try out any of the makeup styles, I would suggest this book to you for a great reference in how to look your best!

Reviewer Age:15
Reviewer City, State and Country: Virginia Beach, VA USA

Bloodline Rising by Katy Moran

Bloodline Rising is a companion novel to Bloodline by Katy
Moran that follows the story of Essa and Lark s son Cai.
Bloodline Rising picks up several years after Bloodline
when Essa s family is living in Constantinople after
escaping Britain. Cai is supposed to be looking after the
members of his family since Essa is away at war. But after
Cai s younger sister dies suddenly Cai cannot bear the
grief and so he becomes The Ghost, an expert thief.
Unfortunately being one of the most powerful thieves
naturally makes some other thieves your enemies. One of
the other thieves sells him onto a slave ship away from
his family and the great city he loves. Cai ends up in
Britain, the barbarian land that his parents left, where
he begins to uncover the dark past of his parents that he
never knew. Along the way Cai stumbles across old allies
and hated enemies of his father and unknowingly becomes
ensnared in a political war between different groups in
Britain. Will Cai go back to the ways of his sneaky past
or will he use his stealthy gift for good?


Bloodline Rising was even more interesting than the first
book, Bloodline. The character of Cai, Essa s son, is very
interesting to read about and very well written. Having
characters from Bloodline reappear was a nice surprise and
the writing about Cai s ways as a thief in Constantinople
was fascinating. The ending is similar to Bloodline as it
almost has a and they walked off into the sunset, happily
ever after feel, like the story wasn t wrapped up
properly. On the good side you learn some history about
Britain and other parts of the world at this time period.
I would recommend this book as long as you read Bloodline
first.

Reviewer Age: 15
Reviewer City, State and Country: Loves Park, Illinois
United States

Owl Ninja by Sandy Fussell

The book Owl Ninja is a book is about samurai in training kids that are disabled. Niya with one leg, Taji who is blind, Mikko with one arm, Kyoko who has six fingers and toes, but some of the kids have no problems. In this book, one day comes when the kids hear a drumbeat, calling them to war with the dragon Ryu, but the Cockroach Ryu goes to the emperor to stop the war. On the way, the kids meet Ghosts, acquire ninja skills, and meet a ronin with a battle strategy of losing his pants. What happens to the cockroach Ryu? Does the war stop? Find out in this awesome book!

Owl Ninja was interesting book with no bad language and a well-written storyline with a good bit of humor in it. In this book I think that the author's purpose was to provide an interesting adventure book and the author achieved that purpose. This was an interesting book that keeps you reading and wanting more once you' re into it, you won' t want to stop. I think this book would be good for ages 8-14 and might be hard those under eight. One of the effects of the writing that I noticed is that even though it s told from a boy s first person view, at times you think it could be from anyone, and that Niya, the narrator could at times be a girl. I don t mean that in a bad way, but what I' m trying to say is that it was interesting in a good way that you have to remind yourself who Niya is. I would recommend this book to some of my friends who like books about ninja and samurai warriors around my age, 11.

Reviewer Age:11
Reviewer City, State and Country: Dickinson, Texas U.S.A.

The Forever Crush by Debra Moffitt

The Forever Crush by Debra Moffitt is a book about girls in their teen years. This book expresses how you can do something you later regret or think you want something but when the time comes you find out you really don't want it. Jemma has a forever crush on Forrest so when he asks her to be his pretend girlfriend she goes along with it. Later she finds out that she doesn't like how it's going and how she can't tell her friends. At the same time the Pink Locker Society is getting blackmailed. Read this novel to see who is blackmailing them and how the fake relationship with Forrest turns out!

The Forever Crush by Debra Moffitt in my opinion was a pretty good book. You get to see what it's like to get to have a fake relationship with someone you're crazy about and see how scary blackmailing and keeping secrets can be. I liked how you could see that everyone is scared about growing up but it all ends up fine. I also liked how they had a website to help girls out with the things they were scared of and get multiple people's opinions on it. I think that would've been very helpful for me when I was younger and scared about what would come as I grew older.

Reviewer Age:13

Reviewer City, State and Country: Sandy, Oregon U.S.A

What Comes After by Steve Watkins

Iris was raised in the loving family of a single father
who loved animals and led a vegetarian life. Her life
turns upside down when the death of her father and the
divorce of her best friends' parents (her guardians) cause
her to move from the sea side land of Maine to the cold
lifeless place of North Carolina. Her aunt(Sue) takes all
the money from her dad's estate and constantly smacks her
around when something isn't done right. Iris who can't go
anywhere because Aunt Sue is the only living relative,
finds comfort in the farm animals, which includes a few
goats and a dog named Gnarly. Iris feels like everything
is spinning out of control when the pregnant Goat has 3
little weathers (castrated goats) and they are going to be
sent to the slaughter house. Iris, after attempting to let
them escape is forced to watch as book slaughters a little
weather in an inhumane manner. The thing she does to save
them is like an adventure.
The book was interesting right from the beginning where she is forced to leave her best friend behind right up till the end! The suspense was great and it kept the story going. I loved it and I would recommend to everyone. It was very eventful and didn't have a part where the book was putting me to sleep. I thought it was age appropriate and all the words that would have been hard for a person that doesn't know about goats, had their definitions right within the text, so it didn't feel like I was reading a dictionary or a book about goats. The only thing was there was not a lot of information about what happened at the lake, and after
everything that happened, how did Book and Aunt Sue's trial go? Another question that was only partly answered was how and who found out and reported child abuse that occurred at the lake.

There were some swear word that some parents may not find appropriate for their kids of certain age to read
Age:13 Uxbridge, Massachusetts U.S.

Boondocks Fantasy

Boondocks is a collection of short stories about the backlots or boondocks of the USA. All of the stories hold a delightful taste of the strange and mysterious, the supernatural and extraterrestrial. There is quite a diversity between each story though. In some, there are the demons who help mankind to help themselves. However, there are some in which demons wish nothing better than to cause havoc and destruction. Some stories are about how the strange and the supernatural save humans because it is the right thing to do. While other stories are about how supernatural beings attack and maim because it’s fun for them. There may be a lot of change and difference between the stories, but there is always one ever-present detail that interlocks all of these stories together with a firm hand; they all start in the boondocks.

I found that the fervor of getting a new book quickly died while reading this storybook. The stories did not explain themselves well. Many brought in characters without explaining who they were or how they got there, and in quite a few of these stories nothing at all happened until the last page of the tale. If you’re looking for an exciting book with a good storyline and interesting characters, I suggest you pass this book by. However, it would be insulting to suggest that the language used to write the books was not well done. The main problem with this book is that many of the stories hardly ever explained themselves. Even though the overall book was not my cup of tea, there were definite high points. My favorite story was “The Devil Is a Gentleman” by Raymond Benson. It was interesting and fast-paced, plus it explained itself very well and was anything but boring. Another story I enjoyed very much was “Protection” by Timothy Zahn. I found it fast paced, exiting and well written. In complete contrast to my favorite stories are stories that I found so confusing and slow that I couldn’t even finish them. “Siren Tears” by John Lambshed, for instance, in which nothing much happened except that a man walked around town. “Black Rider”, by Brian Hopkins, started off well and then just seemed to drift into nonsense. All in all, not one of the better books I’ve ever read.

Reviewer Age:13
Reviewer City, State and Country: Monrovia, MD USA

Rex Riders by J.P. Carlson

Everything is going along fine at Zeke's uncle's ranch
until a Triceratops rages at a stagecoach and the town.
Zeke saves the town including Angelia and Maria from
certain death. Zeke then finds an unconcious stranger a
little ways from Dos Locos who is accompanied by a T-Rex.
When the stranger "comes to" he tells them that
D'Allesandro who does not like Uncle Jesse, is trying to
bring a Triceratops herd into Dos Locos. Zeke and Angelia
must travel to a prehistoric world to try to save the
town.

I think Rex Riders is excellent. The book
draws you into its pages with its vivid descriptions. I
especially like how the author mixes dinosaurs with the
Old West perfectly. He makes it seem so natural. I
recommend this truly prehistoric book to anyone 12 and up.
This book will have you dreaming about dinosaurs for
weeks. I can't wait for the next book in this series to
come out!
Reviewer Age:12 Uxbridge, Ma USA

Review of Bug Island by Bug Island by RG Cordiner

Barely surviving a horrific shipwreck, not only do survivors have to try to stay alive, they also must deal with the bugs. They are toe biters, pond skaters and harvest men. Normal bugs right? Wrong. The insects are 7, 8, 10 feet tall at the minimum! Being trapped with a six meter giant centipede was not on the cruise itinerary! Now all they want is to get off without getting squished! (Or worse...)

To me, Bug Island reminded me of the stories we wrote in third grade. The characters seemed flat, and I didn't see a single comma anywhere in the whole story. I'm exaggerating, but when I read this book I couldn't get around the fact of the lack of commas.

But it was a wonderful idea and was mostly enjoyable. It would generally be categorized as "horror", but to me it is more of "horror lite". I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Thrillers/Horror/Action books such as Time Machine and the like, but not to those that don't like predictable plots.

Reviewer Age:11

Reviewer City, State and Country: Seattle, Washington USA