James Dashner's The Maze Runner: A Review by Miles!

The Maze Runner is a fast paced book with many secrets along the way.  The name of the protagonist is Thomas, a boy about 16 years old who wakes up in an elevator with no memories except his name.  When the elevator comes up, he finds himself in front of fifty boys, all around his age.  He eventually finds out he is in a giant maze that changes every night.  Each month, a new kid comes in the elevator; always a boy.  But the next day a girl comes up, throwing everything into chaos.  Thomas and his new friends now have a limited amount of time to make it out of the maze, before they are all killed.  One thing I liked about this book was all the secrets that still go un-answered in book two.  You might light this book if you enjoy action and adventure, and the Divergent  and Hunger Games series.

Artist Arthur's Mystify: A Review by Patima edited by Ms. Hernandez!

Sasha is a very gifted girl--she can teleport to any place.  Sasha's best friends have Mystyx powers.  Jake, one of her best friends, can move objects with his mind.  Also, Krystal can speak to the dead.  There is one more girl who can mind read and her name is Lindsay.  One problem that Sasha has is that there is a dark group who wants power and they want to obliterate the Mystyx.  Every Mystyx person has a mark.  Be sure you read this novel!  One thing I like about this book was that each character has his or her own power.  You might like this book if you enjoy magic, supernatural, fantasy, romance and friendship.

Luis Rodriguez's Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.: A Review by Natalie!

The story Always Running is about Luis J. Rodriguez. It centers on his years in high school to his years after high school. Luis grows up in Las Lomas which is a sketchier town in Los Angeles. In the memoir, he deals with drugs, sex, violence, gangs, and jail. For most of the time in his high school years he gets distracted with those subjects. Then, one day at his new school he and this girl run to be the girl and boy Aztecs people as the mascot of their school. They win the election. There they both implement a Chicano Studies program. The program become a huge success, and he and the girl become known very well by the whole school but especially by the Chicano students. That program helped many other students but especially Luis. He became off drugs and started almost a new life. In that same year, later one of his teachers tells him about a poetry tournament being held in Berkeley and that she has some of his writing that she was really impressed with it. She enters his writing and a few days later he gets a call that he was one of the winners and he would get $250 and a trip to Berkeley. Luis was really excited and that was a strong turning point in his life. One thing I like about this book was how the author really describes how he feels in moments when he is scared. You might like this book if you enjoy non-fiction stories about the tough lives of some when growing up.

Ann Cameron's The Kidnapped Prince: The Life Of Olaudah Equiano: A Review by Yesenia!

*This review features a book not available at the Longfellow Library, but nonetheless enjoyed by a Longfellow student!*

In this novel Olaudah Equiano was the protagonist who is separated from his family as a boy and is brought into slavery. Anyway, Olaudah Equiano explains through his story how his sister was sold off to another man and he never saw her or his mom again and how while you have family you should care for it. First, Equiano expresses how only because he was black they did not take him seriously, at trading events. Second, in the middle of the book he enters the slave trade in Britain and sails off to Virginia, London, the Caribbean and many others. Third, Olaudah was then sold off to Captain James Doran, a year later Captain James Doran died and Olaudah was named “Captain” by all the cities and he continued to sail freed from all the slavery. One thing I liked about this book was how Olaudah was sent free at the end and had good masters throughout the time he was enslaved. You might like this book if you enjoy African-American history.

Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle: A Memoir: A Review by Charlotte!

*This review features a book not available in the Longfellow Library, but nonetheless enjoyed by a Longfellow student!*

Jeannette Walls lives with her mom, dad, sister and brother, although they don’t have a rooted home. They are always moving during the night, “the skedaddle” as her dad calls it. Jeannette learns how to be her own parent. When she was three, she was cooking hot dogs herself, she burns the side of her torso, but she’s okay. Her dad teaches her not to run from fear, but to face it, unless it’s  the police. As she grows, her family falls apart. The Glass Castle: A Memoir is an incredible novel about family, struggle and surviving. One thing I liked about this book was how she writes the book in stories about her life, not in chapters. You might enjoy this book if you like books about struggle and making it to the end.

John Grogan's Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog: A Review by Leo!

*This review features a book not available at the Longfellow Library, but nonetheless enjoyed by a Longfellow student!*

The main characters in the book Marley and Me, are Marley, the dog, the narrator/John, his girlfriend/wife and later on in the book his kids.  One important event early in the book was when they went to go admire and pick out a little Labrador puppy. When they arrived to the small breeding farm, the mother of the puppies and the owner came out to greet them. Where was the dad? Later on when Jenny and John are about to leave, they finally get to see the father. He emerges from the woods, his coat is covered in mud running at top speed towards the house. Another important event in the book is when Marley begins to act strange and not himself.  After a few days of being like this John takes him to the hospital to find out that Marley has a stomach torsion condition that does not allow him to eat because of all the pain in his stomach.  One of the main themes in this book is family.  One thing I liked about this book was that it was based on a true story and that I also have a Labrador so I can relate.  You might like this book if you like emotional and funny stories based on true events.

Felicia Pearson's Grace After Midnight: A Review by Brianna edited by Ms. Hernandez!

*This review features a book not available in the Longfellow Library, but nonetheless enjoyed by a Longfellow student!*

To begin, it starts of where she is very young.  She is about 9 in the memoir.   It never reveals her real age so we have to base it off from the information given.  When she was born she was born a miracle baby which means that her mom was on crack when she was in her mom's womb.  She was put into the foster care system so, ever since she was young she had a tough start.  One day her mom supposedly changed and stopped taking crack and she was allowed to visit her mom again.  To Felicia this is one of her biggest mistakes because when she got there her biological mom told her to strip down and to go lock herself in the closet.  When this happened her social worker found her there crying for her life.

Once she went through that she had another struggle coming to her.  She didn't know her sexuality and she had to do some “experimenting” and found out that she was a lesbian.  One day there was a parade and she decided to go and because she was African American, this one girl came swinging at her with a bat and she had a gun in her back pocket.  Felicia decided to pull it out and shoot the girl in self defense.  Once she realized what she did she needed some help, so she asked her favorite uncle and eventually there was nothing he could do in the end so she had to go to jail.  She found her girlfriend in jail. She started going out with somebody that worked in the jail and broke up with her later.  Her uncle dies and she is very depressed.  Once she got out she started changing, making the right decisions and changing [her life] so it's very positive.  It was to hard for her and she couldn't do it so she changed back to the person she was.  She turned back into a drug dealer and the top pf the streets.  Right then the memoir ends. 

One thing I liked about this book was the fact that she realized what she was doing wrong and she changed for a while, but she did quit the bad things she was doing.  You may like this book if you enjoy exhilarating pieces of writing.  [This is a book] that makes you question what's going to happen next?