The Berlin Boxing Club

The Berlin Boxing Club 
By Robert Sharenow
Reviewed by Ani

As Karl Stern walks through the halls after school, he gets caught by some Nazi-supporting bullies. Karl had never thought of himself as a Jew. He hasn’t even been in a synagogue. The bullies beat him up, then move on. Karl has to go to the art gallery his dad owns and is seen with a beat-up face. Then Max Schmeling, a world-known boxer volunteers to give Karl a boxing chance. Max trains Karl throughout a couple of years and Karl gets pretty good. After a while, Karl gets into it and starts to fight other people other than the people in the gym.

 Soon, Karl has to make secret deliveries for a transgender woman, which he does not like at first. Her name is The Countess. Karl noticed that the “woman” who answered the door had an adam’s apple and he sort of freaked out. Anyways, the Countess was apparently in the war with Karl’s father. Sometimes the Countess is a girl, sometimes is a boy. Karl finds love. Her name is Greta, who is a year older. After 2 years of dating, the apartment building owner kicks Karl out for being a Jew and for “making a move” on Greta, even though it was the apartment building owner who “made a move.”

Karl and his family end up having to move into the art gallery and Karl keeps on boxing. As Karl and his father get closer, the story gets deeper. Greta is not in Karl’s life anymore. Greta really is a good person, but her father is a strict man. Later in the story, Karl’s uncle passes away from a horrible stomach sickness. Later, Karl gets kicked out of boxing because they figure out that he was technically a Jew. Karl goes back to see the janiter at the old Berlin Boxing Club in which he was really good friends with and they talk for a little bit. A little while later in the book, Karl’s house gets broken into and Karl has to fight for his family. As Karl and his father face the Nazis, Karl’s father gets stabbed by some broken glass.

They take him to the hospital and Karl and his little sister can’t go. Karl ends up calling the Countess and she shows up as a woman. As she leads the kids back to her apartment, Karl crosses one of his old friends from school. They lock eyes for a couple of seconds and they separate. Karl and his sister get safely to the apartment, but will Karl’s father be okay?

Rules and Beliefs To Live By YOU

● Never be afraid of yourself.
● Love and accept yourself.
● God made you on this earth to change the world. It is your choice if you change it or not.
● You are on the world for a reason. Don’t ruin it and spend it a way you wouldn’t want it.
● Everyone else is taken, so be yourself.
● Smile when it’s hard.
● Don’t beat yourself up about something especially when it isn’t your fault.
● Be happy
● There is no good competition with someone else. The only competition is with yourself.
● Some people are just plain mean. Don’t be a mean person.
● Be yourself!
● It is your choice, but you don’t have to love anyone except yourself.
● Be funny and comfortable with someone you can trust.
● You are allowed to let it out.
● Work hard for what you love.
● Follow your heart.
● Love is everywhere and anyone can love.
● Don’t doubt yourself.
● Don’t let anyone ruin your good vibes.
● Control your actions.
● Accept yourself.

-Ani

The Hunger Games series

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Mockingjay 
By Suzanne Collins
Reviewed by Lola

The second and third book in the Hunger Games series is as thrilling, action packed, and romantic as the first one! It is finally time for the Quarter Quell, Katniss never wants to speak of the Hunger Games, and her and Peeta are still acting as Star Crossed Lovers for the cameras. For the Quell they have to be mentors. Until President Snow threatens Katniss and the people she cares about. When they announce what they will be doing for the Quarter Quell, everyone is shocked. They announce that they will be reaping out of the victors. That means that Katniss has to go back into the arena. The arena is filled with action, death and new friendships. Finally Katniss, and her allies escape the arena by blowing up the force field. But they didn’t get Peeta. As Katniss plays the role of the rebels leader, The Mockingjay, they manage to rescue Peeta.

But he has been changed by the capital. He has been injected with tracker jacker venom so that his memories of Katniss are twisted. Finally when he his stable enough to see her they talk. The rebels decide to invade the capital, finally. One of Katniss’ allies dies during it and is replaced by Peeta. Invading the capital is just like The Games. There are pods that set of catastrophes, and even new mutts. Many allies die in the making. Katniss and Peeta trust each other, but Gale grows distant. When they finally get to President Snow when he has a shield of children around his mansion. The Rebel medics come to save them as evil parachutes release from a capital plane. Prim is among the medics. Then a bomb goes of. No more Primrose. There is thrill, romance and even death in the next two books. Will Katniss go crazy, will the president die, will Katniss and Gale fall in love instead of Peeta? I guess you’ll have to find out for yourself...

Mayoree’s Guide to Being Awesome

❏ Be Yourself
Don’t let anyone change you. You don’t need to be someone else to satisfy someone else’s needs.

❏ Live Life
Do the things you want to. Don't live your life in regret. If you do your whole life will be sad and miserable.

❏ Be Nice to Your Body
Eat healthy food. Don't starve yourself to be skinnier, but don't eat the whole refrigerator all because you can.

❏ Stand Up For Yourself
Don’t let people pick on you and make fun of you. Don’t allow someone to make you feel like you are not good enough. Because you definitely are. You might not be their perfect but you are you.

❏ You're Not Always Right
Don’t be a Know-It-All. There will be people who are smarter than you. You do not know everything.

❏ You Are Perfect the Way You Are
Don’t put makeup to change yourself beautiful (Or handsome) self. If people think that you're not skinny, or pretty enough then they are worth it. If you like Harry Potter don’t let any non-readers tell you you are weird or that you have something wrong with you.

❏ Challenge Yourself
Don’t sit in a box when it come to your academics or even your artistics, Make sure you're always learning something.

The Cursed Child

The Cursed Child: Extended Edition
By J.K. Rowling
Reviewed by Brahm

The Cursed Child (by J.K. Rowling) is a book about the sons and daughters of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, and Draco Malfoy. This story tells how Albus Severus Potter tried to save Cedric Diggory in different ways, but then had to face the consequences. He went back in time and made Cedric get off track from a coarse by pretending to be a student of a different school. This Changed everything as making everyone act different, and marry different people. But then he prevented what he did by going back in time again and made him stop in the middle of a trial. He did something bad that changed the world to a world where Harry Potter is dead.

 You should read this book if you like to act, because this book is written like a script. You can see where each scene takes place, what it was like, and imagine what the characters would look like if you were in the book. Read on and see what became of Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. See how some of your favorite characters do as a career. You can see what happened to some of your favorite characters after Albus changed time. If you read the book you can find out about You-Know-Who’s child and what they were going to do, and how they hid from the world. Find out how Albus and Scorpius (Malfoy’s son) went back in time, how they saved the world.

This book makes you wonder what happens when you go back in time. I thought about how the other people would react. You would wonder what would happen if time changed around you. Read and become a ministery auror of time! I love this book and I’m sure others would love it to. I love the organization in the written play. Yes, this book is written like play, but that means you can understand where they are, which characters are in the scene, and will make you want to act out each of these scenes. You will be amazed about how different Albus is from Harry Potter.

Your Best Self

1. Don’t act like someone you’re not
I have had the experience of being bullied and teased but that is not a reason to act like someone you’re not (it doesn’t help). I learned that the hard way. I was afraid to stand up for myself and just be me.

2. Treat others the way you want to be treated
You may not always want to be kind to everyone but it is a good habit to develop and you won’t have a lot of the weight of negativity dragging you down. Also, when you come to a point in your life and you don’t know how to react, just remember you should think of others’ needs before you think of your own.

3. Listen don’t talk
Listen to others and don’t ignore them. When someone is telling you something that they want or need you to hear, you should respect them and treat their words with care. That way when they’re done you can help them with serious attention and courtesy.

Drama

Drama
by Raina Telgemeier
Reviewed by Olya

Drama by Raina Telgemeier is a very good but some what challenging book. This book will take you to a world that you would never imagine could really happen.

Callie is in love with theatre, and when she heard that they were doing Moon over Mississippi for the school play she could not wait to audition, but she couldn't really sing. She was determined to be apart of the school's play. So she decided to be the set crew designer for the Drama program at their school. She was planning to make a prop better than ever. It also had to stay under the budget. On her journey through middle school she met two brothers who she thought were kind of cute and also learned that one of them was a little different. She and her friend Liz took a little adventure into the school basement, where there was a little surprised. The show was coming up quick and the ticket sales were going down slowly, she had to make a brand new prop, she had a crush on a boy, and let’s not forget all the Drama that is going on outside of school as well. Things are crazy now but when show day comes it is about to get crazier!!!

I love how Drama  is organized, and formatted. It is not hard to pick up or understand. I love how Raina Telgemeier has all of these great ideas that she just pulled out of her back pocket, just kidding I know even not as a writer, writing a book is not that easy. Her Illustrations are so detailed and unique.

I think this book is great for people all ages, but I feel for adults it would be to easy. I love her and Drama and I can’t wait to read the other books in her series

Here are a few rules that I live life by.

Rule #1:

The first rule I live by is always be you!  What I mean is wear what you like to wear and never let people tell you that what you are wearing is ugly.  If you think it’s cute, then wear it!  Don’t wear something because you fit in with the crowd.

Rule#2

Live your life for you!  Don’t let others dictate for you how you should live your life.  If people have an opinion or judge your life, don’t allow them to stop you from living your life.

Rule#3:

Love yourself first!  If you don’t love yourself and who you are, how can someone else love you?

Rule#4:

Always have faith in God. You should allow God to love you and realize that he loves you, your kids and your entire family.

Rule#5:

Eat healthy because when you eat healthy, you live longer.  You also have strong muscles and bones and you can prevent from facing certain health issues as you get older.  If you have a healthy body, can enjoy activities in life.

Rule#6:

Help others when they need help if you can.  No matter if the help is big or small and do not expect man to reward you for your good deeds.  God will bless you and give you the proper reward.

Rule#7:

Family comes first not matter what and you should love your family unconditionally!

 -Trinity

Star Crossed

Star Crossed
By Barbara Dee
Reviewed by Regan

For my book review, I will be reviewing the book “Star Crossed” by Barbara Dee. I chose this book because I love Shakespeare and stories written about his work.Also I found it interesting because there are very few books that are have LGBTQ+ kids in them, bisexual characters are especially rare.

So the book starts out with the main character Mattie going to a Halloween party with her friends. She is wearing her little brothers Darth Vader costume so she can hide her voice and face. She has to hide them because she wasn’t invited to the party but her friends convinced her to sneak in to see what her crush, Elijah was doing. While she’s there, she goes up to the kitchen where she meets Gemma, an English girl who goes to her school and who elso ends up being her co-star in their 8th grade play, Romeo and Juliet. (Mattie is Romeo and Gemma is Juliet) The more time Mattie spends with Gemma, she realizes she might just have a crush on her, but is confused on weather it is okay to have crushes on boys and girls. They go through with the play and all goes well and afterwards, they go to their Valentine's Dance.

I loved this book because I think the characters were written very realistically, each character has their flaws and good traits. Also the plot was interesting enough to where once I started reading I didn’t want to stop until I got to the end.

This was my review of Star Crossed by Barbara Dee, I recommend anyone that likes Shakespeare or books about kids in middle school trying to figure themselves out. This book could be helpful for people of all ages and I think it’s a book everyone should read at one point in their life.

Manifesto

-Kennedy

Holes

Holes 
by Louis Sachar
reviewed by Simone

Stanley Yelnats is put under a family curse caused by his no-good-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather Elya. This curse was put on for all of his descendents of the Yelnats family. Because of Elya, Stanley is put in Camp Green Lake. Camp Green Lake is a boys’ detention where young men such at Stanley build character by spending almost everyday digging holes that are exactly 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep.

Stanley realizes later after being at Camp Green Lake for about 5 weeks that the Warden is making the boys dig holes because she is trying to find something. But why is this special thing under a dried up lake? Stanley decides that himself and four other boys. ZigZag, Squid, Zero, and X-ray. Investigate and try to figure out what the Warden is trying to get, and why is it so important.

Holes is a very interesting book with mysteries coming out of every corner. Suspicion about character and what they’ve done to get to where they are now. This book gives a brief definition of mystery, temptation, crime, and redemption. Holes is a very good book to read if you're into trying to find out clues or trying to figure out an answer to anything. The strengths of this book is that it gives good vocabulary for its readers which are mainly Junior High and it helps the readers understand and imagine what's going on by the way the characters acts, and their way of life. But the book is goes off the road in the middle of the text and tells about earlier acts that lead onto what happens the next chapter, so if you're not into those kind of books do not read this one the book goes off to different scenes or different parts of the story and leads on to what is coming up next.

In my opinion this is an amazing book to read and I advise anyone who is into anything like this book to read it. Louis Sachar is a great author and has a great imagination. In conclusion my review over this book is that it's an amazing book and it’s really good to read it's really good for imagination or just thinking out of the box it's a very good book two think ahead of other things but that is my book review over the book Holes by Louis Sachar.

The 7 Rules of hard working individuals

1. Study: You need to study items, courses, and objectives. You’ll
need to know more than others to be accelerated in the subject.

2. Challenge yourself: If you don’t challenge yourself you’ll be going
in circles, which means you are going absolutely nowhere.

3. Limits: Your limits are only as far as you can go. If you can go on
for a couple of miles, then go a couple of miles.

4. Extend: You should always extend everything you do to get more
limits beyond the first. You can extend grammar, math, maps,
absolutely anything.

5. Defy the Odds: You should think of what others might say. Well
ignore it, that will slow you down from getting different possibilities.

6. Ignore the Disrespectful Statements: If you do extend something
to much and you, and others, know it, then ignore the statements about
it, not ignoring the disrespectful statements means that you will make
work easier, so you won’t get far as where you used to be.

7. Double your Time: When you do something again you could double
your time. If you double your time then you would do a lot more than
you thought of. You will go twice as far, and work twice as hard.

-Brahm

The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars
By John Green
Reviewed by Petra

I read the book The Fault in our Stars, and it was possibly one of the best books I have ever read. This book is about Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters battle with cancer. The two meet at a support group and they became good friends, which soon turned into being boyfriend and girlfriend. When they first started dating Augustus was cancer free, while Hazel had to have oxygen almost all the time. Augustus took Hazel and her mother to Amsterdam where they were going to meet the author of An Imperial Affliction. They had a very fancy dinner the second day they were in Amsterdam and the author Peter Van Houten of an Imperial Affliction paid for their dinner.

Peter seemed very nice for spending a good amount of money for their dinner so they thought that he would be very nice according to this and the many letters they had both separately sent to him. The next morning they were going to his house and hazel had dressed up like anna from the novel hoping that it would please Peter. They both went to Peter’s house and his assistant lead them where Dr. Van Houten was sitting. The whole purpose of going to see him is because Hazel wanted to know the futures of the characters after the book ended. Peter refused to answer her questions and made some very offensive about their disease and appeared to be drunk which really upset both of them. It was so offensive that his assistant started crying and quit and kept apologizing to them.

They eventually left because they couldn’t take it anymore and Hazel was crying because of this. After that Augustus promised that he would finish the book for her. Hazel noticed that Augustus seemed more tired and worn out recently which made her very nervous. The next day he sat her down and told her that the cancer was back and he started to cry. Hazel had never seen him cry before. Augustus had already told her family which he apologized to her for that because he didn’t want to ruin Amsterdam for them. They left Amsterdam the next day and Augustus was getting worse by the day. Hazel went to his house everyday which really cheered Augustus up.

 All he seemed to do now was sleep and Hazel was right by his side. A few weeks later, Augustus Waters died. Hazel and her family and the Waters family were so upset and depressed, hazel didn’t see the point to live anymore. The day of the funeral there were lots of people that Augustus knew that she had never met. She said a beautiful speech she wrote for Augustus which moved people to tears. Although she would miss Augustus terribly he was always in every ones heart. There are still a lot of great things that happen in this book but that would be way too long. I highly recommend this book it is a beautiful story and will make you want to read it over and over.

Children of Eden

Children of Eden
by Joey Graceffa
Review by Alia

“Children of Eden” is a spectacular novel showing how a girl that didn’t exist to other people, for sixteen years, finally goes out and discovers the world.

Everyone in Eden lives a happy life in the inner circle where no second children or any harm can get to them. In the outside world it is poisoned and everything has been destroyed by man made disaster. This is why Eden is so protected by security.

Rowan has been living in her house for sixteen whole years not being able to go outside since she is a second child. She finally adventures going out to the world of Eden. She had a great time, made a new friend, but then the night leads to misfortune. She soon gets hunted from the Greenshirts and is now on the run.

Joey Graceffa’s storytelling is very creative. He has an imagination so full of ideas that it makes the readers feel like they are actually in the book.

There’s Rowan who is a second child and wants to see the world, her brother Ash who gets to live a normal life and tell Rowan all about his life experiences. Rowans mom and dad who also care for her and try their best to help Rowan get to a normal life. Then there is the Greenshirts that are kind of like security chasing second children and any bad thing that comes in the way of keeping Eden safe.

Joey gives an adventure full of great imagination. This novel will make you want to keep reading more and more if you feel like diving into a mysterious world of Eden.

8 Habits of a Happy Kid

Habit 1- Failing is Always Okay
I love it when I fail. It makes me learn more, I learn from my mistakes. I grow my brain
more and do better next time. I learn from my mistakes and feel more confident
because I know I can do better next time.

Habit 2- Be Respectful to Everyone
You can say anything to anyone and ruin their day, or even make them have a low self
esteem. I always like to watch what I say and how I say it. I treat others how I want to
be treated.

Habit 3- Be Happy ☺
Always be cheerful. I think one smile or compliment to someone can brighten their day.

Habit 4- Never say “Can’t”
Never say you can’t do something that's possible. Work for it until you get it. I try my
best and practice because once I practice I CAN do it.

Habit 5- Be Different
I think being different is good. My style is unique and different from so many other
people. As long as you act as yourself, you're perfect.

Habit 6- Read More
Reading grows the mind and engages readers into stories of other people. I like that a
single book can do that and it makes me want to read more and more. When I’m
reading and get to a word I don't know I check the dictionary and find new words.

Habit 7- Be Confident
When you do something that makes you nervous, just go with the flow. I usually get
nervous and I take a deep breath and just go.

Habit 8- Listen
Listening to everyone is important. You may not like what they’re saying but you still
should listen. Put your imput after theirs. I wait until others are done speaking until I
talk.

-Breyelle