The Jungle Book

By Rudyard Kipling

The Jungle Book is a collection of stories and poems that all feature talking animals. The first three stories are about the adventures of Mowgli the man-cub. He is a boy that was raised by wolves. The Disney movie is based on these stories, but is a little bit different. The first three stories that make up the Jungle Book are:

• Mowgli's Brothers
• Kaa's Hunting
• Tiger! Tiger!

I really enjoyed these three stories and the talking animals. My favorite part was in "Tiger Tiger!" but I can't tell you what happens because it gives away the ending! You will have to read it to find out.

I am going to rate these three stories together.

Rating: 4 out of 5 worms


The White Seal
"The White Seal" is about a baby seal named Kotick that is born white instead of gray. He goes on an adventure to try and find a safe place where no men will come to hunt for seals.

I liked this story, but it was a little boring.

Rating: 3 out of 5 worms.


Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
This story was sooooooooo good! It was my favorite story in the whole book. "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" is about a boy finding an almost dead mongoose named Rikki-Tikki. The boy nurses Rikki-Tikki back to health, and convinces his mom and dad to let him keep him. Rikki-Tikki fights dangerous creatures (duh, duh, duhn...) to save the family.

If you don't want to read all of the jungle book stories, this story also comes as a separate book.

Rating: 5 out of 5 worms


Toomai of the Elephants
This story is about a 10-year old boy named Little Toomai. His dad is in charge of driving India's greatest elephant, but one day the elephant takes off with Little Toomai on his back.

This was a bit of a humdrum read (that means boring).

Rating: 3 out of 5 worms


Servants of the Queen
In a crowded camp full of people and their animals, a bunch of talking animals discuss their different war fighting strategies. For example, the horse talks about his owner riding around on his back, shooting guns and slashing people with knives. The bullock, on the other hand, just relaxes and eats grass while waiting for his owner to come back and take him home.

It was pretty interesting to hear about the different ways the animals fight, but I still thought this story was a little boring.

Rating: 3 out of 5 worms

Pages: 280
Interest Level: Grades 9 - 12
Reading Level: 5.9

The Hallo-wiener

By Dav Pilkey

This is a very funny Halloween story about a Daschund named Oscar. Other dogs make fun of him and call him a wiener dog. The teasing gets worse when his mom makes him a hotdog costume for Halloween. At the end of the story the other dogs learn a lesson--not to judge a book by its cover.

This story made me laugh a lot!

To learn more about this book, visit the author's website at:
www.pilkey.com.

Rating: 4 out of 5 worms

Pages: 32
Interest Level: K to 2
Reading Level: 2.8

Extra, Extra, Draw All About It!

Hey Everybody,

I was thinking that once a week we could have a day called Draw About It Day. Draw About It Day is when you draw a picture from a book you liked or read, and I will share the pictures on the blog. You could either email it to me at bookwormkate8@gmail.com or give it to me in person.

Here are a couple examples my brother and I made:

"Spider-Man Shoots a Web"

from the book The Amazing Spider-Man

by Liam, age 6

"Hugo and the Automan"

from the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret

by Kate, age 8

Do you think that is a good idea?

I would also like it if you could tell me any other ideas you think would be fun for this blog!

Thank you!!

Kate

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

By Brian Selznick

This book is about a 12-year old boy named Hugo who has no family and secretly lives in the walls of a Paris train station. He is really good at fixing things. Every morning he wakes up and sneaks to the station cafe to steal food, and then winds and fixes all of the clocks in the train station. Hugo has to be very cautious going about his day because if he gets caught by the mean station inspector, he will go to an orphanage!

Before Hugo became an orphan, he had a dad who liked fixing things, too. Throughout the story Hugo tries to fix a robot that he had worked on with his dad before his dad died. The robot looks like a man that writes, and it is called an automan.

One of the coolest things about this book is all of the pictures! There are lots and lots of detailed pictures that help tell the story. I really enjoyed seeing pictures of the automan.

You will like this book if you like adventures, mysteries, and picture clues!

This book is tied as one of my top 3 all-time favorite books. You HAVE to read it. It is super duper awesome!

To learn more about this book, you can visit the author's website at:
The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Rating: 5 out of 5 worms

Pages: 533
Interest Level: Ages 9 to 12
Reading Level: Grades 4 to 7

Welcome to my blog, blog, BLOG

(read with an echo voice)

This is my first blog post, so I hope you like it.

I ultimate supremo love to read and I am going to use this blog to write reviews of all the books I read. I will try to make my reviews interesting, but also FUNNY! I hope it will get other kids excited about reading, too. I also hope other kids will write in to tell me about all the good books they read.

What do I like to read?
Pretty much everything! I read a lot of non-fiction books to learn about different animals and science. I also love fiction books.

What is the best book I ever read?
Ooooh, hard question. I will say The Tale of Despereaux.

How does an 8-year old have her own blog?
My mom manages the blog account, and I am not allowed to access the blog without my mom. All comments will be screened to ensure they are appropriate for kids. My mom will (slightly) copy-edit what I write, but no changes will be made to my writing without my approval.