Sandra Forrester

I read this book while sick, it was easy to read and not very complicated. Its a great book for the tween crowd, no sex, no death, no boyfriends - just a group of good friends on a mission.

This book, like most magic books aimed at kids, glosses over many of the details, such as how is magic "paid" for. It also has a very simplistic plot, Beatrice needs to go on a quest to confirm her Maximum Magic Level. Like most books of this sort, Beatrice goes with minor parent protest. She takes her three friends to help. The quest goes without a hitch, the evil sorcerer is unveiled, the good witch is free, and the book ends very suddenly.

It hard not to compare this book with Harry Potter - its almost like the author turned the Harry Potter World upside down - Instead of wizardry school, you get a witch after school program. Beatrice has parents, there's a magical world, outside of the normal world that includes people with overly fancy names (Leopold Meadowmouse is an example) There is magical themeparks, magical food, and most things in this world seem to take a page out of the Harry Potter Universe.

The writing is solid, but nothing special. I think older teens will find it too easy, but younger kids will love it.… (altro)

The book is about a black family that is living through the civil war. The goes to Rockwell island so that they family that they live with can get away from the war that is going on in the south. While they are on the island they learn that the island next to them is being invaded. They can hear the fighting going on the Other Island. When the army and the family leave the family that are slaves hide out in some woods and escape to the island that is free and live free on the Roanoke Island, North Carolina.

This was a moving book for me to see how this family lived after they were free and how on the island they were the first African American school and they started there own church and how they family was just happy to be free and not be told what to do.

This would be a good book to have the students to see how families felt about being slaves and how they were happy to be free. If you are teaching old students in the range of 4th or 5th grade you could have them study Roanoke Island, North Carolina more of what all was there during the civil war.… (altro)