Diane StanleyRecensioni

Feels like two separate books. The first is about Joplin. The end of the book the focus shifts.

Enjoyed reading.

I didn't know anything about this book when I started reading it (except that I like the author). It starts off contemporary realistic. There's a girl named Joplin who lives in New York City. Her famous eccentric grandfather has just died and she's being bullied about it at school (seriously, her classmates are so cruel). Joplin inherits her grandfather's broken antique painted pottery. It turns out to have magical properties and presents a mystery for Joplin to untangle.

Honestly, this is the kind of book I could probably take apart if I felt like it (the magic seemed to have a lot of holes in it and the heroes were impossibly precocious 12-year-olds) but I just enjoyed it. Joplin has a strained relationship with her single mother and her ache to feel close to her mom was palpable. When it came time to solve the problem presented by the magic delftware, it was worked out logically in a satisfying way.

This has a kind of fairy tale quality, but it's hard to explain without giving away the plot. Let's say there are aspects that made me think of [b:Ella Enchanted|24337|Ella Enchanted|Gail Carson Levine|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1410727190s/24337.jpg|2485462].

I appreciate what Diane Stanley is trying to accomplish with this book: What if the War on Terror escalates and our world is drastically changed? Rationing, attacks, fear, panic, etc. grip the nation and our leaders make some ugly choices. They treat people of Arab decent the same way people of Japanese decent were treated after Pearl Harbor. What would you do if they were going to take your friend away just because of where his parents were born? Would you be brave?

Now let me be cynical: An idealized hippie-agrarian family (the kids are named Mouse and Sky, they live off the grid without TV or computers, they practice some kind of humanist/pagan spiritualism that involves a lot of blessing of stuff) does what any saintly family would do during a crisis and rescues a young boy of Arab descent from racist, Arab-fearing government officials. Sky writes an essay about how messed up the country has become.

I like/don't like this book because it's message is so clear. It would be absolutely terrible to live in a country that openly punished people of a certain ethnicity. It takes a lot of courage to stand up for what's right when everyone is scared and the country is being attacked. The United States is not a perfect nation. Bad things could happen here. Have happened here.

This book is saved from being unbearably preachy by good writing and a fast-moving plot. I enjoyed reading it, even though I rolled my eyes more than once (it was mostly the perfection of Sky's parents that brought on the eye rolls). It would be a good choice for a book club this year or next, but I don't think it will have staying power. It's kind of a modern, speculative version of [b:Number the Stars|47281|Number the Stars|Lois Lowry|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170346710s/47281.jpg|2677305]. The ending is totally open-ended, which is how a book taking on such a big topic manages to be so short. Often, I wished the author would do more showing and less telling.

Okay. This is a review with two different views because

1.) Alice Water's vision and mission in regards to food was trailblazing. Fresh ingredients and preserving farms is something vitally important. Being self-sustaining is huge. Loving food for what it can be and do is why I love to cook myself

HOWEVER

1.) I do agree with other reviews that this book does feel tone deaf. Or at the very least it is not approachable. Because not everyone has access to fresh ingredients. It is freaking expensive to dine at restaurants like Chez Panisse (For instance, it's $175 a person PLUS a 17 percent service charge AND a 10.25 percent sales tax).....that's too rich for my blood. And frankly, the small businesses chefs claim to want to help.

That is a pet peeve of mine. Unapproachable prices for the masses....

I had heard a lot about Ada Lovelace, but I knew nothing about her. So when I found out she was the daughter of Lord Byron, I knew I was on the path to finding COMPLETELY new things.

She was creative like her father; she enjoyed math and science like her mother. Add both together and combined it with her imagination.

Ada worked with her friend, Charles Babbage, to create the first fully programmable digital computer. The aim was also to solve arithmetic problems with the turn of a crank. Have you heard of "Bernouli?" Yeah, that's a Ada Lovelace thing. Alan Turing looked up to her. Yes, that Turing.

This is a great read. The writer keeps you engaged and wanting to read farther. There are challenges that the characters work to overcome but there is not a lot of violence and gore. There is conflict that threatens to turn violent but in comparison to other writing, this is tame. The story is still exciting though. Well worth your time to read.

I much prefer the newer graphic novel about Joan of Arc.
This is just too much information.

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On the day of his birth, Prince Alexos is revealed to be the long-awaited champion of Athene. He grows up lonely, conscious of all that is expected of him. But Alexos discovers that being a champion isn’t about fame and glory - it’s about sacrifice and courage. Alexos follows the course of his destiny through war and loss and a deadly confrontation with his enemy to its end: shipwreck on a magical, fog-shrouded island. There he meets the unforgettable Aria and faces the greatest challenge of his life.

Great story of changing food preferences and the reasons behind these changes.

Franny's family moves a lot, so she's constantly the new kid at school. Her sister has a gift for zeroing in on the latest fads at their new schools and using those to seamlessly fit in, but Franny just has her love of reading.

Franny's newest school doesn't initially seem to be any different from her previous ones, but then she starts to notice odd things happening to a lot of the students. For instance, all of a sudden everyone is into jelly worms. A while after that, kids start spontaneously acting like snakes. Then there's an epidemic of intense headaches. It's bizarre and difficult to believe, but the only connection Franny can find between these incidents is that they're always similar to something in the newest Chillers book releases by I.M. Fine. With the help of her new friend, Beamer, she attempts to figure out what's going on and put a stop to it before someone gets seriously hurt.

This was okay. The writing was very light and conversational - nice, easy reading. As I've noticed occasionally happens in Middle Grade books, the author slipped in lots of mentions of other books (David Copperfield, Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, etc.), probably in the hope of encouraging young readers to try them. And I'm guessing I.M. Fine's Chillers were at least somewhat based on R.L. Stein's Goosebumps books. The one mention that made me snort a bit: Stephen King's Misery. Granted, the focus was more on the movie than on the book, and I know I read King at a way younger age than Adult Me would be comfortable with, but still.

It was an interesting enough story, although a bit dated: I don't think of 2001 as being a long time ago, but the mentions of VCRs and pay phones and utter lack of cellphones reminded me that, yes, it was a while ago, especially from a young reader's perspective. I also found myself frequently questioning how these two kids were able to go so many places on their own. Beamer's grandparents thought they were spending the day at the pool, so I doubt they'd have had much cash, and yet they were able to take multiple bus trips and buy themselves a couple meals.

Franny and Beamer were lucky that everything they needed in order to solve the mystery was only a short bus trip away, especially considering the direction their investigation took. I thought the ending was a bit of a letdown, but I'm also not this book's intended audience. It did wrap everything up in a satisfying way, and despite the "kids' horror" cover art, it never got too intense or particularly scary.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)½

This book is great for intermediate-level students as it has a lot of words in book and some can be challenging. This is a book about a girl who was the first computer programmer. Throughout the book, it shows relations to science, math, and gives insight into what it's like to be a computer programmer.

This is a great book for the intermediate level about the first female programer. It is a nonfiction book, that has lots of great facts about how she publish the first program. This book goes throughout her journey of getting inspiration, creating, and publishing her program.

This would be a great book for intermediate students. The book tells the story of Ada Lovelace, a lady who lived through the Industrial Revolution, and who was the first computer programmer. Lovelace grew up with a very imaginative and creative mind that was constantly looking towards the future. When she was little she tried to create wings so she could fly, her mother didn't approve of her imagination and instead pushed her to study math and science. This helped Lovelace tap into her aptitude for science and she went on to create the first computer program and write a scientific paper about it. This book is helpful because of how empowering it is toward women, and from how you can learn so much about another person through it. I would use this book by having it in my classroom library in order for young girls who are interested in math and science to be able to read about Lovelace's accomplishments and feel inspired by her story.

In this book, we explore the life of Ada Lovelace as well as her contribution to our world thanks to her thoughts and wisdom on computers. Growing up, Ada loved science but didn't fit in with others. This boook shows us how her love of learning lead to doing some great things. This is a great intermediate read since it is a longer picture book.

The illustrations are absolutely beautiful. As a pluviophile (lover of rain), seeing the softness rain brings to the forest is nothing short of magical.

The text is beautiful too, about the simplicity and beauty of nature in the rain.

Now let’s get real for a sec. :D I am one of those hugely sensitive people who appreciates warnings about content that might completely throw me off on a super-sensitive tailspin.

Even when it comes to children’s books! There is a skunk in this book who takes an egg from a quail’s nest, as skunks are prone to do... (are they prone to doing this? I don’t actually know, but I’m going to assume the author does).

The skunk snacks on it and it’s not super detailed or anything like that, but I felt a twinge of “oh, that poor quail.” I know these things happen, but I am of the mindset that I don’t need to see it. I don’t think this would have upset me as a kid, oddly enough, but it’s tough to say, since I’ve always been sensitive to certain things. So if you or your child are one of those sensitive souls too, this is just a heads-up.

The beautiful illustrations accompanying the poetic words do make it a lovely addition to my library. I love that spiders get a shout-out, because they’re so great and beneficial to the ecosystem.

“Skunk passes spiders, sitting like black stars, motionless, at the hub of diamond webs.”

This book tells the story of Ada Lovelace, a brilliant scientific and mathematical thinker, who worked with the inventor Charles Babbage to write the code for his machine, the Analytical Engine. She is credited as having been the first computer programmer.
Lovelace was Lord Byron's daughter and lived during the Industrial Revolution when women were often excluded from scientific work. Luckily, her mother was also interested in science and math and encouraged her participation in scientific projects.
"Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science" is an informative biography about one woman's role in early coding and computer programming. I would recommend this book to elementary school science teachers or anyone interested in women's involvement in science/history.
I loved Jessie Hartland's colorful illustrations.

A girl who grew up in a royal family with two different parents came to be very well known when her hidden work came to the surface to be uncovered. Ada Lovelace Poet of Science is an inspiration for children of any age group. Especially for young female children to be empowered to be the first in being creative inventors in subject areas that mainly males are seen as capable. I would say that I would definitely read this book to my classroom and would find a version that was in a different language to read to them so that they are able to build a connection. This book brings STEAM to the spotlight empowering minority groups to be like Ada Lovelace.

The story of two kids who time-travel with their grandmother to Plymouth Plantation on Thanksgiving learn all about the Pilgrims. This book was filled with a ton of good information and fun facts about the Pilgrims and life on Plymouth rock. It even mentioned servants, disease, treaties, and the hard work of farming. The illustrations were busy enough that there are many different things to look at but not to the point that it was distracting. The book uses a lot of speech bubbles to relay information which keeps the book interesting. I enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it as a realistic Thanksgiving book for children.

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Ada had a special gift. Ada Lovelace lived 200 years ago but is considered to be the first computer programmer. I did not know anything about her before reading this book. It was interesting learning about her life and her work. This is a very inspiring book for young girls. I think it is important for young chiders to see math and science in a positive light like this. This could be a good way to get them interested in STEM. The illustrations are whimsical and fun. This could encourage students to trust their crazy ideas and not be afraid to go against the grain.½

I'm not sure if it was the reader or the author but I feel like this book could've had more excitement. However, I still enjoyed it. I liked how the author was able to capture the thinking process of Ada through her writing. It was like you could see the wheels turning yourself. This book is great for younger audiences because it gives a lot of information but not in an overwhelming way. This book would be great for a research project and providing encouragement for young kids interested in STEM. This book also shows how our parents can affect our education and interests. Ada could have went completely along her mothers path but chose to follow her dreams.

jB

The daughter of Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace was destined for a life of success. Her mother however, was afraid the imagination she possessed from her father would get her into trouble. To solve this problem, Lady Byron ensured that her daughter was highly educated in math and science so she would turn into a rational young lady. This was not the case as Ada combined her imagination and education to help create the first ever computer program. I thought this book told an inspiring story of a woman who was not bound by her mother's expectations. I had never heard of her before and I learned a lot reading it. My only issue with it is that the story must be taken with a grain of salt because people are not fully sure of some of the facts behind it. But, overall I think it is a great read and the nitty gritty details really don't matter in the end.½