The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Reviewed by Annabelle N.
Grade 5

One night Luna drank a lot of the moon, which was full of magic that night. She then becomes dangerous. She can use her magic in so many harmful ways that no one knows.

Luna was a girl dropped off by the Protectorate village given to the witch. Xan steals Luna and takes care of her, but then Xan accidentally gives her moonlight, which is full of magic. Xan makes the crazy choice of keeping this very dangerous kid. This magic is locked inside of her until she is older. When Luna turns thirteen everything changes. Xan just happened to be away for a couple of weeks when this came into effect. Soon, it is time for Luna to make a big decision: to sacrifice herself or the Protectorate.

The main character in this book is very creative in several different ways. First of all, Luna is very curious, magical, and she has great talent. Furthermore, in the beginning of the book she was very outgoing and curious. Then, later on in the book she became magical and also became a hero.

I would recommend The Girl Who Drank the Moon to anyone who likes an ever changing plot. This is because Luna has mixed emotions. She can be happy, angry, hungry, sad, mad, tired, and much more. How the author wrote the plot makes the book extremely interesting. She uses fantasy and real-life combined in such a way I just could not stop reading, making a magical story.

Dead Boy by Laurel Gale

Reviewed by Andy P.
Grade 10

It was a normal day, same as any, until he died. After that, nothing was the same. His flesh started rotting, and he got infested with maggots. He stunk so bad that the neighbors moved out. He wasn't allowed to go outside and had no friends.

This is what happened to 11-year-old Crow Darlingson. He was just playing around in his room when he suddenly died. His parents wished him back to life, but the wish didn't go as planned. Instead, he ended up /un/dead. After he died, his mom homeschooled him, and as he didn't have any friends and didn't have to eat, he could just study all day and aced all the tests. However he stunk, and when it was too hot, he stunk even more. That's why his neighbors moved out when the AC broke. However, when his new neighbors moved in, he finally had a chance to make a friend. This friend was Melody Plympton, a girl about the same age as Crow. Melody fully believed in magic,
and not just plain old card tricks. She believed that fairies were real and had abducted her mother. When they learn that there is a wish-granting creature underneath the local park that brought Crow back to life, Crow has a
chance to come back to life for real. However, there is a series of tests that you have to pass to get a wish, and you only ever get one wish. When the monster, called the Meera, abducts Melody's "friends" from school, they are forced to go and confront the Meera. They saved one of their friends, but as they didn't know that the other friends got kidnapped too, they went to get their wishes. They find out that their friend got cursed by the Meera. Now Crow is faced with a tough decision. Does he save Luke, the friend, from the Meera's curse, or does he save himself?

The author does a great job describing the characters of the story. She shows Melody's interest in magic, Crow's deadness, and Luke and Travis's cruelness. For example, on page 92, she shows Luke and Travis throwing firecrackers at a little rabbit. She also does an excellent job on describing the tests the characters have to go through. However, the main conflict isn't very clear until the end.

All in all, I would recommend Dead Boy to anyone in general. This book is about friendship and loyalty, two subjects anyone can understand. I liked this book because of the message it tries to show and also because the characters are very likable. Even though there wasn't much action, there was a great deal of puzzle solving. What would you do if you were in Crow's position?

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Reviewed by Rafael V.
Grade 6

What if the crazy unrealistic stories your grandpa used to tell you turn out
to be true? What if you were not like the rest of human civilization?

Jacob Portman was a normal boy, except for the fact that he was peculiar. He
was scared when he saw his grandpa be killed by a monster only he could see.
His grandpa's last words were to find the bird in the loop on the other side
of old man's grave, September 3, 1940. What could this possibly mean? Was it
a man that could tell him his grandpa's story, or a place, revealing all his
secrets? He finally made up his mind and he visited the island that his
grandpa told him about. When he finally got to the orphanage, it was
deserted, like no one had lived there for over one hundred years. As three
weeks go by he starts to discover secrets about the orphanage and the kids
who lived there. With these clues Jacob discovers his grandpa's secrets and
how the orphans who lived there might have been dangerous.

The plot of this story is interesting because it is about discovering who you
are. In the book Jacob, the protagonist, discovers the secrets his grandpa
kept and why he is peculiar. Also it is interesting because of the
characters it holds. There is Emma, who can make fire with her hands,
Millard, who is invisible, or Enoch, who can bring the dead back to life for
short periods of time. These characters are unique and have special abilities
humans will never be able to wield.

I would recommend this book due to one reason--Miss Peregrine's Home for
Peculiar Children shows that even if you are a social outcast, or if people
call you weird, there will be a place in the world for you.

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

Reviewed by Katherine T.
Grade 9

A Torch Against The Night combines everything you would want in a YA Fantasy book: adventure, violence, twists and turns and even a little bit of romance. It is the second book in a series by author, Sabaa Tahir.

Since this is the second book in a series, it's probably better to explain the premise of the first book, An Ember In The Ashes. The novel follows the point of view of Laia and Elias. Laia is living in the Scholar community with her grandparents and older brother. When her brother is arrested for treason, she, in exchange for help rescuing from the prison he is being kept in, goes undercover as a slave in Blackcliff, an infamous military academy. Elias is the school's best soldier, yet, secretly, all he wants is to be free of the tyranny of the Empire, where the whole story takes place. A Torch Against The Night is the sequel to An Ember in the Ashes and added Helene to Elias and Laia's point of views. It picks up directly after the events of the first book, as Elias and Laia are making the difficult journey to break Laia's brother out of Kauf, the prison.

Although the first book drew a lot of similarities to other YA books (setting mainly being in a boarding school, trials to test the characters' aptitude to be a leader, two characters that should hate each other but
instead fall in love), the second book definitely branched off of that into a unique book that is worthy of the highest praise. Kauf, the prison Laia's brother is being kept in, reminded me of Azkaban in Harry Potter but not in a bad way. In addition, the characters became a lot more fleshed out in this book. They were a lot more relatable and although they didn't all always make the smartest decisions, you could see where they were coming from.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a page turner. Every chapter ends in a cliffhanger that kept me up extremely late one night, but I don't regret a moment of it. This book is definitely not for the
lighthearted or if you are booking for a lighter read, seeing as there is a lot of violence but if you into that then this is the book for you. The novel's setting is also a very attractive place, not because you'd want to
live there, but because it is interesting and unique. I am excited to see where this series goes from here.