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Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY Blumenthal, K. (2012). Steve Jobs: The man who thought different . MO: San Val.   ISBN 9781613835661 2. PLOT SUMMARY A story of an orphaned boy, Steve Jobs,  who changed the world of technology and built some of the most popular technology tools today.   3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS This is an easy and engaging read of Steve Jobs’ life.  It is divided into three sections. These three sections encompass his advice in his speech to the graduating class of Stanford University.  The author does an excellent job of weaving in Jobs’ advice with the story of his life.  The first section focuses on his early life up until dropping out of college and working out of his parent’s garage. This section’s focus to the Stanford class had to deal with connecting the dots.  These dots are what led Steve to being an iconic figure in technology today. The second part focuses on his advice of love and loss.  Steve’s first love was his Apple company, bu...
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FDR and the American Crisis

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY Marrin, A. (2016). FDR and the American crisis . New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN  978-0385753623 2. PLOT SUMMARY This is the story of a boy born into a wealthy family. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a very luxurious and grand upbringing.  He was around important political figures, and this eventually led him to pursue politics and run for the presidential office.   3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS In this multi-layered novel, the reader gets a glimpse into the life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR).  The author does a great job of keeping the reader entertained.  There are fun anecdotes about FDR’s life woven in with facts about the current state of the country.  It was a perfect balance.  This book allows you to get up close and personal with FDR.  Whether it be about his childhood, his marriage, affairs, no part seemed to be left out of this novel.  We also get to see two sides to FDR.  One towards the beginning of the novel w...
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All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys' Soccer Team

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY Soontornvat, C. (2020). All thirteen: the incredible cave rescue of the Thai boys’ soccer team. MA:  Candlewick.  ISBN 9781536209457 2. PLOT SUMMARY Twelve Thai boys and their coach become trapped in a cave when rising floodwaters block their way out.  Experts from Thailand and all over the world are called in to help develop a plan on how to get these boys and their coach out of the cave.   3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS This novel is one that will be hard to put down and will leave you still talking about it even when you are finished.  How these twelve boys and their coach made it of the cave in time and survived is miraculous.  The writing in this informational novel is meticulous.  The author broke it down into different chapters and subchapters.  Each chapter is cleverly named, and it is clear from the name what the chapter will discuss.   The author does a good job of making very technical terms and situations easy to ...
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The Downstairs Girl

  1. BIBLIOGRAPHY Lee, Stacey. (2019). The downstairs girl. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young  Readers. ISBN 9781524740955 2. PLOT SUMMARY Set in Atlanta in 1890, seventeen year old Jo Kuan works as a lady’s maid during the day and a writer for a newspaper column at night.  Her writing in the newspaper column became popular but also controversial.  While she works to uncover her caregiver’s secrets, she finds out shocking secrets of her own past.   3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS The story is told through 17 year old Jo Kuan's perspective.  While working as a maid for a wealthy couple’s daughter, Jo has a dismissive disposition.  The author allows the reader to see Jo’s true character when she transforms into Mrs. Sweetie as she writes anonymously for the newspaper, The Focus.  Mrs. Sweetie is described “...like an old rash that keeps coming back, each time more cranky and twice as determined.  Mrs. Sweetie is bold in the columns she wr...
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The Book Thief

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. (2007). New York: Knopf Books for Young Readers.  ISBN 978-0375842207 2. PLOT SUMMARY Told through the perspective of Death, this is the story of how one young girl survives the evils of World War II.   3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS The author uses a nonlinear plot to show the unique narrator, Death reminiscing about a certain girl  that really stood out to him.  It describes the scene with so much imagery that the beginning chapters instantly hook the reader.  To describe the bombing scene in the beginning which ultimately shows up at at the end, the author writes, “The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring.”  He also writes, “The streets were ruptured veins” to show the magnitude of the destruction.   Death is set up right from the beginning to be a compassionate and charismatic narrator but also matter of fact.  He is sorry for what he has done to the protagonist in the story, Liesel Meminger...
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Salt to the Sea

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY Sepetys, R. (2016). Salt to the sea . New York: Philomel Books. ISBN 9780142423622 2. PLOT SUMMARY A story of four different characters escaping the invasion of Russian soldiers.  They escape on a boat, Wilhelm Gustloff, where they encounter more conflicts.   3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS Told from the perspective of four different protagonists, the reader gets a bigger perspective of what life was like during this time period.  Each of the four beginning chapters begins with a different personification to show what that character is dealing with.  For example, the first chapter on Alfred begins with, “Fear is a hunter.”  This shows that despite what Alfred writes in his letters to his loved one back home, he is a coward, “...crouch[ing] in the supply closet, hoping no one would find [him].”  The chapters switch back and forth between each of the character’s perspectives  in order to build character development.  The author uses figura...
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