Brunswick Bound Books

By Chloe (age 11) I really enjoyed this book because I liked the storyline and the themes it was set on.  I found the book had a major issue although most of the drama happened in the last part of the book.  It was slow to get to the drama because the story just kept going through Olivia's everyday life, one day at a time, where some some stories might skip a week to get to the exciting part. I noticed that most of the sentences were simple sentences rather than compound and complex sentences. The story held a really important theme of care/help, ignorance and truth.  Olivia and Berk didn't have much of an idea about what was going on with their parents, so I think their parents should have sat down with Olivia and Berk to tell them what was going on and not to hide the truth from them. I think that Bart is a really important part of the story.  As soon as Bart comes into the story he gives Olivia hope.  She then starts to face every day with a bit mo...

By Greer (age 10) I really liked You May Already Be A Winner , because it was realistic and described a life that was not like mine.  It made me think about the way that other people might live.  The book gets it's title because although the main character does have a hard life at the start of the novel, she wins back a better life for herself and her family by the end.  However, she never wins any of the hundreds of competitions she enters! Olivia lives with her Mum and sister in a trailer park in America.  Her Dad has left and she doesn't know why, but predicts that he is being a ranger in Bryce Canyon.  She has to take care of her sister Berkeley and her Mum (in a way) so she doesn't go to school much.  She has a wild imagination and she can turn a little ordinary thing into a big dream.  She has her gut talking to her just like in The Song From Somewhere Else (our September book club book).   She makes a friend named Bart, who says...

We had our September  Junior Book Club meeting at the Brunswick Library last week and we discussed A.F. Harrold's stunning novel The Song From Somewhere Else . One of our book club members wrote a great review of the book.  Here is what Chloe had to say about The Song From Somewhere Else . I loved this book.  I liked how the book already started with a problem (Neil Noble bullying Frank).  I also enjoyed how every problem linked onto another problem.  For example, if Neil Noble wasn't bullying Frank then Nick wouldn't have to have saved her bag from the nettles which then led Nick and Frank to becoming friends.  If Nick hadn't saved Frank's bag from the nettles, then Nick wouldn't have got to hug his Mum, and so on. I loved the name of this book because you wouldn't be able to understand much if you just looked at the title, you have to read the book to understand what's going on. Levi Pinfold's illustrations are AMAZING.  I lik...