Dragonbreath

As a whole, this book is a good, kind of short but fun all the same book, probably classified as plain fiction with a drop of fantasy added to the mix. Or maybe two, but as if I care.

Anyway, Danny Dragonbreath, who just got an F on a paper about the ocean, is in deep trouble--he has to redo it by the next day! (silly Danny, writing his entire thing on the bus without even gathering facts first...) Suddenly his mom (or his dad) got the PERFECT idea: having him (and his friend Wendell) go on a tour of the ocean with his uncle Edward, a sea serpent. Going deep into the water to avoid getting deeper into trouble was exiting but dangerous. (very.) Will the two young adventure-seekers survive their risky journey? Read the book to find out. (You knew I would say that last sentence, right?)

My favorite part of this book was that in some (short) parts it switches to basic cartoon format. I guess I was interested because I read pokémon comics a lot. :-)

The Big Friendly Giant (the BFG for short)

This book is an excellent story that I say is for anyone who stumbles upon it. (but there is the problem that some copies of it, like the one from the library or school, have a boring cover. But you can't judge a book by it's outfit, at least not unless...OH, BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!) Anyway, this thing is Hilarious, Unpredictable, and 'Super-glued to your hands' (if you get what I mean) all at the same time. Even though that sounds impossible to write, well, here it is!

Here's the story, in a nutshell: One dark night, alarmed Sophie spots a giant stomping the streets. But soon she realizes that he isn't having a midnight snack, he's messing with this trumpet (or, should I say, tuba) thingy. Suddenly he snatches her and takes her to his cave. But Sophie soon (not very soon, but who cares) that he is the BFG, and he lives up to his name. After a long and fun time in the cave, Sophie learns about the other giants terrible diets, and is willing to risk her only life to defeat them. But HOW? Read the book to find out, and trust me, it has a happy ending.

Aside from all that, the BFG talks funny, for example, instead of "right or wrong" he says "right or left". This is why I wouldn't rate it for preschoolers, since they might learn 'giant speak' instead of American-english or english-english. But please don't call it bad for that. :-)

How to keep dinosaurs

This is a cute and funny book I'd rate a ★★★★★ for anyone, especially Alaina (she LOVES cute things). Imagine if dinos hadn't (BAM!) gone extinct, and if you could have them as pets. Some of you might've had a dream about this, especially if you're a "dino-holic". (If you did, please don't call me or the author a "psychic psycho".) Anyway, the author of this thing tried to imagine the qualities of certain dinos in the house, and if they just didn't fit, he put them in a different category. There are a lot of categories: dinos for beginners, dinos as pets, dinos as flying pets, dinos for recreation and the circus, dinos for security work, dinos for meat and eggs, dinos for hide and feathers, and dinos for safari parks and zoos. (that is a lot of categories.) Plus, each "dinoscription" is a long and descriptive one (nice, unless you aren't a very skilled reader). In these descriptions, it explains basic facts, its diet, a good place for it to live, conditions for mating with another dinosaur and where to find it.   This is kind of like a how-to-care-for-a-kitty or something book but with dinos! That's kind of the whole joke of the book.

The illustrations are very detailed and are probably taken from real photos of places and then they use computers to add the dinos. They probably did a little editing of other things, like if it is holding something in its mouth or they did something that they mischievously weren't willing to really let happen--like messing up a kitchen.