The Mysterious Howling

by Maryrose Wood
Part of a series, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place

Rating: ****` (4.5 stars)
Age group: 9+
Type: fiction

Penelope Lumley just graduated from the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females and is applying to be a governess at Ashton Place, a huge manor-type house. The young mistress of the house, Lady Constance is acting strangely--giving her the position without actually interviewing her, shutting all the windows on a beautiful day, making Penelope sign legal papers to stay on the job before hiring her. Then Penelope hears a mysterious howling from the barn and decides to see what's up. It turns out there are three wild, wolf-like children hiding in there--Alexander, the oldest, Beowulf, the middle, and Casseopeia, the youngest, who likes barking. Lord Frederick names the Incorrigibles. Penelope cleans them up in no time, and trains them out of most of their wolfish habits such as chasing squirrels and barking instead of talking. But when Lady Constance announces a fancy Christmas party and requires the Incorrigibles to learn many, many more things than reading and math, Penelope is hard-pressed to teach the children everything. And when the party arrives, it seems like someone is trying to sabotage everything... can Penelope solve the mystery and keep the Incorrigibles from taking the blame?
This is a really good book. I actually listened to it as an audiobook, narrated by Katherine Kellgren, and she makes it much better by doing all the voices perfectly!! This book has MANY humorous parts. The children are all very eccentric and wolfish and that makes this book all the funnier. There are also lots of strange happenings at Ashton Place that add to the storyline. It ends at a sort of cliffhanger so you might want to read the next few books, The Hidden Gallery and The Unseen Guest. 

PARENTAL SECTION
Sexual parts: no
Violence: no
Fighting: no
Kissing/romance: no
Pregnancy: no
Stealing: no
Vandalizing: no

The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls

by Claire Legrand

Rating: ***` (3.5 stars)
Age group: 9.5+
Type: fantasy

Victoria Wright has a stubborn personality and strives for a perfect academic record, but she only has one friend--Lawrence. Even if Victoria criticizes him and thinks of him as an experiment, he's loyal to her. But soon Victoria notices children going missing in her town--all the imperfect ones. And then Lawrence disappears! Victoria has a feeling that the mysterious, sinister Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, run by Mrs. Cavendish and Mr. Alice, is behind the kidnappings and she decides to investigate. But she always encounters strange ten-legged bugs that leave marks behind when they touch you. When she meets the only adult who will believe her, the bugs suddenly take him! Victoria digs deeper--too deep, apparently, because then Mrs. Cavendish takes her, too. Now she is trapped in a terrible prison with walls that alive and strange slaves to Mrs. Cavendish called gofers. Finally she knows what's happening to the missing children--but she has to get everyone out before their thirteenth birthdays or something terrible happens to them that nobody knows. Victoria finds out a dark secret--a dark, gross secret, and Lawrence's thirteenth birthday is coming up! Will she ever save the kids and destroy the Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls?

 This book is pretty good and it's interesting how Victoria's personality changes. The author does a really good job of making the Home feel creepily nightmarish and there's a lot of pressure put on Victoria to escape which makes parts of the book suspenseful. This book is very exciting but there are some really disgusting parts. Also it's a little bit scary. But overall it is okay.

PARENTAL SECTION
Sexual parts: no
Violence: not really
Fighting: not really
Kissing/romance: no
Pregnancy: no
Stealing: no
Vandalizing: no
SPOILER ALERT!!!




There is one really, really disgusting part where Victoria finds
out that on the kids' thirteenth birthdays they are turned into
gofers and eaten. This is also somewhat intense but not really.

Nerd Girls: A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions

by Alan Lawrence Sitomer

Rating: **** (4 stars)
Age group: 10+
Type: Realistic fiction

Maureen is a Nerd Girl. So are her friends Allergy Alice (who is, fittingly, incredibly allergic to many things) and Beanpole (who is clumsy but nice). The ThreePees are super-popular girls--Kiki, the leader of the three, Brittany-Brattany, the second in command, and Sofes, who is a total doofus. One day the ThreePees lock the Nerd Girls in the art storage room! Soon the principal finds out and all six girls get into trouble. Then the principal drops a bomb on them--they have to work together as a team to win the ACADEMIC SEPTATHLON!!!  And not only that, but Maureen is having big family troubles. Can Maureen get Logan Meyers as her boyfriend? Can she fix her family? Can Alice cure herself of her allergies?

This book is really great. It has LOTS of humor and excitement. Maureen's voice is slightly sarcastic, and other funny parts are that Sofes is really, really dumb (no offense) and the septathlon announcer, Bingo, is really, really funny. I recommend this book highly!!!!

PARENTAL SECTION
Sexual parts: no
Violence: no
Fighting: no
Kissing/romance: yes, but no kissing
Pregnancy: no
Stealing: no
Vandalizing: no

The Magic Cake Shop

by Meika Hashimoto

Rating: **** (4 stars)
Age group: 7+
Type: fiction

Mr. and Mrs. Burblee are perfect. No kidding. They look perfect, act perfect, even smell perfect. But their daughter, Emma, is not perfect in their eyes--she likes playing with their chauffeur, cooking, and HATES how her parents try to make her perfect. Her parents decide to send her to her Uncle Simon's. Uncle Simon is more horrible than anything Emma could have ever imagined--fat, piggish, and he makes her work all day, every day. What a relief it is that she befriends the owners of Mr. Crackle's Cake Shop! But one day a man named Maximus Beedy, who is Uncle Simon's friend and a professional poisoner, comes and tells Simon about the Elixir of Delight--a mixture that will make any food taste heavenly to anyone. And now they're threatening to take away Mr. Crackle's senses if he doesn't make it for them so they can get rich! But Mr. Crackle has a few secrets up his sleeve... can he keep his senses and stop Simon and Maximus?

This is a cool book. I like it a lot. It's very exciting. There is a lot of food descriptions in this book, but I will say that there could be more. It has a good plot. The bad guys are very bad. All in all, this is a yummy, delicious book that is also exciting!!!

PARENTAL SECTION
Sexual parts: no
Violence: no
Fighting: no
Kissing/romance: no
Pregnancy: no
Stealing: not really
Vandalizing: not really