COFFEEHOUSE ANGEL by Suzanne Selfors – REVIEW

 

Walker Books – August 2009

Katrina lives with her grandmother above their coffee shop in the sleepy town of Nordby.  Anna’s Old World Scandinavian Coffeehouse has been a standby in Nordby for years, but when sleak and shiny new Java Heaven moves in right next door, business starts to suffer.

Katrina enjoys her morning routine of getting the coffee brewing for her grandma before she heads to school.  One morning on her way to throw out some trash, Katrina sees a young man sleeping in the alley.  Startled at first, Katrina hurrys back inside.  It is only when she is gathering the day-old pastries that she thinks this “homeless” man could maybe use something to eat and puts them out on the back step along with a hot cup of coffee.

Little does she know that she has performed a selfless act of kindness for an angel.  Malcolm is in Nordby delivering a message and just needed to take a break, but because of Katrina’s good deed, he now has the added pressure of granting her deepest desire before he can move on.  The problem is, Katrina doesn’t have any idea what her deepest desire is. 

COFFEEHOUSE ANGEL is a light-hearted tale of love and friendship.  Suzanne Selfors uses wonderful language to describe the small town and its quirky inhabitants.  The reader easily feels like one of the family and will want to organize a campaign to close the evil Java Heaven.

Coffeehouse Angel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HATE THAT CAT by Sharon Creech

Jack is back!  Miss Stretchberry moved up with him so luckily he has her as a teacher again.  It’s time for Miss Stretchberry’s poetry unit again and this time Jack isn’t as reluctant to call himself a poet.  

While Jack does write about Sky, his lovable, yellow dog from LOVE THAT DOG, most of his poems focus on a fat, black neighborhood cat that he absolutely can’t stand.  

Just like in LOVE THAT DOG, Jack uses poetry to discover his true feelings about some important things in his life; the two most important being his mother and cats.

The nice thing about HATE THAT CAT is the explicit teaching of multiple literary devices.  Jack goes through the process of learning how to utilize alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, metaphor, and simile in his writing, with the help of quality examples.  HATE THAT CAT would be extremely useful in the classroom.

Poets included in HATE THAT CAT are:

Walter Dean Myers
William Carlos Williams
Edgar Allan Poe
Valerie Worth
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Christopher Myers
T. S. Eliot

The poems that are referenced throughout HATE THAT CAT are included in the back of the book.

 

HATE THAT CAT by Sharon Creech – REVIEW

Jack is back!  Miss Stretchberry moved up with him so luckily he has her as a teacher again.  It’s time for Miss Stretchberry’s poetry unit again and this time Jack isn’t as reluctant to call himself a poet.  

While Jack does write about Sky, his lovable, yellow dog from LOVE THAT DOG, most of his poems focus on a fat, black neighborhood cat that he absolutely can’t stand.  

Just like in LOVE THAT DOG, Jack uses poetry to discover his true feelings about some important things in his life; the two most important being his mother and cats.

The nice thing about HATE THAT CAT is the explicit teaching of multiple literary devices.  Jack goes through the process of learning how to utilize alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, metaphor, and simile in his writing, with the help of quality examples.  HATE THAT CAT would be extremely useful in the classroom.

Poets included in HATE THAT CAT are:

Walter Dean Myers
William Carlos Williams
Edgar Allan Poe
Valerie Worth
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Christopher Myers
T. S. Eliot

The poems that are referenced throughout HATE THAT CAT are included in the back of the book.

 

UNTAMED by P.C. and Kristin Cast

IT WOULD BE BEST TO READ THE FIRST THREE BOOKS IN THE SERIES BEFORE YOU READ UNTAMED. 

UNTAMED is the fourth book in the House of Night series.  The story picks up just a few days after the ending of third book where Zoey Redbird is left isolated after disasters in her complicated love life and trouble with her friends because of her need to keep secrets from them.  Everyone around her feels betrayed.  Zoey’s only support comes from Aphrodite – the girl who started out as her worst enemy.

Aphrodite has a vision that foretells death and destruction on earth.  What makes this vision even worse is the fact that Zoey’s death is what starts it all.  Together, Zoey and Aphrodite must put together a plan to prevent her death and hopefully save the world.

New characters appear in this installment of the story in the forms of a new student, a powerful High Priestess, some nuns, and even a dog.  The story is fast-paced and interesting.  I didn’t want to put the book down.  UNTAMED is much better than the last two books in the series and contains less boyfriend drama than CHOSEN, which is a good thing.  You’ll need to read the other books in the series to know what is going on; as a stand alone book so much wouldn’t make sense.  There is an issue with language.  The “f” word is used several times so be aware.  It would be nice if the authors could tone down the language in the future novels because the story is definitely going to continue and I can’t wait to see what is going to happen next.

 

UNTAMED by P.C. and Kristin Cast

IT WOULD BE BEST TO READ THE FIRST THREE BOOKS IN THE SERIES BEFORE YOU READ UNTAMED. 

UNTAMED is the fourth book in the House of Night series.  The story picks up just a few days after the ending of third book where Zoey Redbird is left isolated after disasters in her complicated love life and trouble with her friends because of her need to keep secrets from them.  Everyone around her feels betrayed.  Zoey’s only support comes from Aphrodite – the girl who started out as her worst enemy.

Aphrodite has a vision that foretells death and destruction on earth.  What makes this vision even worse is the fact that Zoey’s death is what starts it all.  Together, Zoey and Aphrodite must put together a plan to prevent her death and hopefully save the world.

New characters appear in this installment of the story in the forms of a new student, a powerful High Priestess, some nuns, and even a dog.  The story is fast-paced and interesting.  I didn’t want to put the book down.  UNTAMED is much better than the last two books in the series and contains less boyfriend drama than CHOSEN, which is a good thing.  You’ll need to read the other books in the series to know what is going on; as a stand alone book so much wouldn’t make sense.  There is an issue with language.  The “f” word is used several times so be aware.  It would be nice if the authors could tone down the language in the future novels because the story is definitely going to continue and I can’t wait to see what is going to happen next.