I think even the smallest thing can make a person very happy. In the story “Slower Than the Rest,” the main character finds a small turtle and this turtle makes him happier than ever.

At the start of the story, Leo, the main character, spots a turtle and names it Charlie. Charlie becomes Leo’s best friend. Leo was slower than the other kids at everything, but Charlie took care of Leo’s happiness. For example, Charlie was very friendly and stuck his head out or runs very fast, not in a speed turtles usually use. This shows how even though Charlie is very tiny, he can make Leo very happy.

Later in the story, Leo starts going home every day to talk to Charlie about everything that is happening, but Charlie always makes Leo’s difficulties go away. As an example, Charlie’s front and back legs move frantically as if he were swimming even if all that was happening was that someone was holding him in midair. This tells us that even if Charlie isn’t very big, he can make Leo very happy.

Near the end of the story, Leo brings Charlie to school during the Prevent Forest Fires week. Leo had to make a presentation, and his presentation was about turtles in forest fires. Leo’s presentation made all the students love turtles and hate forest fires. For instance, the teacher was crying throughout the presentation. This helps us know that you don’t need to be very big to make someone very happy.

This shows how small things can actually make a person very happy.

I don’t think Shirley liked being alone. In the book “In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson,”Shirley, a Chinese girl, moves to America. She entered fifth grade, but Shirley doesn’t even speak english, and she doesn’t act like the other kids at school. Because of this, the other kids didn’t want to be friends with Shirley and she was left very lonely.

At first, when Shirley joined fifth grade, her classmates warmly welcomed her. But afterwards, her classmates forgot all about her and she became very lonely. For example, when a new kid that looks Chinese arrives at Shirley’s school, Shirley is very exited and hopes that they can be friends. She goes and introduces herself to the new kid in Chinese, but she soon finds out that the new kid isn’t Chinese. This made Shirley very disappointed and sad. This shows just how much Shirley wants to have friends instead of being lonely.

Later in the story, Emily Levy was introduced to the class as the new student. Shirley knew straight away that they would be friends. Emily was the only girl in the class other than Shirley wearing two long braids. Shirley became especially friendly to Emily. For instance, during lunch, Shirley showed Emily where to buy the tickets, told her which of the counter ladies gave generous portions, and what she should or shouldn’t eat. This tells us that Shirley wants to be like the other kids and have friends, and that she doesn’t want to be lonely like she was before.

Close to the end of the story, Emily asks Shirley to keep a secret for her, and Shirley agreed because she really didn’t want to ruin this newly made friendship with Emily. In fact, Shirley was so eager to keep this friendship that she says the word “death” while she was swearing to keep the secret, and her grandmother had always forbidden her from saying that word. This shows how Shirley really disliked being lonely, and how Shirley desperatley wanted to have friends instead of being so lonely.

As you can see, Shirley really didn’t like being alone, and she was probably much happier when Emily became her friend.

In my opinion, everyone should be confident and try their best. In the story “The Marble Champ,” the main character is a really smart girl named Lupe, but Lupe can’t make her body work properly when it came to sports. Throughout the story, Lupe works very hard, and, at the end of the story, she wins the marbles championship.

At the start of the story, Lupe had really wanted to be good at a sport. Lupe had never been able to make her body run as fast as the other kids in her grade, she only learned how to ride a bike with training wheels when she was eleven, and she could only walk in the swimming pool, but she couldn’t swim. On a rainy day, Lupe had said, “I’ll never be good at sports, I wish I could win something, anything, even marbles.” After that, Lupe had decided to train very hard so that she could try to win the marbles championship. Lupe was willing to try hard, and use time to practice. For example, right after Lupe got home, she started to practice, when she should be doing her homework, Lupe was practicing, during her free time, she was still practicing. This shows that Lupe really wants to be good at marbles, and she wants to spent her time  practicing and trying her best.

Afterwards, Lupe shows that if you practice hard enough, you will get better. She defeats her brother and a kid on her block who is really good at playing marbles. But, she doesn’t stop practicing, Lupe keeps on working hard in preparation for the contest. For instance, her thumb grew bigger than all of her other fingers. Her thumb grew strong and big with muscles. Lupe is really trying very hard for the competition, just for that one day, just so she could win the marbles championship.

Close to the end of the story, Lupe wins the marbles championship. Her family is very proud of her, but she is probably the only person who knows how much she did, how much she practiced, just to win that one trophy. In fact, Lupe knew she had tried her very best and she is proud of it. This tells us that trying hard and being confident can make something that you’re not really good at become something you are really good at.

As you can see, when people have confidence and they are willing to try hard, they will achieve their goal.

Summary:

Charlie C. Cooper used to be a normal middle school child until a new kid, Ashley Stronza, came to Charlie’s school, and stole Charlie’s best friend, Roxy. Charlie knew she had to get rid of Ashley. So, Charlie thought of a plan to put something in Ashley’s lunch food. But, everything got mixed up and the kindergarteners had lunch with Charlie’s grade. Charlie just couldn’t watch the little kids eat the lunch, so, she confessed what she had done to the school lunch. The cops came. Charlie got kicked out of school. Charlie had to spend her whole summer reading and coming to someone to discuss her feelings. Then, on the last day of summer break, Dr. Scales gives Charlie a mission, he wants Charlie to find the most bullied, friendless, laughed at, lonely girl in her class and be friends with that girl.

Character:

Charlie C. Cooper is a middle child. She has a very smart older sister. And a super cute younger brother. So, her way of getting attention was by being bad. Charlie is a gifted computer hacker, great at fashion, and the finest prankster in her sixth grade class.

Connection:

This book reminds me of another book where the main character is in a family where everyone has their own talent and she doesn’t.

Theme:

Kindness is a very important part of our lives.

Summary:

Charlie Wilde has to leave her old home, and go on a three day road trip to her new house, because her mother was offered a great job there. She can’t believe she has to leave the house that she spent her whole life in behind. When Charlie gets to her new home, she finds a bracelet that looks like the ones athletes wear, so Charlie decides to wear the bracelet during soccer team tryouts for good luck. Then, during soccer tryouts Charlie starts to run as fast as a cheetah. She also lifted a whole bed by herself, destroyed half a bathroom with her bare hands, and healed herself from a serious injury overnight. So, her friends get really concerned and they start to do a few experiments.

Character:

Charlie Wilde is a girl who was named after her dad. Her parents had always wanted a boy, but Charlie came. So, they named her Charlotte, Charlie for short. But, Charlie has a little brother named Andy, so, her parents did actually get a boy.

Connections:

This book reminds me of another book about a girl finding a necklace and this necklace gives her all sorts of powers.

Theme:

Everyone has their own sort of power or talent.

Summary:

When Hetty’s mother dies, Hetty sets on an adventure to find her father. She travels to the village where her mother grew up. But, when Hetty finds her father she finds out that her father has a family of his own. Hetty’s father has a wife and two children. Hetty feels she doesn’t belong there. One day, Hetty gets a letter from her foster brother, Jem. In the letter it says that Hetty’s foster father has died. So, Hetty set off again. When she got to her foster family’s house she finds her foster mother lying on the bed, staring at the wall. Hetty’s finds out that her foster mother can’t walk or talk because of her husband’s death. So, after the funeral, Hetty began to take care of her foster mother. But, Hetty feels she doesn’t belong there either, she does the same boring things over and over again, every single day. Then, the circus came. Hetty watched the circus once when she was young. she even ran away once from the Foundling Hospital to see the circus. So, Hetty wants to join the circus.

Character:

Hetty has a temper that matches her red hair. She goes on many different adventures and has been through a lot. But, in the end she thinks she belongs to the circus.

Connections:

This book reminds me of the first two books in this series because in all three books, Hetty goes on many amazing adventures.

Summary:

All the villains of the fairy tales are trapped on the isle of the lost. Maleficent is very disappointed at her daughter, Mal, because Mal isn’t evil enough. Jafar is very disappointed at his son, Jay, because Jay never steals any good stuff. The evil queen is very disappointed at her daughter, Evie, because from the evil queen’s point of view, Evie is never pretty enough. Cruella De Vil is very disappointed at her son, Carlos, because she thinks he doesn’t know anything. The four of them were working on an evil scheme in class, so Mal threw a party at Carlos’ house. Mal invited Evie because she wanted to do her evil scheme on Evie. Mal trapped Evie in Cruella De Vil’s closet. There were mouse traps on one side of the closet. When Evie finally gets to the other side of the room and opens the door she finds herself trapped in a fur closet. Carlos helps her out and brings her to his tree house. Carlos shows her the black box he has been working on to try and break a hole through the dome. So they tried it out and it actually worked. When Mal got home, Diablo, Maleficent’s best friend was on Maleficent’s shoulder. Maleficent told her how something from Auradon got in the isle of the lost and Diablo was unfrozen from the ice. She also said that Diablo saw the Dragon’s Eye blink to life and she tells Mal to go get it for her. So, the four villain children go on a journey to find the Dragon’s Eye.

Character:

Mal is the daughter of Maleficent, the most evil fairy ever. Mal has beautiful purple hair. Almost all of her things are purple. Maleficent named Mal after herself but she thought Mal didn’t prove herself to be evil enough so Mal only got part of her name. But Mal wants to prove Maleficent wrong.

Connections:

This book reminds me of the second book in this series because I am reading it right now and in the second book the four children go on another quest.

While we were cooking today I learned that it would help to stat cleaning while you don’t have anything to be doing so that in the end you won’t have to clean everything that you used.

Something else I learned is that we have to make sure the ingredients we are using is what the recipe asks for so nothing goes wrong.

I also learned something about math during cooking. I learned that you need to make sure you are doing the correct measurements.