Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

This is the sequel to I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You. It is Cammie's second semester at Gallagher Academy and she has a lot os questions. Question number 1, does Josh remember her? Question 2, what is the Blackthorne? Question number 3, why is her mom acting so weird and question number 4, what really happened to her dad. 

Well, for starters Josh does remember her, only he is going out with DeeDee. And through the book Cammie realizes she moved on, too, and didn't even notice.

Blackthorne turns out to be a spy school for boys. While the boys are there, the girls realize weird things happen. Like having a Code Black, which is when the whole school doesn't let anything in or out. It goes into a complete and total lockdown. 

The girls decide to figure out what is going on. But that is almost impossible with one of the Blackthorne boys fallowing Cammie. He has a huge crush on her... but is really good at not showing. While Cammie hates him... or at least thinks she does. 

It turns out that because of what happened to Cammie the previous semester, the school realized the girls really don't know what goes on in the "real world" or in other words trust people who don't go to the academy.

 

Cammie Morgan is a very simple girl... if you consider simple to know 14 different languages, be able to kill you in 7 different ways only using her bare hands and has a mom who is one of the world's top spies. She loves the Gallagher Academy and will do anything to keep it a secret. Macey, is new to the school so she isn't at the standards of the other students, but she is working hard to get there. Liz is a genius, but she is scared of doing any wrk outside of a computer lab. Bex is quiet the opposite. She is british and one of the toughest girls at the academy. Zach is a new character to the series. Him and Cammie are to of the best spies at their schools. Zach is from Blackthorne. He always seems to find Cammie when she is trying to runaway from something... which really gets her annoyed. In this book Mr. Soloman and Cammie's mom start acting a little weird and Cammie thinks it;s because they know something about her dad...

This was a great book, it wasn't like a really good movie where the sequel stunk. It was more like a really great movie where the sequel is great if not better than the first. The ends to most of the chapters were cliffhangers and the author really did a great job letting the characters personality be shone through the dialogue.

For this book I visualized, wrote post-its and linked parts of this book to the last. It was cool being able to see the effect of something in the first book effect something in the second.

Ally Carter lives in the midwest where she is hard at work on GG3.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is about Professor Aronnax as he sets off to find a giant sea monster. But he is captured by the insane captain Nemo, who's submarine is the "sea monster".  They travel on the submarine on called the Nautilus that was invented by Nemo.

Once Aronnax realizes how insane Nemo is he has to escape. During their adventure they face giant squid, ice caps, find the lost city of Atlantis and face huge sharks to name a few of their dangerous in counters. At the end of the book they realize they are heading towards a whirlpool that no ship has ever escaped. But all of a sudden the characters wake up to find themselves in a fisherman's boat. he had no idea how they got there but they were free and Captain Nemo was no where to be found.

Professor Aronnax was French like  all of the characters in the book. He was strong, brave, capable of many different tasks, and smart. He was the Professor of Natural History at the Paris Museum. Nemo was an insane sea captain with this strong hate for the world. He treated Professor Aronnex and the rest of the crew poorly. Nemo also had lost his family. Ned Land was a strong fast and very skillful harpooner. Conseil was the professors right hand man. They were good friends.

This book was very adventurous, and had me on the edge of my feet a lot. I always wanted to know what would happen next. It would be really hard for me to put it down.

I mostly used post its for this. I didn't visualize r anything like that because there were some pictures in the book. But I did take a lot of notes and summarize. 

Jules Verne was born on 1828 in the seaport town of Nantes, France. He wrote over 100 stories. He died 1950 and is said by some to have "invented the future". 

The Wizard of Oz

 There are part of this book that are very similar to the movie and others that are not. The book that I read was the original way the book was. 

Dorothy was sucked up into a cyclone and landed in The Land of the Munshkins, where her house fell on the Wicked Witch of the East. She meets all of the munshkins and the Good Witch of the North. The God Witch tells her to fallow the yellow brick road to get to the Emerald City. The Good Witch also gives her the silver slippers and a kiss on her forehead. The kiss will protect her from evil. On the way she meets the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion. All of them also want to go to the Emerald City so they can have their wishes granted. Once they get to the Emerald City so the Wizard of Oz can grant their wishes he says he will only see one of them everyday. The first day the Wizard saw Dorothy. He appeared in the form of a giant head. He said he would not grant her wish unless she killed the Wicked Witch of the West. The second day the Wizard met with Scarecrow. The Wizard appeared as a beautiful fairy. The Wizard said she would not grant his wish until the Wicked Witch of the West was dead. The third day the Wizard saw the Tin Man. He appeared as a terrible beast. It had 5 arms and legs, the head of a rhino and was the size of an elephant. Once again the Wizard would not grant his wish until the Wicked Witch of the West was dead. Finally, the Wizard meets with the Lion. This time as a big ball of fire. The Wizard would not grant his wish until the Witch was dead. So the friends set out to kill the witch. The witch uses her gold cap, which would give her the power to control the flying monkeys 3 times, to kill the Tin Man, The Scarecrow and Dorothy. She would use Lion as a slave. Because of the kiss on Dorothy's forehead they couldn't harm her. They tore apart the Scarecrow and the Tin Man. They carried Lion and Dorothy to the Witch. The Witch uses them as slaves, but dodrthy gets so mad at her she throws a bucket of water on her, which makes the Witch melt. All of the witches slaves were s happy they helped Dorothy and Lion put Tin Man and Scarecrow back together. They go back to the Wizard. He grants all of the wishes, but in order to grant Dorothy's wish he needed a hot air balloon. But as they were leaving Dorothy lost ToTo and couldn't go. So the castle guard tells her to go see Glinda. She was the most powerful out of all of the witches. So they go to see Glinda with the Golden Cap. When they get there Glinda uses the Golden Cap to call on the monkeys so they could carry the Scarecrow, Tin  Man and Lion back to where they wanted to go. Then Glinda explains to Dorothy that if she clicks her heals together 3 times, she would get back to Kansas. 

Dorothy is a very sweet, caring and kind little girl. All she wants to do is get back home to Aunt Em in Kansas. Scarecrow is very witty and wants a brain. The Tin Man is very kind and thoughtful and wants a heart. The Lion is a lot braver then he thinks and wants courage. The Wicked Witch of West is a cruel, mean creature who is horrified of water.  The Wizard is a normal person who is from Omaha. He wants to be greater then he is. 

This is a good book. It's classic, well thought out and well written. I read the whole book in two hours. It is one of my favorite books.

I compared this book a lot to the movie. Judy Garland is one of my favorite singers and actresses so The WIzard of Oz is one of my favorite movies. 

Frank Baum was born in New York. His father was an oil merchant and he wrote 13 books based on the Land of Oz.  

Pink and Say

Pink and Say is about to boys who became good friends during the Civil War. Pink and Say were nicknames for Pinkus Alyee and Sheldon Curtis. They were both just teenage boys at the time. Sheldon was shot in the leg and had been lying on the ground for two days, dying. But then Pink finds him and brings him to his house for Pink's mother, Mo Mo Bay to nurse him back to health. Everyday Say would get a little better, until he was finally healed. That's when Pink decided that him and Say needed to go back to the war. 

When they decided to leave and were already the door they heard marauders coming. They rushed back inside the house and Mo Mo Bay hid them. They came in and took all of the food then killed Mo Mo Bay. After that they buried her body. Once they were done they realized they were being followed. Eventually they were taken to a Confederate camp, were Say survived, but they killed Pink. Say went on to live many more years and pass this story down.

Pink, Say and Mo Mo By were all really good people. Pink was a little tougher and was determined to fight for what he believed in. He knew how to read which Say didn't know how to do. Say fled during a battle, that is how he got shot. Say was affraid of the war and didn't want to go back, the opposite of Pink. Say touched the hand of Abraham Lincoln so he let Pink touch his hand, so Pin would be able to say he touched the hand that shook the hand of Abraham Lincoln. Mo Mo Bay loved the boys very much. She didn't want them to go back to the war because they were just boys. She also taught Say the meaning of bravery. 

This was a really sad book, but it was also a great story. She used some words that I didn't get because the book was written the way people talked back then. I did like how the different personalities were described. It really let you see what the characters were like. I also thought the illustrations were cool.

I did some visualizing during the story. I visualized the part when Say was on the ground with the bullet in his leg and the part when the marauders found them.

Patricia Polacco was related to Say. She has written many children's books. She went to ohio State University. She has a masters in the Fine Arts and a Ph.D in Art History.  Throughout her life she has lived in Michigan, Florida and Oakland, California. Oakland was a place where the   people were all different. Most of the people from this area contributed to her characters.   

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

This book is about Cammie Morgan. She is a student at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Woman. But it isn't what it appears to be. It is actually an all girls school for spies. Cammie's teachers range from polite and sweet to teachers who get plastic surgery every year in order to look very different because they are wanted all over the world. At the academy you would study martial arts in P.E., the latest chemical warfare, fluently speak in 14 different languages, learn who to kill someone in 7 different ways with your bare hands and get extra credit for breaking CIA codes.  But the story is mainly about Cammie using all of her training to keep a HUGE secret from her mom, who is the headmistress, and all of her teachers. That secret is that Cammie has a boyfriend. He thinks she is an ordinary girl who is very religious, home schooled, has a cat and is not allowed to date. She creates this whole other person. Things are working out fine, until Josh's friend, Dillon, figures out that she is a "Gallagher Girl", as the kids in the town call them. The whole neighborhood of Roseville thinks they are just a bunch of stuck up, rich kids. But some of the girls are far from rich, and don't have it easy at all. Dillon does eventually expose Cammie for what she was, but it turns out that all the teachers, including her mom, knew what was going on. So they tell Josh what the school really was after he fallowed Cammie to a CovOps final. CovOps (Covert Operations) is like a class where they learn all of the defense and tricks to being a spy. So, the final was of course a fake mission. They gave Josh some memory washing tea, so he forgot everything that had happened in those past 3 hours.

Cammie, Bex, Liz, Macey, Headmistress Morgan, Josh, Joe Solomon, Dillon and DeeDee, are all of the characters in the book. Cammie is the main character. She is smart, funny, pretty and somewhat clueless when it comes to real life. The story is about her in her sophomore year getting  glimpse of what the world was like outside of the school walls. She met this boy Josh at a fair. She was at a CovOps test and they had to spy on someone to put it simply. Anyway, she met Josh at the fair. Her dad died on a mission when she was little. Bex and Liz are her best friends. Bex is tough, very strong, pretty and she is from England. Liz is very, very, very, very, very smart. She is one of the smartest girls if not the smartest at a school for geniuses. But she tends to worry and overreact. Cammie's mom is the headmistress. She is one of the governments best spies. She is also apparently known for how pretty she is. She is nice and didn't want Cammie to be a spy. But after Cammie's father died, Cammie felt it was the only way she could connect with him. Josh is an ordinary guy who thinks he fell in the with an ordinary girl, but he was very, very wrong. Joe Solomon is one of the teachers at the academy. He is one of the academies best teachers. He is also very close with Cammie's mom because Cammie's dad and Joe were close friends. Dillon is a really bad kid. He is snooty and judges people by their cover. DeeDee is a close friend of Josh. She is sweet and very nice. She also has a HUGE crush on Josh.

I really liked this book. But I feel like the sequel that just came out will make it even better. The main reason I decided to read this book was because Walt Disney Pictures is going to make it a movie. So I decided for once I am going to read the book before I watched the movie. It was a lot better than I thought it would be, however it was a little cheesy.  

As I read the book I visualized and tried to picture what the movie would be like. I wrote a lot of post-its and wrote out a summery 5 times. 

The author, Ally Carter, lives in the midwest. She loves school and has degrees from Oklahoma State University and Cornell.

TTFN

TTFN is the sequel to the popular book TTLY. TTFN is Maddie, Angela and Zoe's junior year. With more problems to face. In this book Angela moves to California because her dad lost his job and her dad's, boss's daughter stalks her. Eventually she moves in with her Aunt Sadie back in Atlanta. Maddie is exposed to extreme amounts of peer pressure and starts to do drugs, simply because the guy giving her the drugs she is secretly in love with. Even though she hates it and he has a girlfriend. Of course she ends up getting caught and sent to jail for the night. Zoe struggles to keep Angela from knowing she is going out with, Doug. In their sophomore year, Doug, had a huge crush on Angela. Angela pretended to hate it but secretly loved having him around her to adore her. 

The characters really haven't changed since the first book. Maddie is still a tough, not so lady like trouble maker. Zoe is still sweet and innocent. But she tries harder to lose not be so innocent. Angela over-reacts more in this book than the first. She makes a HUGE deal over the tiniest things. It gets annoying after a while, but she gets better towards the end.

I also LOVED this book. It was great. I read this book in a day, too. Which is not normal for me cause I am the slowest reader on the planet. The book was of course, written in IM's which made it really easy to understand and fun to read. I would recommend this book to all my friends.

I tried something a little different this time as far as reading habits go. I tried to write note on things I noticed. But because I read the book A LOT faster than I thought I would, that strategy didn't work to well. But I did visualize. 

I couldn't find any new facts about the author except for that this book was written because she wanted to write a book that reminded her of the close relationship she had with her best friends in high school.

TTYL

TTYL is about three sophomore girls. It takes the reader through all of the girls ups and downs. Maddie, Angela, and Zoe have been best friends since the 7th grade. The book is written in their IM's, which gives a really clear picture of what they really think about each other. Yes, they all love each other like sisters, but you see them talking about each other in a kind of snotty way, and how the person they are talking to reacts to that. It also really makes their personalities stand out. You realize they are all really different, but by being so different they teach each other important life lessons based on their personal mistakes.  Zoe trusts Angela, but every time she talks to Maddie about something she needs help with Maddie finds a way to make fun of her. In the middle of the book you see Zoe caring about Maddie because the "mean girl" at their school, Jana, humiliates Maddie in front of the whole school after pretending to be her friend. But Zoe stops trusting Maddie with secrets for a little while. Most of her secrets are about a flirtatious teacher.  Even though their problems tear them apart they always find their back to being friends.

Like I said, all of the girls are different. Maddie is tough, stubborn, a little too honest and is always trying to be someone she isn't. It can get her into bad situations a lot. People realize how fake she is being. But Angela and Zoe are always going to be there for her. You start to wonder if the reason she always feels like she needs to be different is because her dad is an alcoholic and that makes her feel insecure. Meanwhile Zoe is the complete opposite. She is an A+ student and she is very innocent, but she wants to act tougher and not be known as innocent, good girl Zoe. Angela is always there for everyone. She hates when Maddie starts hanging out with Jana because she almost acts like she doesn't want her to get as close to Jana as she is to her and Zoe. She also exaggerates and overreacts a lot. 

I LOVED this book. I read it in a day because I could not put it down. It was so real. All the situations in the book have happened to people and the way that all of the characters in the book act are really the way people in that age group act. It doesn't feel like you are reading a book, It feels like you are reading the instant messages of 3 best friends in high school.

I have been using the same reading techniques I have been using the whole school year. They just give me a really clear idea of what is going on. I write post-its, visualize, and predict. 

Lauren Myracle has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College. She lives with her husband, Jack, and her sons Al and Jamie in Colorado.