The Running Man

Title: The Running Man
Author: Michael Gerard Bauer
First Published: in 2004 by scholastic

Joseph is a quiet, shy boy who lives with his mother, while his father does construction work in far away countries. this story begins when Joseph is asked to mow the Leyton's lawn. Caroline Leyton convinces him to paint a portrait of her brother tom, a reclusive Vietnam war veteran. a very special relationship forms over silkworms, books and secrets. but their can be problems of relationships built on secrets, what happens if someone else says different, who do you trust? Tom and Joseph give each other just what they've needed for a long time.

i love, Love, LOVE this book. i have no criticism, i thought it was perfect. it was perfectly paced, i was hooked from very early in and read it all one Friday night. this is quite a philosophical book, so i was very surprised to find that it was so suspenseful and interesting. most books that are about thoughts, feelings, relationships and life in general usually have a relaxing pace, but The Running Man is quite eventful.

like i said, this book is very philosophical. it talks about life, death, views on life, perspective, judgement of others and even miracles. i learnt so much from just reading it. The Running Man is the kind of book you feeling happy and hopeful after reading, it just sticks in your mind.

i feel i haven't done this book justice in my review, i highly recommend reading it. please give it a go.

Competition Time!

Cherry Banana Split is having their first competition!! (party poppers go bang now while everyone claps).
we are having a write a list like Georgia comp.

now i know you must be thinking 'what on earth does Anna mean?', but that's OK, just keep reading!

in With Lots of Love From Georgia by Brigid Lowry Georgia keeps a notebook full of funny, insightful and interesting lists. she calls herself a list-writer extraordinaire. so here at cherry banana split we are inviting you to become list-writers. it's quite fun, i now have a list notebook myself.
here is an example:

Jobs i DO NOT wish for:
dentist (who wants to look up people's noses?)
bike courier wearing disgusting Lycra outfit
filliter in a fish factory
telephones sales of any sort
mortician
Michael Jackson's surgeon
Michael Jackson's lawyer
head of complaint calls centre at the tax dept.
policewoman in hell-rough suburb
fat girl for singing telegram company

the best list wins an Australian book chosen specially for them by Stacey and myself.
all you have to do is follow these simple steps:
1 write a list about ANYTHING you want from things to call a pet zebra to reasons i hate my best friend.
2 post it on your blog and leave a link in the comments here on my other blog
3 wait and see if you win. OR if you want you can enter again.

entries close on the 30Th of September west Australian time.we will post the winning entry after that and I will leave a comment on the winners blog and get in contact from there.

GOOD LUCK!!!!

Sugar Sugar

title: Sugar Sugar
Author: Carole Wilkinson
First Published: Black Dog Books in 2010

Jackie sets out for France in 1972 to try and become a famous fashion designer. she has been living a drab life in London, working for a boring fashion company as a sales girl, with a bunch on crabby part-time models who only eat salads and hard boiled eggs. she decides suddenly take a few days off and travel to Paris to show her designs to a famous designer in hope of getting a job.

somehow she ends up chasing two American girls in a vintage British cab to get back her folio. from here she continues chasing people right to Afghanistan, having the worst of luck on the way. she makes quite a few new friends, with the help of some drugs, lack of food, Dolf's guitar and Val's dice.

i quite liked this book it was very different to what i was expecting though, it wasn't your usual girl travels to Paris story.
here are some things that i liked:

-it's slow winding pace. it's very peaceful and appropriate and doesn't make the book boring

-the descriptions of the different places. i loved hearing about Yugoslavia and turkey, it showed how beauty can be all kinds of different things. i especially loved Jackie's descriptions of home, red dirt, the beach, soft green grass and eating peaches in summer.

-the characters were very realistic, they had so many faults and not token faults. one character was 'the moody one' and another 'the one who has a big mouth'. all characters made mistakes and changed and grew. i know this was true because i found myself being mad at Jackie who i quite liked, and liking Dolf something even though i thought he was annoying.

-i like the paisley pattern at the beginning of every chapter.

here are some things i didn't like:

-i felt that i didn't really know Jackie for the first half of the book. i even managed to forget her name, which isn't a good sign. i felt she was a little undeveloped at the beginning.

-there were lots of characters coming and going, and of course they all had names native to there countries. i found myself a little confused at time.

-it somehow felt a little heavy. this must be just be because i don't really know what i mean.

overall i liked this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes more slowly paced books. it's quite thought provoking at parts and you feel like you get to visit all the countries, while at some points it makes you wish you were traveling across Europe and Asia in a London taxi. my favourite thing about this book is how you could see the characters grow and develop.

Mama's Trippin'

title: Mama's Trippin'
author: Katy Watson-Kell
first: 2006 by Fremantle Press published

Von leaves the life he knows in fremantle and travels to New Zealand to meet the mother who left when he was 6 and his new baby sister. he feels at a lost end in WA, fighting with her girlfriend, isn't doing so well at school, not sure what he cares about or what he wants anymore and isn't feeling right with his mates. his dad's heading off to the station with his mates for a week, so when Von's mum rings out of the blue and invites him to come stay he jumps on the chance. when he gets to Wellington he realises in an instant things aren't as magical as his mum, Charlene, made out. her boyfriend's running from the cops, she's working all might as a dancer at a nightclub and then their is Stella, his silent sister. it isn't long until things so from slightly hectic to crazy. soon people are turning up dead. Von travels to the place of his Moriori ancestors and they reach out to help him. at this point is he able to trust a culture he's felt no connection to before now. does Von have any choice?

i quite enjoyed this book, it's easy to read and flows really well. their have been other books about sons who find their mothers and have their lives turned upside down, but this one was different. i think the main difference was that it was told from lots of different perspectives. even though this book is written entirely in third person it's always easy to tell who's point of view it is from and if you can't tell you can look at the symbol at the start of the chapter. it was very int resting to get the mother's view of her long, lost son as well as his of her.

i also liked how realistic the relationships in Mama's Trippin are. instead of hating or suddenly loving each other, Von and his mother slowly and clumsily get to know each other. how stella, the 2 year old sister, and Von get along is also right on the mark, at first Von hasn't a clue what to do, but it isn't long before they are inseparable. how henry, the neighbour from down stairs, weaves his way into their lives was quite funny. it's nice to find an authour who remembers that young guys tend to think with what's in their pants not what makes sense.

this book also had a very good ending. not everything was resolved, but we had a feeling things would work themselves out over the next few months.

i felt this book left a few things unexplaned. Von is a diabetic and we get the feeling right from the beggining that he isn't comfortable with it, but that is never explored. we also hear nothing about his mates except his girlfriend Juice. all we know about his guy friends is that they play footy. i think that if i read Katy Watson-Kell's other book, Juice, that both of these things would be in that story.

a bit of background knowledge about the Moriori people could help understand this book a bit better becuase this book really shines when it comes to spiritual and cultural ideas. i plan on finding out more becuase it was the connection with Von's ancestors that made the ending so special.

sorry for the long review. it's a good book and i will deffinetly be trying to get my hands of Juice, which is also about Von.

New Aussie Book Blog

i thought I'd let you in on an awesome, little secret.
i have found an awesome new blog (well actually she commented on a review but still) it's called The Book Sooth it's run by a girl called Isme. we have a lot in common, we're both 14 year old girls from western Australia who love books.

check out her blog and leave her a lovely comment please. and you can leave one here before you head over to the book slooth.
xxx
by the way, we might be having a competition, but only people who have commented on our blog will be considered.

With Lots of Love from Georgia

Georgia is a 15 year old girl who would die to get to the natural affinity concert and meet Jakob. to do this she has to save up 500 dollars. Georgia is very mixed up, she loves her best friend, but it isn't quite right. she loves her mum but why does she always think she's right. she loves food, but why does it have to make you fat.

things are changing fast in Georgia's life and she's caught up in a whirlwind she can't control and is left feeling lost and lonely. but in the end, everything leads to something good. sometimes we just have to wait and see what comes next.

like always Brigid Lowry has written a beautiful book, not in the collage style of Guitar Highway Rose, but it is scattered with lists written by Georgia herself. I didn't like this novel as much as Guitar Highway Rose or Tomorrow All Will be Beautiful, but it was still a great read, once again Brigid Lowry has captured the confusion of being a teenager. suddenly your diving into an adult world, your parents no longer holding you up. you're realising that maybe you're a better swimmer anyway, but still you might not be ready to let go.

a beautiful book, read it.

The Night They Stormed Eureka

Title:The Night They Stormed Eureka
Aurthur: Jackie French
First Published:2009 by harpercollins

Sam has lots of family troubles and decides the only thing she can do is to run away. she ends up on the Ballarat gold fields in 1854, not long before the Eureka Stockade. she is picked up by a couple who run the 'best little cook shop on the diggins' and gets everything she's ever wanted, a family that loves her and friends who help her. life in the diggings is very different to life in the 21st century, to Sam seems so simple. the longer she spends there, she realises it is just a hard. she has to make some incredibly hard choices that could effect Australian history and culture from then on. she knows about the bloodshed and death, should she warn them that they will be attacked at dawn on Sunday so they save lives? would Australia be better off as a republic? with the help off her friend the professor she learns that all she can do is ask her self weather this bit is good or bad. Sam's trip back in time teaches her so much. it showed me how far we have come in 150 years, things people thought were impossible, like education for women, are now standard. my favourite lesson, and the most predominate, is that people can achieve things when they stand together that they could never get near alone.

i really enjoyed this book, but i found not a lot really happened. it was not boring in the least, but they're was really only one exciting or major event. this is mainly because even though their are no battles or fights Sam is the characters are constantly fighting themselves. Mrs Puddleham, Sam's adoptive mother, is battling with the memory of the baby she lost on the ship to Australia and her friend George is pushing the strains of being a half aboriginal who wants an education.

this is very easy to read and understand compared to other historical novels because Sam knows as little as we do. there are also appendices at the back including recipes from Mrs Puddleham and an explanation of things that you might not understand, including terms like "redcoats" and some extra information of the stockade which was useful and interesting.

i am very happy that this novel wasn't ruined with an "it was a dream" ending. towards the end i was worried that Jackie Frech would cop out have her wake up and say she was dreaming, but instead she gave us a propper believe ending, which left me wondering what happened to Sam but sure that she would get the help she needed and be happy.