This month's book reviews

A story about a Newfoundland dog
and the island with the same name

Newfoundland, a province of Canada today, was originally settled by Vikings, hundreds of years before Columbus "discovered" America. The land has hard winters and is battered by heavy winds. Many of its people are fishermen and make their livings from the sea. Their favorite dogs are Newfoundlands, big, black, heavy coated dogs that love the water and are great helpers to their owners.

"Star in the Storm" tells the story of Maggie, a young girl who lives in Newfoundland. The year is 1912. Maggie loves the big Newfoundland dog that is her family's pet. She named him Sirius, after the North Star. Sirius is much more than a pet, though. He is so big and strong, he is used to pull heavy loads in a cart. Still, he is gentle and playful and a great companion to Maggie.

Unfortunately, some dogs had been killing sheep on the island. A law was passed that all dogs except sheep herding dogs had to be destroyed. Even Sirius had been wrongly accused of killing a sheep. Maggie had to hide her dog and try to get people to change their minds about working dogs like Sirius.

The rest of the story involves a shipwreck and the need for a lifesaving dog to rescue people from the stormy sea before they are all drowned. Can you guess which dog turns out to be a hero and, because of his lifesaving skills, gets people to do away with the bad law?

A roller coaster ride of a story that
takes you up and down and all around

Alex Grindlay believed that he had an incurable disease. It was called "Hoodooitis." Its cause was a swollen hoodoo. The symptoms were simple - everything that could go wrong in your life does go wrong! For example, just in one morning before 8:30 he had stubbed his toe, banged his head, dropped his toothbrush in the toilet, torn his shirt, lost his homework, discovered cockroaches in his favorite box of cereal, and broken the fruit juicer. And that was just for openers!

Alex lived with his father. His mother had died when he was born. Ever since, Alex's dad just sat and watched game shows on TV. They ordered all their meals over the phone. On Alex's thirteenth birthday, a strange deliveryman delivered Chinese food. Neither Alex nor his dad had ordered it, and there was no charge. Later, when all the food was eaten, Alex opened one of the fortune cookies. It read "The Cookie Company. Established 1823." A second cookie read "Go there." A third cookie gave the address "1228 Geisel Lane." The fourth fortune cookie, when asked, "what's there for me," answered "Your fortune." Then he accidentally stepped on a fifth cookie, and when it broke into pieces, Alex was magically transported to 1228 Geisel Lane.

It was when he entered the Cookie Company factory, that Alex began his fantastic, roller coaster ride of an adventure. He believed he had to save the entire world, especially his father, from being taken over by televised game shows. Part of his adventure did involve trying to find a hoodoo and discover a cure for hoodooitis. Imagine flying through space, going through time warps, being miniaturized, meeting all kinds of unbelievable characters with some of them bad guys, and not knowing how all this would turn out. If you like this kind of fantasy, "The Cookie Company" is the book for you.

A young teen-ager gets caught up in the December 7th, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor

Adam Pelko has just started ninth grade at a new school in Hawaii. His dad was a naval officer and had just been assigned to a big battleship located in Pearl Harbor - the USS Arizona. As a military kid, Adam had moved around a lot - as much as four times in one year he could remember. It was hard getting used to new places with new teachers and all new kids in his classes. But Adam tried hard to be what his father expected him to be - as disciplined and neat as if he were in the U. S. navy himself.

His first real friend he made at his new school was Davi Mori. It turned out that Davi was from a Japanese family, one of the thousands of Japanese who lived in Hawaii. Adam's father had ordered Adam to stop doing things with Davi, because there was a threat of war between the U.S. and Japan. It just wasn't the right thing for a member of a U. S. naval family to run around with a Japanese friend, even one who had been born in America. The trouble was that Adam had promised to go fishing with Davi and another boy the next Sunday morning. They were going to ride to the shore on their bicycles and fish from the shore in the harbor. Adam figured he could do this one last thing with Davi before he broke off the friendship.

While fishing from the shore, the boys were looking at all the naval ships in the Harbor, one of which was the USS Arizona. They felt lucky when they discovered a small rowboat adrift along the shoreline. They decided to fish from the boat as they floated in the harbor. They had just started to fish when planes began flying overhead. Suddenly, explosions were heard and seen all around the harbor. Even their small boat was machined gunned from a plane diving down toward the harbor. The boys were caught up in the December 7th, 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the event that brought the United States into World War II.

Many of us today have grandparents who remember their shock and fear when they heard about the Pearl Harbor attack on the radio when they were kids. Reading the paperback, "A boy at War," would help us to have a better understanding of what happened on that historic Sunday morning.

The story of one of the greatest
of America's founding fathers

Everybody in America has heard about Benjamin Franklin. This little paperback in the "In Their Own Words" series of books tells all about Ben Franklin's childhood, his growing up, and the number of great things he did throughout his long life. It uses many quotes from his letters, pamphlets, and the book he wrote about his own life.

As a boy in Boston, Ben went to work for his older brother to learn about the printing trade. He was only twelve years old and was supposed to work for his brother until he was twenty-one. Because he thought his brother didn't treat him fairly, Ben ran away when he was seventeen years old. First, he went to New York, but soon moved to Philadelphia, intending to start his own printing business. He had to go to London to buy a new printing press. He ended up spending nearly two years there. Still, he was only twenty-one years old, when he returned to Philadelphia. It took a while, but he finally started his own successful printing business. He became famous as the publisher of "Poor Richard's Almanack." All his travels and adventures served him well when he was called on to serve in the government of the British colonies and, later, of the new nation, which was to become the United States of America.

In his own lifetime, Benjamin Franklin was famous as the inventor of the Franklin heating stove, for his scientific experiments with electricity, for founding the first public library, for founding one of the first fire departments, and for founding a university and a hospital. He did all of these things before he began his duties as one of the greatest of the founding fathers of our nation.

The authors, Peter and Connie Roop, tell the story of Ben Franklin's life in a way that is interesting and entertaining.