This Month's Book Reviews

The author of "Jaws"
tries to set the record straight about sharks

"Shark Life" was an adult non-fiction book authored by Peter Benchley in 2005. The publication reviewed here is an adapted version published by Random House in 2007 as a Yearling paperback for kids. Although Peter Benchley gained his fame and fortune by writing a horror story about sharks, in this book he tries to play down the actual danger that sharks pose to human beings. Still, he tells of enough close calls to himself and even his eleven-year-old son to make many of us leery about going very far out into the ocean. His point made over and over is that when humans go into the ocean, they are in the shark's domain. There are certain precautions to take - most of them just common sense. There is enough tension in these true stories to keep a young reader captivated.

A book about a boy whose values compel him
to resist external pressures

Jerry Spinelli, author of "Wringer," is a popular and award-winning author of children's books, especially for boys. "Wringer" is, in fact, a Newbery Honor book and Spinelli won the Newbery Medal for an earlier book titled "Maniac Magee." In "Wringer," the author deal with a problem that nearly all boys experience - how to be "one of the boys" without compromising one's own self-respect and personal feelings. It's even tougher for boys when adults around them seem to applaud the bullying tactics that some boys use against other boys. In this book the main character finally comes to realize that true masculinity doesn't come from bullying weaker kids, making fun of girls, and killing birds.

A fun book about four kids who use a machine
to do their homework

A Some books are just written to be fun to read more than to be anything else. That's the case with author Dan Gutman's "The Homework Machine." The central idea of kids using a machine that does their homework is far out enough. The real humor, though, is in the incidents that take place which any kids can relate to when something out of the ordinary comes up in the mundane atmosphere (for kids) of their school. The book has been selected as a New York Public Library pick of one of the "100 Titles for Reading and Sharing."

A look at a young girl's life
in Buttermilk Hill, North Carolina

Author Ruth White is known for her books looking at rural and small town life in North Carolina, some set in decades past. "Buttermilk Hill" is fairly timeless - it could be today or in the recent past. Its ten-year-old heroine, Piper Berry, is coping with the break-up of what had been for her a fairly idyllic life. Her mother wants independence, while her father wants to raise a large family of boys. The book deals with how all three of them make reasonable adjustments to a new life. Piper finds a way to nurture her poetic talent while maturing and finding her place in her parents' differing ways of life. Resolving a mystery out of the small town's past adds additional spice to the story.