The Golden Eagle

Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff is a really really good book full of action, adventure and some cleverness.

This book is set in Roman times. Marcus lives with his uncle Aquila who's not the happiest of people when Marcus comes to live with him. Marcus goes with his uncle to see a gladiator match and saves somebody by saying don't kill him and making the crowd agree with him, then buys him and then they become friends.

The Ninth legion is believed to have walked on and then just disappeared. Marcus and Esca (the rescued gladiator) go on a quest to find the missing eagle of the ninth legion. The eagle was the sign of the Romans. On the quest they think they've won it, then they don't and you're always wanting to know what happens next.

It's one of those books that you'll be trying to read in your sleep because it you're just so interested and excited because you just don't know what's going to happen next.

I learned quite a bit about Roman times, mainly about how many different types of soldiers there were and what games they played.

It was easy to read however some bits of it were quite difficult to understand and so it was good that my dad read it to me.

Star rating is five out of five because I absolutely loved this book. I would recommend it for eight plus but if you're 8 or 7 someone should probably read it to you.

Where am I?

Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce is a very good book. It is quite exciting and the main plot would never actually happen in real life but all the other things could.

It's about a boy whose brother gets measles and he has to live in a flat with his auntie and uncle. At first he finds it boring but then one night he creeps out to find a garden that in daylight is not there. He meets a girl who he spends lots of time with, named Hattie. She becomes his friend in the garden.

I liked how it always had that slight touch of mystery, and you were wondering what was really happening. I really enjoyed the characters because they had a good personality and it really showed that in the bbook. The two people who are friends, Hattie and Tom just seemed to click. They seemed like they were always meant to be friends.

This is a good book for eight plus but you might want to get your dad to read it to you like mine did. It gets four stars out of five. I give only four because some of the clues give the story away a bit too much, but it is still very intriguing.

Where is my Money?

Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner is a wonderful adventure about a boy who is very poor and gets his money stolen on the train when he goes to sleep. The adventure is about how he gets his money back.

The main character, named Emil, meets some very reliable friends who help him on the quest to get his money back. Their adventure is so big and exciting because you never know what's going to happen next. You never know if he has won or lost and several times you are convinced he has lost his money.

It was first published in Britain in 1931, so as you can see it's not a new book. The setting is in Germany. The time and the place affect the book by the ways that they do things such as how one of the boys is called The Professor which wouldn't be very likely in England today. I liked the fact that it was set in Germany because it felt different from most books, because most books are set in Britain and it's all about what British people would do, and this is an example that shows you whatr life was like in Germany in the 1920s.

This weekend there was a production of Emil and the Detectives on Radio Four which was good but I imagined the voices different, because they sounded like they were cockneys and I didn't imagine that. I thought they'd use better English. The producation did not change the story which I thought was good and it was as still as exciting as the book. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them

My star rating: five out of five.

This would be good for eight years plus.

Sorry for the delay in posting the review, the next one will come soon. Please leave comments on this and also on the last one - Bloggs's guest blog.

Bloggs's Guest Blog

My friend Hector Bloggs is doing a guest post today of Lord of the Rings - the Fellowship of the Rings by J R R Tolkein.

Thank you Hector for writing this review, I am sure everyone will enjoy your post.

This book is a very good story about hobbits, sometimes called halflings, and how one of them Frodo Baggins has to take a ring from a big volcano where it was once made by the evil spirit Sauron. This is a very good book with a lot of mythical elements to it. Frodo takes the ring with eight more companions: Sam, Pippin, Merry, Gandalf, Boromir, Aragon (the heir of Isuldur), Gimli and Legolas who is an elf.

It's an exciting adventurous story and well written. It feels as it's the right type of writing. It's very atmospheric and you feel as though you are there.

The movie is as good as the book except they changed a few things and they missed out a few things (Tom Bombadill and the Barrowwhites) which was annoying, because Tom would have been really good. When he puts the ring on his finger he doesn't turn invisible and that would have worked well in a film.

I would definitely recommend people to read this book, ages nine plus. My star rating is five out of five, well actually five and a half.

The great horse

Warhorse by Michael Morpurgo is a classic example of a war book. It tells the story of a horse who gets sold to a man and is trained by his son then has to learn how to plough in a week, and then gets shipped off to the British army fighting the First World War in France. From then he gets captured by the Germans and lives with the Germans for a while, pulling waggons. Then he gets stuck in barbed wire in No Man's Land and eventually the English army win a toss against the Germans and he comes back to them.

This is a very touching story because it's so sad to learn that a horse just get pushed around like that and gets involved in war.

I have seen the play as well as read the book and there is one major annoying thing, it was that in the play the horse was sold for 39 guineas and there was this whole thing about the mortgage and in the book he was sold for three guineas. There's a big difference. Films and plays should not change books.

This book is good for eight plus because there are some bits that you need to be old enough to understand. My star rating is four out of five because of the major difference between the play and the book, because I think it's very confusing.

I learned that horses have so many jobs in war and that horses are more cared for nowadays. My dad took me to the Imperial War Museum and I saw an exhibition about the trenches. I have no idea how any horse or man survived in the trenches. They were really unpleasant because of the stench and because you got lice and there were rats and frogs. I would highly recommend people to visit the Imperial War Museum. They should also see the play of Warhorse as well as read the book, it was really good.

This message is coded!!

The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch is very exiting.It has codes,secrets and a few laughs in between.Cassandra and Max-Ernest (the two main characters) are finding clues all the time making it extremely nerve-racking because you always think that something bad is going to happen, when actually something good happened. Another good thing about this book is that something always happens, you're never left just in a boring bit, there's always something happening.

As good friends do Max-Ernest and Cassandra have a little fight. But it all works out in the end. This book is great. It's really clever because it doesn't talk about the people it talks to you, the reader personally. For example it says: 'Now I know I can trust you.' It makes you feel really drawn into the story.

The story is about a missing magician's diary and a deadly secret. I can't say any more because it would be giving it away. I've told you too much already!

My star rating is five out of five. I would recommend it for 7 plus because some bits are scary.

When will they die?

Are they dead,yes,no yes,no? Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy is exciting and really clever. I loved it.

The story's about a man who dies and then his niece and the man's friend fight using magic. Skullduggery Pleasant is no ordinary man. He is two things - a magician and dead - a skeleton! They search for something that is thought to be not real, but is actually real and evntually they beat the villain. This book is very adventurous, with fighting in it and a bit of crime. It is nerve-wracking because you always think someone's going to die.

It is perfect for the Potter crowd. People who like Harry Potter would like this book. There are a couple of bits that make you think that something tragic has happened when actually there's a way out of it. That is why it's so very clever.

Like the Roman Mysteries, my star rating is five out of five. People of 9 plus should read this book.

Same Old Thing!

Beast Quest


The series Beast Quest by Adam Blade are easy to get sucked into but they are actually meant for four-seven year olds. The bad thing about his books are that the same thing happens over the series. It is really boring because all Tom does (the main character )with the other main character, Elenna is battle the beast, then win. The only thing that is different is that each book features a different beast.
I wish the beast would win once in a while because you lose interest in the series.
My rating is:2/5. It is a good book for early readers.

Historical Fiction at Its Best

The Roman Mysteries Series by Caroline Lawrence

This is a series of book that is very clever because it uses all the features that a Roman town would have when they go on adventures. It is very fun to read, sometimes dead serious and sometimes it makes me laugh.

There are at least 12 books in the series, starting with The Thieves of Ostia. They tell the story of four young Roman children trying to be detectives. Lupus, the youngest is mute. Then there's Jonathan, who has bad asthma. Flavia is the bossy one, and then Nubia who comes from Africa.

These books show typical ways of living of the Romans so you learn a lot from reading them. For example I learned that if you did something bad you might be forced to become a gladiator and that loads of Jews were taken as slaves.

My star rating: 5/5