Jadyn Dalrymple

A Long Walk to Water is a book about two different people, a boy named Salva whose story took place in 1985 and a girl named Nya whose story took place in 2008.

Salva lost all of his family and friends during the war in Sudan, so it makes me more grateful for my friends and family.

Nya has to walk to a pond all day to get water, so she doesn’t get to go to school  or do anything else, so it makes me more grateful for clean water that I can easily get, and for getting to do school.

When it got hard for Salva to keep going, his Uncle would tell him “one step at a time, one day at a time”. So when his Uncle died and he was at a miserable camp, he just kept telling himself “one day at a time.”

Towards the end of the book the two characters met. As an adult, Salva made it to the United States and found out that his father was still alive!  But Salva’s father had gotten sick because of the dirty water, so Salva decide to help get money together to get clean water in Sudan.

There were two different tribes, Dinka and Nuer he was in the Dinka tribe. He helped his tribe get clean water, and then he helped some Nuer people which was crazy because they are complete enemies!  Nya was Nuer and she thanked him for the water and that’s how they met.

This was a very intense story that I really liked.

(One random neat thing about this story is that Salva was sponsored by a family to come and live in Rochester, NY in 1996, and my parents were both going to college in Rochester at that time!)

The War That Saved My Life was one of my favorite books! This story was about a girl named Ada and a boy named Jamie who lived during WW2.

This is a story about perseverance. Ada has a club foot, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting to do many things. She is very independent and perseveres. For example, even though she always fell off the horse when learning to ride, she’d always get back on. This is also a story about love. Ms. Smith ends up caring for both kids during the war and showing them how much they are loved.

Here is a short summary of some of the main parts of the story:

Ada is a cripple, and her mom doesn’t like her. Her mom hits her and never lets her go outside.

But since the war is going on, a lot of parents are sending their children out of London. Ada and Jamie snuck out in the morning because their Mam was not going to let Ada leave. They got on a train and headed out to the country. It was a hot train and long trip. They saw a girl riding a horse, and Ada noted that she’d like to do that some day.

When they finally arrive, they go to the bathroom. She sees an ugly girl looking back at her and realized that it’s her own reflection!

Nobody wants her or Jamie, and they’re the last children left. So, Ms. Thornton, the administrator takes them in her car and takes them to Ms. Smith’s house and drops them off. Ms. Smith doesn’t really want them, but she has to take them. She has a very nice house and is pretty rich.

Ms. Smith takes them into town to get groceries and wanted them to get ID’s. They didn’t even know when they were born. They made up birthdays. They also get check-ups from the doctor, and they get Ada some crutches. When they get home, Ada sees a beautiful pony named Butter who used to be Becky’s horse (Ms. Smith’s best friend who had passed away.)

One day when she’s practicing riding Butter, she sees Margaret. She has a nice horse and is very rich. Margaret falls off her horse, so Ada brings her home and meets a guy who works in the stables for her, Mr. Grimes. He tells her that she can come over anytime and he’ll answer any questions about horses.

Ada goes up on a hill and always checks for spies. She sees a little rowboat with a guy getting off. Maybe that’s a spy. She goes down and looks. He buries his suitcase. She goes to the police. The guy thinks she is making it up.

“My foot is a long way from my brain,” she tells him, because he questions her.

She asked another policeman to come and talk to her. They go out in the squad car, and Ada thinks she sees the guy, and so they stop him and ask for his ID. He has a perfect regular accent, but they find that he has sand on his jeans/pants and they are wet. And since there’s a barbed wire blocking people to the beach, no one should really be hanging out there. They take him away. Ada tells the police about the suitcase. The next day, the policeman who hadn’t believed her came to her door and apologized – the man was a spy. They will use the confiscated radio to tell the other country lies.

Ada becomes a hero!

Skipping forward…..

A few years later, Ada’s Mam comes to find them and is mad because the kids left her and she has to pay a certain amount for them. She tells them that they have to come with her. Ms. Smith tries to convince Mam to let them stay, but is not able to.

They go back to London, and Ada worries about the bombs. Mam tells her that there won’t be any. But they go to the house, and in the morning Mam takes Ada’s crutches and shoes, which is mean, and says she can only stay in the apartment again.

The next night when Ada talks to her at dinner, she asks, “If you never had to pay for us, would you let us go back to Ms. Smiths.” Mam doesn’t really answer but just goes to the pub.

That night there actually is a bombing. The kids don’t know where the bomb shelter is. Ada has to go really slow because she doesn’t have her crutches or shoes. A bomb hits close to them. They find a shelter, and they’re ok. And once it’s over, her hearing starts coming back. They come out, and see Ms. Smith who was probably there looking for them!

They go back to the country with her, and that’s the end. A happy ending!

The main point of this book was that girls can do things, too.

The main character was Naima from Bangladesh. She hears her father talking to her mother and saying that I wish one of our daughters was a boy so that he could help him drive the rickshaw.

So Naima decides to drive the rickshaw, but it is too heavy for her to steer, so she rams it into some bushes, and she messes it up.

Then her father says that he’ll take it down to a new shop that just opened. He didn’t know that the owner was a woman. She decided to go down in her friend’s clothes, who is a boy and ask for a job helping to fix rickshaws, and she lets down her hair and shows that she is a girl, and she gets a job.

They are able to fix her father’s rickshaw if he lets her work for the lady. And that’s the end.

I thought overall it was a pretty boring story without too much adventure.

This book by Grace Lin is about a girl named Minli who goes on a journey to ask the man of the moon to change her family’s fortune, and along the way she meets a lot of cool people.

One of my favorite things about this book was that each person she met told a story.

Along the way she meets a dragon, and he decides to go with her to ask the Man of the Moon why he doesn’t have any wings.

While she is gone, her parents realize that she is their fortune. Once she reaches Never Ending Mountain (which is where the Man of the Moon is), she sends up a kite with a string of destiny as the tail, and since it is a string of destiny, it gets longer and longer which means that it is her destiny to meet the Man of the Moon. Then the string turns into a bridge, but it cannot hold Dragon, so Minli goes up alone telling Dragon that she will ask the Man of the Moon his question for him.

Once she gets to the top of the bridge, she sees the Man of the Moon, but he says a person can only ask one question every 99 years, and so she will only get to ask one question. Then she realizes that she doesn’t need to change her fortune because the love of her family is her fortune, so she decides to ask Dragon’s question. Then she comes back down the bridge. Dragon asks her if she asked his question for him, and she said yes, then she sat on top of Dragon and pulled the ball on top of his head off.

Then he was able to fly, and he flew her back home and then he decided to live up on Fruitless Mountain which was very close to where Minli lived. And then Fruitless Mountain was very fruitful, and it was because the Jade Dragon, Dragon’s mother, had been reunited with one of her children.

I really loved this book by Lindsey Eland. It was about a girl named Sunday who felt like she was forgotten as a middle child, and so this summer she wants to change that.

Her dad is fixing up a library in Alma. When her family goes to help her dad, Sunday finds in the basement of the library a manuscript and wants to find out who wrote it. She thinks that will help her to be noticed more.

In the end she finds out that it was written by Lee Wren, a famous author! But when her husband found out that Sunday found it, he didn’t want her to share the manuscript with everybody. Before Lee died she wanted to write something just for them. It was a special, private story.

So instead of sharing that, Sunday shares something else. In the end she’s still one of “the six,” but sees that that’s enough.

I liked this story because it had both adventure and mystery. My favorite character was Beau, Sunday’s little brother – he was always very sweet and thoughtful.

This is a special copy of the book because the author signed this especially for me. We met her in Breckenridge, Colorado where she lives with her 4 kids, one who plays lacrosse with my brother Isaac.

I got a book called Has Anyone Seen Jessica Jenkins? Its about a girl who can turn invisible with a special necklace called rose quartz.

I also just got a book called Flora & Ulysses. So far it talked about a vacuum called the Ulysses 2000x. Its indoor and outdoor, and it vacuumed up a squirrel, and Flora, the girl, named the squirrel Ulysses. Continue reading “The Books I Have Been Reading Recently” →

Nat Bowditch was a great man from Salem, Massachusetts who lived in the late 1700’s. He loved to learn (especially math) and teach others. He was confident and persistent.

After his mothers death his father signed him up to work at the chandlery as an indentured servant.  He couldn’t leave for 7 years.  Now he couldn’t go to school like he wanted. He didn’t complain and he always did his best.

When he was on the ship he taught everybody navigation. He even learned a new way to work a lunar. He went through every single calculation in Moore’s book of navigation and he found errors in the book and he said mens lives depend on this book. There can’t be any errors and he was furious.

Overall, Nat Bowditch had a very difficult life – he lost a lot of people in his family and he never got to go to Harvard like he wanted to. But he still got to receive a degree from Harvard for his work with and book on navigation.

Elizabeth died when Nat went on a trip, and then he married Polly, and luckily Polly didn’t die.

I learned a lot from this book and Nat’s life: even when you go through hard times, you can choose to be happy.

Heidi is a good book about a girl and her grandfather, living on the Alm.

Heidi’s aunt didn’t want to take care of her anymore, so she took her to her grandfather, the Alm Uncle, and Heidi stays with him and lives in his loft full of hay.

Skipping the first half of the book….

One day, Heidi got a letter from Klara saying that she was coming to visit soon.

Fraulein Rottenmeyer was not going to come because she had heard a lot of scary stories from the doctor. (we think they told her these on purpose so she wouldn’t come) Sebastian, the butler, was going to take them up the mountain. Klara’s grandmama would go too. Everyone thought the fresh air would do Klara well, since she had been very sick.

Heidi loves living in the mountains. In the afternoon, the mountains look like they are on fire. She loves taking the goats up the mountain with Peter. She loves Schneehopli, Schwanli, and Barli.

Heidi also likes to visit the grandmother (Peter’s grandmother). The grandmother always looks forward to Heidi’s visits. She likes when Heidi reads to her and sings hymns to her.

Heidi taught Peter how to read so that Peter could read to his grandmother when it was too cold for Heidi to visit. But Peter would just skip the words that were too long or too hard.

In the winter time, Heidi and her grandfather lived in Dorfli because their hutt would get snowed in. Her grandfather promised the pastor that he would take Heidi to Dorfli so she could go to school.

That’s all we’re going to write for today. Thank you for reading. Please post comments.