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Showing posts from August, 2015

Don't want to wait 3+ years to get to see Spy School: The Movie? Well, here are some alternatives!

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Ok, so I was going through YouTube and happened to stumble upon to awesome Spy School fan made movies. Nothing professional, just some kids who love Spy School and hung out for a day and had some fun. Here's the first one: These kids actually spent a good deal of time on their movie and made it really close to the real book, using exact quotes and everything. If you want basically the book put onto your screen, go with this one. It had a few bloopers but nonetheless, a great book representation. Here's the second one: This one's wayy funnier. Even though it uses some direct quites, most of it is just pure comedy created by 5th graders. I was laughing the whole time. This one also had a two-minute long blooper reel that was simply hilarious (I mean- the rap which was titled "I Just Wet my Pants!" I almost died there) So there you go. I'm planning on doing something online with animation? Who knows. But if you just can't bare to wait three y

Cycles: The best Book You've never Heard Of

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I decided to go on a self-published book spree (because the prices- free are just unbeatable) and while most of them are...not the best, I stumbled upon this book. I was actually searching for another book by the author Lois D. Brown- Catching Katir, but hey, I stumbled upon the book Cycles. It was free so I gave it a try, and here are my thoughts. Summary: Renee Beaumont is unconscious and about to die. She's fallen off Dr. Dawson- her neighbor and close friend- horse, which is one of few left after a deadly virus killed off a majority of the horses in the US, after trying to escape from thieves attempting to steal the horse. But the weird thing is, her blood has these things called antigens, and she has so many of them that her blood is unique, and these is no other blood the doctors can use to pump into her. Until...Dr. Dawson says he has some of her blood "from a science experiment" in his basement. Which of course, cures Renee. Meanwhile, Sam- Renee's best frie

Today's Thanks Go to: The Summer Book Club

So School's starting and my first two days were crazy. The normal things like reuniting with old friends, the occasional where-the-hack-do-I-go moments, and of course the dreaded lunch (which isn't the worst at my school) It was a decent day and honestly, after all the boringness of having to suffer through expectations an rules, I'm excited to y'know...learn stuff. Anyways, just want to give a quick thanks to the book club. If you aren't informed I was the host of an online book club, where we met every week through email  throughout the summer and talked about yours truly, Stuart Gibbs. So at first, it was just me and Libni Quantanilla, who've I've mentioned in my 3000 views post. Then there was a kid named Aiden, We started having a few meetings before another kid- Joseph and his friend Sophia. At the next meeting, we suddenly realized on email, unless you press "Reply to All" it only replies your thoughts to one person. It went such downhill

Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Planet Girl: "Ice Cream Makes Everyone Look Fat"

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WOW! So the 5th book in probably one of the greatest series about middle school life just came out this morning, and I'm happy to say that I woke up at 6, downloaded the eBook, and was finished at 7:28. It was just so amazing, but of course, only the amazing parts are the parts you want to know yourself, so of course no spoilers (it just crushes me because I could write a ten thousand word post if I could include spoilers) Summary: Everyone has a girlfriend at Westport- well everyone except for Charlie Joe. Even Timmy, yes the same kid that is the most annoying best friend a kid could ever have has found a girl- and Pete, which don't even get me started why that's an amazing feat. Charlie is clueless. He's liked Hannah, who's going out with a Jake who's known as a nerd but really isn't if you get to know him, for 7 years, but he's starting to get a thing for Katie, who recently broke up with Nareem. But Charlie just can't do anything right and ends

Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Planet Girl OUT TOMORROW! What to watch for!

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OMG- CJJ guide to planet girl IS OUT TOMORROW! So Excited- especially since school is back for me, it gives me a last taste of the good life, just chilling and reading in nice air conditioning. Anyways- here are some questions to be answered and other things to look out for (at least questions and things I'm looking for for me): The Charlie + Katie Saga- Katie has basically said she's done with Nareem and she's implied that she has interest in Charlie Joe. Charlie Joe appears to have interest in her. Will they get together? Will another girl get in the way? Who knows. The other million boys and girls who've hooked up- Will we get to know who's with who. Who knows if Greenwald will just stick with the main five or 6 or will he have Charlie Joe explain all the relationships throughout the school The Romance advice- How good will it be? Is it all kid stuff or for adults and kids? Finally- will all the friends be the same? Have some left and are their new people

A Fun Surprise For y'all + What's Coming Up

Since the first day of school is tomorrow (why are summers always so fast?) and I have to go to sleep early, I'm just going to update you guys on what to come. I will finish my book stack which includes: Books 4-6 of Whatever After series The Island Trilogy by Gordon Korman The Puzzler's (Trilogy)- Eric Berlin And a bunch more great series. After that...well I don't really know. Comment what you guys want to see (other than fantasy/mythology- maybe if we hit 5000 I'll give one series a try) Also- with the help of some advice from Erik from  thiskidreviewsbooks.com  (yes the uber-famous kid blogger) I've looked into authors who've self-published and found some awesome (free!) content that, once I get through, I'd love to review. If school gets tough, I might do an update post that daily posts might be postponed, or stopped until the school year is over. Sorry guys, school comes first. Expect two or three posts a week if that ever happens. If you&#

The Map Trap: Somehow, Clements makes Maps exciting!

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Summary: Alton is probably the greatest kid-cartographer (a big, fancy word that means "map maker") in the history of Illinois. But he almost gets into serious trouble after a fire drill, which of course, he stayed in to create his next crazy map. How can maps be crazy you ask? Well while Alton has sketched perfect replicas of cities and countries, his best maps are in a folder that include a map of Miss Wheeler's- the new, very young teacher who's little brother is the same age as the kids she is teaching- brain and all the wacky things it's made up of, or a graph of how many times the principal says "um" during the morning announcements. But a "mapnapper" has stolen all of his maps, and threatens to release all of his maps to the school. Why is this a bad thing? I mean if Quint, a new friend who used to be a quote-unquote "Popular Kid" likes them, why not he whole school? Well some of them contain personal information such as who ha

15 Minutes:The Time Machine that saves lives...or at least kids from getting swirlied

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Summary: "Casey! Get Up! You're going to be late...again!" Casey Little has always been late for school. And Mrs. Loozer (An Amazing name right? To be honest, she says it's pronounced "Low-zer") is sick of it. One more tardy from Casey and he's getting into a bunch of trouble. To make matters worse, Todd Archer, the school's star Quarterback and a professional at making Casey's life miserable. But after searching through the attic, he finds an old watch, which his dad explains, was his Grandpa's watch. Casey thinks that all it could do is (hopefully) get him to wake up early, But after a rough encounter with Amy and Danielle, the cute girls from school, which includes his Mom yelling at him to take a bath and him stepping in dog poop, he learns the secret meaning of the watch. The watch is a time machine, that can warp back 15 minutes on command, He warps back and now, knowing what they'll say and do, impresses the crap out of them. Sudde

Whatever After- Dream on: The story of how a sleepwalking friend almost destroys a fairy tale

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I know what you're thinking. "What happened to the third and first book in the series" For those of you wondering, I've reviewed the second book and this is the fourth book, but the first and third are missing. It's mostly because when I review books, I have the book right next to me, so I can flip through it for any scenes or quotes. And I returned those books last week. Don't worry though, I'll try to get them back and put out the review as soon as I can. For now, enjoy this review and everything else on my blog. Summary: "Robin stop!" Abby and Jonah are watching Abby's friend Robin sleepwalk down the stairs into the basement after a long night at their sleepover. Bump. Bump. Bump. Robin, unknowingly, has just set off the mirror with it's "3-knock activation" and is suddenly warped into a fairy tale. Needing to save Robin, Abby and Jonah hop in. Robin, awake from her trance and confused, suddenly races up a nearby tower with

Escape from Mr Lemoncellos Library: Shoutout to Ariana for the recommendation!

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Through the midst of a crazy week long reading marathon whilst vacationing in Boston, I managed to read a book recommended by one of the few fans I have. Ariana had recommended this book to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks Ariana! Summary: Kyle Keeley and his friends have all written essays for a contest, with the winner getting to go into the crazy high-tech new public library in town run by Luigi Lemoncello (the creator of a billion board games and  video games, and the role model of basically half the school) Some kids write extensive 12 page essays while Kyle, who forgets about the contest writes "Balloons. I hope there will be balloons" and submits it. Somehow, he and a bunch of his friends win, and after a crazy night at the library exploring, they are faced with the biggest challenge- they need to escape. It's not one of those walk out the front door things- the front door is a bank vault style door to protect the technology from thieves. And no, it's

The Best Poster Ever + Books I've read!

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Quick update for y'all. So after finishing my giant 20-book novel stack, I'm gonna try to pump out reviews before school starts for me on Aug 24. That means two weeks of reviewed awesomeness. Books to look out for are: Escape from Mr. Lemoncellos Library: Chris Grabenstein - Recommended by a fan named Ariana! Whatever After Series: Sarah Mlynowski The Puzzler's Mansion & The Puzzling World of Winston Berlin: Eric Berlin Want to recommend a book for me to review? My only condition is that I don't do fantasy/ mythology. Sorry Harry Potter/ Percy Jackson/ Lord of the Rings fans. I tried reading Harry Potter earlier in the year and I just didn't like it. If I were to review those, I would trash them. I'm sure they're great books, just not for me. Either e-mail me @ justindoan8@gmail.com or leave a comment. Also, with a few minutes of free time on my hands, look what I made! Feel free to use this! I have no copyrights! Well, Keep Calm and Be Sw

The past week has been crazy + Shoutouts and More!

I was on vacation guys, I was asked by a fan why I haven't posted so I guess I'll answer this. I was in Boston, having an awesome time. The wifi was horrible, so my laptop just wouldn't let me post anything. Also don't forget, in three weeks, school is starting up again. So, lots of business. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm really trying to figure out how to get the money to someday get my book published, unless somehow I can score an agent or something. This is all so much for me to handle. All I'll tell you is while I stopped blogging, I haven't stopped reading, so I'll push out more reviews. Also, gonna update the blog. Shoutout to my new fan Matt, known as ThaHunter Gaming. He's commented a bunch, and I really appreciate it.