Posts

Showing posts from July, 2016

An Amazing Guest Review!

Hello, everyone, so a couple weeks ago, I came in contact with a guy named Greg, who is a fellow member of the MMGM squad. We talked for a little bit, and he agreed to guest post my Spy School review. Go check out my view and then stay for his amazing blog right  here . His website is so much better designed than mine, and I really like his style of reviews. Go check out his website!

Booktube Video: Sasquatch in the Paint Review!

Image
So I guess I'll keep advertising my booktube channel. Today's review is over Sasquatch in the Paint by NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld. Go subscribe and become a fellow "bookie"! FAQ: (No my voice is not that high in real life. Yes, it will get lower)

Justintalksbooks Youtube Channel!

Image
Well, due to popular demand (of like one person) I made a channel where I'll probably end up making video reviews just because it's easier for me to ramble at a book for two minutes than spend forty five minutes writing a masterpiece. Anyways, here's the Intro Video, and if you like what you see, go subscribe! And if you want to subscribe click  here . Listen to my cringy audio (or don't) either way I'm still glad you spent time to read this post!

The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall

Image
(Justin's Note: Ok so I was planning on releasing something REALLY cool today, but of course my lack of intelligence with computers caused me to start screaming at it, which means that tomorrow you will something cool. Anyways, enjoy Mackensie's review! Genre: Realistic Fiction Age Group: MG Publishing Date: June 14, 2005 Quote: "People sometimes make unexpected choices when they're lonely." Summary: The Penderwicks' usual summer cottage got sold, and so instead they go to Arundel, an estate with huge gardens. In the family is Rosalind, the only one who remembers their mother (who died of cancer); Skye, the blonde one who takes after their mother; Jane, the aspiring writer; Batty, the one who still wears her butterfly wings; Hound, the lovable dog; and Mr. Penderwick, a botanist who speaks in Latin (only sometimes). When the four sisters explore the gardens, they meet Mrs. Tifton, the snooty owner of the house. She warns them to stay out of trouble.

Just My Luck by Cammie McGovern

Image
Genre: Realistic Fiction Age Group: Middle Grade (8-12) Publishing Date: February 23, 2016 By HarperCollins Summary:  So the Barrows family is one of interest. There'd Benny, who's the fourth grader that just can't seem to stop playing with his Legos, there's Martin, freshman at the high school, with his way out-of-his-league girlfriend Lisa, and then there's George...who's autistic. He thinks differently than everybody else, and needs help with a lot of things, but he is extremely amazing at memorizing lines from books or movies, and is even great at bicycling. It all happened at the track. Benny was doing laps when all of a sudden he just couldn't break fast enough. The next thing you know, his dad is out with a head injury, and suddenly he has forgotten everything, and starts to act more...interesting than George. Then, at school, they start a contest, where whatever class does the most nice deeds and gets recognized by a teacher wins a pizza party. J

Lawless by jeffrey Salane

Image
Summary:  M Freeman is not your average girl, she lives in a mansion with her mom and servant. She is also homeschooled, taking classes that most people don't take. Little does she know that her mom has been preparing M for Lawless, a school for junior criminals. When she gets attacked and poisoned on her way to the school she starts to realize just how weird the school actually is. After being poisoned, she wakes up in a plane, which she has to land, and to make it worse, she has a fear of heights. Once she successfully lands the plane M and her roommate, Zara, tour the school to get ready for her first day at lawless. On her first day at Lawless, M gets all her stuff stolen and has to sneak into a student meeting. After a few months at Lawless, hanging out with her friends Jules, Merlyn, and Cal, a student who refers to himself as Adam Worth, wants her to join the highest group of criminals at the school, The Masters. She then finds out that in order to join The Masters she has t

Adults: Are they the good guys or bad guys?

So I know I've been ranting about certain plot segments or parts of a book, but no one likes to hear me hate on the lovable book world. However, I just can't go around liking everything, so this segment is going to be a mix of both. Of course, I would do this with a friend like in one of those Time   kids  magazine, but no one is around, so oh well. This argument is based on MG/Maybe YA books. Pro:  Let's start off with the fact that without adults we wouldn't even have MG books. No I'm not talking about the 99% of books that are MG but written by adults. I'm talking about the fact that these kid characters would not have existed if not for their mom and dad. So applause for them. But seriously, if a kid needs to go anywhere, sure a lot of the time they just sneak off, but when they need to go into the city across the county? Well they can't drive themselves. Also, some adults are just plain funny. They make you laugh either by their incompetence, or dad j

The Candymakers by Wendy Mass

Image
Genre: Realistic Fiction Age Group: MG Publishing Date: October 5, 2010 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Quote: "After all, every story had two sides. Who was she to decide right from wrong?" Summary: Logan lives in a candy factory. His father is the candymaker, and Logan knows that one day he will follow in his father's footsteps. Life Is Sweet (the candy factory that he lives in) is chosen to host some contestants for the annual candymaking contest. Logan is twelve, so he can finally enter. Three other kids also go to Life Is Sweet to prepare entries: Miles, Daisy, and Philip. The kids soon realize that something is going on, and find themselves full of surprises and secrets. What I Liked: This story was very creative. In the beginning they go on a tour, and there are a lot of different candies, each with different features. There are also 28 other contestants besides the four from Life is Sweet, and some of their candies are described as well. I like

Author Interview! Starring Gordon Korman!

Image
My first author interview posted on this blog (can you believe it?)! Today's author interview features bestselling author of Ungifted, The Hypnotist, Schooled, and Masterminds  Gordon Korman! I asked him a couple questions about his books, and writing in general,which he gratefully responded to. Q1-  What was your inspiration for writing these amazing stories? For example, how does one simply think to write about an ungifted kid going to a gifted school? A1-    My story ideas just come to me. I don’t want to question it too much, because I would hate to have it stop happening! But really, most authors don’t require what you call “inspiration.” We write because we have something to say. That’s just about all it takes to start us scribbling. Q2-  I feel like you’ve been asked this a million times, but your strategy for avoiding writer’s block? A2- Can you believe it? I’ve never had writer’s block. I think my reason is that I plan my story thoroughly before I ever put

Island of Thieves by Josh Lacey

Image
[Hi, I'm Mackensie. Another one of the 7 billion people on planet Earth...] Genre: Adventure (in realistic fiction) Age group: MG Publishing date: July 7th, 2011 by Andersen quote: " Only boring people get bored , says Dad. Interesting people can always find something to be interested in ." Summary : Tom Trelawney's parents are going on vacation. Tom was going to stay with his friend, but after the garden shed incident they won't take him, so he gets stuck with Uncle Harvey. However, his uncle says that he has to go to Peru on urgent business, and so goodbye, have a nice weekend. Tom wants to go to Peru too, so he pleads his way into going with his uncle. Once he gets to Peru, however, he finds out that his uncle is on a treasure hunt. But there is someone very powerful after him too... What I liked : This book's plot was different than other MG books I have read recently. It was a treasure hunt, but in Peru, which made it more interesting. I'

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger

Image
(First off, yes, you frequent viewers, I did miss yesterday's deadline. Although I was REALLY hoping that SOMEONE on my five-man board of boys and girls would conjure up a post at the eleventh hour, it sorta is my job to put up some great content. Sorry, I got swamped yesterday, by a lot of things. Anyway, here's my review of a series I really should've blogged about years ago (literally) Genre: Realistic Fiction Age Group: MG Publishing Date: March 1, 2010 by Amulet Books Summary:  So after Dwight and his Origami Yoda save Tommy from humiliating himself in front of the whole school (Basically, he stopped Tommy from asking this girl to dance practically two seconds before another guy runs over and kisses her), everyone in the school listens to Origami Yoda's advice, except for Harvey, and honestly he has good reason to. Dwight is part of "that group (you know, the type of kids who make Origami Yoda puppets) so I guess it makes sense not to listen to one of &q

Crossover Fanfic Part 16

I was in the administration building looking outside a window that overlooked the parking lot, or in this case, the parking lot that had been converted into the grand press conference for JJ’s dolphin extravaganza. I’d wanted to be right on stage where Summer was, but JJ said it was “bad for the press” to have  some random kid on the stage, so the next best thing was to let me in to the administration building which honestly was better than standing outside in the sweltering Texas heat. I’d wanted to be on JJ’s side, because y’know, SPYDER was around, and I knew they would strike. Not a minute into the press conference, I was proven right. It was Josie and Carly and Samantha who’d assisted in JJ’s kidnapping, which I couldn’t believe. The whole time we’d simply ruled them out because they were dumb. SPYDER seemed to always be a step ahead and realized they could plant three of their younger, female agents to pose as not-so-bright high school kids looking to make a quick buck

Pi In the Sky Review

Hi guys! Today I shall be reviewing Pi In The Sky by Wendy Mass. So ladies and gentlemen, here it is: Genre: Sci-fi Age Group: Middle School Published: June 11, 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Summary: Joss is the seventh son of the Supreme Overlord of the Universe (yikes - what a mouthful). So you think he'd do super cool, gravity defying, jaw dropping stuff, right? Wrong. Joss delivers pies. Pies . I mean, well yeah these pies hold the secrets of the universe and such, but they're pies nonetheless. Anyway, Joss lives in this place called The Realms, and life is routine and familiar and usual with it’s everyday pie deliveries and listening to his best friend Kal “play” the drums. Until one day Earth and it's whole solar system disappears, along with his best friend and his parents. Suddenly he faces the impossible task of rebuilding Earth and it’s solar system, which would hopefully bring back Kal and his parents, while also bringing Annika (a h

FanArt and More!

Image
Hello readers of my blog! So I knew I said I wouldn't do this, but someone requested the fanart I'd gotten and I didn't want to make it it's own lone post so I guess I'll throw in some update material. For those of you who haven't seen it, this is what my extremely artistic friend drew for me: Ben & Erica at the Washington Monument. (Pretty Sweet Huh) Also, for those of you who just want to know what's going on and such: Crossover has skipped a week due to the fact that I have had to restart the conclusion because of...reasons Is there any books or things that you guys want? I'm always open to suggestions, or shoutouts! Oh, and just curious, if you're comfortable, what state do you reside in? I'm EXTREMLY curious if someone who's in Texas near me is following my blog. At NTTBF 17, it'd be COOL to see a follower.

Top Five MG Books of 2016 (So Far!)

Image
So I wanted to make this post at the middle of the year, but oh well, I guess we're nearing the middle of summer, so that counts.  (I guess). Anyways, here are the top five books of 2016, so far. Think another book should be on here that wasn't? Tell me what you think down below! 5) Home Run- So this is the Fourth Book in Tim Green's Baseball great series (which if you don't like Sports Fiction you NEED to check out because there's a lot more to it). Here, Josh's Dad gets a job offer at Crosby College down in Florida, and in turn has to move away from his family living in Bricktown, the shadiest of the shadiest places for Josh, his moma nd sister Laura to live in. Then Josh gets an opportunity- if he hits twenty home runs during the season, he gets entered into this home run derby. And if he hits a home run right into the red bathtub, he will win his family a new house in a better community. But after a scandal involving his coach, which is keeping him from

Keeper of the Lost Cities: Exile (Book 2) by Shannon Messenger

Title and Author: Exile (Keeper of the Lost Cities #2) by Shannon Messenger Genre: Fantasy Published: October 1st, 2013 by Aladdin Summary : Sophie has finally settled in to her new life, but things are not all as they seem. New issues arise and Sophie must fix them again in this amazing sequel to Keeper of the Lost Cities. Sophie finds a new creature called an alicorn, and by the rules of the council no creature can go extinct or the "world will go out of balance". While Sophie doesn't believe this, everyone else does, and she has to show that she has to prove that she can train and protect this creature. If she fails, the council will give the alicorn to the Hekses, which is what Sophie does not want. Therefore she has to train and protect it to let it to go the sanctuary, which is like a safehouse for animals. Although the Hekses are not the only problem. Her kidnappers are on the tips of their toes using everything they have to get the alicorn, now named Silveny.

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Image
Genre: Science Fiction Age Group: Middle Grade Publishing Date: July 30th 2008 by MacMillian UK Summary: Liam Nelson is a kid trying to enjoy his young life...by sitting in front of his computer every day playing World of Warcraft. But the few times he does go out in public, he isn't seen as a 12 year old. He's got some sort of disorder where he looks like a 30 year old. His crazy antics go from (almost) riding a brand new Porsche out side of the car showroom, to having to ride on a roller coaster for a whole day. But nothing tops him entering the Drax Communications contest. It's a father-son sweepstakes, and the prize is "the biggest thrill ride in the universe". Not on Earth. The Universe. The winners...get to go to space. Liam, without his parents knowing, enters and after a bunch of lucky breaks, he somehow gets in. He somehow convinces to get Florida, one of his friends and a twelve year old girl, to come with him. When they get there, he is fascinated b

In Real Life by Jessica Love (by Libni)

Image
Hello everyone. Thought my first review would be over a really good YA book that I’ve read and loved. Title and Author: In Real Life by Jessica Love Genre: Realistic Fiction/Romance/Coming Of Age Age Group: YA Published: March 1, 2016 by St. Martin’s Press Summary: Hannah and Nick are best friends, since like forever. They text, they call, they Skype, they FaceTime, you name it. They know everything and anything about each other and couldn't be better friends. Thing is, they've never actually met. Hannah’s family is pretty strict, so since Day One Hannah’s been a faithful rule follower. But then because of a rule-breaker, Hannah is stuck at home to chill by her pool during spring break (BO-RING). So out of impulse, Hannah decides to go on a road trip to Vegas with her sister and her BFF to surprise Nick and finally confess her romantic feelings for him. But, of course, not all things go to plan. When Hannah meets Nick she finds out that he's been keeping a lot

The Last Musketeer by Stuart Gibbs (Reviewed by Aiden)

Image
Ok so this review looks like it's written like five different ways. *Sigh* Blogger has this thing where if you copy and paste, it glitches out and everything looks weird. Working on solving that problem. -Justin's Note Genre: Historical Fiction Age Group: Middle Grade Published: September 27, 2011 by Harper Collins Summary:   Greg Rich’s live is going downhill, his family had to move from their mansion, and move to a three bedroom apartment. Now they are in Paris selling most of their precious and historic furniture to the Lueve, which his grandfather specifically told them not to bring to France. While at the Lueve someone who calls himself Michel Dinicoeur takes his moms necklace and somehow manages to send all of them to the past. As soon as they get there Greg’s mom and dad get sent to prison, and the whole army wants Greg to get sent to prison with them. As Greg is running from the army he meets Aramis who wants to help Greg free his parents. As they are trying to fi

The Administrators!: Introduction

          The Administrators: As it has come to be Justin has gotten two new administrators, Libni and Matt. But we haven't really, fully introduced ourselves yet so we thought it was about time. For those of you who don't know recently Justin had a contest in the Book Club and Libni and Matt were the winners. Administrators can do anything on the blog but our main priorities are keeping it clean and making posts along with Justin. Along with the administrators, we also have authors who are the rest of the people in the Book Club. These people include Joseph, Sophia, and Aiden. The authors' jobs are to make reviews, and all of these will be scheduled and checked in with the administrators and/or Justin before being published. Enjoy! Justin's Note: So I didn't approve of this....But whatever, I guess if you wanted to know whatever about my new co-partners, then I guess you can. *THE MESSAGE BELOW IS NOT APPROVED* Matt:         Hello! My name is Matthew but you

The Long Awaited Spy Ski School Prediction

So every time a book is set to come out (except for Spaced Out, because really the only thing that led to it was like the two sentence summary that all the books have) written by Stuart Gibbs, I kind of write this big chunk of words that really isn't edited or thought of of what I think the book will be like. And the weird thing is, while it's not totally 100% perfect, there's always one or two ideas I come up with that actually are in the book. So we'll see if lightning strikes thrice. Here is my Spy Ski School prediction. So we're at the fallout of the missile blowing up ESS. It's been a couple of months since Ben has been suspended, returned, and where everyone else has talked about "the gang" leaving Spy School on a mission. So it's during one of their classes or one of the full-school training sessions or whatever where the whole gang is called to (or maybe it's like right after they get back I don't know) by the CIA (most likely rep

Introducing Our New Admins and Authors!

So if you haven't heard, I've ran a contest that has gone for the past week or so which would determine our new admins and authors. If you don't know what those are: Admins can pretty much do whatever I do. Post, delete comments, check out the views, which posts are popular and change the blog. All The authors can do is simply post or remove themselves from the blog. So...after the week long contest *drumroll please*... OUR NEW ADMINS ARE MATT AND LIBNI *applause*. They will be joining me along with the rest of our book club, which are now authors, which inlcude Sophia, Aiden and Joseph (who by the way runs a really sweet blog, which you can check out  here ) So really it's not "JustinTalksBooks" anymore it's more "Justin'sBookClubTalksBooks" but trust me, this blog will still be really cool. Are you a kid and you wanted a chance to become my admin? Well this contest is now annual! If you're interested in joining our b

An Interview With Shannon Messenger

Image
So you know an author is booked when Shannon Messenger can only respond the three questions at 1 AM. Nevertheless, it was extremely cool to ask her some things I otherwise would've never known. So here they are, all three questions that Shannon Messenger, read and responded to. 1) So what's the story behind your website URL (For those of you that don't know what it is it's  ramblingsofawannabescribe.blogspot.com ), because clearly you're not a "wannabe" writer anymore. Did you post other stuff that wasn't MMGM? A- Ha- I get this question a lot, and the thin is, when I started the blog waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2009, I was very much a wannabe writer. I hadn't even finished writing a book. And the blog was my way of trying to connect with other writers and maybe find some motivation and inspiration. When my books sold in 2011, I thought about changing the url, but ... somehow that felt arrogant. I was the same person I;d been when I started the blo

Ungifted by Gordan Korman

Image
Genre: Realistic (Ish) Fiction Age Group: Middle Grade Published: August 21st 2012 by Harper Collins (The Above is for all you people who need it for book reviews and whatnot) Summary:  So Donovan Curtis isn't exactly the brightest kid at HardCastle middle school. I mean he goes on the PA and literally claims that the "basketball team will be 'nifty' when they lose by 'fifty'", and especially when he accidentally sends a portion of the statue named "the atlas" which is at the top of the hill hurtling down at the gym where the ongoing basketball game and its hundreds of fans are at. You'd think he'd be in major trouble for this right? Maybe expelled? Except he doesn't. Instead he is sent to an academy for extremely gifted students (yeah, nerds). It's obvious he doesn't fit in. I mean he can barely pass regular math and science, how's he supposed to get straight A's in calculus and physics? The only thing he's g

The Leibster Award

Image
So I was actually nominated for my first blog award! So apparently this award is going around the biosphere to promote smaller blogs, and I was nominated by Liv from her own fantastic blog Thoughts On Twelve (which you should check out  here ) So basically for this award I get to show this splendid award Answer some questions, give some facts, nominate more bloggers and finally give some questions which those bloggers should ask. So here we go. Q1: What is your favorite color? A1: Green, Blue, Red they're all pretty cool I guess. Q2: What is your favorite TV Show? A2: Phineas and Ferb, Spongebob, Sportcenter, and all the Nickelodeon shows. Q3: Do you Speak another language? A3: Sort of. I mean I know a little Vietnamese and Spanish but not enough to be fluent. Q4: What is your favorite genre to write in (if applicable) A4: Realistic Fiction in general I guess. Spy Fiction or Sports Fiction more specifically Q5: Who are your favorite authors? A5: Stuart Gibb

Crossover Fanfic Part 15

“Darn it! Nothing!” I slammed my laptop in disgust. Summer had kept her cool a little better but I could see she was peeved too. We’d spent the last few hours going through hundreds of web pages, looking for an employee competent and recent enough to be SPYDER’s mole. But the only recent hires were perky young, and pretty females that, like Josie, were college or high school kids looking to make an few extra bucks and reading information cards. “I can’t believe that nothing showed up! I mean how are they even getting in?!?” Summer asked. “Well at least we did as well as Ben and Erica” Ben and Erica had gone through a similar amount of work although with no avail. All they found was that the sewage pipe had been installed to help filter the dolphin water, and that it was added toward the middle of the project which is why JJ had no idea about it, which Erica found five minutes into her search. They were over in the corner whispering over who knows what.