Top 10 Monday's

     Happy Monday! So I wanted to do something a bit different. Every Monday, I will put up my top ten favorite things, whether it's books, movies, songs, whatever. The top ten are in no particular order.
     This week I'm going to do my top ten favorite chapter books. Number one is Soldier X, by Don Wulffson. This story is about a 16-year-old kid named Erik Brandt, who joined Hitler's mandatory youth army, meaning 16 and older. It's an exciting book and makes you want to keep reading. I love this book so much, I've read it once a year (since last year, but whatever). It's not all blood and gore. It's very historic, but also has a love story tied into it. So the whole thing is like- German Nazi + Soviet Russia + gore + history + love. It's a weird combination, but it works!
     Number two is, obviously, the Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling. Yes, the whole series. I'm not going to go into detail about it because I'm sure we have all seen the movie or read the book.
     Number three is Where the Heart Is, by Billie Letts. I love this book. It's about a 17-year-old girl named Novalee Nation who just happens to be 7 months pregnant. She is very superstitious of 7's. She's driving cross country with her boyfriend and they pull into a Wal-Mart so she can buy a pair of sandals.When she gets $7.77 back in change, she knows that her boyfriend left her here in the Wal-Mart. This book is very emotional. You'll laugh and cry. You'll get mad at some of the characters and you'll love others. I highly suggest this book!
     Number four, The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls. What I love the most about this story is it's all true. Every thing that happens to the main character, Jeanette Walls, also happened to the author Jeanette Walls. It's not boring in the slightest, actually, it's very exciting and a real page turner.
     Number five is The Lightning Thief series, by Rick Riordan. The book is very informative about the Greek god's and goddess' and is a very adventurous, cliff hanging, page turning book. I love the little twists throughout it that you never saw coming.
     Number six, The City of Ember trilogy, by Jeanne DuPrau. I love these books. They are so good, and are an easy read. You have to read them in order, so that you understand everything, even though they should go third book, second, first. YOU CAN'T READ THEM LIKE THAT! You HAVE to read them in the order they were written. It's confusing, but it must go like that.
     Number seven is a classic. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, by Lewis Carrol. I loved this book, well two-in-one-book. It was great! Funny and crazy. What a lot of people don't understand, the movies were the two books put together. Tweedledum and Tweedledee are only in Through The Looking Glass and the Mad Hatter is in both books. Alice is really 5 in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and 6 in Through The Looking Glass, not 18 and getting married as the newest Alice movie shows.
     Number eight, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick. This is such a creative book. Half of the book is very detailed, black and white drawings, and the other half is explaining the drawings. It's very cool. It's sort of an old movie, where it's all muted out, except for some dramatic music, and every scene they write what the people are saying. Like this- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onfUau7Smbs&feature=related
     Number nine, Two Way Street, by Lauren Barnholdt. I usually hate the teenage, boy-friend girl-friend drama books, but this is a definite exception. Courtney and Jordan are dating and decide to go to the same college, which means a road trip. Jordan breaks up with her a few weeks before the trip. It's too late to reschedule so they have to go together. Jordan has a perfectly good reason as to why he broke up with her. It's a twisted little story, with lots of drama. What I like the most about the story is that every chapter, it switches from Jordan, first person, to Courtney, first person. They get to tell there side of the story and that's really cool!
     Lastly, number ten, The Book of Lists For Teens, by Sandra and Harry Choron. It's a bunch of lists about life. It helps you feel better about yourself. It also has some cool, really random facts. It's funny and inspirational!!
     Anyway, fill you in tomorrow.