The King of Slippery Falls, by Sid Hite; Scholastic Press: New York, zoo4; $16.95 Imagine it’s your birthday. Your parents gave you a surprising gift that revealed your origin. How would you react? Lewis Hinton, an ordinary boy in The King of Slippery Falls, is shocked on his fifteenth birthday, when he discovers that he’s adopted. For one year, he tries to learn about his real family. On his sixteenth birthday, his adopted mother, Martha, surprises Lewis with a letter from his real mother, J. A. Poisson. The letter reveals Lewis’s real name: Louis Poisson, and his real mother gave him away to Avery, his adopted father, to find her husband and freedom. Lewis is angry with his real mother because she basically abandoned him for her own freedom! Lewis also feels angry with Martha for hiding this for s-i-x-t-e-e-n years! Now that’s quite a long time to keep a secret. If I were Lewis, I probably would have thrown a fit and started screaming in anger, and inside, I would have felt pretty sad, too. Lewis’s friend, Sophie, and an eighty-eight-year-old woman named Maple tell him that he’s of French origin by his last name, Poisson, like my last name, Chakraborti, reveals that I’m of Indian origin. Maple is what’s called “one of a kind.” She told Lewis that he’s possibly descended from King Louis XV She explains life’s gradual, out-of-the-blue, and inspirational changes to Lewis. A person’s life is like a story because both experience these three changes. I found this explanation most interesting. When I saw the misery of the evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on TV, I thought it like a major turning point in their lives. The devastation symbolized out-of-the-blue changes for these evacuees. Anyhow, Lewis’s origin gets importance in his one-horse town, Slippery Falls, and the town gets vibrant. Lewis becomes the center of attention in the town. Embarrassed, he tries to stop it. I recall a rumor in my school that I liked a girl, named Laura. I felt that everyone in the school enjoyed their time by conversations involving our relationship. Thank goodness it ended. There’s another important event in this story Lewis spots a trout in the town’s waterfall and he’s determined to catch that fish. One day Lewis goes to the waterfall on his quest. He almost has the fish, but then slips and hits his head against a rock and gets unconscious, and bleeds heavily He’s taken to the hospital. Fortunately, Maple’s blood saves his life. But he fails to achieve his goal. I felt pretty sad about that. Sometimes I try very hard to achieve goals. No matter how much perseverance I have, when I can’t achieve them, I feel down. While he recovers, Lewis decides to go to France to learn about the ways of the French, his people. He and his girlfriend, Amanda, organize a car wash to raise money for the trip. My parents are from India, and last summer, I went there to visit my relatives. Before I went, I learned a little of my native tongue, Bengali, from my parents, like Lewis learned some French before he went to France, from Sophie. Learning Bengali helped me enjoy the Bengali culture while I was there, and now I really like it. Lewis will probably enjoy the French culture. Bon voyage, Louis! Neil Chakraborti, 12Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Book-Reviews
Ingrid and the Wolf
Ingrid and the Wolf, by Andre Alods; Tundra Books: Toronto, zoos; $8.95 When I first looked at the book cover, I imagined how uneventful it would be. But I guess the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” is true. As soon as I read the first page, I felt like there was some invisible glue that held it to my hands. I just couldn’t put it down. There were two things that drew me to this book. One was the courage that an eleven-year-old girl named Ingrid showed. The second one was the never-broken promise that was made to Gabor (a special wolf) even after Countess Liliane (Ingrid’s grandmother) forbade her to ever go down to the labyrinth (the place where Gabor lived) again. I am very impressed. Who knew a girl just eleven years old could have such a strong soul? Sometimes I think of her as a saint. I would really want to be friends with her if she was a real person. In the real world, I think keeping promises all the time is very hard, but I also believe that it is important. I can really understand the pressure that was put on Ingrid when she found out that she might have to break her promise with Gabor. Ingrid is like a role model for me. I will try to keep my promises to people under all circumstances. As much as I love this book and wish for it to go on and on, never ending, I have my fears as well. I feel sorry for Gabor, who will die now that he is out of the labyrinth, a place where he was born to never age a single day I hope with all my heart that if this book continues, some magic would work on Gabor and he would never become old and die, living as long as Ingrid lived, being her companion forever. When I first read about Gabor, my thoughts wandered to the time when I saw a video about a dog named Lassie. It risked its own life seeking revenge on the person that had killed its owner. Now that I think of it, Lassie and Gabor aren’t all that different. Both have a lot of faith and are always putting others ahead of themselves. I dream about having trusted companions like them every day I imagine that it will be a collie dog, like Lassie. But the only pet that my mom allows so far is my guinea pig, Rusty. This book not only includes tons of adventures but also many unsolved mysteries and… well, just plain mysterious things! For example, there is a pale green book that can turn to salt and a mysterious servant named Laszlo who can only talk when you hit him every two hours. Though, if not for these tragedies (and mysteries), the book would be only half as exciting and adventurous. I mean, who would want to listen to a story that was of a girl that lived in a normal family, who went to visit her grandma, a countess, whom she had never seen before. At her grandma’s house, she met a nice wolf. There, they became good friends and had a happy life together ever since. Do you think that the book would have been this boring? No! Ingrid and the Wolf is actually a story that just about spellbinds you, as Andre Alexis has changed the dull bones of this book into the most vivid scene anyone could create in one’s mind. Boyu Huang, 9Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
The Rhyming Season
The Rhyming Season, by Edward Averett; Clarion Books: New York, zoo5; $16 When Brenda Jacobsen’s brother Benny died, basketball was never the same again. It wasn’t just basketball that changed. Her mom and dad didn’t get along well and then the lumber mill shut down. The whole town just seemed upside-down, especially when Brenda’s high school basketball coach left for a better job at a college. I can relate to Brenda on how sad, upset, and even a little mad she felt. I used to be in gymnastics and one day my coach just didn’t come to practice. Of course there were other coaches there, but I felt like he had just deserted me. He hadn’t told anyone about his leaving. It was strange, like he all of a sudden didn’t care about gymnastics. I haven’t heard from him since he left. Brenda’s coach didn’t leave without telling all the girls goodbye, but Brenda was still pretty upset. The dreams of all the girls on the basketball team, of making it to state and winning first place, seemed to be dashed after Mrs. Cochran, their previous coach, left. Especially when they get their English teacher as a coach. With her coach calling her Emily Dickinson, Brenda begins to learn a new way of playing basketball. This book showed me how new ways and ideas that you don’t agree with aren’t always bad. Even though you may think they are at first, try them out and you may be surprised at the results. I take piano lessons and sometimes I don’t want to try new things, I’d rather just stick with how I was previously doing it. I think that was probably how Brenda felt. The new way of playing basketball that Brenda learned is saying poetry at the foul line. “Poetry at the foul line?!” I agreed with Brenda and her teammates, thinking that was ridiculous. But, as I read on, I began to understand, just as Brenda began to understand. The poetry seemed to make all the team’s winning dreams come true and shots flow through their bodies. It almost seemed like magic poetry; it worked wonders. Before reading this book, poetry never meant something to me, it was just verses about a particular subject. This book definitely gave me a new perspective. It seemed to say that poetry could guide you places. It showed me what poetry really is: someone’s feelings written down to help other people understand the thing that he or she is writing about. Brenda, now called Emily Dickinson by her coach, is taught the same thing I was. She also learns how her life is like Ms. Dickinson’s and how she can learn to change it. One point in the book that I thought should have been better was the ending. It seemed like author, Edward Averett, should have gone on with the story, like he cut it off at a sudden point. Besides that, this book is very well written and even if, like me, you don’t really enjoy basketball, you will still enjoy this book. Alexis Colleen Hosticka,12West Chicago, Illinois
