Imagine you’re a kid who faces great danger, many rivals, and who has to overcome deadly obstacles in order to survive. Well, this is what Harry Potter has to deal with in each of the seven books of the now classic Harry Potter series. I like books with themes of action, suspense, fantasy and more! So when I first read Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone (HPSS), it totally blew my mind. The book mixes all sorts of different genres! HPSS tells the exciting story of Harry Potter, a young orphan who lives with his aunt and uncle after his parents are killed. He soon discovers that he is a wizard and is sent to Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry. From my point of view, the first few chapters (before he goes to Hogwarts) are slow and boring. However the adventure picks up tremendously from the time Harry Potter boards the Hogwarts Express and the story twists and turns until the final showdown with the murderer of his parents, the evil villain Voldemort. There are a lot of books that have a combination of genres, but just aren’t good enough to be extremely popular. HPSS has the perfect amount of action and suspense a kid can deal with. No wonder JK Rowling, the author, and the Harry Potter books have achieved such success – according to Scholastic, more than 400 million copies of Harry Potter titles have been sold worldwide, and they’ve been translated into 68 languages. While a great read, HPSS is extremely long (300+ pages) and complicated considering it is a children’s book – not only do you have to understand the main characters, you also have to remember a lot of minor characters that appear, disappear and reappear again. Another complaint I have is that the book sometimes provides WAY too much detail – for example, JK Rowling takes one whole page to describe Harry’s mood or a description of the Hogwarts school; this can sometimes take the attention away from the action, and bore the reader. If some of these long-winded descriptions weren’t in the book, it would be much more fun to read. Finally, the very language that JK Rowling uses is challenging to understand, including some of the vocabulary, and the manner in which the characters talk to each other. I recommend this book for kids 10 years old and up. Younger children might find some aspects of the story scary and confusing, such as when Harry battles a group of ugly monsters called the Dementors. Overall though, kids will enjoy reading this book and seeing how brave and friendly some of the characters are. Like when one of Harry’s friends risks his own life to save Harry. So before you watch any of the Harry Potter movies on TV or DVD, try reading the books first! If you have already seen the movies, no matter! Read and maybe re-read the books again for fun! Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. Scholastic, 1998. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book? Or do you plan on reading it? Let us know in the comments below!
Holes, Reviewed by Abhi Sukhdial, 10
Have you thought that nothing could be worse than jail? Well you would be totally wrong because in the book Holes, the prison is about as bad as it can get — so bad that in this prison, you spend hours digging holes in the ground to find treasure for the warden. This prison is called Camp Green Lake. Stanley Yelnats is an ordinary kid going about his everyday normal life. Until one day, he is taken to court for stealing a pair of shoes (which he actually didn’t steal!). The court doesn’t believe him, and they take him to Camp Green Lake. In CGL (Camp Green Lake) Stanley meets a few friends named Zero, X-ray and more! CGL was once a nice lake in Texas EVERYONE came to, and then one day, all the water dried up. Now CGL is a dry, hot desert prison. Stanley stays at CGL for eighteen months until he finally leaves. The thing that makes Holes so interesting is how the plot develops over the course of the book. There are many scenes that are intense, leaving you in suspense and making you scared so badly. Like for example, when Stanley survives a bunch of poisonous lizards after he accidentally falls into a hole. Or when Zero (one of Stanley’s friends) hits one of the assistants working for the Warden with a shovel and runs away to a mountain called The Big Thumb. The scenes in the story are pretty violent, but are okay for kids 10 years old and up. The thing that I don’t like about the story is how sad the ending is. I don’t want to be a spoiler, but even after Stanley returns to his home, his life (although better than it was at CGL) is still not at all great. I empathized with Stanley because he was very brave and helpful to other prisoners in CGL despite it being a harsh place. I wish that when I sometimes face difficulties at school (like tough projects or homework), that I could stay more positive and not give up. Holes was published in 1998 and won the 1999 Newberry Medal. At first the book was very popular and became a classic, but as other young adult books like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson have gained appeal, less recognition has been given to Holes. Which I think is unfair. I highly recommend Holes for kids in 5th grade and up; 3rd and 4th graders might find the scenes of violence, guns and explosions too scary. If you are able to be patient and get through the first 50 pages, the story picks up its pace tremendously, especially when Stanley develops closer relationships with his prison mates. I am disappointed about three aspects of this book that wish could have been changed. One, I wish the story had less of a scary beginning. Two, I wish the ending was changed to include more action and suspense as Stanley finds Zero hiding in the mountain and brings him back to CGL. Finally, the story has a few flashbacks like telling us about how life was before CGL became a prison. However these chapters are full of violent bloody scenes of destruction and death and reading them made me feel very sad. Holes is a challenging and fun book to read. But once you complete it, you’ll be so happy and exhausted!! Holes by Louis Sachar. Yearling, 2000. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book? Or do you plan on reading it? If so, comment below!
Video Game Review: The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild
Image by Eric Holsinger via Creative Commons The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (BOTW) video game recently came out and already people are falling in love with it. I play it on the Nintendo Switch. First, let’s talk about the things that make it AMAZING!!. BOTW is a mega open world game, I’m not even joking. The map is 120x bigger than a regular U.S map, making it a long game that will leave you exploring for hours. You are Link and your goal is to defeat Ganon (he is the bad guy) and rescue the beautiful Princess Zelda. There are a variety of things that Link can collect to help him on his adventure. For example, Korok seeds. They expand your inventory. The bad news is once you collect all 900, you get Hestu’s gift which is poop! The graphics are also brilliant– not only are the natural surroundings lush and green, but the characters like the Lynel (centaur), Hinox (cyclops) and the Molduga (giant sand fish) look scary and powerful. BOTW is also unique compared to a lot of other open-world games because you can play the game in any order – in other words you play the story line starting at the beginning, the middle, or the end. For instance you can just fight Ganon, the villain, at the beginning of the game! (But I wouldn’t do that if I were you because you would die in seconds!). It also features tons of tricky challenges that make the game hard to complete in one sitting. If you do truly want to complete the game, you’ll be surprised by how long it will take you. It took me 30-40 days to complete the main storyline!!! Now let’s talk about the game’s faults. First the bosses. The bosses are challenging don’t get me wrong, but they are predictable. Each one is just a different form of Ganon. For example, one of the bosses is called Windblight Ganon and he does moves that are “windlike”. The same goes for Waterblight Ganon, Thunderblight Ganon, and Fireblight Ganon. You get the picture? Another problem is that the characters and their dialogue sometimes don’t make any sense. Like for instance, the characters who die come back as memories to Link. One of those memories is called Subdued Ceremony. In that memory the characters talk unlike normal people using fancy words and sentences. But all in all BOTW is a game that is age-appropriate for most children. There’s no blood or gore when fighting monsters or enemies, though there is combat. BOTW won The Game Of The Year in 2017 and I can see why. It is a challenging and cool mega-puzzle game packed with action and adventure at every turn. So go out and tell your mom or dad, “ I want this game right now!” Have fun!
