Well, it's 2012 and it's time to get rolling! I took a break from blogging for awhile, but now I am back with some reviews of books that I read over the holidays!
This is a new companion series to the wonderful Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan. If you read the Ranger's Apprentice and are sad that it ended, this new series is for you. It is very similar in a sense to Ranger's Apprentice- great characters, life lessons, right versus wrong, overcoming hardships, loyalty, learning how to be a man, action and adventure, etc. So, I really enjoyed this first installment! Great reading and I can't wait until the next one!
It's 1952 and the Scott family has just moved from Los Angeles to London. Here, fourteen-year-old Janie meets a mysterious apothecary and his son, Benjamin Burrows - a fascinating boy who's not afraid to stand up to authority and dreams of becoming a spy. When Benjamin's father is kidnapped, Janie and Benjamin must uncover the secrets of the apothecary's sacred book, the Pharmacopoeia, in order to find him, all while keeping it out of the hands of their enemies - Russian spies in possession of nuclear weapons. Discovering and testing potions they never believed could exist, Janie and Benjamin embark on a dangerous race to save the apothecary and prevent impending disaster.
I read this book in one sitting. I really enjoyed it. It combined historical fiction and fantasy together in a exciting read.
The Story Behind is a great series that we just got in and I love them. I wish books like this would have been around when I was younger because I would have devoured them! They are full of historical information regarding one topic- like rubber, salt, diamonds, toilets, etc.
Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional, Dead End in Norvelt is a novel about an incredible two months for a kid named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation excitement are shot down when he is "grounded for life" by his feuding parents, and whose nose spews bad blood at every little shock he gets. But plenty of excitement (and shocks) are coming Jack's way once his mom loans him out to help a fiesty old neighbor with a most unusual chore—typewriting obituaries filled with stories about the people who founded his utopian town. As one obituary leads to another, Jack is launced on a strange adventure involving molten wax, Eleanor Roosevelt, twisted promises, a homemade airplane, Girl Scout cookies, a man on a trike, a dancing plague, voices from the past, Hells Angels . . . and possibly murder. 
