Teens

The story revolves around their moving to Wisconsin to take over a diner for an owner who has leukemia. Although a small town, many things happen.

The main character of the book is Ender (Andrew) Wiggin, who must conquer other children as well as the computer programs to win the war. The pace is intense and there is a fair amount of violence, but it never seems gratuitous.

The ending is extremely surprising and makes it a necessity that this book be read before its newer companion book, Ender's Shadow.

Although this is a science fiction book, it has ended up on school reading lists near here.

There are three other books in the direct Ender series, but they are much more philosophical.

Bean is first shown as a starving two year old on the streets of Amsterdam. He survives because of his intelligence and finally makes it to Battle School where his help is decisive in Ender's winning the war.

The story concerns member of a scientific research team in the distant future who study the past. Eventually they learn how to change the past. Christopher Columbus plays a pivotal role in the history of the Americas, which they want to change.

The story causes the reader to ponder such questions as what would have happened if the American natives were as advanced as Columbus when he arrived.

They begin with her letter looking for some books to buy, and as the years go by she becomes more involved with everyone at the bookstore. She never gets to meet Doel, because he dies before she manages to get to England, but they are real friends in letters.

Perhaps we can understand this even better now when we know that people can find real communities of friends on the internet, whom they never meet.

There are many sad events in Veron, the heroine's, life, but she continues to persevere and finally makes it to America. It is not too horrible for younger children to read or have it read to them.

This book describes events that many of us here in the US are completely unaware of.

It is a wonderful story about a girl, Penelope, who visits her aunt and uncle at the family's ancestral home and finds that she is able to move back and forth between her own time and 300 years earlier in the family.

The family of 300 years earlier is caught up in a doomed plan to free Mary Queen of Scots, and Penelope gets involved as well. Because she looks very much like other members of the family, she is accepted and loved in the old times. Many times, she is more interested in her "other" life than in her current one.

The story does not race along, but it is interesting and informative and holds the reader's attention.