Clubs and Schools Books

A new year, a new school, and a new identity.

Casey, formerly known as Karen Chang, is ready to get rid of her goody-two-shoes, perfect student image, and get into something that doesn't involve a calculator. Moving to Ridgeport, Long Island, is the perfect chance, and attending Ridgeport High School gives her an even better one.

Unlike most high schools, which are known for their athletics teams, Ridgeport High cares very little about sports, even though they are still present, and instead puts the spotlight on their very successful drama club.

On her first day at Ridgeport, Casey meets Brianna Glaser, co-president of the drama club. Casey's a one-way ticket into this new world. Right off the bat, Brianna sees Casey as a very good candidate for the stage manager position of the drama club. Of course, Casey isn't too sure about this, since she doesn't know the first about being a stage manager.

Taking the position does have one incentive: being able to spend time with Kyle Taggart, the very charming football star/actor/singer who is on every girl's mind and who seems to be interested in Casey.

Can Casey fit into theater, find a boyfriend in Kyle, become the perfect stage manager, all the while keeping her real name under wraps? There is always drama in the DC!

Fans of any sort of drama will want to get their hands on this new series that separates itself from most out on the bookshelves. Let's just hope that more drama will come our way.

Reviewed by: Randstostipher "tallnlankyrn" Nguyen

I enjoyed to read this book. Jessica was stubborn but the fact is Jessica likes Elizabeth. It was cute how they make up with their friends. Jessica makes the Orchid club with her friends. But Elizabeth doesn't want to belong to the Orchid club.

Alex Sherwood and his friends Winston and Manny are tired of being pushed around by the school bully, Jerry Whitman. So they form The Loser's Club, a haven for other popularity challenged kids from their high school. It started off as a place to hang out and let off steam from being constantly tormented, humiliated and mugged. But it ended up as a place to fight for the rights and self esteem of losers everywhere, through the unlikely venue of a Christmas lights display competition. They face off against Whitman, with the help of Julie Spenser (hobbies? "brooding"), a rare girl who has befriended Alex.

The ending is predictable, but it doesn't matter because it's what you want to happen. I think this book would make a great movie. It's got lovable guys, great humour and a winning candid style. Thumbs up!

When Buddy Williams, a lifeguard at the Dogtown Boys Club, is bitten by a rat while doing laps in the pool, the Health Department threatens to close the facility. Mr. Hannibal, the club director, manages to get a last minute reprieve by hiring a fumigation firm, but the job goes terribly awry and the building is destroyed. Mr. Hannibal will have to get another job, and the boys in the area will have nothing to do but get into trouble, unless Buddy Williams, Johnny Pastelito, Rich Smith and Cool Hawkins can save the Club. Years ago, a wealthy woman left her fortune to her cats, but stipulated that when her cats died, the remainder of her estate should go to the Dogtown Boys Club. One cat, Buzzer Atkins, is still alive. Is it really the same cat, or are a couple of greedy co-conspirators defrauding the Boys Club? Frank Bonham spent months talking to black and latino teenagers in and around Watts and Pasadena and captured the essence of young lives spent on the edge of trouble. His description of Ralphie, Buddy's younger brother, is an extremely accurate view of a child with Asperger's Syndrome or high functioning autism. (Those diagnoses were not well known in 1968, so Ralphie is described as "mentally retarded.") I only have two quibbles with the novel. First, although we know that the Boys Club is destroyed by an explosion during the fumigation, we don't know what goes wrong. Second, chapter 19 is called "The Strongbox"---but the protagonists don't find it until chapter 20, and we don't know that the metal object they find is a strongbox until chapter 21. An editor must have missed this. Otherwise, it's a fine novel that gives kids a look at urban life in 1968.

If you have read the other books in this series, and even if you haven't you have got to read this book... In it Caitlin and her new friend, Lilly, get lost in an abandened silver mine when they go on a feildtrip for school. They have to figure out wether or not the mine is haunted or not, before whatever lurking in the mine 'gets' them. It's an awesome read, for a person who likes mysteries.

The Mystery of the Missing Suitcase is a great book. It is about figuring out a mystery about figuring out who is tring to rob the local bank and to try stoping him. At first,Derek, a member of the Spotlight Club [a mystery solving club]went on a trip and went home. He went home on a train and fell asleep and woke up finding a women with a strange hat on her head. She told him that she has to sit by him because a man on the train is following her and is after her money. Later on went Derek went to go get his suitcase, He picked up a suitcase that he thought was his. When he got home, he opened it and found some disguises and a camera. The Spotlight Club Members began to solve a mystery. At the end, they found out that the man that was trying to take the woman on the bus' money was a employee for the woman's brother. The woman on the bus' brother hired the man to make sure that his sister did not lose her purse.

it was a very good book...they had all this cool stuff going on...but i could have gave this book 5 stars if only it was longer...

I thought this was a great book... In it the scince club is having a science fair and the animals start dissapearing. When Caitlins animal dissapears she does everything she can to find out who is taking the animals. It's a good read, for people who like mysteries.

This is a great book with lots of action. I enjoyed reading about the snake! I thought it was very exciting, but not as good as the Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne.

My son and I came to this book via a collection of short adapted stories from other books, called It's Great To Be Eight." He's eleven now, and still enjoys it, as I read it to him through the years.

Three boys, already friends, bond more closely as children who have had to be brave in the face of knee surgery, a broken arm, and a near-fatal auto accident. Sounds heavier than it is. Jimmy and Sam have the same doctor --who calls all his young patients "Thonker," a funny word. Jimmy, Sam, and Peter are work-class kids who form a club of brave boys that is the envy of their classmates. Jimmy's cousin is a year younger, and Jimmy thinks he's a baby and a whiner. David spoils Jimmy's spring vacation when his mother has to have heart surgery, and he is sent to stay with Jimmy's family until his mother, a single mom, is well enough to take him back, the subtext being "if ever." Through a scary incident in which Jimmy's father is "lost" overboard in a terrible storm on the canals, where he is a boatman. Through this experience, Jimmy learns how frightening it is to live with the uncertainty of whether your parent is going to live or die. He comes to understand that his younger cousin may be developmentally behind him, but is really very brave. It's a fun and warm story. Especially great for reading to your kids -- written in a way that appeals to 7s to at least 11s.