Coraline

This book is my favorite so far. I didn't actually buy this one, just went to Barnes and Noble. I thought it would take me a few times to finish it but I have to say that I got completely sucked in and read it all in one day, in the most uncomfortable chair you could imagine.
At first I thought this book would be a little more realistic, and it would be a lot different than it was, I didn't expect it to turn out the way it did. I really enjoyed the way the black cat was used, when she said that the cat would always run away from her and didn't want to be her friend but there was a cat on the other side who would talk to her and help her through her adventur, I knew it was the same one. When it couldn't talk on her side but she knew it was communicating through the blinking, then as soon as they got to the corridor he continued the conversation as if he had been talking before, I thought that was neat. This book reminded me of Alice in Wonderland in a very strange way. The fact that the young girl was in another world, experiencing talking animals, and trying to find a way back all seemed so similar to me. The way that Coraline outsmarted her evil "other mother" by challenging her to a game just showed that she was a lot smarter and wittier than Alice ever was. It seemed as though Coraline knew when to trust and when not to, when she did make a mistake she was very brave and would continue to say that over and over, even if she wasn't sure she truly believed she was. My favorite part is at the very end, I don't want to ruin it for everyone else but Coraline is very tricky and found a way to get rid of the bad. :)
I found this book in the teen section but I really enjoyed it, the way Gaimen incorporated all the characters from one side to the other, they all had a way of communicating to her, the mice, cat and the dog in a way. He showed that it wasn't just a dream when she got back to her side, and I really enjoyed this factor.

Skellig First Half

David Almond has a unique way of writing his story. The book was hard for me to read at first because of the way it was written. I felt like there were a lot of information just chunked into the book to extend it. The story took a while for me to understand the location and what Micheal was doing. The start of chapter three was odd for me because it started off by having words tied together and it made it difficult for me to read. Since the beginning of the book to chapter three, the story was vague. Then, the transition started to pick up by the change of the story format. It sounded more like a normal story by having events happening after another. In addition to the book, I thought that it was weird for the book to have a name, "Doctor Death." It can be creapy for children. The book showed some value of life by having some interesting qoutes. For example, on page 26, it said, "Drawing makes you look at the world more closely. It helps you to see what you're looking at more clearly..." I thought that this would be a great lesson for the reader to think about and relate it to their experiences in life.