Book+Club--Period+Five

Please read the summaries and positive reader reviews (from Goodreads.com) for the following four books.  Afterward, you will receive a ballot. Please HIGHLIGHT your number one choice. Write the number "1" in the box.  Put a number "2" in the box that corresponds to your second choice...and so on.  Please be aware...you may not choose a book you have already read! NO FUN! If you've already read a book, write "already read" in the box.

__The Giver__ by Lois Lowry 

 **Summary:**  ~ In a world with no poverty, no crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where every family is happy, 12-year-old Jonas is chosen to be the community's Receiver of Memories. Under the tutelage of the Elders and an old man known as the Giver, he discovers the disturbing truth about his Utopian world and struggles against the weight of its hypocrisy.

**Positive Reader Review:**  ~T his book is a classic. It explores the frightening aspects of a world of conformity, without crime, devoid of any extremes such as anger, sadness, and pain or joy, love or pain. the concept is a great one and it is written in a very raw manner from the perceptive of a young character that is given the job of the apprentice of the sole keeper (the giver) of all that has been taken from the world. This young man slowly comes to realize the joys life has to offer, and that you have to take the bad with the good. Like I mentioned, this is a raw book, and is a bit depressing, but the depth of the lesson it teaches are amazing.

__Ender's Game__ by Orson Scott Card   **Summary:**  ~Ender Wiggin is a very bright young boy with a powerful skill. One of a group of children bred to be military geniuses and save Earth from an inevitable attack by aliens, known here as "buggers," Ender becomes unbeatable in war games and seems poised to lead Earth to triumph over the buggers. Meanwhile, his brother and sister plot to wrest power from Ender. Twists, surprises and interesting characters elevate this novel into status as a bona fide page turner. It captured the Nebula and Hugo Awards.

**Positive Reader Review:**  ~ Wow! How did I miss reading this book before now? I just loved it. It must have been brilliant because here I am extolling a book that takes place at a military school and has military maneuvers throughout the book. It’s not normally my kind of book, but I was engrossed throughout and I cared so much about the characters, especially Ender. I just loved Ender. I ached for Ender and I felt as though I understood him. I rooted for him. I loved the all the gifted children in this book were depicted.

__The Hunger Games__ by Suzanne Collin <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 132%;">**Summary:** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;"> ~ Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning?

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 117%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 117%;">** Positive Reader Review: ** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 117%;"> ~  After reading a couple of raving five star reviews of this over the summer, I knew I wanted to check it out for myself. Once I finished some major schoolwork I decided to buy this and sit down and read it, since the final book of the trilogy comes out in August. If you haven't heard of The Hunger Games or heard it raved about but generally consider yourself up-to-date on news regarding books, then I'm sorry, but I don't know what rock you have been living under and you should really go track it down at your preferred bookstore or library. Seriously, don't even bother finishing my review, just go. I don't consider myself a huge fan of dystopian literature, but for me, this book had it all. This is one of my favorite reads of 2010 thus far.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 132%;">**Summary:** ~ Playing on every teen’s passionate desire to look as good as everybody else, Scott Westerfeld (//Midnighters//) projects a future world in which a compulsory operation at sixteen wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty by conforming to an ideal standard of beauty. The "New Pretties" are then free to play and party, while the younger "Uglies" look on enviously and spend the time before their own transformations in plotting mischievous tricks against their elders. Tally Youngblood is one of the most daring of the Uglies, and her imaginative tricks have gotten her in trouble with the menacing department of Special Circumstances. She has yearned to be pretty, but since her best friend Shay ran away to the rumored rebel settlement of recalcitrant Uglies called The Smoke, Tally has been troubled. The authorities give her an impossible choice: either she follows Shay’s cryptic directions to The Smoke with the purpose of betraying the rebels, or she will never be allowed to become pretty. Hoping to rescue Shay, Tally sets off on the dangerous journey as a spy. But after finally reaching The Smoke she has a change of heart when her new lover David reveals to her the sinister secret behind becoming pretty. The fast-moving story is enlivened by many action sequences in the style of videogames, using intriguing inventions like hoverboards that use the rider’s skateboard skills to skim through the air, and bungee jackets that make wild downward plunges survivable -- and fun. Behind all the commotion is the disturbing vision of our own society -- the Rusties -- visible only in rusting ruins after a virus destroyed all petroleum. Teens will be entranced, and the cliffhanger ending will leave them gasping for the sequel.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 117%;">** Positive Reader Review: ** I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the UGLIES series. It is my favorite. Period.

The Uglies is about a futuristic, dystopian (with a tad of utopian) world where the Rusties (our generation) have died out because of their foolish attitude. This world is all based on looks- everyone has a cosmetic surgery at the age of 16, which makes them "pretty". 15-year-old Tally Youngblood can't wait to have this surgery, because once you are Pretty, you get to have fun all your life with parties and drinking. But she meets a girl, Shay, who doesn't want to be like everyone else. Tally has to decide if she wants to party everyday for the rest of her life, being pretty and just like everyone else, or to realize that what Shay is saying might be true.

I am currently on the last book (almost done!) and I have to say this is the best series I have ever read. Westerfeld surely has an extremely creative imagination- he has created hoverboards, rotating buildings, skintennas, sneak suits, and much more that will make you turn the pages so eagerly you won't realize you have been sitting in your chair reading for the past 3 hours and that you still have Science homework to finish! (hehe...) Go read this series now!! Thank you!