Books for Middle School

The girl scouts has been an organization that has done a lot of good for girls over the ages, Ms. Sylvia Acevedo credits them for a lot of the good that happened in her life and for her eventual success in life. Path to the Stars is her story, this is my review.

From the back of the book:

A meningitis outbreak in their underprivileged neighborhood left Sylvia Acevedo’s family forever altered. As she struggled in the aftermath of loss, young Sylvia’s life transformed when she joined the Brownies. The Girl Scouts taught her how to take control of her world and nourished her love of numbers and science.
With new confidence, Sylvia navigated shifting cultural expectations at school and at home, forging her own trail to become one of the first Latinx to graduate with a master’s in engineering from Stanford University and going on to become a rocket scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

What do you get?

Sylvia Acevedo tells the story of her life from a personal point of view.  She is upfront about problems with her family and the issues she faced as a child.  Life was not easy for her, girl scouts help her to achieve confidence, they also helped her mom and younger sister as well.   Girl Scouts was a very useful organization for their lives.  The tome has 320 pages and is dotted with black and white images.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is the publisher, and this book is geared toward middle school students. The font is larger and easily read. 18 chapters along with an epilogue.  We learn abit about the Mexican sub-culture and a lot about girl guides and how they promote acceptance, teamwork and confidence. 

My Thoughts:

I rarely get a book that leaves me feeling meh at the end.  And unfortunately this is one of them.  Let me try to explain my thoughts.  Ms. Acevedo is obviously a huge fan of the girl scouts and loves everything about them.   It’s cool that she’s so in love with the organization and wants everyone to know how important it was in her years growing up.  I feel like something is missing in the end.  Like the only thing worthwhile was girl scouts, yet when I read the book I found lots of other important parts of her life that seemed glossed over.

Though from another perspective, one good thing happening in a young person’s life can change the course of their path.  Girl Scouts is credited for helping Ms. Acevedo.  Therefore, I shouldn’t be surprised that in Path to the Stars: My Journey from Girl Scout to Rocket Scientist, Ms. Acevedo speaks often of it’s positive influence for her. 

Oh, I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this book. I finished The Train to Impossible Places and told my middle school boy “I think you’ll like this book”.  Reviewing this book for Raincoast Books has been a total pleasure.  Suzy, a young lass with a penchant for math and physics, hears a noise one night and her life takes a ride to impossible places.  

From the back:

A train that travels through impossible places. A boy trapped in a snow globe. And a girl who’s about to go on the adventure of a lifetime.  The Impossible Postal Express is no ordinary train. It’s a troll-operated delivery service that runs everywhere from ocean-bottom shipwrecks, to Trollville, to space. When this impossible train comes roaring through Suzy’s living room, her world turns upside down. After sneaking on board, Suzy suddenly finds herself Deputy Post Master aboard the train, and faced with her first delivery – to the evil Lady Crepuscula.

Then, the package itself begs Suzy not to deliver him. A talking snow globe, Frederick has information Crepuscula could use to take over the entire Union of Impossible Places. But when protecting Frederick means putting her friends in danger, Suzy has to make a difficult choice – with the fate of the entire Union at stake.

What do you get?

A middle-grade fantasy and nonstop adventure, The Train to Impossible Places by author P. G. Bell is as fun as it is full of heart, and the first book of a planned trilogy.   Publishers Feiwel and Friends have produced a 304 page book geared to 10-14 year olds. A chapter book where each chapter is a good length, some are quite short but most are just a nice reading length. 

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed reading this book, the title intrigued and the idea of going to places that didn’t make sense was like hmm… wonder what that would be like. Talking with ghosts, rescuing talking snowglobes, going to the underside the was actually NOT, and more.  It was in interesting book to read with twists that I didn’t expect, and I loved that loyalty and common sense won out in the end.