Princesses in Disguise

Kayla:

Violet’s Hidden Doubts, Based on the Characters by Martha Finley –  This is the first book in the Violet series put out by Life of Faith.  It’s a modernized version of the stories in Martha Finley’s Elsie Dinsmore series.  If you’ve read any of the original Elsie books like I have, you may not enjoy this book as much.  I found it to be a bit watered down from the original stories and not as deep.  Personally, I like the old-fashioned writing style of Ms. Finley.    The only reason I read this book was to review it for the media library I help out at at the church we used to attend.  It’s a book I’d recommend if you’ve not read the Elsie books before.

Put Your House on a Diet by Ed Morrow, Sheree Byofsky, and Rita Rosenkranz – If you can’t tell, I’m pretty much a clean-freak and/or obsessive organizer.    That’s why the title of this book appealed to me.  For the most part, I liked what the authors had to say on the subject, but other parts seemed monotonous to me.  Since organizing comes naturally to me, I have an “instinct” or already set way things should be and look in my mind.  Therefore, the ideas and helpful hints on organizing in this book were kind of worthless to me.    But, for those who don’t have a natural inclination in this area, I’m sure this book would be helpful as it is very thorough and the concepts are well-explained.

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale — After poring over SAT prep books for most of November, I craved a more “mindless” read, and this was a good one for me to de-stress with.  Even though it’s more of a children’s book, I liked it and thought it was a real page-turner.  For more on the story line, see Stephanie’s review.

Stephanie:

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale — This was a really interesting fictional book about a girl a girl named Miri.  She and the rest of her girl friends are taken from their mountain village to a “Princess Academy.”  Here they to go through a year of study before being presented to the prince of their country.  The prince is to then choose a wife from among the girls.  But in the ending there’s a twist.  I really liked this book, which surprised me because I’m not generally into fantasy books.  I thought it was a neat concept, and the author’s writing is great.

Pollyanna Grows Up by Eleanor Porter — This is the sequel to “Pollyanna,” the story of a little orphan girl who looks for the silver lining in every cloud.  The sequel is, of course, about her growing up, and I think I liked this one better than the first, but they’re both great books.

Allison:

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson – Sixteen year old Hattie is an orphan who has been passed from relative to relative. She dreams of having a place to call her own, and she thinks that dream just might come true when she receives a letter from a friend of her uncle, who had passed on a few months before. Hattie’s uncle has given all of his possessions to her including his small claim. The land will officially become hers if she can “prove it up” before November. I love historical fiction and I really enjoyed this book. 

The Rabbi’s Girls by Johanna Hurwitz – This book is about young Jewish girl named Carrie. Because her father is a Rabbi, her family has had to move from city to city, wherever the Jewish people need them (like Hattie, though it wasn’t because her father was a Rabbi see above). Carrie finds it hard to make friends, since her family only stays in a city for about a year or two before they have to move again. I didn’t like this book as much as Hattie Big Sky. It was more…childish, I suppose, though it was still a nice book.