Sofia’s Kids’ Corner

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: Today, Tonight, Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon

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Sofia is a 12-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer. Since she was 8 years old, on select Saturdays, Sofia shares her favorite books with other kids! She is one of the most well-read middle schoolers that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!

Dear readers,

Hi and welcome back to Sofia’s Reading Corner where I recommend amazing YA books! This time I will be reviewing Today, Tonight, Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon! This book was honestly amazing and I was hooked!! I read it in two days which usually never happens, especially with a 400 page book! It was more of a comfy enemies to friends to lovers book which, if you don’t know what that means, it’s exactly what it sounds like: They were first enemies, then worked together and became friends and finally fell in love with each other. I rated this book 4.5 stars on Goodreads and the average rating is 4.09 which is pretty good!

Rowan Roth is finishing high school when it becomes time to play the infamous senior scavenger hunt. She is a straight A’s student and would be the best, except there is a boy named Neil who hates her. They are always competing with each other to be the greatest and as the year is coming to an end, they can’t wait to see who is the best, which in her eyes is becoming valedictorian. Rowan has a list of things she wants to accomplish by the end of high school and becoming valedictorian might be her last chance at crossing at least one off her list. When Neil is named valedictorian, her only chance at crossing something off her success list is winning Howl, the senior game I was talking about earlier.

The game is about trying to complete a checklist and taking pictures at each spot to show that you have completed the task. You can team up but you also can’t really trust anybody because another main part of the game is getting people out. To understand how to get people out, you need to know that everybody is wearing some sort of bracelet and at the beginning of the game, everybody gets a name on a piece of paper of the person they have to “kill”. Then once they get them out, they get the name that person had to “kill” and so on. You must imagine how hard it is to team up with somebody if they could have your name! Anyway, Neil and Rowan team up thinking that they could work together until the end and then destroy each other but as they get to know each other more, Rowan realizes that Neil isn’t that bad, and he is maybe even the boy of her dreams.

On Amazon, this book is recommended for ages 12 and up and I mostly agree. There is a mention of them taking marijuana towards the end of the book which means it is definitely for more mature 12 year olds. There is also a closed door sex scene which basically means there was acknowledgment of sex but it wasn’t really described.

I loved this book so much! Like I said, it was a page turner and I LOVE that about books! I also loved Solomon’s way of writing, it made me feel fully immersed! I also liked the complex plot and how the romantic part of it wasn’t overdone! I really think this should be something you read, no matter how old you are and it was just too good to put into words! Happy reading!

**Thanks so much, Sofia! We are really excited to read this book!

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: A Castle in the Clouds by Kerstin Gier

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Sofia is a 12-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer. Since she was 8 years old, on select Saturdays, Sofia shares her favorite books with other kids! She is one of the most well-read middle schoolers that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!

Dear readers,

Hi! My name is Sofia and I used to write book reviews for Unleashing Readers when I was nine. I, now twelve, have recently gotten out of a huge reading slump and would love to write more book reviews, but this time for mostly YA books. The book I will be reviewing today is A Castle in the Clouds by Kerstin Gier and I must say it has truly captivated my heart. I was first drawn to it by the cover and its good average rating on Goodreads (3.95) and I must say it didn’t disappoint! It was a fun, almost whimsical story about a girl who works as an intern at a hotel in the Swiss Alps. I rated this book 4 stars on Goodreads.

Sophie, a hotel intern at the Grand Castle in the Clouds Hotel high in the Swiss Alps is there to make sure that everything runs smoothly through the busiest season of the year, winter. While she is there she realizes there are way more challenges than she expected, like taking care of sassy children and two cute boys who have both taken an interest in her. As things get more hectic for the infamous New Years ball she begins to realize not everyone is who they seem! 

I liked this book a lot mainly because of the suspense and how it built up towards the end! This definitely wasn’t one of the books where you could guess how it was going to end halfway through the book. This book can be read any season but I would recommend reading it during winter because it feels cozy and the perfect book to read cuddled up on the couch by the fire. I also loved how Gier made me feel like I was in the story, living in the fancy Castle in the Clouds! 

I would recommend A Castle in the Clouds for anybody over twelve. I read it with my mom for our book club and we both enjoyed it a lot. If anything, she enjoyed it more than me! If you do end up reading this hidden gem, which you should, enjoy reading!

**Thanks so much, Sofia! We are really excited to read this book!

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: Charlie Thorne and the Lost City by Stuart Gibbs

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Sofia is a 10-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer, who started with us when she was 8 years old. On select Saturdays, Sofia shares her favorite books with kids! She is one of the most well-read elementary schoolers that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!

Dear readers,

I am back with another amazing book that will knock you off of your feet! Introducing…Charlie Thorne and The Lost City by Stuart Gibbs! This is the second book in a series called Charlie Thorne. I have already reviewed the first one, but do not worry if you haven’t read it because this book is still understandable without the knowledge of the first book. This is another book that I have read in the book club with my friends and our book loving secretary and they all rated it a 10/10. I think this would be a great gift for any tween or teen who loves action, adventure, mysteries and comedy! This book also taught me and my friends a lot of things and I thought that was really good. This book is recommended for ages 10+.

Charlie Thorne is on another adventure again! After her first adventure she is hiding in the Galapagos Islands. She has made friends with the people living there and is even helping out at the Tupiza Tortoise Breeding Center. One day a woman named Esmeralda shows up at her tiny house with a code that was engraved into the shell of a dead turtle by the famous Charles Darwin. She says she came to her because her co-workers said that if anyone could solve the encrypted code then it was Charlie. While she and Esmeralda are talking, Charlie sees a strange man talking to her surfing friends and then her surfing friends pointing to her house. Charlie Thorne has always been living on the edge of caution so she decides to make a dramatic escape. They take off in a seaplane that belongs to the company that Esmeralda works for.

At first they head off in the direction of the Darwin Research Station where the dead turtle is. Then, Charlie remembers that the seaplane for the Darwin Research Station is easily trackable and suspects that the mysterious person who was following her would know what plane it was and head over to the Darwin Research Station to see what its course is! To avoid being tracked down they change course to an airport nearby.

They follow clues to Quito. The clue says something about finding the devil’s stone so they go to the place that the devil’s stone is supposed to be. What will happen? You have to read the book to find out!

I love this book so much! I expected adventure from this book and I got it! This is an amazing book for explorers because it talks so much about wilderness and exploring all of these hidden places in the Amazon! I found this book very interesting because it talked about Charles Darwin’s work! I also loved how I learned so many things. I thought that a book could not be exciting and educational together but this book proved me wrong! Have fun!

**Thanks so much, Sofia! We love that this series combines excitement and education!**

 

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: The Friendship War by Andrew Clements

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Sofia is a 10-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer, who started with us when she was 8 years old. On select Saturdays, Sofia shares her favorite books with kids! She is one of the most well-read elementary schoolers that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!

Dear readers,

I present to you…The Friendship War by Andrew Clements! This is a definite must-read! You might have heard of Frindle by the same author and maybe even read it and thought it was good but I must say this book is even better than Frindle! This book would make an amazing read aloud story! It is not extremely long and it’s super interesting! I definitely recommend this book! This book is for ages 8-12!

Grace has an addiction to collecting things. She has all types of things strewn all over her room. When her grandpa invites her over for the summer, she gets to see his old mill that he just bought. He lets Grace explore inside of it and the mill is pretty run down because it hasn’t been lived in for 15 years. Her grandpa explains that the mill used to be many different things over the years. While exploring, she finds a closet full of big boxes that are filled with buttons! She suddenly feels an itching to have them and asks her grandpa if he can ship her all of the boxes. He agrees, laughing a little because his granddaughter wants to keep buckets of buttons.  Just then Grace makes a decision to keep all of her buttons a secret from everybody outside of her family.

When school starts up again Grace continues to keep the secret from everybody, even her best friend! On that first day of school, her teacher talks about social studies and she volunteers to share some of her pictures and objects with her classmates that she collected from the mill. Later that day at lunch, her best friend, Ellie, suggests that everybody brings as many buttons to lunch as they can and they will compare who has the most buttons. Everybody agrees and Grace is excited because she knows she is going to win with her 24 boxes full of buttons that nobody knows about! When she gets home she fills five plastic baggies with buttons and stuffs them into her backpack. At lunch she decides only to bring one plastic baggie to the lunch table. Everybody shows off their buttons at the lunch table and some other kids come to watch around the table. Grace lets everybody take at most six of the buttons she has on her tray.

When she comes back to school the next day, she discovers that there is a button fad! People are trading buttons at her school like crazy and trading button jewelry and other button-made things. Grace and Ellie find somebody who is willing to trade a beautiful button and Ellie offers one of her button bracelets and Grace offers some really special buttons. Grace ends up getting the button and Ellie gets really mad. So mad that she doesn’t want to be friends anymore! To read more about this one of a kind tale, read the book!

I love this book because it is such a quick and fun read! Even as a 10-year-old, this book taught me some things and I think that this book should be a part of everybody’s life! This is a really amazing book! Another thing that is just nice about this book is that it is short. It has 168 pages and makes for a quick read. That is probably why I would recommend it highly for a read aloud book! As a reader who reads books that usually fall under the 250-600 page category, it is good to read a short story once in a while! Have fun reading the book!

**Thanks so much, Sofia! We love a good read-aloud!**

 

Sofia’s (and Fjola’s) Kids’ Corner: Best Nerds Forever by James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein

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Sofia is a 10-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer, who started with us when she was 8 years old. On select Saturdays, Sofia shares her favorite books with kids! She is one of the most well-read elementary schoolers that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!

This week, Sofia is joined by her friend Fjola to write an incredible collaborative review!

Dear readers,

Today I will be Introducing you to one of my favorite books! Drumroll please… Best Nerds
Forever by James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein. I am in a book club with a book loving
secretary in my school and one of my friends, Fjola. Fjola has actually helped me write this book
review! I am mentioning them because this was one of the amazing books that we read
together! Another book that was in the book club was Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation by
Stuart Gibbs! The moral of this story is not to waste your life and that fear is the biggest enemy.
Live a little! This book is for ages 9-14 years.

Finn McAllister is a very timid boy because his parents are always telling him not to take risks
and to be careful, so Finn really feels like he is doing nothing. At the beginning of the book Finn
passes away by accidentally riding his bike off of a cliff because he was being chased by a big
black van. He becomes a ghost and it is really hard for him to see all of his friends and family
mourning his death. Finn notices that he can pass through people, teleport and fly. But when his
dead grandpa comes to take him to the other side Finn declines, realizing that he has some
unfinished business to complete. While exploring his town, he meets the ghost of a girl named
Isabella Rojas. She went missing four months ago and her dead body has not been recovered
yet. Finn knows she must have some unfinished business so he asks her how she died and
what things she has to do. Isabella says she can’t remember so Finn helps her try to remember
so she can finish her unfinished business. So then they can cross over to the other world
together when he is finished with his business which is tracking down his killer.

We love this book because of the moments that Finn takes to realize what he should have done
when he was alive. This book circles around the idea that you need to live your life to the fullest
content and that sometimes, fear is your greatest enemy. We both believe that this is something
important to learn. Fjola loves the evolution of friendship between Isabella and Finn, and I
especially love the comedy. Enjoy!

and Fjola!!!

**Thanks so much, Sofia and Fjola, for this amazing collaborative review!

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger

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Sofia is a 10-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer, who started with us when she was 8 years old. On select Saturdays, Sofia shares her favorite books with kids! She is one of the most well-read elementary schoolers that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!

Dear readers,

I would like to introduce you to…Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger! My friend Fjola lent me this book and said it was amazing so of course I started reading it straight away! I loved the book so much! This is definitely a MUST READ for everybody! This is one of the last books that I read last year andI think this might have been my favorite book of 2021! This book is recommended for ages 8-12.

Sophie is a misfit. She is incredibly intelligent and at age twelve she has already skipped multiple grades. Sophie doesn’t really fit in at home either. Her entire family consists of red heads and is just different from her. Sometimes Sophie feels that they adopted her but they assure her they didn’t. Life is still far from normal but, one day, she goes with her 12th grade class to a museum and because she is bored she wanders off. While she is looking at all of the exhibits she sees a strange boy. He pulls her aside and tells her she is an elf. She does not believe him at first because, if somebody tells you you were an elf would you believe them or think they were crazy? Thought so. Anyway, the boy says his name is Fitz and he tells her that she can read minds and that she was a telepath. Sophie believes him because she knows she can read minds.

Fitz teleports her to a different dimension, the dimension of the elves. Everything is covered in gems and it looks super fancy. Fitz’s dad, Alden, tells Sophie that she needs to move to the elvin world because by staying in the human one she is putting her “family” in danger. So Sophie agrees but tells the elves they have to brainwash her family so they do not know that they ever had Sophie. Sophie does this so they do not go through any pain. Through the book Sophie meets new friends and makes new enemies. In this book you will be able to follow Sophie through her exciting adventures…

I love this book because it is so exciting and super adventurous. This is the first book in an amazing series! I am currently on the third book. There is never a dull moment in this book. You will find yourself reading the series like a lightning bolt because it is sooooooo good! I feel like my life would not be complete without having read this book. This is a MUST READ! I still can not emphasize enough how good this book is! This book is also funny! If you have been following my reviews for a while, then you will know that I love books with some comedy in them. I highly recommend reading the rest of the books in the series! I hope you have fun reading this!

**Thanks so much, Sofia! It seems like this book is a great adventure for readers!**

 

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation by Stuart Gibbs

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Sofia is a 10-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer, who started with us when she was 8 years old. On select Saturdays, Sofia shares her favorite books with kids! She is one of the most well-read elementary schoolers that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!

Dear readers,

When I saw this book I was immediately hooked to it and got it straight away. It turned out I was right and the book was amazing! Everybody, get ready for…Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation by Stuart Gibbs! This is a book that is action-packed and super fun at the same time! This book is recommended for ages 10+.

Charlie is a child genius. She is a stubborn one, but still a child genius.  A couple of decades before the story takes place Albert Einstein hides a precious equation, called Pandora, which would make the building of bombs far easier. Albert knew that humanity was not ready for this equation because if it got into the wrong hands, the world could, and probably would, be destroyed. As you might have guessed, all of the spy organizations in every country are looking for it. When the CIA finds Charlie, they ask her to join their team and she says yes. They tell her that a group of terrorists is focused on getting the equation, and they need Charlie to find Pandora before them.

I love this book so much because of the feeling of mystery. I have always liked mystery books. While reading this book I was thinking a lot about finding Pandora, and it was really fun to piece the clues together. Happy deducting!

**Thanks so much, Sofia! We love books that incorporate interdisciplinary subjects like math!**