Sofia’s Kids’ Corner

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

by
Share

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

by
Share

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!**

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer

by
Share

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,

If you are looking for an adventure book, a fairytale-ish book and a comedic book this is the book you have been searching for! Presenting…The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell!!!  I highly recommend this to really anybody aged 7+!

There are six books in the Land of Stories series and even though I have only read three of them, I still highly recommend the series! Book #1, The Land Of Stories: The Wishing Spell,  is about twins, Alex and Conner. Alex, the girl, is a total bookworm and excels in all of her studies, while Conner, the boy, is the exact opposite! Conner falls asleep in school and gets lousy grades. One day, when their grandmother visits and gives them a magical fairytale book, they have no idea that they are going to enter the fairytale world. While exploring this land they realize that it is not at all what they expected. Red Riding Hood has her own kingdom and is very picky about everything, really. Goldilocks is now an outlaw and a wanted fugitive! Queen Cinderella is about to have a child! As soon as Alex and Conner see all of this mayhem they know they must leave but with the well known Evil Queen closing in on them, they realize that they might be done for!

I love this book so much because of the action. This book just makes everything seem so real! The action is thrilling and very exciting! I also love this book because it is fun to imagine a fugitive Goldilocks, or a Queen Red Riding Hood! You can’t tell me you don’t want to see these character transformations! Cheerful reading!

**Thanks so much, Sofia! This action-packed book looks like it is a great read!**

 

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: The Double Life of Danny Day by Mike Thayer

by
Share

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,

GET READY TO READ THE BEST BOOK EVER! Introducing The Double Life of Danny Day by Mike Thayer! Danny is no normal kid! He lives every day twice, which means he can improvise on the first run of the day! During his “discard days” he does crazy things because he knows anything that discard Danny does will be erased from people’s memories at the stroke of midnight. This is the kind of book that would make reluctant readers hooked. This book is recommended for ages 8-12.

Danny has always had the ability to live every day twice. When he was a little kid and did not know to keep the double day thing a secret his parents thought he was crazy. Only after going to a psychologist for a few years, he now knows how to keep it a secret. Maybe he got this “power” by being born on February 22 at 2:22 am (2/22 at 2:22 am!) At his new school Danny sits with a girl named Freddie. On a discard day Danny plays a game called the brown bag game. It is a game where kids play a video game at lunch and whoever wins gets all the money the other people put into a brown bag under the lunch table. The money that the winner gets is the money that the kids pay as “entrance fee” which is two dollars. But Danny and Freddie suspect foul play when one kid wins every day. By now you might know why Danny mostly plays on discard days. At some point Danny starts to feel like he should tell somebody about the double day. Do you think Danny will tell somebody, and most importantly, who will he tell?!

I love this book because it is so funny and it keeps you reading. I love the idea of living every day twice and was enchanted by this book. It was so amazing to see how much a person can change on a discard day. I would really recommend this book to anybody! I hope you enjoy this fantastic book!

**Thanks so much, Sofia! Now we need to get our hands on this book!**

 

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: Katie the Catsitter by Colleen AF Venable & Stephanie Yue

by
Share

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,

Whether you are a cat fan or not this funny graphic novel will make it into your hearts. Presenting… Katie the Catsitter by Stephanie Yue and Colleen AF Venable! This amazing book will make you want to read it every single day! This book is recommended for ages 8-12.

Katie’s friends are going to camp and are always talking about how many hours are left until camp starts. Katie is not going to camp because she does not have enough money to. Then she gets an idea to get money! She puts up a poster in her apartment hallway saying that she can help watering plants, carrying grocery bags, that kind of stuff. But after she kills a lot of plants and accidentally breaks an egg carton in a shopping bag she starts to doubt that she will have enough money to go to camp. Just when Katie has given up, a nice lady comes to her with a job, cat sitting. Katie loves cats, but when Katie agrees to the job she has no idea what a handful the cats are! The cats are super intelligent, they do not use a litterbox, they use a real toilet! The weirdest part is that they all have talents! Not just any talents though, Potato is a yoga instructor, Jolie is a computer hacker, Jack Slayer is a getaway driver and, best of all, DJ Bootie Butler is a DJ with mad beats! With 217 of these crazy and not to mention mischievous cats to take care of, how will Katie survive and save enough money for camp! Oh and when you are reading brace yourself for more crazy action as the book goes on!

This book is one of my all time favorites because of all of the action that happens in the story. So many things are not what they seem and that makes this book super exciting! This is the best book any kid could wish for! The illustrations are also sooooooo cute! I love how the illustrations are filled with all sorts of beautiful colors! The illustrator did a beautiful job coloring this in. This book is easily one of the best graphic novels I have ever read and probably ever will read! I can not wait for the second book in the series called Katie the Catsitter Best Friends for Never! Enjoy!

**Thanks so much, Sofia! We are so glad you loved it!**

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: Princesses Wear Pants by Savannah Guthrie & Allison Oppenheim, Illustrated by Eva Byrne

by
Share

Sofia is an 9-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer. 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,

Introducing Princesses Wear Pants by Savannah Guthrie! This is one of my favorite picture books and my little sister agrees. Princesses Wear Pants is a colorful picture book which every kid will love! This book is recommended for ages 3-12.

In this book there is a princess named Penny. The princess wears dresses and tiaras but she also has a closet of all kinds of pants. She wears pants for things like workouts and tending a garden. Then the royal ball comes up! Penny goes to the ball at first with a fancy shirt and pants but a person named Grand Lady Busyboots tells her that princesses don’t wear pants. Penny goes home to change but with a secret pair of pants underneath her dress. When she arrives at the ball for the second time she forgets all her worries but then her royal cat is seen hanging on the side of a tower trying not to fall. The princess throws off her dress and dives in the water around the tower. To everyone’s surprise the princess had put on her bathing suit underneath her clothing! You should read the book so you know what happens to the cat and the princess! 

I love this book so much because of the beautiful illustrations! I got this book as a gift a few years ago and have read it countless times since. This is an amazing book to give as a gift. This is a cute and powerful story which tells about the importance of wearing pants! There is a sequel which I have on my NEED TO READ list. I really hope you and your family members love this book as much as I do!

**Thanks so much, Sofia, for this wonderful review!**

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: The Wishtree by Katherine Applegate

by
Share

Sofia is an 9-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer. 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,

This book is especially for the Katherine Applegate fans! I present to you . . . The Wishtree by Katherine Applegate! This book is also a Teachers’ Pick on Amazon!!! This book is recommended for ages 8-12.

Red is a wishtree. His friend, Bongo, the crow, is one of his residents as you might say because she lives in Red. Red is the town’s wishtree so he gets covered in paper scraps and cloth that is carefully tied onto his branches with wishes for the future. Some of his other inhabitants are a family of owls, a family of opossums and a family of racoons. At night time a girl from a family that just moved in goes outside and sits quietly and waits for Red’s inhabitants to scurry forward. Bongo likes the girl, her name is Samar. When it’s wishing day, Samar ties a wish on Red that reads “I wish for a friend”. Will the wishtree be able to make up a scheme to help Samar’s wish come true?

I love this book for its really cute illustrations. They are remarkable even though they are not colored. They look more like pencil drawings but great ones at that! When I read this book I feel my heart warm up. This is such an amazing book and Katherine Applegate did an awesome job writing this book! I just can not express how much I love this book! The author wrote this book from an unexpected point of view. Who would have thought to write a book coming from the perspective of a tree! The perspective is fun because we are simply not trees, we will never be trees. It is exciting to imagine how something like a tree would think. Of course, like almost all of the Katherine Applegate books, there is a bit of humour just to keep the mood happy! I hope that you love this book as much as I do!

If you loved this book then I highly recommend Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate! The Wishtree by Katherine Applegate is similar to Crenshaw because it is the same type of heartwarming story. The problem is not the same but Crenshaw will touch your heart like The Wishtree.

 

**Thanks so much, Sofia. This book holds a special place in our hearts, too.**