Somers Library Blog

Incentives surround us every minute of every day and guide conscious actions. Ask yourself: Why do you roll out of bed in the morning? Why do you meet your deadlines? Is there any possible action without an underlying moral, social, or economic motive? Economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner would answer no—in fact, they argue that these incentives often compete with or complement one another in influencing the choices we make. Levitt and Dubner’s work Freakonomics focuses on the interplay of contemporary real-world incentives. One thing I admire about this book is its narrative structure. Levitt and Dubner take case studies and use them to explain larger phenomena, an excellent method of organization. Take the example of an experiment involving a day care center in Haifa, Israel. Fining parents $3 for late pickups at the end of the day caused parent lateness to increase. Why? Compared to the monthly bill of $380, $3 was negligible, Levitt and Dubner explain, causing th...

16 year old Samantha is perfect.  She is the best swimmer and is part of the Crazy Eights, the most popular group in the whole school.  However, being perfect comes with a cost.  Samantha suffers with extreme OCD causing her to spiral. So as her so called friends start to bully her, she feels she doesn’t have the strength to fight back and stand up for herself. But during her darkest moment she befriends a mysterious and quiet girl named Caroline, who leads her to a secret club of misfits, outcasts and artist called Poet's Corner. There she feels finally free and is able to control her OCD, but is faced with a problem, should she reveal her OCD to the world and find the courage to leave the Crazy Eights or should she continue living a lie? Every word in this book is about finding the courage to be your own person and showing kindness toward others. There is a great example of this when Caroline accepts Samantha for who she is even though she is one of the popular people...

This is the 6th book in the Anne of Green Gables Series. Anne and Gilbert have moved from their House of Dreams, into a bigger house, Ingelside, close by. Anne has already given birth to James Matthew (Jem), Walter Cuthbert, Diana (Di), Anne (Nan), Shirley, and and new baby, named Bertha Marilla (Rilla), is on the way. Anne's little children go on many adventures, and learn a lot of new things in the book. Jem is the oldest of all the children. He loves dogs, and wishes to be a pirate when he grows up. The main adventures that happen with Jem, are that Jem learns a sad lesson about pets. He also sends the town on a fright. Everyone thought he ran away, because he had threatened to if he could not go out with his friend, Bertie Shakespere. Little did they know Jem never left the house. Walter is imaginative, like his mother, and loves the family bird, Cock Robin. Walter's biggest adventure happens when Anne was going into labor. All the kids were sent away, Walter was sent to th...

The book called The Hunger Games is about a sixteen-year-old girl named Katniss Everdeen. She lives in District 12 in Panem. District 12 is extremely poor and most people die from starvation. In Panem their government is called the Capitol. This year is 74th Hunger Games. The capitol holds the Hunger Games once a year to remember “The Dark Days”. This event requires 24 children to fight to the death with only one survivor. Every year each District holds a reaping which is where one girl and one boy between the ages of 12 and 18 are randomly picked to participate in the Hunger Games. This year, Katniss’s twelve-year- old sister, Primrose, is picked to be a tribute in the Hunger Games. Katniss volunteers to take place of her sister. Katniss has better odds of survival, because she is a hunter. Katniss’s boy counter part is picked, his name is Peeta Mellark. Katniss has to say goodbye to her family and her best friend, Gale. Peeta and Katniss are brought to the Capitol where they spend th...

In this book, Otto Malpense is a 13-year-old boy, who has been living in an orphanage his entire life. From the beginning he was extraordinarily gifted with the ability to absorb information and do calculations at the blink of an eye. He would read books and completely absorb the information in an extraordinary pace. He quickly outgrew school and started to educate himself in psychology, electronics, physics, and many other topics. The orphanage in which he lived was run down, but with Otto's schemes and the public's sympathy, it was one of the best stocked orphanages in Great Britain. He was the leader of the orphanage, with the caretaker completely reliant on him, but the Prime Minister was pushing an initiative to shut down some of the orphanages and Otto had no intention of starting over. So, what was a boy to do? Well using his intense learning in electronics and psychology, used the television showing the words of a speech only the PM could see, influenced him to ruin his...

Before Tessa Young met bad boy Hardin Scott, her life was molded perfectly into place by her mother, starting with going to WCU college. After she met Hardin her life was flipped upside down. Tessa is a kind girl who has a loving boyfriend at home. She barely moves into her freshman dorm when she runs into Hardin. With his curly brown hair, annoying British accent, and tattoos, Hardin is cute to Tessa and not the type she is used to. But he's also rude to the point of cruelty. For all his attitude Tessa should hate Hardin until she finds herself alone with him in his room. Something about his dark mood does something to her and when they kiss Tessa has never felt this passion and electricity that she feels with Hardin. He'll call her beautiful then insist she go away. Despite the way he treats her, Tessa is determined to dig deeper and find the real Hardin hidden inside all his lies. He pushes her away again and again yet every time she pushes back only for him to pull her in d...

This is a book set in the small village of Yellow Stone, China that really is about perseverance and courage. Da Chen is a young boy living in China, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution in China was a big politically led, society and thinking change. The Chinese Communist party’s aim was to make everyone equal, destroy the past culture (literature, art, etc.), take down learning of any kind (besides propaganda), adore poor farmers, and hate/put down people with good jobs, like landlords. Unfortunately for Da, he was born into a family full of landlords. They were treated horribly. All Da’s older siblings were forced to quit school or weren’t allowed to get jobs so they now must work on the farm. Da’s dad is sent to labor camps, and Da’s mom doesn’t have a job. They literally have no way of income, living off the little harvest every fall. Da is treated horribly in school. Everyone bullies him, and the teachers don’t help him. Eventually he stops going and ...

Anne's House of Dreams takes place just after Anne's fiance, Gilbert, finishes his school, and is now a doctor. Anne and Gilbert get married, and move around 60 miles away from Avonlea, and Green Gables, to Four Winds where her house of dreams is. Anne and Gilbert meet a lot of people there, including, Leslie Moore, Mr. Moore, Miss Cornelia Bryant, Captain Jim, Owen Ford, Marshall Elliot, and many more people. Anne quickly becomes friends with Captain Jim, and she loves his storytelling. Miss Cornelia Bryant also becomes very close to Anne. Cornelia Bryant loves to sew clothes for babies, and she speaks out a lot about how men are not very smart, or compassionate. Anne learns of the story of the tragic life lead by Leslie Moore, and she soon leads Leslie to become friends with her, and she turns her light from dull and dark to wonderful. Leslie's story also leads to Mr. Moore's story about how he went out sailing and it changed his life. Owen Ford is a man who comes to ...

The town of Bayview is still recovering from the tragic death of Simon Kelleher. Meanwhile, several gossip apps have popped up throughout Bayview High in Simon's legacy. When this next one is created, kids think it will just be like the others. It might share some ""secrets"" that were never really secrets at all and then last for about a week. But this app is not like the others.  This time it's truth or dare. Pick a truth, and painful secrets will be revealed throughout the school. Pick a dare and you have to complete a menacing challenge. Phoebe, Knox, and Maeve's lives seem to crumble when their secrets spread through the school. Everything seems to become so horrible that kids can come to only one conclusion: Always pick the dare. But the flaws in this statement shine through when Brandon Weber dies completing a one. Brandon died when he fell through the roof of an abandoned building he was about to jump off of, and investigators don't think thi...

Perks of Being a Wallflower is about a boy named Charlie who is going through his freshman year of high school and just can't wait to be done with high school. He starts off the year with no friends just counting down the days he has left to be in high school. The first few days he is alone but then things start to turn around when he meets Patrick and Sam. Patrick and Sam are seniors and Patrick was in Charlie’s shop class. Charlie has a lot of issues he carries with him from his past that continue to haunt him but his new friends are able to help distract him and show him a good time again. It is not all fun and games for Charlie still, there is plenty of drama and problems that come along with his new group of friends. I had a really great time reading this book. I would say the aspect of this book that made it really great was the characters. Each character had very different personalities and back stories. There were also many different types of relationships that you would ...

Anna Oliphant is not at all excited to finish high school in S.O.A.P, a boarding school  in Paris or that is until her roommate introduces herself and things seem to get a little bit better. Meredith gives Anna many tips on how to exceed at S.O.A.P, navigate the wonderful city of Paris and even introduces her to her friends who are all extremely welcoming. But the person who really catches Anna's eye is Etienne St.Clair. St.Clair with his good looks, wit, humor, and charm gives Anna hope that maybe her year abroad might not be so bad after all. St.Clair soon takes it upon himself to show Anna all that the city of love has to offer, all the little shops and all the delicious cafes. After all their night out's together in Paris, Anna see's that St.Clair is the perfect guy for her but there is one problem, he's in a year long relationship. Everyone can see that Anna and St.Clair are meant for each other but will the two teenagers ever realize it for themselves? Stephanie...

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi tells the story of two African families, one Asante and the other Fante, starting in eighteenth-century Ghana. Two half-sisters, one from each family, are related, but neither is aware of the other. The novel traces the parallel paths, actions, and happenings of these half-sisters and over 10 different descendants over eight generations and several hundred years, finally ending during the time of the Civil Rights Movement in America. For this reason, the novel isn’t a novel in the traditional sense; rather, it’s an overarching thread being told by little vignettes of each descendant’s life in each chapter. The novel itself expertly illustrates the legacy of slavery; its beginning, middle, and end, and the effects of that institution upon the characters. Homegoing is an amazing novel. The author has done an excellent job in weaving in important historical events, such as the introduction of cacao as a major crop in Ghana, the Anglo-Asante wars, and slavery, segr...

Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux is optimistic about beginning her junior year of high school at a London boarding school. For her, the school year marks the beginning of a new life, yet also brings a slew of horrific murders across the city disturbingly resembling those of Jack the Ripper over a century ago. As “Rippermania” spreads across London, Rory is just trying to adjust to her new country and school. She quickly befriends her roommate, Juliette “Jazza” Benton, a kind-hearted and altruistic student at Wexford Sixth Form. Rory learns that Jazza has a passion for swimming, cello, and her two dogs back at home. Another relationship Rory soon establishes is with a prefect at the school, Jerome Croft, who is particularly knowledgeable about anything to do with the Ripper case. As the school year continues, first murder occurs, and police are left with no witnesses. That they know of. Rory believes that she had seen the man who committed the crime, yet is the only one who saw him thoug...

Madeline Whittier is sick.  So sick that if she leaves her house, she will die! But she has accepted this.  She doesn’t need anyone, except for her mom, her nurse Carla and her books.  But after 17 years of living like this, her secret wish came true.  A mysterious boy, named Ollie, and his troubled family moved next door.  Her world will never be the same.  After weeks of awkward eye contact, sideways glances and little messages written on their bedroom windows, they both find the courage and talk though email.  Because Madeline has had no outside contact with people, she is very comfortable with expressing herself through words, until now.  She finds herself at a loss for words.  Over the course of a few months, Ollie and Madeline become very close.  Ollie begins to bring her out of her comfort zone and changes her entire world.    This book will send you on a emotional roller coaster, throughout the whole book I was on the...

Lost Stars follows two pilots that grew up together on their home world of Jelucan-Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree. They have been best friends since they were kids and they enlist to the Imperial Academy to become pilots for their Empire together. Growing up, Cienna grew up on the poor side of the planet and Thane grew up with the more wealthy people. Their parents were never happy with their friendship but they never cared. Once they graduate, they have pledged their lives to the Empire. Cienna couldn’t be happier, being an imperial pilot is all she had ever dreamed of as a poor little girl on Jelucan, but Thane starts to see the ugly side of the Empire. He has second thoughts on serving the Empire and defects to join the rebel alliance. The book follows Thane and Cienna’s relationship and how it can survive when they are on opposite sides of a war. And the hardest parts of war they are forced to deal with. I really enjoyed reading this book for a number of reasons. For one, it showed par...

This book tells the story of Anne Shirley's three years in Summerside. It is the fourth book in the Anne of Green Gables series. Anne moves to Summerside after earning the job of Summerside's High School principal. Anne moves in with two widows, Aunt Kate and Aunt Chatty, and a woman named Rebecca Dew. In this book we follow all the adventures in Anne's new chapter in life. Anne meets and becomes acquainted with many people, including Little Elizabeth Grayson, The Pringles, Hazel Marr, Pauline Gibson and her stubborn mother, Katherine Brooke, Minerva Tomgallon, Esme Taylor, Nora Nelson, Lewis Allen, James and Teddy Armstrong, and a lot more people. Her first main adventure is how she wins the Pringles' affection, a huge family living in Summerside (also known as the 'Royal Family'). One of the many adventures of Anne is when she goes on a search with her friend, Lewis, to find a house they can take a picture of for a Country Homes attractive farmhouse competitio...

This book is about five people you meet in heaven. Those people are  people that you have affected one way or another. Some people you  may have killed some you may have saved. But everything happens  for a reason. Some of the people he meets where the blue man a  person he accidentally killed when he was a little kid. He meets  his wife that died to cancer and meet his dad who was very mean  to him. But he learned that the way his father was mean to him  shaped him to be the person he is today. In the book he was sent  to war and in war there was this big fire and, in the fire, he saw this little girl run in and he never got time to save the girl because he had to get out. That happened for a reason the girl ended up helping him later. If he helped the girl his life would be different, he might not have met the people that he meets he might not have worked where he worked. He might have died and he might not have been able to do the things he did...

Steven Alper may seem to have a normal life to others but what he thinks of it as awful until it really becomes awful. Steven plays drums in the All-City Jazz band (whose members call him the peasant).  He has a crush on the hottest girl in the school Renee Albert, but she obviously has a boyfriend and Steven is constantly being annoyed by his younger brother Jefferey. To Steven, this seems to be an awful world but when Jeffery has cancer it turns Stevens life upside down. He starts to feel drifted away. No one ever seemed to have time for Steven on top of hospital visits to Philadelphia, hospital bills, and Jeffery throwing up all the time. The best thing Steven could think of during this was him and Renee and thinking about more things he must worry about like is Jeffery going to make it out alive, what if we don’t have enough money, what is the point of doing school work, and how is Renee ever going to like me if she finds this out! Annette, Steven's best friend was starting to ...

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving tells the story of Johnny Wheelwright, the narrator, and his friend, Owen Meany, growing up together in the fictional town of Gravesend, New Hampshire in the 1950s and 1960s. While Johnny Wheelwright is the narrator, it’s really Owen Meany who is the hero of the story. Like The Great Gatsby, the narrator talks about his friend and the actions which caused the narrator to get acquainted with him, and the things that happen over the course of some period of time. Owen Meany is extremely short, being only 5 feet tall and weighing less than a hundred pounds by the time both him and Johnny are adults. In addition, due to a fused, undeveloped larynx, his voice is high pitched and screechy, as if the rock dust from his father’s granite quarry business got stuck in his throat, and evidenced by his speech being written like this: “MADE FOR TELEVISION!” Despite this, however, he’s extremely intelligent, becoming the valedictorian of his high school (until ...

This is another book set in Afghanistan, but this book really highlights the injustices women face. This book shows the stories of 2 generations of  women who meet up at a certain point in the book. Mariam, the older one, grew up knowing the good Afghanistan, before war and violence. Her mom was a servant for a rich man, and they had her, not purposefully. So, her and her mother were dissed the rest of their lives. One day, her father decided to give her away, because, he really couldn’t deal with the shame of her. Mariam was 15 and he gave her away to a man named Rasheed who lived in Kabul, on the other side of Afghanistan. Then the story switches over to a girl named Laila. All she knows is the violence, she was born after the Soviets came in. Also, she just happened to live down the street from Mariam and Rasheed. One day her brothers died in the war and that broke her mother. A few years later the Taliban move in. Laila is 15 and her parents to decide to move the family to Paki...

This book is about a little kid named Jigsaw who helps the other kids solve mysteries. One-time Jigsaw's friend Wingnut could not find his hamster. Wingnut and Mila Jones hang out in a tree house and are Jigsaw's friends.Jigsaw, Wingnut and Mila work together to help Wingnut solve his problem - a missing hamster. Jigsaw also has a friend named Mila who works with Jigsaw to solve mysteries. She looked all over the place for Wingnut's hamster. Another time, one of Jigsaws friends named Eddie got his baseball cards stolen. So, Mila Jigsaw and Eddie looked all over the school for his cards until they found them. I think this book made me feel happy because it was very fun and exciting, and it kept me on the edge of mt seat. What I liked about this book is when they were solving all the mysteries.  I think this book is good for 13-year old's because it is funny, and it is cool how Jigsaw solves the mysteries. I also think this book made me feel happy because It was very ad...

  On Monday, September 24, five students walk into Mr. Avery's detention. Brownwyn's the brain, with her plentiful smarts and a spotless record. Cooper's the athlete, with his talented and school-famous baseball pitching. Addy's the beauty, with a life that revolves around her looks, boyfriend, and becoming homecoming princess. Nate's the criminal, who's already on probation for dealing. Finally, Simon's the outcast, and the creator of the ""About That"" high school gossip app. Despite their differences all these kids have one similarity- They've all ended up in detention when phones were found in their bags during Mr. Avery's lab. But the thing is, the phones weren't theirs.  By the end of detention Simon's dead and investigators say his death wasn't an accident, it was a planned out murder. With only the other four of them in the room during the time of the murder, and juicy gossip Simon was going to post about all f...

Isis Blake has just moved to a new town in Ohio from her home in Florida, trying to get away from both her and her mom’s messy past there. She has lost 85-pounds and is determined never to fall in love again. When she arrives she meets her new best friend Kayla and also finds a new enemy, Jack Hunter. Jack is known as the Ice Prince, he is a completely closed book and no once can figure him out. As her friendships and rivals develop at her new school, she realizes there is something she is missing. Not only is there a mysterious girl that Jack won’t go away to college to stay for, but there is one night that happened years ago that no one will tell her what happened. Love Me Never is the kind of book that once you start, you don’t want to stop until you finish it. The characters in this book are all very complex, near the beginning of the book they seem like your stereotypical high school romance characters but as the book develops, so do the characters. Since the book goes into deta...

Mare was ordinary, a Red. Born to be poor and serve the Sliver upper class, destined to fight in a war that will never be won and suffer the same fate as her older brother shade. The only thing that could keep her from going was to get a job, but she was out of luck, her brothers and father had served but one died, one is still serving, and one greatly injured. As with most red villages money is sparse, so when she found that she could buy her and her friend Kilorn freedom but could only get the money in two days she turns to the only thing going for her. The thing that has kept her and her family afloat, pick pocketing but she was going for small buttons or  small pieces of metal she was going for the jewels and gold only found in the silver village. However as she enters the Silver town, havoc erupts from the recent bombing by a group called the scarlet guard, a group of rebels made up of reds and leaving mare unable to get the money to save her and Kilorn  she makes the dan...

11 year old Melody Brooks has cerebral palsy. She also has photographic memory, and is probably the smartest kid in school, but nobody knows. Melody can't walk, talk, or write, which is frustrating for a girl that has a lot to say. So when Melody discovers the Medi-Talker, a computer-like machine that is designed for people like her, she feels that she finally has a voice. Being able to use the Medi-Talker is like a new freedom for Melody. Her world is now opened to so many more possibilities. When she takes the Whiz Kids test, she gets a perfect score. All kinds of difficult questions are asked on the test, and Melody is the first ever to get all the questions correct. A lot of people just assumed that since she can't walk, talk, or write she must not be smart either. Those people were all wrong, and Melody is determined to prove that to them. Not everybody is ready to accept the fact that Melody is more than just the girl with disabilities. She is funny, sweet, and super smar...

This book is set in Afghanistan and is mainly focused on the split between the 2 people living there, the Pashtuns and Hazaras. The Pashtuns oppress the Hazaras claiming that they were the first one’s there and the Pashtuns make them all their servants. The book is set around a kid named Amir, and his Hazarian servant named Hassan starting in the 70’s. They became best friends over their childhoods, mostly because their fathers were friends, but never played in public, because Hassan was a Hazara and Amir was Pashtun. Anyways, life goes on, the Soviets come, get driven out, different groups try to take over, but then the Taliban come. That’s when Amir's father said it was time to go to America. Hassan and his father didn’t want to go so they moved to a small Hazarian village on the outskirts of the big city they lived in, Kabul. Amir and his Baba start the grueling, and dangerous, trek to Pakistan where they’ll apply for a visa to America. When they finally make it to America Amir ...

Isabella (Izzy) is part of a blended family. Well what does that mean? That means that Isabella has a white mom and a black father. Isabella is a brilliant student but struggles in school with racism and bullying. But this is only the start of what she calls her horrible life. Every night for the past week after Izzy's piano lessons, she has been hearing her parents fighting. Of course, Izzy didn’t expect anything, she never thought her father would be sitting on the bed saying a divorce is the best for us. This tore Izzy apart. How am ever going to get through life, she thought. As Izzy kept figuring out life and sort of adjusting to switching every week between her parent's houses all she could think about was her piano concert. One day when Isabella got to her dad's house there was a woman (Anastasia) standing there with a boy (Darren) who looked 17. Izzy was so confused and asked her dad what was going on. This is the part that really hit hard on Izzy. She didn’t think ...