Posts Tagged 'food'

Trapped by Michael Northrop

Published April 26, 2011 Adventure , RAC , Realistic Fiction 4 Comments
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Genre:  Realistic Fiction/Adventure

# of Pages: 232

RAC Book:  Yes

Scotty and his friends make the critical error of choosing to stay late after school one day to work in the shop classroom instead of going home during an early out.  The entire school had been let out early due to a snowstorm, but this is no regular snowstorm.  This storm continues to snow for several days and Scotty and six other students are left stranded in the high school.  Their situation continues to get worse as the snow keeps falling and they begin to wonder how much they can withstand.  Worst of all, they have no way of communicating to anyone that they need help.  Will they ever live to see the end of this storm?

This survival story is a bit reminiscent of Life As We Knew It, but in this instance the natural disaster is a blizzard instead of a meteor.  Scotty and his friends begin to realize how dominated they are by modern conveniences such as cell phones, Internet, electricity, etc.  and are not sure how to cope when it is all gone.  Plus, they also worry about their friends and family who are also trapped in this storm somewhere.  Usual teenage feelings of inadequacy, competition, and hierarchy are still present, but these do begin to break down as they must come together to survive.  The story is written in a believable way that will make young readers think about how they would deal with such a situation.  Adventure fans will enjoy it, even if it moves a tad slow at times.

Hot Lunch by Alex Bradley

Published April 17, 2008 RAC , Realistic Fiction , Romance , Site Meter 3 Comments
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Genre: Realistic Fiction

Age Level: 14 and up

# of pages: 276

RAC Book: Yes

Molly is a somewhat sullen teenager who makes it her mission in life to keep others as far away from her as possible. When she is paired up with a new girl on a school project she does her best to push the girl away until they each decide to do their own project. Since this was not the assignment they get poor grades and get into a big fight in the lunchroom. This leads to a punishment of serving lunches for two weeks. Unfortunately, they fail to improve their behavior and in a bizarre turn of events end up having to run the entire lunchroom until the students vote for five days in a row that their food is better than the previous lunch lady’s.

While there are several reasons why I believe something like this would never happen in a high school, it was a very funny concept. The two main characters, Molly and Cassie, represent a group of high school students who don’t feel they belong anywhere. Cassie uses this fact as incentive to try harder to fit in, while Molly decides to actually try not to fit in. Together they learn a lot about the groups that make up high school while at the same time learning about leadership, nutrition, cooking, and friendship. This incredibly funny book questions some of the processes that have remained unchanged in schools for so long when better options have come along. Students will enjoy the humor and might look at food and nutrition differently after reading this book.

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