This story takes you with Zoe,a girl who lives with her grandma nad her cousin Maggie.She has a dog named Sneakers who is very not-behaved. She helps work with her grandma as a vert volunteer along 4 other children who all love animals. In this adventure the story meets Zoe's favorite customer ,cute little Shih Tzu Yum-Yum.Yum-Yum is owned by Jane,a hairstyliist and she loves t do Yum-Yum's hair too ! Well Yum-Yum who is very well trained goes to the hospitial and sees kids wit cancer.It helps cheer them up and get happiness. When one little girl mentions that YUM-Yum has stinky breath Jane gets allworried because she does brush his teeth everyday and he has treatments.After they leave the hospitial they go see Zoe's grandma for a checkup on Yum-Yum. The results aren't very well. They found a cancerous tumor ,will they have to say Good Bye ? This is a great book and I really loved it. I am an animal lover so that's one reason I loved this book.It also is realistic,not everything is all happy all the time ,this book was also very sad as you feel like you become Zoe you feel like her ,cry with her, and rejoice with her. I believe any animal lover ought to read this.

Fever 1793 is the latest book by the author of the well received Speak. Laurie Halse Anderson has written a historically accurate story about an outbreak of Yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793. The epidemic killed 10% of the poplution of Philadelphia, the United States' largest city at the time. The story is told through the eyes of Mattie, a teenage girl living with her grandfather and widowed mother who own and run a coffeehouse with the help of a freed slave, Eliza. Everyone is affected by the horrible disease, there is no escape and Mattie must come to terms with the devastating reality of the time. Fever 1793 is well written and well researched. In a section at the end of the book Anderson gives the reader the facts about the epidemic, the treatment, the social atmopsphere and various other issues touched upon in the novel. I really enjoyed reading this book. Mattie could be a teenager living today. She wants to sleep in, roam the town, hang out with her friends, anything but stay at the coffeehouse and have her mother order her around and criticize her. The characters where interesting and realistic and the suspense of the plot kept me wanting to read more.

Fever 1793 By: Laurie H. Anderson

Augest 1793. Mattie Cook is a adventurous fourteen-year-old girl that is sick to death of listening to her nagging mother. Mattie wants to turn the Cook Coffeehouse into the best business in Philadelphia, the capital of the new United States.

"Fever" spreads from the river docks and creeps toward Mattie's home threatening every one she holds dear.

As the cementeries fill with fever victims, thousands flee the city with panic. Tragedy strikes the coffeehouse and Mattie is trapped inside a living nightmare. She struggles to build a better life, until something more important comes along--the fight to stay alive.

I liked the book because as I read, it was as if the book was pulling me into the chapters. When a book does that, I feel that I understand it more.

Fever 1793 tells the story of Mattie Cook, a fourteen-year-old girl, who lived with her widowed mother and grandfather above the family's coffee shop in Philadelphia. Mattie's life is suddenly turned upside down when yellow fever hits Philadelphia. Many people that Mattie knows become ill with yellow fever, and the city becomes an unsafe place to live. Then Mattie's mother and even Mattie come down with the fever and have to fight for their lives.
I feel that this is a book of high literary merit. Laurie Halse Anderson created very unique and believable characters. As a reader you care a lot about Mattie, and what happens to her. There is the dramatic question of whether or not Mattie and her mother will survive. The book creates a very lived through experience, creating a suspension of disbelief.
I think this book would work nicely in the classroom as an aide in a history lesson about the Fever of 1793. The children will identify better with what it must have been like to live through something like that, after reading Fever 1793. I highly recommend the use of this book.

Speak is not only the seemingly true narrative of a young outcast, but a look into the harsh life that is high school. Anderson writes with a style available to all ages, though Melinda, the book's main character, is only in the ninth grade. I'm a Junior in High School, and the language, humor, dialouge, and overall effect left me full and overwhelmed, and as of yet, I have read this book at least five times.
Though the story is told in first person and in a somewhat unusual manner (paragraph breaks and subject matter) any high school student can relate to the humor and truth in each word. Anderson uses themes that every teen can relate to, and the underlying story is -never- lost. I love the new appraoch to teen literature, and have already begun a collection of Anderson books.
I HIGHLY recommed this to anyone willing to stray from the norm and take a different look at life, without missing out on the humor and sometimes never ending trials of the teenage experience.

SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson literally speaks the language that I use, that my friends use, and that I'm sure, try as they might to forget, my parents and older siblings once did. It speaks with the voice of a child who has grown up too fast- of a teenager in the all too familiar situation of the first day of school- of an adolescence. Ms. Anderson does a phenominal job promoting my generation- the generation of individuals that will grow up quickly just to have those four years of glory. I recommended this book to two of my friends after reading it. The first (her name is Tricha) is not a friend of literary works, and although she is an average student, she does not like reading anything that is optional. She finished Speak in a week or two (good for Tricha) and loved it. She could relate to the feelings and emotions that Melinda had. Another friend (Kate) had the total opposite view- that Melinda was childish, and that she did not make wise decsions. I debated this accusation, with the fact that Melinda was a child inside a teenager's body, a girl that could not face her fears or speak to anyone. I believe that with my fifty percent success rate, my recommendation is as good as any. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK!

From the start of day 1, Melinda was reduced to the disappointment and humiliation of being alone. She had no one to comfort her, no one to help fight her sickening memories and fears. She was isolated in every possible way. At school in classes and during lunch, people would deliberately ignore her, which was all just as well for her because she didn't know how to confront them anyway. At home, it was barely a home to her; her family was not a family, but more like total strangers living in an unfamiliar house communicating through sticky-notes on the fridge. And at all the places in between her house and high school, she was also alone. Her grades dropped rapidly, she barely communicated with people, and her social life was nonexistent. And yet the readers feel her emotions about everything and everyone whether she's annoyed or petrified, lazy or relieved, hopeful or embarrassed.
As I read Speak, I truly enjoyed the way the author captured Melinda's heart-felt feelings in its raw and tender edge. It gave me mixed feelings, like why she didn't tell? I would have told everything cause that's just who I am. Or why she lost all desire to have friends, get passing grades? I wouldn't have given those up, because they give me confidence. But the deepest emotion I felt after closing the book was how she seemed like a realistic heroin. She was from an ordinary High School, and she went through so so much during the school year without a friend or her family, but she was definitely not ordinary! She made it and I wondered if I could tolerate everything she dealt with, no way. I was really inspired.

Brenna Lake, the main character in this book one day finds a dog caught in a trap. The dog ends up loosing its leg because of the trap and Brenna becomes determined to find out more on trapping and wants to get the guy who hurt the dog. Brenna does find some info on the trap, and she does meet the trapper, who ends up fined for illegal trapping. But Brenna's brother becomes more angry towards his family and towards people like Billy, the trapper whose trap caught the dog. After Brenna hears Billy's side of the story for why he is trapping illegally on a game reserve, she is less angry towars him. But Brenna's brother has other things in mind, including getting revenge for what Billy did to the dog. Will Brenna be able to change her brother's mind? This was a fairly good book. It had its dull moments, and since I hadn't read the previous books in this series, sometimes the book became boring because I couldn't keep track.

Trapped was my favorite of the Wild At Heart series. My favorite people are Brenna and Maggie. Brenna finds a dog caught in a trap. Brenna and her brother Sage are angry that some one id trapping animals in a reserve. Brenna is afraid that her brother will do something to the trapper.

The book Catalyst was a very good book. I really enjoyed this book. If you have read the book Speak you will really enjoy this book. Although if you haven?t you will still enjoy Catalyst. This is probably my favorite book. The book is about how to deal with life, what life can bring you and that you always have your family and friends. Catalyst is about a girl named Kate Malone who is the main character. This is all about her life. She is a senior in high school. Her father is a minister, her mother passed away a few years ago. She has the reputation of being such a wonderful person because her father is a minister. She hates the reputation she hates having to always be perfect. Kate only applies to one college MIT. Although her father and her boy friend think that she has applied to many colleges. Her boyfriend is Michell Pangborn III. As she waits to hear back from the only college she applies to her neighbor?s house burns down and since her father is ?God man? they get to come and live with her. The neighbors are Teri Litch and her brother Mikey. The move in and Kate is stuck taking care of her brother and trying to put up with her worst enemy Teri. Teri is also a senior at her high school. With all this going on Kate runs at night to escape from all of her pain and life. On the same day that Teri moves in she receives a letter from MIT saying that she did not get in. Her life is falling apart and her boyfriend isn?t helping at all, they seem to be growing apart. Her father and the church are helping to rebuild Teri?s house, but it looks like Teri?s going to be they?re longer than expected. Do Teri and Kate have more in common they the seem to? Read this phenomenal book and find out. You will love it.

Usually when a book blows me away like "Speak" did, I am hesitant to read anything else by the author, as I am afraid nothing else will live up to my sky-high expectations. I took a chance reading this book, and I am so glad I did.

Catalyst is the absolutely incredible story of Kate Malone, who utlimately learns there is more to life than great SAT scores. Funny and poignant, this novel guides us through all the in's and out's of Kate's life...from the loving care she takes of asthmatic brother Toby...to her spontaneous, yet also well-planned out, impersation of her long-dead mother...to the ultimate all-to-human mental battle between Good Kate vs. Bad Kate.

This book will make you laugh, make you cry, make your heart soar...

Laurie Halse Anderson truly has a gift for getting into the nitty gritties of her characters' heads. I only can wish that I wrote half as well as her.

PS Look for a special cameo appearance from Melinda of "Speak"

Laurie Halse Anderson has written a book as brilliant as her previous, Speak. The narrator of Speak even makes a brief appearance in this novel set back in good old Merryweather High (home of the Fight'n Hornets). This time, it's a year later. Our protagonist is Kate Malone, National Honor Society, ranked third in the senior class, cross-country runner and chemistry fanatic. It's nail-biting time for seniors. Colleg applications are coming in - will they get into their top school or have to settle for second best?

Kate doesn't have a second best safety school to fall back on. She "filled out one application, to MIT, and [she doesn't] sleep anymore." Before the letter comes, Teri Litch, the tough girl in school, and her cute, destructive little brother Mikey, move into Kate's house after their house is damaged in a fire, mostly on account of her father being Rev. Jack Malone, a "Good Man of God." And then, her father brings the thin rejection letter to school. Kate walks back into chem, lights a fire, and burns it.

Aside from the confusing chemistry terms, this is a wonderful book, whether you know the college-waiting-game drill, are going through it or waiting to. (Other notable well-written, fun secondary characters are: Mitchell "Harvard" pangborn III, the boy Kate once hated, and ended up dating; her best friend Sara, a "self-described Jewish Wiccan poet"; her brother Toby, a typical fourteen-year-old guy.

This book was a disappointment. The medical and anecdotal evidence of causes of shy behavior offered was minimal and the solutions very simplistic. Don't waste your money with this book. It didn't teach me a thing.

I did not understand the previous review of Dr. Swallow's book. It did not appear to seek to present "medical evidence of shyness," but rather attempted to present practical suggestions to parents regarding the behavior of their shy children. I found this book to be very helpful....Thanx Dr. Swallow....changed my child's life.

I enjoy reading Dr. Swallow book, it contains great information, and the contents are explained well. Dr. Swallow should write more books, I come here today to find more books written by Dr. Swallow, but I found just this one. Well, I then want to recommend it.

Time To Fly is number 10 in the series Wild at Heart. Its main character is a girl named Zoe. In the book there are Parrots being smuggled from South America to the Untied States for money. A truck full of birds tips over and releces hundreds into Zoe's little hometown(unfortunatly a large portion of the birds die). But thankfully Zoe is on the case!! Then Zoe's mom shows up with some great news or is it not really so great after all?

I really liked this book. It is #10 in the series. I have all the Wild At Heart books and this one is one of my favorites. I don't know why it only has 3 stars because Laurie Halse Anderson has a way of writing that keeps you reading until the very last page. And this book is no exeption.
But... In this book thousands of parrots are being brought to North America to be sold on the Black Market. When one of the smugglers van wrecks, the birds fly loose in Zoe's town. Most of the birds die but Zoe and Dr. Mac save some. Then Zoe's mom shows up to take her "home". A must read for Wild At Heart Fans.