Muse on Media: May 2018

Monday, May 28, 2018

Review! Archie Greene and the Magician's Secret

Author: D.D. Everest

320 Pages

Published by: HarperCollins on April 21, 2014 (first printing)

On his twelfth birthday, Archie Greene receives a mysterious package from a man he has never met, a package containing an ancient book in a language he doesn’t recognize. The gift leads him to a family he didn’t know he had and a world he never knew existed.

Soon Archie becomes a bookbinding apprentice to the Flame Keepers, a secret group devoted to finding and preserving magical books at the Museum of Magical Miscellany. With the help of his cousins, Bramble and Thistle, Archie tries to unravel the mystery behind his book, but he begins to realize that his gift is something more powerful than he could have imagined. And the only thing more perilous than its contents is being its owner.

T 03-catching-flame

he book waited 400 years for Archie Greene. Now Archie must discover why.

Review! Class Dismissed

Author: Allan Woodrow

272 pages

Published by Scholastic Press on 27 October 2015

Summary (from goodreads.com):

Class 507 is the worst class Ms. Bryce has ever taught. And she would know -- she's been teaching forever. They are so terrible that when a science experiment goes disastrously wrong (again), Ms. Bryce has had it and quits in the middle of the lesson. But through a mix-up, the school office never finds out.
Which means ... Class 507 is teacher-free!
The class figures if they don't tell anyone, it'll be one big holiday. Kyle and his friends can play games all day. Samantha decides she'll read magazines and give everyone (much needed) fashion advice. Adam can doodle everywhere without getting in trouble. Eric will be able to write stories with no one bothering him. And Maggie ... well, as the smartest kid in the class she has an ambitious plan for this epic opportunity.
But can Class 507 keep the principal, the rest of the students, and their parents from finding out ... or will the greatest school year ever turn into the worst disaster in school history?

Summer 2018

It's probably been really obvious, but I haven't been reading much lately. Of course, there are still some books that interest me, but I just can't seem to find any motivation to actually sit down, pick them up, and read them. Whenever I visit a book sale I still find something to buy, but my TBR pile just keeps growing! So this summer I decided to try to work my way through the shelves full of books I have at home that I haven't read. I've found 20 books that's I've decided I'm going to finish this summer. Aside from my 20 books, I found some books that I'm interested in reading, but I know that I won't be finishing those for quite some time. Those are the types of books that I really need to be in the mood for, for example: A Song for Fire and Ice (Game of Thrones #1), The Lost Gate - Shadow of the Hegemon, etc.

As I continue to clean out my room/house I'm sure that I'm going to find many more books that I forgot I even owned. Hopefully this will get me out of my reading funk (which has been going on for over a year now). I have to face the possibility that maybe I'm just not an avid reader anymore. Maybe this funk is actually my normal and my reading boom was an anomaly. I guess only time will tell.

Anyway, for each of the books I read this summer on my list I'm determined to actually post a review for them (even if it's just a short here's what I thought). So the 20 books are: