Masked Reader

Book Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IjvVVbWfIs Mini Review This manga series begins with seventy percent of the moon being vaporized and refocuses its attention to a prestigious middle school that ranks students based on academic performances. Each class is ranked from A to E. A being the top honor students to E being the underachieving misfits and delinquents that the school finds unteachable. At the beginning of the school year, Class E discovers that their teacher is a yellow octopus monster that apparently blew up the moon and is going to do the same thing to Earth at the end of the school year. As their monster teacher instructs them academically, the students are training to be assassins so they can kill the monster before he destroys the world. I found this series to be a lot of fun and very heartwarming. The characters are very engaging and relatable and you can tell the monster really cares about teaching these kids. The mystery of the monster is reveal...

Book Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HQb9Z6_jnM Mini Review Warning: This series contains content that may include contents including blood and gore. This is a series about three siblings: Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode. After their father was murdered by one of their classmates, they (and their mother) move from San Francisco to their father’s childhood town, Lovecraft in Massachusetts. They move into the father’s childhood home, Keyhouse, which is an old mansion that’s been on their father’s side of the family for generations. As they settle into Keyhouse, they all find strange looking skeleton keys hidden throughout the house. Each key they find possesses a magical power. One key turns someone into a ghost when you walk through a door, another can literally open your head to see your personal thoughts and memories, and many more. As they wonder what these keys are and where they came from, a dark force still lingering in the house wants the keys as well. As they find out...

Book Talk https://learn.dcollege.net/courses/1/25625.201925/db/_12109055_1/WIN_20200227_11_30_41_Pro.mp4 Mini Review This manga series takes place in a world where the majority of the population has a unique superpower (or quirks as they are called in the series). The biggest career to strive for in this world is licensed superheroes because they are treated as celebrities and make money based on their publicity as a hero. One boy named Izuku Midoriya dreams of being one of the greatest heroes ever to help people, not caring about fame and fortune. Except there is one problem: he doesn’t have a quirk. As such, he is a target for bullying and people do not expect much from him. However, all of that changes when he meets his superhero idol and number one hero in the world: All Might. After Izuku performs a sudden act of heroism despite being “quirkless”, All Might is inspired to train Midoriya and entrust him with his own secret quirk: a power to pass down his own superpowers ...

Book Talk https://learn.dcollege.net/courses/1/25625.201925/db/_12108652_1/WIN_20200226_13_08_58_Pro.mp4 Mini Review This book is about Junior, a Native American boy who lives in a Native American Reservation Area (Rez).Junior’s rez community is very poor and wants more in his life so he feels the best way to do that is to go to a white-dominant school that’s twenty two miles away from the rez. He struggles fitting in the school being the only Native American boy in school and his friends at the rez shun him because they see him as a traitor for wanting to go to a “white school”. Through the ups and downs, Junior is determined to take control of his life rather than have his life control him. I think this book is very valuable. Junior sees what he wants and pursues it regardless of what people may think of it. He knows it’s not easy but he does it anyway. I admire him for having that kind of self-awareness and readers can learn a lot from this example. I would recommend this bo...

Book Talk https://learn.dcollege.net/courses/1/25625.201925/db/_12076076_1/WIN_20200220_19_59_47_Pro.mp4 Mini Review This book is about a girl named Amelia. She’s an awkward high school girl with plenty of problems from body insecurities to her algebra teacher dating her mom. Her life is turned upside down when her dad visits her and tells her that he’s the prince of a foreign country and that she’s a royal princess in line for the throne. Amelia writes her expressions down in her diary trying to juggle being a normal girl while learning to be a princess. I would recommend this book to girls 13 and up. It is a fun book with a lot of high school angst and drama that all high school girls can relate to. It is also a great story that can encourage girls to explore who they are how you want others to see you. Image:  https://www.amazon.com/Princess-Diaries-Meg-Cabot-ebook/dp/B000FC13EU/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=princess+diaries&qid=1584114476&sr=8-5 Video:  http...

Book Talk https://learn.dcollege.net/courses/1/25625.201925/db/_12076059_1/WIN_20200220_19_54_18_Pro.mp4 Mini Review This book is about a girl named Winter who lives in the ghettos of Brooklyn. Even though she grew up on the rough streets of New York, her lifestyle was anything but rough. She comes from a wealthy family where her father is a wealthy drug lord. While she is not directly involved in the family business, she enjoys the money and respect it comes with. However, all of that changes when her father relocates her family to Long Island. Her father says it’s for their own safety, but Winter craves to get back on the streets where she belongs and she intends on getting what she wants no matter what anyone says. I personally found this book hard to read. I think that is because I could not relate to the character or the setting of the book. I didn’t grow up in the rough urban streets like the main character did. But there are plenty of girls who do have a similar urban...

Book Talk https://learn.dcollege.net/courses/1/25625.201925/db/_12032415_1/WIN_20200212_14_15_16_Pro.mp4 Mini Review This is the first book of a trilogy (and a couple of side story books). This book is about a boy named Dan Crawford and his friends, Jordan and Abby. The three participate in a gifted student summer program in a college in New Hampshire. However, the dorm building that they are staying, Brookline, is supposedly haunted. Brookline used to be a mental hospital that housed many unstable patients, one of which was a serial killer. It also doesn’t help that doctors of the facility performed strange experiments on the patients. When Dan receives anonymous messages and students are being attacked, similarly to the committed serial killer’s MO, the three want to know what is going on and the only way to do it is to look into Brookline’s past. Although this story is labelled as horror, I found this more as a mystery. I thought the setup was interesting but it wasn’t ter...