Jazzy Reads

A Single Shard – Book Review

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A Single Shard is about a young boy named Tree-ear. Orphaned at a young age Tree-ear was raised by his best friend Crane-Man, an old man who lives under a bridge in their small village.

In order to survive, Tree-ear and Crane-man must scrounge around for food from the village heaps and any where else where they might find food.

Tree-ear loves to watch Min the potter whenever he is not busy. One day he gets too close to Min’s work and accidentally dents one of his pieces of pottery.

Tree-ear is unable to pay Min back for the damaged piece of pottery so he offers to pay off his debt by working for Min. Tree-ear is excited to be working with Min, who is one of the best potters there is.

To his disappointment Tree-ear realizes that he is not going to get to make pottery but instead, Min has him gathering large stacks of wood for the communal kiln.

When his debt is paid Tree-ear does not what to stop working for Min. He still harbors the hope that maybe one day Min might teach him how to work the clay as he does.

Min agrees to let him continue to work as his helper with gathering the wood and preparing the clay.

One day, word reaches the village that a royal emissary is coming to assign pottery commissions for the king.

It is every potter’s dream to receive a commission from the King but very few get it. Every potter in the village is busy making something special for the king’s emissary to see.

Tree-ear works harder than ever at preparing the clay for Min to shape into something beautiful. Everything must be perfect. But then disaster strikes and suddenly both Tree-ear’s and Min’s dreams seem as far away as ever.

Will Tree-ear ever reach his dream to be a master potter like Min, and will Min ever get the commission that he has always worked for.

A Single Shard is a sweet story of one little boy’s passion and determination to fulfill his dream.

I liked the friendly and fun dialogue between Tree-ear and Crane-man. I also liked that no matter what happened Tree-ear didn’t give up. He helped Min out even when it was an inconvenience to himself.

Book Details

Author: Linda Sue Park

Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition (January 10, 2011)

Age Range:10-14

Media Type: Kindle, Hardcover, Paperback

Other books for you to enjoy:

The Golden Goblet

A Long Walk To Water

The Golden Goblet – Book Review

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The Golden Goblet is about a young boy named Ranofer. Ranofer lives with his evil stepbrother, Gebu. Ranofer wants to one day be a master goldsmith, but his evil stepbrother Gebu will not apprentice him to any of the goldsmiths. Instead Ranofer is forced to work at Rekh’s goldsmith’s shop like a simple hireling.

One day Ranofer finds out that someone is stealing gold from the shop and he has a pretty good idea of who is doing it. But what can Ranofer do? If he tells anyone about it, Gebu will simply deny it.

With the help of his friend, Ranofer is able to get rid of one thief. And, much to his delight, Gebu stops stealing from the shop.

Things are starting to look up when, suddenly, Gebu takes him from his job at Rekh’s to being apprenticed in his stone-cutter’s shop.

Ranofer is horrified at having to work as a stone-cutter’s apprentice. To make it worse, Gebu is still getting rich. If he has stopped stealing from Rekh, where is he getting his money?

Together, Ranofer and his friends work on figuring out the mystery behind Gebu’s growing wealth. But they never expected what they found.

I liked The Golden Goblet because it had adventure and some mystery. I also liked the underdog theme in this story.

Book Details

Author: Eloise Jarvis McGraw

Publisher: Puffin Books, Reprint edition (May 6, 1996)

Age Range: 10-14

Media Type: PaperbackI

What to Expect: Adventure, Underdog-Type Story, Mystery,

Other books for you to enjoy:

Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze

A Single Shard

Mara, Daughter of the Nile

Moccasin Trail

Moccasin Trail – Book Review

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Jim Keath was a young farm boy impatient for adventure when his Uncle Russell showed up.

With rapt attention, he listened to his Uncle’s stories of Indians and wild prairies.

Awestruck, Jim secretly followed his uncle as he traveled out west.

By the time his uncle realized what had happened it was too late to turn back.

Everything had been fine, until that fateful day the day the grizzly got him.

It happened so fast. One minute they were hunting, the next he was running through the forest, an angry bear hot on his heels.

The chase didn’t last long. He took one final shot before the bear was on him, the icey hot talons tearing into him, then blackness.

When he woke up he found himself in a Crow village.

He was surrounded by a world he had never seen. One that he eventually became part of.

No longer was he Jim Keath, runaway farm boy, but Talks Alone, son of Scalp Necklace the Chief of the Crow.

He was no longer a white man but an Indian. Or so he thought.

He had been a part of their village until two years ago.

Longing to become part of the white man’s world and to speak English once more, Jim left the village where he had lived and once again entered the world of the white trapper

But now even this world of his was falling apart.

But then one day a letter arrived.

For the first time in over seven years, Jim heard from his brother Jonnie. Jonnie needed his help claiming land in Willamette Valley.

With the arrival of his brother’s letter and their reunion, Jim begins his journey to find himself to finally answer the question of who he is. Crow or white man.

Book Details

Author: Eloise Jarvis Mcgraw

Publisher: Puffin books; Reprint edition(October 7, 1986)

Age range: 11 and up

Media type: Paperback

Series: Puffin Newbery Library

ISBN-10: 0140321705

ISBN-13: 978-0140321708

What to Expect: Adventure, Excitement, Thrill

What I liked about Moccasin Trail;

I really liked all the action and adventure in this book.

Eloise Jarvis Mcgraw is an excellent writer.

She managed to write the book in such a way that it draws you in. You care about what happens to the characters.

What I didn’t like about Moccasin Trail;

I didn’t like the parts where it says someone is wearing a breach-cloth.

Other books you might like;

Swift Rivers:

The Great Wheel:

The Great Turkey Walk:

Book Review – The Witch of Blackbird Pond

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This is the cover of my book, but it may be different in some areas. I really like this cover!

The Witch of Blackbird Pond is a thrilling tale of fiction.

It is set in the early American settlement of Connecticut before the American Revolution.

Katherine Tyler also known as Kit, was living in the Island of Barbados.

Until the unfortunate death of her Grandfather.

She is then forced to leave her luxurious lifestyle to go live with her uncle’s family in the colony of Connecticut.

When she gets there, she finds that the lifestyle of her relatives is drastically different than what she is used too.

Instead of having the servants do the work, she now has to work from morning till night.

She has to help her aunt and cousins cook, clean, and provide for the family.

The longer she stays, the more she feels unwanted.

She meets a strange woman named Hannah Tupper, who becomes one of her few friends.

The rest of the town thinks that Hannah is a witch. Kit continues to find friends who don’t quit fit in like herself.

Then one dreary night, all the work she has done to at least, somewhat fit in is destroyed.

Will she ever be accepted in America, or is she destined to be alone and an outcast forever?

Book Details

Awards: John Newbery Medal

Author: Elizabeth George Speare

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Age Range: 11 and up

Pages: 249

Media Type: paperback, hardcover, audio book

ISBN; hardcover: 978-0-395-07114-4

paperback:  978-0-547-55029-9

What I liked about The Witch of Blackbird Pond:

This is the back of the book. While I love the cover of this book it has absolutely no pictures inside it.

I liked The Witch of Blackbird Pond because it is a sweet story full of love and sacrifice.

During Kit’s stay with her Uncle, not only does she deal with the rigors of every day life, but also the swirling drama of her cousins love lives, as well as her own.

This book is full of danger, drama, and romance.

Once you start reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond, it is hard to stop!

My favorite character:

I think my favorite character in this book is Kit.

I like how Kit doesn’t give up and she keeps on trying.

Although, quite frankly, I like most of the characters.

Those that are not so nice are actually a bit funny in some cases. S

o all in all this book is pretty cool.

The Grandmotherly way that Hannah Tupper helps Kit is endearing to read about as well.

This story has several twists and turns, all of them are interesting to read.

What I didn’t like about The Witch of Blackbird Pond:

The Witch of Blackbird Pond is an interesting story.

I really can’t think of much I didn’t like. There is one part that I can remember.

It is when Kit and her cousins are going to a corn husking. Who ever found a red kernel got to kiss somebody.

That was not my favorite part, but over all the book was very good.

Other books you might like:

The Sherwood Ring:

The Iron Peacock:

All right you know the saying” Don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. Well this book is way better than it’s cover. And I’m not just saying that. It is similar to The Witch of Blackbird Pond and just as good.

The Sherwood Ring – Book Review

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I had to read “The Sherwood Ring” for school (available here from Amazon.com).

The book looked so interesting, I actually read it ahead of time.

I’ve enjoyed the book so much, I have probably read it at least 5-6 times.

The Sherwood Ring Book Details

Written by Elizabeth Marie Pope

Illustrator: Evaline Ness

Age Range: 12 and up

Paperback: 266 pages

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company

ISBN: 0-618-17737-x

What to expect:

Mystery, Romance, Orphan, Ancestral Ghosts, History, Early American

Introduction:

The main character’s name is Peggy Grahame.

Her mother died when she was born.

Her father is an artist who sends her to as many camps and schools as he possibly can, so he can do his work.

Her father also dies, making Peggy an orphan.

Peggy goes to live at her uncle’s house, where she is completely ignored.

She is visited by her ancestors who come and tell her events from the past that slowly reconnect into her own life.

What I liked about The Sherwood Ring:

I like all the plots and twists. You never know what is going to happen until the very end of the book.

Things happen that you had no idea would happen.

It’s interesting how the romance from the past reconnects to the romance of the present.

The ancestral ghosts know what is going to happen to her, so they help her with the different events in her life.

The chapters go between the past and the present.

I like this because it switches between the main story and the past.

The past takes place during the Revolutionary War.

It’s nice that the house in the story has artifacts from George Washington’s time.

There is one chapter that has some codes and ciphers, and I liked this because it gives you an idea of how you might be able to use codes if you were just playing.

They give you everything in the book so that if you wanted to you could use the information from the book to make your own codes to play with.

There is some funny humor in this book.

There is an old dumpy car called Betsy. The author says that “Betsy tried to jump the fence”, almost like the car was a horse.

The car is always broke down and Pat has to tinker with it to get it to work.

The illustrations are very interesting. It definitely makes you look twice.

The author almost makes you like the bad character.

He is a British terrorist during the Revolutionary War.

He is raiding George Washington’s war supplies.

George Washington sends an arrogant young man.

Who tries a series of things to get the bad guy, but fails every time.

Both characters battle with their wits.

What I didn’t like about this book:

I like practically every part of this book.

I didn’t like the fact that there were many places where the author took God’s name in vain.

I just used a black marker to cross out those words.

I almost wish there was more to the story so that I could know what happened to the characters.

Overall, there wasn’t much that I didn’t like about this book.

My book recommendation:

I really like The Sherwood Ring.

As I mentioned at the very beginning, I have already read this book 5 or 6 times.

It’s a great book and I think you should read it. You can buy a new or used copy of The Sherwood Ring here. (Amazon.com)

If you liked The Sherwood Ring, you might also like…


The Witch of Blackbird Pond: This book also has an orphan girl and is from an earlier time period. No ghosts in the book. Also has romance.


The Secret of the Sealed Room: This book is about a girl and a boy who work together and are both misfits. They are trying to solve the mystery of a secret sealed room.