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Gone Author: Michael Grant Publisher: Harperteen It was a normal day in a small town in California when all of a sudden everyone 15 years and over disappeared in the blink of an eye. Teachers, parents and some students are just gone, wiped off the face of the earth. Sam Temple, the main character, finds himself with an amazing power, he is able to shoot flames out of his hands when he is afraid but he cannot control his powers. Sam soon finds out there are others with similar powers including his friend Astrid and her four year old brother nicknamed Little Pete. Little Pete is autistic and later found out that he is the cause of all people 15 years and over disappearing, but he is also found out to have saved the town because of what he did. Little Pete saved the town from the nuclear power plant that was about to have a massive meltdown that would have killed everyone. When ordinary people find out about Sam’s powers they treat him differently but when Caine, a very powerful bully from a different school, finds out about Sam and how Sam wants to get everything back to normal, Caine and another bully Drake, who doesn’t have powers, want to get rid of him. Caine finds out him and Sam are brothers and Sam was born two minutes before him so they would disappear at about the same time unless they could resist the temptation of leaving. Sam learns to control his powers with anger and has a battle with Caine. Halfway through the battle it is Sam’s time to disappear because he turns 15. Him and Caine both refuse to go with their mother and continued with the battle. Sam won but could not kill his brother so let him go.

The story continues with another book called Hunger.

I enjoyed this book because it was full of action and something new and unexpected happened all the time. From the first couple of sentences it was easy to tell what had happened. It is obvious the author enjoys getting into the story early and he doesn’t waste time setting the scene. It does seem a little unrealistic but what happened in the circumstances did make sense to me most of the time. On the back of the book it says ‘Warning! Contains scenes of cruelty and some violence’ and also recommends this book for children over the age of 12. I totally agree with this recommendation but I doubt a twelve year old would find the size of this book very appealing anyway and it would be unlikely for someone that age to read this book.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and there wasn’t any part of it I didn’t like. I enjoyed reading it for long periods of time and I can’t wait to find out what happens in the next book. I recommend this book to anyone over the age of 12 that enjoys a book with action, suspense, mystery, romance and supernatural sci-fi all rolled into one.

By Gregory

Eragon By Christopher Paolini This is a book about a 15 year old boy called Eragon who finds a very smooth rock one day while hunting for food in The Spine. After trying to sell this rock without any luck he is very surprised when the smooth rock turns out to be a dragon egg. When the dragon egg hatches Eragon keeps the small dragon hidden in the forest from his caregiver, Garrow and Garrow’s son, Roran who looked after him his whole life. Soon after Eragon named his dragon Saphira, Roran left home and while Eragon was in the forest a creature called the ra’zac burned down his house and killed Garrow. Eragon got some meat and he left with Saphira and Brom (an older dragon rider.) Many adventures took place on this journey including Brom teaching Eragon how to use magic, Eragon finding and saving an elf’s life, Brom being killed by the ra’zac and Eragon meeting a new friend called Murtagh (an evil dragon rider’s son who left his father’s side.) After these and many more things happening Eragon, Saphira and Murtagh met up with the Varden (a mixed army of elves, dwarves and humans who are the good guys) who they helped defeat the empire’s army (the bad guys) for now.

This is a very well written book that captivates the reader. I liked the way this book always had a lot of action and surprising twists and turns in the plot. I like the fact it was written by a 15 year old because it comes from a different perspective. In the next two books I expect the character to mature as the author does.

In my opinion it was unclear what was happening at the start and who or what Eragon was. From the title I expected Eragon to be the dragon not the dragon rider so this took me a little while to get the understanding of where the story was leading. I also don’t think the author made it very clear who the characters were at all. They were not very well described.

Overall I think this is a great book. At first the challenge of reading a 500 page book seemed very daunting but once I got reading I found it very hard to stop. Finishing this book gave me a huge sense of achievement because I never thought I would enjoy such a long book. It was never boring so I think the author did a great job.

**Reading Task 1 Term 3 2009**
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