The Tale of Despereaux

The Tale of Despereaux

By Kate DiCamillo

Read in 5th Grade
Despereaux Tilling was born with massive ears and open eyes. They all thought he would die. But he didn't. He was, however, a very odd mouse. He didn't do anything a normal mouse would do, and one day, he presented himself to a person - an unforgivable crime. He was banished to the dungeon to be eaten by the rats, but as fate would have it, he was saved by the keeper of the dungeon. The book then switches to Roscuro's point of view. He was born a rat, but he has always been entranced by light.

Reader's Digest April 2020

Reader's Digest April 2020

This month's cover story is on unsolved murders that are still open. In many of them, the suspect is almost certainly believed to be guilty, yet no evidence can be found. One of them, the Black Dahlia murder. In another, a series of child-killings with a suspect jailed for life on 2 completely unrelated murders. A killing in broad daylight in front of a crowd that supposedly saw nothing. And finally, the killing of a beauty queen in her own house, with her parents being accused. Can you figure out what actually happened?

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Thinking, Fast and Slow
By Daniel Kahneman
Read in 7th Grade
In this book, Kahneman explains our two system thought processes - fast and slow. The fast one is used more often and is more instinctive. But it isn't always more accurate. It might be for simple things like math equations, but for choices, our fast system might be misled. That's where our logical, slow reasoning comes in. This book taught me to think things over more carefully, instead of just doing things impulsively.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
By Yuval Noah Harari
Read in 7th Grade
In this sequel to Sapiens, Harari explores the possibilities of the future. In recent centuries, problems that once plagued the daily lives of our ancestors - famine, disease, drought, etc. - have been reined in. So what will replace those at the top of our agenda? Immortality? Superhumans? Perhaps even editing humans themselves? The elite of today's society has immense power, and will that power be wielded according to our ideals of freedom and liberty, or at the expense of the powerless?