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TOP READS: April 2016

At Alphabet Soup the weather is cooling down and the stack of books to read is piling up. And that’s the way we like it!

It’s the last day of April today, and that means it’s time for our Top Reads Team to stop by and recommend some good books. Add these to your ‘to read’ list!

You’ll find a recommended list from our Top Reads Team on the last day of every month (February to November). If you missed last month’s, don’t forget to check out the March Top Reads.

*All our Top Readers are kids aged 13 and under. No grownups allowed!

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Young Writers In Action: T-Rex Trouble

T-REX TROUBLE

by Lachlan Cheung, 7, NSW

There was a 10-year-old boy named Sean who lived in a rainforest. He had a wooden perfumed treehouse. He loves living in the rainforest with the sloths. One sloth is his best friend named Charlie.

On Monday a massive T-Rex dinosaur came to destroy the rainforest. Sean knew this was going to happen because he knew the future. Sean knew his house and his friend Charlie would be destroyed. Sean went to get Charlie so they could escape. So off he went.

“Run” yelled Sean.
“OK I’m coming” said Charlie. Then Charlie moved his arm rrrrrreeeeeeaaaaalllllllyyyyy slowly.
“I will carry you” said Sean, grabbing Charlie and putting Charlie on his back.

Meanwhile the T-Rex was smashing through the rainforest.

Suddenly Sean remembered something from a book he read in the classroom. If you throw violins at a dinosaur it will calm it down. So Sean pulled out a mega phone from his pocket and ordered 3000 violins. The violins teleported and turned up next to Sean and Charlie.

They both started to throw the violins at the dinosaur. Charlie was slow but had good aim and hit the dinosaur in the eye. Sean was fast but his aim was terrible, he kept hitting the tree, which was a total waste of the violins.

The T-Rex became stronger and then Sean remembered from the book that for a T-Rex you have to play the guitar to calm him down. Sean ran to his treehouse with Charlie on his back, grabbed his guitar from his bedroom and sat on the deck and started strumming.

“Oh … here comes my cow with the pig … ” sang Sean.
Raaaaaa … ” said the T-Rex.

Then something unexpected happened. The T-Rex was becoming friendly and thanked Sean for the lovely music and started dancing. The three became friends and every time the T-Rex came, Sean played the guitar.


 

This is Lachlan’s first story published with Alphabet Soup. If YOU would like to send us a story, drawing, poem, or book review, check out our submission guidelines. Happy writing!

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TOP READS: March 2016

Some of you will be on school holidays already, and others just about to start. Either way — it’s a good time to grab a book!

At the end of each month our Top Reads Team* stops by to share their recommended reads. Here are the March recommendations, just in time for your holiday bedside-reading pile …

 

You’ll find a recommended list from our Top Reads Team on the last day of every month (February to November). If you missed last month’s, don’t forget to check out the February Top Reads.

*All our Top Readers are kids aged 13 and under. No grownups allowed!

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TOP READS: February 2016

Our Top Reads team stops by to share their favourite reads on the last day of the month (February to November). Earlier today we introduced our Top Reads Team* for 2016.  These books come highly recommended by the kids on our team:

You’ll find a recommended list from our Top Reads Team on the last day of every month (February to November). If you missed November’s, don’t forget to check out the November 2015 Top Reads.

*All our Top Readers are kids aged 13 and under. No grownups allowed!

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Top Reads Team 2016 (No adults allowed!)

It’s time to introduce the 2016 Top Reads Team. What is the Top Reads Team? Members of this team are keen readers who stop by each month to recommend a favourite read for the month, and they’re all kids like you! We’re very excited to introduce our team members for this year.

INTRODUCING:

Joseph, 12, WA
Joseph has been reviewing books for Alphabet Soup since 2011. When he’s not reading, he likes writing, playing the trombone, and playing cricket. He likes books that hook you into the story straight away.

Jarvis, 10, VIC
Jarvis loves Star Wars, gaming, Youtube and reading. He spends his spare time uploading Vlogs about his life on to Youtube and logging subscribers.

Matilda, 10, WA
Matilda has been writing book reviews for Alphabet Soup since 2011. When she’s not reading, she likes gardening, drawing portraits and writing poems. Her favourite author at the moment is David Walliams.

Mitchell, 10, VIC
Mitchell loves spending time reading, playing video games, going outside and playing sport.  Cricket is his favourite outdoor game.

Tess, 10, WA
Tess’s favourite things to do are reading and gymnastics. She also enjoys swimming, netball and playing her violin. Tess enjoys curling up in her hanging cocoon to read her favourite books.

Lewis, 7, WA

Lewis loves trains, soccer, swimming and building with Lego.

Xavier, 7, NT

When he’s not reading, Xavier enjoys being outdoors, swimming and running. He also loves singing and telling himself stories. When he grows up Xavier wants to be a doctor or an ice-cream maker.

Céití, 6, WA
Céití loves spending time with her chocolate labrador Flynn. She enjoys all sorts of reading and writing, and playing minkey. Her favourite books at the moment are the Andy Griffiths books.

 

Look out for their first book recommendations for 2016 later today!

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Young Writers in Action: Ping Pong

PING PONG

by Lakota, 7, WA

Tom was scared of ping pong. He was five years old and was in Year One. His hobbies were soccer, football, ice hockey, hockey, rugby but not ping pong. When Tom was eight he got into sea creatures. He liked killer whales the best!

Tom also loved surfing with his dad.

For Tom’s birthday he had an underwater party. People dressed up as underwater animals. Tom invited six friends, their names were: OLLY, SAM, GUS, FINN AND FRANKIE. Tom’s best presents were a bike, bow and arrow, Lego plane and a magic book.

One day Tom was at the beach surfing with his dad when he saw a ping pong ball in the water. He screamed until the lifesavers came to save him and ask what made him scream. So Tom told the lifesavers that he had been screaming because there was a ping pong ball in the water and that he was scared of everything to do with ping pong.

Tom also had to tell his mum and twin sisters, Myla and Lakota, and got into lots of trouble for just a simple thing to be scared of. One of his punishments was to tell everyone in his family on his mum’s and dad’s sides on the phone, with his twin sisters, mum and dad looking him in the eye. Another one of his punishments was no sweets for seven days. The last one was to tidy up the house instead of the cleaner doing it, without getting money for it.

When Tom was ten, his favourite colours were white, black and orange. It’s quite funny because those are the colours of ping pong balls and Tom still didn’t like ping pong.

When Tom was 12, all his friends played ping pong but not Tom of course. One day, Tom was walking in the games room in the apartment building where he lives when he bumped his thigh on the corner of the ping pong table, but he didn’t notice. He went to pick up the ping pong ball and bat, but he didn’t notice. Then a guy came in with a ping pong bat and started playing with Tom but Tom still didn’t notice. When Tom finally noticed that he was playing, he got quite a big shock but in the end it became his favourite game and he was the best at it in his whole school.

This is Lakota’s first story published with Alphabet Soup. If YOU would like to send us a story, drawing, poem, or book review, check out our submission guidelines. Happy writing!

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Books with Monkeys

We’re very happy to be back from our break! Happy New Year! (And Happy Year of the Monkey, too!)

Later this week we’ll be sharing some book reviews and stories by young writers. But today we’re thinking about monkeys in books. Here are some of our editor’s favourite books featuring monkeys:

 

What are your favourite books with or about monkeys? Let us know — we’ll add them to this post! (You can leave us a comment or email our editor, Rebecca.)

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TOP READS: November 2015

This will be the final TOP READS post for 2015 (can you believe the school year is almost over?). Here are some great reads recommended by our Top Reads team* — get yourself to a library, a book store, or a friend’s well-stocked bookshelf and stock up that reading pile for the summer holidays!

You’ll find a recommended list from our Top Reads Team on the last day of every month. If you missed last month’s, don’t forget to check out the October  2015 Top Reads.

*All our Top Readers are kids aged 13 and under. No grownups allowed!