The View From Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg

This book is about a teacher named Mrs. Olinski who teaches 6th grade, and she was paralyzed 10 years ago, but is fine now. She has to pick 4 students to go to a state championship, and she decides on Nadia, Ethan, Noah, and Julian. They each have their own life stories, which are explained in the book because each chapter is from a different perspective. They all become friends, and figure out their similarities and differences. I didn't really like this book. It was really confusing and not very well written. This is sort of a realistic fiction book, and it was a really quick read, but I didn't think this was a really good book for me. A book I would really like to read is Speak.

Death of a Dog Whisperer by Laurien Berenson

This book is about a woman named Melanie who has two kids, and she is really busy with them and her 5 Poodles. One day, she introduces her Aunt Peg who loves dogs as well to a dog whisperer by the name of Nick Walden. They become really good friends, until, one evening Nick is found dead in his house. His sister, Claire, tells Melanie and together they try to track down the killer. Throughout the book it explains how they try to figure out who murdered Nick, which makes Melanie even busier. It's hard to explain very much without giving the book away, but I really liked this book. I don't usually read mystery books but I really enjoyed this one. It doesn't have any mature topics, and but it is a fairly long book. I would recommend this book for anyone, especially people who like mysteries. I think it was well written, although confusing at some points.