Unbroken (The Young Adult Adaptation) by Laura Hillenbrand (Non-Fiction)

Why read non-fiction? Because it's real and real is interesting! This book is a perfect example of that. Non-fiction is not synonymous with a textbook. Laura Hillenbrand makes that apparent as she takes history and weaves it into a novel, a story, an adventure. And we get to come along for the ride via Louie Zamperini. We get to learn about other aspects of history with Louie as the line pulling us back to the center of the story. I personally learned a lot of facts (real, true, historical facts) about World War II that I didn't know through the telling of Louie's life. Louie's story was both hard and encouraging to read, more so than most stories I've ever read. Why you may ask? BECAUSE IT WAS REAL. The hard stuff is harder to read. The encouraging stuff is more encouraging to read. When you can say to yourself, "Wow this really happened to this guy?" it leaves you seriously considering your own life and how you would have handled yourself in those exact same situations. Reading non-fiction is an incredible opportunity to get in touch with the past in a more exciting way than in a classroom. Non-fiction novels bring these topics to life! Like an exhibit in a museum but it's in your hands, at your fingertips where your mind is given all the details to run rampant recreating history, possibly your history. I loved reading about Louie's life and the life of those he encountered. Humans constantly contemplate and try to test our limits, whether in physical, mental or emotional ways. I mean, there are literally TV shows all about testing how much humans can endure (e.g. Survivor or the once so popular Fear Factor) and movies displaying the valiant resilience of our race. These works of non-fiction bring to life those stories of survival, resilience and hope that actually happened! Real life heroes and conquerors who beat the odds and achieved what so many works of fiction fantasize about.

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (Discovery)

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende explores the incredible world of Fantastica and how the shy, awkward boy Bastian Balthazar Bux fits into this world. While running away from bullies Bastian runs into a bookstore where he is mesmerized by an ornate book with two intertwining snakes on the front called The Neverending Story. Feeling a connection to the book, on an impulse, Bastian steals it and hides in the attic of his school where he unsuspectingly discovers a world and a mission in another world that will inadvertently change his life in the human world too. As Bastian reads this book he reflects on his own life compared to the characters he begins to bond with as he reads. He sees his life through a narrow lens, only viewing himself the way other people do. It never even crosses his mind that there is value in who he is. Soon he becomes a part of the story. A real character in this story, alongside the characters he was recently huddled in an attic reading about. He also finds his appearance is not only expected but eagerly anticipated as he holds the power to save this world from ruin. He discovers he is the hero he has always wished to become and can be the way he has always wanted to be (or is it more the way he thinks everyone else wanted him to be?). However, these changes come at a cost. Bastian loses a memory for every "wish" he makes to change himself. This journey continues, with twists and turns as Bastian creates his new self but finds that in the process brings more harm than good to himself and Fantastica. In the end Bastian loses all of his memories of his former self and needs his new friends to remind him of who he truly is to gain access to the Waters of Life and return to his world. The Waters of Life instruct Bastian that he must give up all the gifts he had been given in Fantastica to return to his world. In the moments walking to the waters the gifts fall away and Bastian is unsure and scared. But when he jumps into the waters of life he is "newborn" and he discovered in those moments that he was "now the very person he wanted to be. If he had been free to choose, he would have chosen to be no one else." By becoming the thing he thought he wanted to be and losing himself, Bastian discovered that he, as himself, is valuable and that there is nothing greater than discovering who you really are. When Bastian returns to the human world, confident in who he is as he is, he finds that the cure to the sad state of affairs that his life was before was himself! All he needed was to be him. A Dr. Seuss quote comes to mind that I think perfectly describes what Bastian discovers to be true: "Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one around who is youer than you."

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud (Good/Evil)

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud delves into the world of magic in London, England and focuses on a boy names Nathaniel. Nathaniel was given to the state, in exchange for a large sum of money, to become a magicians apprentice. This book frequently blurs the lines between good and evil. Nathaniel who definitely starts out as a "good" boy who is eager to learn and thirsts for knowledge and to please his master, Underwood. However, from an early age Nathaniel is humiliated and subjected to treatment that hardens him towards his master and leads him to seek revenge on a famous magician named Simon Lovelace. In a wild series of events Nathaniel and Bartimaeus, a powerful two thousand year old djinn, fates become intertwined as they battle for revenge against the relentless and remorseless evil of Simon Lovelace. The interesting thing about this book is how the lines between good and evil, within Nathaniel especially, are constantly shifting. His thirst for revenge and high opinion of himself often lead him to do treacherous things that lead to deadly consequences for those around him (the firing of his favorite tutor, the death of his master and his wife, who was the only person the consistently care for and future Nathaniel, etc). Bartimaeus also has these lines blurred a lot as he, who claims to hate magicians and their slavery of his kind with everything in his being and actually tries to sabotage and harm them, at the end of the book exhibits a compassion and hope for his young master, Nathaniel. These lines are constantly blurred with majority of the characters as they make decisions throughout the book. This book also emphasizes the consequences of actions, both good and evil. Simon Lovelace encounters a brutal end to his life as a result of his ambition and the evil decisions he makes out of that desire. Nathaniel experiences redemption out of his bad decisions and his thirst for knowledge that often led to his evil desires behind his decisions. An interesting element of this book is that women in the book are not portrayed as evil but highly benevolent. Even Amanda, Lovelaces girlfriend who makes some questionable decisions aiding his evil, in the end is portrayed as good. Not sure exactly what this means but I found it a worthy observation and thing to think about. However, this book was a fun, more traditional look at good and evil (due to the portrayal more or less of a good guy and a bad guy and the elements of magic make it feel more fictitious) but also explores how these lines are not always black and white. These lines can be blurred and it explores the good and evil that exists within each of us and that each of us is capable of.