13 Gifts by Wendy Mass

I recently started reading "13 Gifts," by Wendy Mass. It's about 12 year old Tara, who is always dealing with always moving and her confusing mom. She wants Tara to be social, very social, always pushing her to make friends. But her mom is also very protective, and even put a GPS tracking device in her phone. When Tara did something really stupid to try to get some girls at her new school to like her, she ended up being sent to Willow Falls, the town that they never vistit even though that's where most of her family lives. Of couse this was a big punishment when she will be missing the trip to Madagascar by going to Willow Fall. I think this was an unfair punishment because Tara was only trying to make her mom happy.

When Tara got busted for trying to steal the Principals favorite stuffed goat, she not only got in a lot of trouble with her parents, but she got suspended from school. For 2 weeks, which were the last 2 weeks of school. I think her punishment shouldn't be missing a trip like that, especially since the family had been planning for awhile, that everyone was excited for. But maybe Tara's mom doesn't realizing how the pressure to be social is some of the reason she isn't social.

All in all I like this book, and I want to see how her summer turns out. Probably reconnecting with her family and realizing it isn't so bad out in Willow Falls.

That's Too Salty! How the Tongue Knows

For my non - fiction response of the month I read a scientific article called, "That's Too Salty! How the Tongue Knows," by Tanya Lewis. It's about how we taste foods through the pores in our tongue. Especially the salty, bitter and sour. I like this article because it explained how the tongue is more effected by bitter tasting foods, than sweeter.

I learned that there are 5 main tastes/ flavors of food that are classified. There are sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami. Umami is pretty much the taste of acid, like in tomatoes but aparently also has a meaty tatse. It sounds unfamiliar but I think everyone's probably tried it. I've learned about the 5 sensations of the tongue before but I don't remember the umami one.

Because they're similar in flavor, salty, sour and bitter tastes all trigger the same mechanism on the tongue. Sodium is the main cause, and salt is good for us. It has iron which people need, but it becomes a problem when people eat to  much sodium. I think that this article brought attention to the fact that the tongue is really important in being able to taste. I know from memory that its the same fact for smell, if you plug your nose when you eat, you won't be able to taste. I liked this article and all the facts I learned about tasting and the main ones. Also how the sodium in 3 out of the 5 are making them similar tastes to us.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

I finished "The Phantom Tollbooth," by Norton Juster, a while ago, but I've read this book 3 times. I have always really loved it. It's about a boy named Milo who thinks that life is boring and there is never anything to do. Until one day a magical tollbooth shows up in his room, and being to bored to care, he drive through in his toy car and ends up in a whole new world. The character of Milo changes through the book because he realized life is not boring, it's just an adventure.

When he first gets to the new world called Expectations, he is still skeptical of where he actually could be going. And throughout the story he gains the friends of a dog/ clock named Tock, who ironically makes a tick sound. His goal in the story is to rescue the Princesses Rhyme and Reason, who made that world nice and equal. But they are locked up in a tower and he must save them. By the end even Milo wishes he could go back to that world, he knows that his life can be exciting anywhere.

I always liked how the book was full of metaphors. Like Milo was first greeted by "The Whether Man" who can tell if something is whether this or that. Instead of a "Weather man" who will talk about meteorology. I didn't really notice that until the second time I read the book when I was older, but I think it's smart that the author did that. It makes the reader think about it as they are reading the book.

All in all I really recommend this book to anyone who likes an adventure story. Milo can be a really relatable character for anyone who has felt bored out of their mind and wishes for something, just anything that they could do. I think the moral of the story is to enjoy life and appreciated it. And I love who Norton Juster shows that to the reader.