Realistic Fiction Reviews, Round 2

Praise for Ellie's The Unexpected Call 

• I loved your characters. They were very real, and the older brother added humor to the story.
• You created a great story without rambling, which is hard to do.
• The problem was something you couldn't fix (her dad was going back on active duty); it was very real life because it was something she just had to be ok with.
• It really seemed like real life with the way you described their home and the relationship between Sam and her brother.

Praise for Jack's My Aunt is a Fraud

• Excellent job creating realistic characters (i.e.: as her face turned as red as a fire truck).
• Great word choice! Our favorites... "Everyone ran out of school like a bomb dropped." "Miller kept giving me the death stare." You also used great words for said and action verbs. 
• I loved that your story had humor without overdoing it, you used just enough to make it light-hearted but not the focus of the story. The description of his sister's Fairy Failure Bedroom was hilarious. 
• Jake and the other characters seemed so real:, especially when Jake pranked his sister,  and how his dog seemed like a real person to him. I love the name Jack Crocket.  

Praise for Amy's Scary Party

• I liked how you had so many characters, but you kept control of them and knew who did what.  You kept everyone straight and managed the roles of who was more important, kind of like our  primary, secondary, background, and stock characters that we talked about in reading. 
• I loved that your story was scary, but not "ghost scary."
• Your illustrations were fabulous!!!
• I loved how they talked back to each other.  Your characters were very realistic and easy to picture.   My favorite line was,  "We don't run, we fight!" I also loved when the characters yelled, "Jinx!" at the same time.

Praise for Charlie's Brotherly Love

• I really liked the humor and how Zack and Tris kept playing tricks on them.
• I loved when the parents yelled at his siblings, "You're grounded for three months!" and then made them pick up dog poop outside (which was usually Mikey's job)
• Your title is so clever since it's the exact opposite of their relationship.
• Great voice from your character: "I'm taking a risk by having a sleepover...at my house. But it's so worth it..."  And the part where his parents apologize by saying, "I'm sorry, Zack and Tris don't usually act this way." (which they obviously know isn't true), and Mikey says, "Yeah, right."