Miss Talmadge’s Psychology book Reviews 2008
Posted by canjohslib on January 31, 2008
At the beginning of this project you came to the library and Mrs. Jones offered a book talk to help you find just the right story for your work. Now it’s your turn to share with the librarian and your classmates some information about your book. Click on the “Comment” button below and submit a review of your book containing the following information:
A brief summary of your book.
What aspects of psychology were covered in the book?
How did this book help you complete your project?
Would you recommend this book to readers who are given this assignment next year? Why or why not?
Is there another book you would recommend in addition to the one you chose for this project? Tell us why.
Mrs. Jones will review all submissions before they are posted. Your e-mail address will not be posted, it is only given so I may respond to you on an individual basis.
I’m looking forward to reading your reviews and suggestions!
Mrs. Jones
Amber Gallagher said
Upstream is a very good book. It deals with the pyshcological effects of losing someone very close to you. This book takes place in a small Alaskan town. Since 18-year Marty’s boyfriend is killed on a hunting trip together she has never been the same. She cries all the time and walks to his old house. So when a state offical starts coming around asking questions about her boyfriends death, her astranged father starts coming around she must relive the most horrifying part of her past. As she begins to realize that not everthing is physically harmfull. Marty finds out that she will need the help of her mother and two sister’s and some new and old friends to get over this tragic event in her life. This book covers the emotional trauma that can scar someone mentally for the rest of their lives. If you ever have to write a review for Ms. Talmadges psyhcology project I would definetly recommend this one. Not only does this cover an aspect of psyhcology but it also is a very good book to just read. Another good book I would recommend is Queen Bees and Wannabees. This deals with the problems we all face during our high school and junior high school careers.
Hannah Monk said
I read “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon. It is the story of fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone. He has a form of autism. He is rather socially impaired. He does not like strangers, the color yellow, people touching him, or change. He is brilliant in the fields of mathematics and science, but has no capacity for human emotion. He cannot interpret facial expressions and does not understand jokes and metaphors. His neighbor’s dog is murdered, and he decides he will be the one to find out who did it, and then write a story about it. In the process, Christopher unearths many disturbing details about his past, and overcomes many personal obstacles. It shows how a brain-development disorder such as autism can affect the life of a child and all those around him or her. To say that I loved this book would be an understatement. Not only is the plot interesting in itself, but the style in which Haddon writes is phenomenal. He writes in such a way that emotionally dense and profound subject matter is light and humorous. If you’re into psychology, Christopher Boone is certainly an interesting specimen. If you’re just looking for a good weekend-read, this book is cute and captivating and will have you smiling until the last page. It was the perfect book to help me complete this project and I highly recommend it to anyone else in Ms. Talmadge’s class, as well as the entire student body.
Amber Gallagher said
Oueen Bees and Wannabees by Rosland Wellman is a good book to use for a psychology report. I covers the grounds of High School life. When you read this book you can actually go through and realize that you do these things too. It tells the things teenage girls and boys do to each other to get inside one anothers brain. It’s pretty much a guidline for your parents to use if they want to “understand” us. It helped me complete my project because it was so easy to go through and pick out the Psychology parts of this book. It was so much fun to go through and pick parts of the books that you have done or you have seen others done.
Shannon said
“The First Time Last” by Angela Johnson is a fantastic book to read. It is about this boy who has a girlfriend that ends up with an unexpected pregnancy. They go through a lot of rough decisions, which one of them is abortion or adoption. The girl wanted to give the baby up for adoption, but the boy really wanted to keep it, as his own; even though her parents did not approve of either kid’s decisions. During the pregnancy they had fought a lot, and there was a lot of emotions throught this book. After nine months, the girl had the baby, and put it up for adoption; but the boy had adopted it. He stopped party-ing and skipping school just for his new baby girl. His life had changed forever, ever since he kept this baby. Once you start this book, you will really like this book and won’t be able to put it down, and you’ll find out the other reasons to why the boy made the decision to keep his baby girl.
Cecilia said
Speak is a very good book. This book deals with pyshcological effects with emotion. This book is about a girl named Melinda who was raped and after that she didn’t speak. Through her first year in highschool she was outcasted for calling the cops on a party in the summer. Only a few people would talk to her. She made a few friends but they never really seemed to stay beacuse she wasn’t very talkative. The only place she felt safe was the art room. She loved art it was like her escape. Also she finds an old janitor closet. She decorates it and it is like her home away from home. When she goes home life isn’t any bettr. Both her parents work and they fight over why Melinda never talks. Mostly Melinda goes into her room to be alone. She would rather be alone than with people. Once you start this book you will get sucked in to see what happends to Melinda next.
Samantha Gray said
“Inside Out” a very intriging, attention catching book, by Terry Truman. This is a story about a young boy named Zach battling schizophrenia. While waiting for his mother to come get him after school at a coffee shop something bad happends to him. The shop was held up, armed robbery. So while dealing with the voice in his head telling him to die, he also had the robbers telling him to shut up before they shoot him. Zach not understanding what was really going on he becomes a help to the other hostages and the robbers with not even knowing of it. Off his medications, emotionless, Zach is almost at the risk of suicide. In this exciting thriller, read and find out if Zach can survive another big challange in his life.
Joey said
Shooting monarchs is an intresting book. Its a short read and it you wont want to put it down. The book is about a boy who grows up in an abusive home, and his progression to becomin a serial killer. I will warn that the book does have a sad ending but its still worth your time. Their are many psychological aspects in the book but the most prevalent is the emotional abuse suffered by the killer and his last victim. This book is very helpfull in writting your papers because it gives you a good description of what led to his breakdown. I reccomend this book not only to the furture psych classes but to everyone. I also reccomend No Surrender. It is about a Japanese war survior who lands on an island and thinks for 30 yrs that there is still a war. The book has a slow begining but gets much better and you wont want to stop.
Donjeta said
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult is one of the best books you will ever read. Anna Fitzgerald is only 13 years old, and she’s been her sister’s back up her whole life. When her sister Kate was just 3 years old, she was diagnosed with Leukemia. The doctors told her parents that the only way Kate would survive was if there was someone who has the same genes and blood type as Kate. The only way possible is for Kate’s parents to have a baby. That’s when Anna came along. Anna has donated bone marrow, blood cells, and everything else for Kate. She’s not sick, but she might as well be considering Anna winded up in the hospital whenever Kate did. At one point, Anna has enough and sells the necklace that her dad gave her when she gave bone marrow, and decides to file a lawsuit against her parents. That’s when Campbell Alexander, Anna’s lawyer, comes in the picture. Anna’s father, Brian, has mixed feelings about the lawsuit because he understands where Anna is coming from, but also where his wife, Sara, is coming from too. Things get hectic and it comes down to Anna deciding whether or not she wants to donate a kidney to Kate. If she doesn’t, Kate will die. Anna’s caught in a war between the lawsuit and in a war with herself. Does she win the lawsuit and not donate a kidney? Read to find out…
The psychological aspects in this book is emotions of having to deal with a sister who has a life threatening malfunction. This book helped me complete my project because it gave me a lot to write about. It definetly fits in everything you need to do. For anyone who takes this course in the upcoming years, I recommend this book for this project. It’s just a really amazing book, I couldn’t put it down for one minute. Even if you’re not in this class and doing this project, I still say anyone should read this book because it definetly just gives you something to think about and to look at life a different way.
Jessie said
The book that I read was called “Sights Unseen” by Kaye Gibbons. This book is about a young girl named Hattie and the trials she and her family go through with her manic-depressive mother named Maggie. Because of Maggie’s constant mood swings, Hattie could never bond with her mother like all the other girls her age. As the story goes on it shows how Hattie, her father and brother and the house keeper,Pearl, all struggle to try and hide Maggie’s disease from the community while attempting to help her to get well and also help each other emotionally. The area of psychology that was covered is a psychological/personality disorder called bi-polar. I would suggest this book to anyone. It was easy to follow where the author was going and gave a really good understanding of some of the situations people have to go through that suffer from things such as this.
Rob said
The book I chose to read was “Private Peaceful.” Tommy “Tommo” Peaceful is a young man living on a Colonel’s plantation with his mother, father, brother Charlie and his other brother “BigJoe.” In the beginning of the novel it opens with a scene with Tom and his father cutting down trees in the woods. This scene ends with a tree falling on Tom but him not getting out of the way in time so his father jumped to push him out of the way and the tree fell on him crushing and killing him. This scene is very significant because it presents one of the psychological pieces of this novel. For the rest of the novel the reoccurring theme of Tom blaming himself for his father’s death comes about in many different situations. The story continues with WWI breaking out and every able-bodied man being recruited for war. Tom and his brother Charlie enlist in the war and experience many different things as the war progresses. Another significant example of a psychological disorder is that of Tom’s brother Big Joe. He was born with mental retardation and adds many different plot twists to the novel. He is truly a crucial addition to the book. I would recommend this book be given to the students next year as an assignment because the book was an easy read and absolutely captured the aspects of psychology in question.