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Mi Vida Como Estrella De Cine (2012)

by Janet Tashjian(Favorite Author)

4.03 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

8479428384 (ISBN13: 9788479428389)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Macmillan Iberia S.A.

series

My Life

review 1: Derek and his best friend, Matt, have discovered that the UCLA campus is a great place to skateboard and practice their tricks. They begin to explore the campus by jumping from marble stump to marble stump in an art installation and then climbing the walls of the parking garage. While some people might think this is dangerous, one man is impressed. Tony is a stuntman and he tells the boys that what they are doing is called "parkour." Parkour is a sport that involves getting around obstacles as efficiently as possible. He asks Derek if he'd like to be a stunt double for a famous actor in a movie that is currently filming. Will Derek we able to perform the stunts on camera and in costume? And will Matt be happy for him or jealous?
review 2: I enjoyed this ... morebook more than I thought I would! I thought it was a standard wimpy kid knockoff, with silly boy antics and somewhat unnecessary pencil drawings. (Of course, I enjoy some of those books quite a lot, don't get me wrong!) And I do believe it will appeal to reluctant readers, with its large font and wide margins. The drawings in the margins brilliantly illustrate words from the text that may be unfamiliar to the readers. Often the illustrations show the word in a different context than how it's being used in the text, giving the reader a better understanding of the words. The narrator uses this tactic to learn his vocabulary words, so their presence is integrated into the plot as well. If it weren't, it might feel condescending, like "look at these pictures since you probably don't know these words."The rather complex characters and interesting plot were my favorite features of this book. Derek struggles with school, reading in particular. He has a "foster monkey", and in order to keep it, he signs a contract with his parents that requires him to get a tutor. Around the same time, he and his friend Matt are discovered practicing parkour (getting around obstacles by climbing, jumping, etc.), and Derek gets invited to be a stuntboy because he climbs several stories of stair rails.**Spoiler alerts ahead.Matt develops a severe case of envy, starts hanging out with bullies, and lashes out at Derek by secretly videotaping him reading (very slowly) with his tutor and then posting it on YouTube. The rest of the novel shows Derek and Matt working through their issues in a reasonably realistic way, meeting a teenage heartthrob movie star (who happens to be a girl, and is the actor Derek is stunting for), and rescuing the monkey.This book was lots of fun, and I'd recommend it to any school-aged reader who enjoys a good realistic fiction book, no matter their reading level, and especially to reluctant readers who have a hard time getting through a book. This one's a winner! less

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