Sarah Aronson

Recommended Ages: Gr.

Plot Summary: Rube Goldberg wanted to be a cartoonist from a very young age but his father discouraged it. After studying engineering in college, he despised his engineering job so he left for a job doing organization and cleaning jobs at a newspaper. The 1906 earthquake caused Rube to head to New York, where he faced quite a few no's before being hired by the New York Evening Mail. His success as a cartoonist occurred practically overnight. He became famous for his famous inventions to do simple every day tasks.

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Recurring Themes: art, drawing, perseverance, determination, confidence, Jewish

Controversial Issues: none

Personal Thoughts: Kids who read this will become familiar with someone who was determined to succeed. Hopefully, readers will also understand how to read a Rube Goldberg machine and see the humor in it as well.

Genre: picture-book biography

Pacing: fast -- 1-3 sentences per page, don't have to spend too much time looking at the cartoons to get the themes of the story
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Activity:… (mehr)

Believe was unbelievable. Unbelievable as in unconvincing, not unbelievably good.

Janine (not a very likable protagonist which turned out to be a large problem with this novel) is the "soul survivor" of a bombing in Israel that killed her parents and many other people when she was very young.

She's unbelievably famous. She has been followed and hounded by reporters all her life. All of America wants her to use her hands (her broken, scarred hands) to heal others and bless the world with good deeds.

Really? She's now a teenager and can't get away from the paparazzi. She doesn't even know who her real friends are.

Really?

The amount of fame this girl gets seems a little too unbelievable.

That aside, this is also the story of a faith healer and people sick with illnesses desperately wanting to be cured. It is the story of friendships gone wrong and misplaced priorities. It is the story of having faith in God even though God seems cruel and unjust. Unfortunately, I didn't care about these people and thought the whole thing was just too bizarre.

Janine makes some very odd and seemingly stupid choices all through the entire book. It did get better about 2/3 of the way through. By that time, I wanted to see how the author wrapped it up. If the characters had been more real to me I would have overlooked this strange plot but that didn't happen. I had a hard time thinking that anyone cared about her so many years after the bombing and some of the stuff she was pulling at the end didn't endear her to me in the list. I found the end to be rather forced. I understand we need to change and grow and learn from our mistakes but it was just too neat and tidy there at the last.… (mehr)