Month: May 2025

Reviewed by Chloe T., Year 7, Cerdon College Merrylands

This book, How To Hang A Witch, is so captivating. I could not put it down, it was just so good. The author of this book is Adriana Mather, who has family history that goes way back to the first Thanksgiving, the Salem Witch Trials. 

The trials of high school started to feel like a modern day witch hunt for Samantha Mather, who feels lost, especially with Salem’s past history. Sam, short for Samantha, is not welcomed in Salem, which is strange as she is basically one of them. However, the past builds her reputation and everyone she passes hates her except for her neighbour, Jason, who stands up for Samantha when things get bad. She is a target of the Descendants, a mysterious group of girls, whose ancestors were persecuted in the Witch trials. 

Reading this book kind of gives me a sense of Mean Girls, but in the past. This book is also very heartwarming in the way that Samantha lost her dad, but in the end of the book, her stepmother told her that her father has awoken, which might sound supernatural. It is so sweet to see them finally meet together after a long time of separation. This book is a rollercoaster of emotions, but it is so good that I would definitely recommend it to all of you.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars. 

Reviewed by Chloe T., Year 7, Cerdon College Merrylands

This book, Mao’s last Dancer, is so meaningful and has so many wise quotes. This book tells the story of a young boy called Li Cunxin, who when young was a poor, unfortunate boy in a poor city in China becoming a world-famous ballet dancer in America. During the process, he had to go through many hard and difficult things, but he worked harder and harder and now he is at the top. 

Li was a young boy and went to a very unfortunate school with his brothers, while his parents were peasants and worked so hard just to earn 50 dollars a year. One day, these important people from Beijing came to see if any of the students were capable of trying out for an opportunity to go to a better school in Beijing, Li was selected and went for the tryouts and passed. However, once he went to Beijing to start his journey on becoming a professional ballet dancer, things did not go as expected. The teachers never liked him and picked on Li because they thought that he was very weak. However Teacher Chan believed in him and now here he is, dancing for Houston Texas, but before this, teacher Chan had to leave the school in Beijing, which made Li upset, but he worked harder than ever.

This book is so meaningful and when I watched the movie, it was even better. This book is also a movie, and it is a must. So you must get your hands on the book and the movie, because, OMG, your mind will be blown away. It is definitely a must read for me.

Rating: 5 out of 5 (extremely good)