Michael Vey Book Review

Recently I read a book called Michael Vey The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans. I have never even heard of the author, yet the book is incredible! It is one of the best books I have ever read. The age range for this book is 7th-10th grade. It is about a boy who has strange electrical powers that he really doesn't understand. But then a girl from his school tells him that she has powers too. They go on a journey to an academy for special children in Pasadena, California. They discover that there is more to their powers than meets the eye. It is an awesome read and I recommend it to anyone in the age range and with half a brain!

The Flower Garden's Style

The Flower Garden is a story about a middle aged woman named Mrs. Winning who meets her new neighbors, the MacLanes. The MacLanes are a small family with just Mrs. MacLane and her son, Davey. They are friendly to each other at first, but near the end of the story, they begin to grow apart and become less friendly to each other. Mrs. Winning and the whole town for that matter seem to suddenly distrust and dislike the MacLanes.

This story is broken into two sections. The one at the beginning is about friendship and the other is about distrust, fear, and hatred. I am noticing that the author of this story (also the author of The Lottery) has used this same kind of structure/style for both of his stories. This is no coincidence; it is simply his style.

This style that the author uses is a kind of trickery. For the whole of the beginning, he leads you with good fortune, trust, happiness, and friendliness. But the story then takes a shocking twist toward distrust and anger that you wouldn't really expect, but that is how he keeps you interested. One example of Mrs. Winning's friendliness to Mrs. MacLane is a quote from the story. The author writes, "As the weather grew warmer and the first signs of green showed on the trees and on the wet ground, Mrs. Winning and Mrs. MacLane became better friends. They met almost daily at the grocery and walked up the hill together..." The author comes out completely saying that Mrs. Winning and Mrs. MacLane are becoming better friends. Now this quote appears on page 114 of the story. This is relatively the beginning of the story so you can see how the author leads you in the beginning with happiness, friendship, and trust. But then as the story continues, they seem to grow farther and farther apart to the point that they are just neighbors, nothing more. At the very end of the story, the author writes, "Mrs. MacLane waved and called out, Hello! Mrs. Winning swung around without speaking and started, with great dignity, back up the hill toward the old Winning house." As you can see, at the very end of the story, Mrs. Winning even refuses to converse with Mrs. MacLane and simply walks away. They are obviously no longer friends, proving my point.