****SPOILER ALERTS!!!*** This is a quick summary with not a lot of details, I have read this book many many times and my teacher read it and said it was great as well. Chester and Gus is about a non verbal 10 year old boy named Gus with autism and a chocolate lab named Chester. Chester failed his service dog test due to sound sensitivity, and a Gus's family adopted him. Gus is going into fifth grade and Chester is going with him as a therapy dog for Gus. Chester and Gus have a special connection and can talk to each other but not out loud obviously. One day Chester can't go to school but on his last day there is a fire drill and Gus has a grand mal seizure. Chester can't come to school so we don't know as the readers what goes on at school. Gus comes home one day, hurt and his parents decide to keep him home and not send him back to school. Teachers come to their home to teach Gus, and Gus hates it. One day Gus has another seizure and they decide to have Chester trained as a seizure response dog. Chester goes back to school and that's the end basically. I rate this book 6 stars. I loved this book because service dogs are very interesting to me and their desire to serve. If you like animals like I do, service dogs, and friendship read this book!!!!

A Mango Shaped Space By wendy mass A Mango Shaped Space is about a 13 year old girl named Mia Winchell who has synesthesia (sin-es-thee-ja). Numbers, sounds, and words have colors to her. I really liked this book because it was about a girl discovering her gifts and talents. This book taught me that without certain quirks and talents, life is boring. Like vanilla ice cream. In the book her friend has a poster, its balck and white to everyone. To Mia it’s colorful, which is really cool. I related to this book in many ways. The reason I picked it up and read it is because she had/has a cat and I have a cat. I also relate to Mia because I’m very artistic and see the world differently than other people. I view the world as a canvas, where we are just a streak on the canvas. We can do something big in the world and leave a bigger mark on the world. In the book after Mia fails her test, she tells her parents about her colors. She has been keeping this secret for 13 years. When she tells her parents they first don’t believe her. They then think of crazy far fetched explanations of why she sees colors. Maybe she memorized the Colored letter blocks she used to play with. Maybe she inhaled drugs, and other crazy things. This shows how us humans think. First we are shocked that something so different is real and right here in front of us. Then we still doubt until it’s proven. *** I found this book very pleasing, well written as well as inspiring. ***“There are plenty of eyewitness accounts, just because you’re so narrow-minded you need to have everything shoved under your nose before you -“ -Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.