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Teen SRC 2022 – Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

Shoe Dog is an autobiography by Phil Knight. Inside, you’ll read about the hardships and victories he went through as he breathed Nike to life. From a small business selling Japanese running shoes to one of the world’s most-known athletic brands, Knight couldn’t have done it without the help of his passionate family and friends. It starts in 1962, when Knight first pitched his Crazy Idea to his dad. The journey only got crazier from there.

I found this book inspiring because it showed me that success doesn’t just happen right away. Another thing is that there are many hard times in the making of something. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone, and especially my track and field friends since I believe that they’d get how important shoes are when it comes to sport. Overall I rate this book 9/10.

Teen SRC 2021 – Permanent Record by Edward Snowden

Permanent Record : Snowden, Edward: Amazon.ca: Books

Permanent Record is a book about the life of Edward Snowden, beginning from his childhood where he “hacked” his house’s time by setting back every single clock in the house so he could stay home longer. Eventually, he went into the government to work and created “The Heartbeat” This document would scan for any unique documents that may have useful information in and store it. This let him learn a lot about the government that wasn’t normally seen by the public. He found out that the government was doing mass surveillance on the public and was storing all this information as part of a permanent record. Snowden eventually blew the whistle and had to seek refuge in other countries to avoid being taken by the government.

The book was fairly interesting, and pretty easy to understand. Although there were some more technical terms, they were all still pretty simple. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the collection of information on the internet more and also how it works.

Teen Book Review – An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield

Depending on your view, this book will have one of two effects. Either make you feel like a failure who’s been living an underwhelming and lazy lifestyle, or it will inspire you to achieve greater and greater things in life. The book is really a story about Chris Hadfield’s career and how we became the household name and Icon in Canadian and Aeronautics we know him to be today. When he was young he never had the goal to be an astronaut, but he took every opportunity that came his way and made the most out of all of them. Chris writes more about the journey rather than the goal and even if he became a commercial airline pilot the story would still be the same. It would still follow his choices and how they impacted his career path. Overall this novel is really about life rather than the life of an astronaut.I think this book is a must read book that emphasises the importance of striving to achieve. I would rate this book a 10/10

Teen SRC 2020 – Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

Trevor was born from a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time where that could be punishable by law for five years in prison. As he was living evidence of his parents “crime”, he was kept indoors most of his childhood. His mother hid him as well as she could as the government could take him away at any time. Finally when that era ended, did Trevor and his mother able to live freely. And it was then that he had to set foot into the ocean of possibility only made possible have a long struggle. The book takes you through a journey about a imp child who turns into a man in a environment where he wasn’t suppose to even exist. He is accompanied by his fearless, passionately religious mother, who is determined to keep her son safe from the cycle of poverty, cruelty, and brutality of the world.

This book was so beautiful and humorous. I have watched his shows before with my family online and its focused on race, police brutality, prejudice, hate speech, and many other important topics that needs to be discussed. He really brought the book to life and the audio book was even better. There is so much dark humor in there and he manages to talk about those topics that usually makes us feel uneasy. And I have to say, I love his mother. She is hilarious as well, strong minded, and basically amazing. She taught him many important lessons and guided him gently along the way through his dark and daunting life.

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Teen SRC 2019 – Every Falling Star by Sungju Lee

Every Falling Star - Lee, Sungju

Every Falling Star by Sungju Lee is the true story of how a boy escaped North Korea.

Sungju was living a comfortable and happy life when everything he had ever known was taken away from him. They were going on a ‘vacation’ but the tiny house in Gyeong-seong doesn’t seem like a holiday place. Amidst the beggars, public executions, and mass famines, Sungju is horrified by his new home. At first, he refuses to believe anything his classmates tell him, but little by little, he realizes they are telling the truth; his parents have been kicked out of Pyeongyang and he has been lied to his entire life. Soon, the little food and money his father had managed to bring with them is finished and his father tries to smuggle himself into China in order to find food. He promises to return, but when he doesn’t, and all they have had to eat for days is salt and water, Sungju’s mother decides to leave and find her way to Sungju’s aunt. She doesn’t dare bring him with her for fear of being caught and executed. At twelve years old, Sungju is left to find for himself.

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Teen SRC 2018- We Should Hang Out Sometime by Josh Sundquist

This book focused on the main character (also known as the author, Josh.) He’s 20 We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, a True Storysomething, and has only had one girlfriend- for 23 hours. In eighth grade. Oh, yeah, and he’s an amputee-in other words, he has one less leg than everyone else. So, Josh sets out to find all the girls he’s attempted to date through his whole lifetime and ask them: what really went wrong?

This book is hilarious and fun, and I really recommend everyone to read it. I was browsing the shelves and saw this book, and the book was literally screaming, “READ MEEE!”  So, I did. Granted, this book was one of the best I’ve read so far. 🙂 I hardly ever read non-fiction. Extremely rarely do I read non-fiction, but this book really caught my eye. 🙂