Titles for Chapters

One of my favorite assignments for helping students summarize chapters in a novel is having them create titles for chapters. The Schwa Was Here by Neal Shusterman does that brilliantly and humorously. While the story itself was intriguing as it was about a boy who faded into the background, like so many teens feel that they do, I just loved the chapter titles. Some good examples:
"Manny Bullpucky gets his sorry butt hurled off the Marine Park Bridge"
"As if I didn't already have enough annoying things to do every day, Now I gotta do this"

and a personal favorite

"Maybe they had it right in France because getting my head lopped off by a guillotine would have been easier..."

Who wouldn't want to read to find out what that's all about?

If you liked Inkheart, you will like...

...Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton. The two books have so much in common. They are both fantasies that are firmly based in our real world. They both have books as a central motif. They are both adventures. Both are my kind of book. Endymion Spring is a book for Anglophiles as half of it takes place in one of England's most famous spots, the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It also takes place in Mainz, Germany during the time of Gutenberg. This is one of those wonderful times that I could perfectly picture the setting of these books. I remember vividly walking in the cathedral at Mainz and being astounded by its Medieval character; I also have fond memories of taking my children to see the dinosaur skeletons at the Natural History Museum of Oxford University and having dinner at a local university hangout/pub after walking by the spires of the different famous colleges. Two such wonderful places...maybe that's why this book really came to life for me.

Besides which, it is a book about books...always a favorite for me...the story starts as Blake finds a book on the shelves of the library that has blank pages. Or does it? Why do messages appear on these pages? Why do they appear only for him and not for his more academically minded sister? Why does the message appear so sinister?

Homeless Families

I should have paired today's book How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O'Connor with my entry on Finding Stinko since they both deal with homelessness. However, Newboy in Finding Stinko is a runaway, on his own in the streets. How to Steal a Dog is the story of a family who loses their home when the father and main provider walks out. Georgina's family lives in the family car while her mother works to earn enough for a deposit and rent. Georgina hates this new life and hits on the idea of stealing a dog, then "finding" it to claim the reward. I can't say that I liked this book; I just hated the idea of a child feeling like she had to commit a crime to put a roof over her head. Still, it is a book that older children could really benefit from reading. It raises all kinds of important questions about morality and values like, is it ever ok to commit a crime?

I did love the beginning. O'Connor quickly hooks her reader with, "The day I decided to steal a dog was the same day my best friend, Luanne Godfrey, found out I lived in a car." It doesn't get much better than that!

New Job, New Slant

I have been offered a job teaching 7th grade Language Arts in a small Catholic school here in RI! So, my reading and my blogging will naturally take on a slightly different slant. I am thinking of the books I read in terms of how I can use them in the classroom. Can I read them out loud on Friday afternoons? can I use them in a book group to meet once a month? can a picture book be used as a way to introduce a lesson? how can this poem augment a unit on that genre?

With this in mind, I just finished two books that would fit very well in a seventh grade classroom for a book group as they both are fairly easy to read, have some "meat" to them for discussion but they don't present any themes that are too racy for this highly transitional age. Sixth and seventh grade are ages where students are beginning to wean themselves from the "children's room," but they aren't mature enough for free and unchaperoned access through the wonderful world of young adult literature. Both Finding Stinko by Michael de Guzman and Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate fit the bill for this age group.

Finding Stinko is about Newboy, born into the foster care system that routinely fails to nurture him beyond the basic necessities, and one day, he simply quits speaking. When he lands into a particularly abusive and hypocritical household, he decides to take his chances on the streets.
He discovers a ventriloquist's doll that he names Stinko who begins to speak for him. He discovers a whole society of children on the streets and some of the issues they might encounter. I enjoyed this book, but I wondered if street life wasn't a bit whitewashed for the audience. The end is very hopeful if unrealistic. I would use it as a jumping off point for asking students to finish Newboy's story.

Home of the Brave tells the story of a young boy newly immigrated to the United States from the Sudan after spending time in refugee camps. Kek's brother and father are killed in the fighting, but his mother is missing. This book is brilliant at showing students how refugees might view the United States. However, students will learn almost nothing about the troubles in the Sudan. Since the Sudan is not a big news item, it would be important to introduce this book along with some information about life and current events there.

Two Gems for Curriculum Connections

Frindle by Andrew Clements may be my new favorite chapter book for elementary school students. The main character Nicholas rises to his 5th grade teacher's challenge of using the dictionary. Only problem is, he doesn't use it in the way she intended. Instead, he creates a new word and conducts an experiment showing how a word becomes part of the English language. Language purists beware! Frindle may not be for you, but for those of you who believe in the power of words or think language should be playful, you are in for a delight!

The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies can be used to teach math or business plans (in mini-societies as my son's 4th grade class did this year). Or, it can be used to make students sensitive to their peer's educational differences. The book switches point of view between people smart Evan and his math genius sister Jessie. Which of these two "intelligences" is better suited to selling lemonade? What happens when different strengths combine forces? A fun and funny look at sibling rivalry over one summer vacation.

Precocious Young Girls

What is it about precocious female protagonists that I find so very appealing? Some of my favorite characters in children's literature have been Harriet the spy, Claudia Kincaid from The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Anastasia Krupnik and from today's book Margaret Rose Kane in E.L. Konigsburg's The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place. Margaret is typical of the rest of these girls--intelligent, misunderstood by less-than-sympathetic adults and willing to take risks. I often wonder if these aren't the characteristics of the authors themselves. Otherwise, where would they get the courage to write or worse, send off to a publisher, such wonderful books?

One of the arguments I heard a lot during classes is that children and young adults need to be able to identify with the characters in the books they read? So, do these books only appeal to precocious females? I would have to say no, because while I am female and, perhaps, intelligent, I would not describe myself as precocious, misunderstood or willing to take risks. Do these characters appeal, because they are who every girl wants to be (or for an adult, who she wanted to be as a child)? Or, and I sometimes suspect this, are they written for the adult women (as so many librarians and teachers are) who buy them?

But, these books are not all about the wonderfully clever characters who always seem to best the somewhat dense authorities that people them. I loved that Outcasts was about a girl who loves her eccentric, European uncles and who appreciates and is willing to fight for "outsider art." I loved the truffle hunting dog and the neighbors with the sourdough starter kit. Konigsburg's humor appeals to me as does her sense of beauty.

Another wonderful read from the the mind of E.L.Konigsburg

Elijah of Buxton

My children's literature class discussed Newbery winner Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis, and after the discussion, I just had to read the book. However, as so often happens with me, when a book (or movie or restaurant or anything else for that matter) gets a lot of buildup, I found I was disappointed.

Don't get me wrong, there was so much to like about this book! But, I really wish I had read it before the big buildup.

So what's to like? Elijah is a "fragile", humor boy at the beginning this book who grows into a responsible young man through the course of the book. Elijah is the crux of this book, and few books have such a solid core.

I found learning a bit of Elgin Settlement's history fascinating. I had heard of towns made up of former slaves, particularly in Kansas, but these started only after the Civil War. Elgin was in Canada and was a safe haven for runaway slaves.

I won't give away the ending, but I thought it was fitting, believable and poignant.

So, I don't know why I was disappointed, but as I said, sometimes too much anticipation is a bad thing. Hopefully, I haven't ruined someone else's enjoyment of this book.

Are you feeling Lucky?

Newbery Award winner and user of the word scrotum (gasp), The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron is a wonderful story of young Lucky whose mother has died, and her Guardian is her father's first wife Brigette. Lucky has problems with trust as would any child who lost a mother and whose father opts to not parent. The driving fear of the book is that her Guardian will desert her and return to France. She wonders how to access her Higher Power, a force that she overhears her twelve step neighbors discuss. The conflict with her Guardian is neatly resolved, but I was left a bit unsatisfied with Lucky's contact with her Higher Power. Still, it was a wonderful read.

Lois Lowry

New and old: Lois Lowry doesn't fail to please. Anastasia Krupnik is a series that I have missed somehow along the way. I loved it. I loved that she kept a list of things that she loved and hated and that entries routinely were crossed out and shuffled from category to category. Anastasia is a bright girl, perhaps too bright for the adults around her, and her 10th year is full of the stuff of life--birth, death, love and loss. What's not to enjoy?

I enjoyed The Willoughbys with its spoof of old-fashioned, orphaned characters from old-fashioned children's books. I wasn't so certain that children who didn't grow up with Anne of Green Gables, Tom Sawyer or Heidi would get the joke. Still, they may enjoy the idea of getting rid of their parents by sending them on vacation or the happy ending when the children are adopted by a rich candy maker.