The Book Search

I'm a little late getting started on the SSYRA list for this year.  Someone tweeted out today that they'd finished the whole list, GAH!  I'd better get cracking! The first one I read is called "The First Rule of Punk" by Cecelia Perez.  It's about a girl, Marisa Luisa, who likes to be called MaLu.  Her mom is a professor and her dad owns a music store.  They've been amicably divorced for quite some time, but MaLu lives with her mom.  So when her mom gets a job offer to teach at a school in Chicago for two years, MaLu goes (unwillingly with her).  She's worried she won't find any friends or anyone who likes Punk as much as she does.  The story is fairly predictable- MaLu tries to fit in and stand out at the same time is unsurprisingly unhappy with the results.  But she finds a group of people who accept her and believe in her and having surprisingly similar values to her own.  It's a nice story about finding your own voice and appreciat...

There are some amazing new non-fiction picture books that have just been released.  What a great way to start your summer reading! The first one is called "Voices from the Underground Railroad" by Kay Winters.  It's poems about the experiences of two slaves running away from a master who is planning to sell them south to pay off his gambling debts.  What's great about this one is that it has ALL the voices-so there are poems from the point of view of the master's wife and the slave catchers and the people who are station masters on the Underground Railroad.  Larry Day's pictures are lovely pen and ink with water color and help the reader understand the urgency and the immediacy of the action of the story.  I thought this one was terrific. The second one is called "Girl Running" by Annette Bay Pimentel and illustrated by Micha Archer.  It's about a young woman named Bobbi Gibb who liked to run.  She lived in a time before Title Nine spo...

I caught a stupid cold this week and although I never really felt rotten enough to stay home from school, it slowed me down enough to take the time to read a bit more than I have.  Isn't that weird?  Probably- gratitude for a cold!  Anyway, I got to read a couple of terrific chapter books this week. The first one is called "The Memory of Forgotten Things" by Kat Zhang.  I was sure I had read (and enjoyed) her other books so I dove into this one.  Except, as it turns out, I hadn't read any of her books after all (I blame the nasal congestion).  But, it's completely ok, because this wasn't a sequel or connected to any of her books.  It's about a girl named Sophia who feels somewhat isolated-her mom died when she was small and Sophia misses her terribly.  But Sophia's been having these memories of things that actually never happened but could have, if things had been different-like a birthday cake that her mother made when she was 10, except that h...

I really love fairy tales and it's such a pleasure to be able to introduce the bigger kids to chapter books that are fairy tales.  The kids are always surprised, thinking that fairy tales are picture books, but their big themes of honor and bravery and kindness make them excellent reading for anyone!  Here are two to look for... The first one is called "Grump: The Mostly True Story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves".  It's by Liesl Shurtliff, who has written three other mostly true fairy tales- "Rump: The Mostly True Story of Rumpelstiltskin", "Jack: The Mostly True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Red: the Mostly True Story of Little Red Riding Hood".   The first three were terrific so I was really looking forward to this one and it did not disappoint.  Grump is a dwarf who doesn't fit in.  He really wants to go to the surface in spite of dire warnings of danger.  When he's sent out on his first work mission, he ends up ...

Sometimes people seem to be surprised at the weighty topics covered in middle grade fiction.  It turns out the kids are interested in how people solve problems that are similar or really different from their own.  My third graders are reading books with the theme of social issues this week and are really loving some of the titles like "Pink and Say" by Patricia Polacco (dealing with war) or "Gleam and Glow" by Eve Bunting (also dealing with war) or "Out of my mind" by Sharon Draper (dealing with a disability).  The two books I read this week could easily slide into this unit! The first one is called "Running on the Roof of the World" by Jess Butterworth.  It's about a girl named Tashi who lives with her parents in a small rural community in Tibet.  Tibet is occupied by Chinese soldiers and life is difficult for Tibetan citizens.  Tashi's dad is often mysterious about some of the things he's doing-he's a writer for the local news...

I just got some new books that I ordered.  I just love getting a box of new books.  It's like Christmas!  Even if I had to order them and pay for them myself.  Still exciting!  Anyway, the kids are going to LOVE these new non-fiction books I just got. The first one is called "Snowy Owl Invasion: Tracking an Unusual Migration" by Sandra Markle.  I'm a big fan of Sandra Markle's work.  Her books are always thoroughly researched with lots of gorgeous pictures and super interesting text.  This one is no exception.  It's about what happened with snowy owls in the 2013-2014 season when suddenly people were spotting snowy owls in some pretty surprising places (like the Florida-Georgia border!) and in numbers not usually seen (like at the Boston Airport, where they typically remove 10-12 snowy owls per season, but that year, removed over 100).  She explains why scientists believe there was such a population explosion (no, I'm not goi...

I've been enjoying my spring break and since we were traveling, I had some long uninterrupted time to read (because when I'm at home, there's a lot of "Oh look!  Something shiny!" going on).    There are some terrific new middle grade fiction books in the pipeline.  Here are two of my favorites. The first one is called "The Orphan Band of Springdale" by Anne Nesbet.  It's historical fiction but it's based on the author's family stories.  It's set in World War 2 and I really loved that it tells the story of what it was like growing up in America at that time, with some of the ugly prejudices that people held as well as some of the social issues that have since been resolved.  Gusta's dad leaves her on a train as they were heading to Maine because Gusta's dad is a socialist and believes that workers should have rights and he is being pursued by the police.  Gusta ends up at her grandmother's house, which is a kind of an orphan...