This was a fun book for sure. I am not sure how many of my students are into bird watching but the approach to the book with the speech bubbles and humor might go a long way towards hooking them. There was a lot of good introductory information in the book which might spur students on to more thorough works.
Ribbett...
I have not read the first book and it was apparent that I should have since there were several times that the book referred back to it with an *. It wasn't bad, it was just short and not finished. There was a "to be continued" on the last page and the reader is really left hanging.
I think my 3rd and 4th graders will like it but in some ways it would be better to wait til they all come out.
There were a few parts that reminded me of Twilight...the fact that Rufus is worried about his clothes when he changes to Bigfoot Boy and the fact that Penny's Native American family seem to know more about the totem and its history then they are letting on.
I will give it a ribbett because I think the kids will like it...
I read Code Name Verity early this year and I was wrecked. It was such a powerful book and such an interesting set up. It is strange to say I "enjoy" books about WWII and the Holocaust because enjoy is not really the correct term. I feel that the books are so powerful and are a testament to hope and survival. They also remind us of our own humanity and how we need to fight to ensure that such atrocities don't happen again.
Which gets me to Rose Under Fire. My confession - it took me a while to get into. The text is set up totally different. I struggled with the whole first part but then....I spent 4 or 5 hours and read it straight through. Wow. Yes, it is different than Code Name Verity but it is just as powerful. The poems...especially the one about hope were spot on. I also like how Maddie and Anna were in this book as well. Anna was a complicated character which is why I appreciated her so much.
I absolutely loved this book...
RIBBETT ...
I read a bunch of books today. Most of them short and honestly most were duds. Instead of doing a separate blog for each one I am going to combine. 5 of the books I received as a member of the Maine Student Book Award committee. Although I didn't like most of them they will be placed in one of my libraries. The last book was from NetGalley.
This counting book is a follow up to the book Ten Birds by Cybele Young. I have never read that book. The birds see some kind of monster and one by one they join with the other birds and create a "creature" using themselves and clothes and odds and ends to scare the monster. Nothing works. It is kind of odd at the end and I am not sure I got it, let alone the intended audience. This one didn't work for me.
This one really didn't work for me. It was all nonsense and while I can appreciate the Jabberwocky in small doses I just couldn't do it. Maybe with the right reader it could be done as a read aloud.
This one wasn't bad. Loula is fed up with her brothers and decides to leave for Africa. Her parents don't seem all that concerned. When Gilbert, the family chauffeur, finds her in a tree he decides to help her out. They travel to "Africa" and have many adventures before he brings her home. It was cute but I am not sure my students will relate.
This one kind of confused me. We have some animal characters and some human. Francis and his father go to the laundromat where Lily, Mr. Li's daughter, is quite a little prankster. The cat, named Mouse, gets away and they look all over for it. Then they find it and eventually go home where they find another one of Lily's practical jokes. The length of the text was a bit odd...longer than the normal 32 page picture book and there was a lot of white space on several pages - too much. This didn't work for me.
Finally, one I liked. Mr. Flux moves into town and changes everything. Before he came no one in town, including Martin, liked change at all. Slowly though they watched Mr. Flux and saw how change could be good. I liked the allusion to a famous artwork titled fountain (thanks wikipedia) - quite funny. Some good lessons in this book about change.
And finally a YA book...I didn't know when I requested this from NetGalley that it was a sequel. There were definitely some parts of the book I did not get but overall I liked it. It was like a tamer version of Time Traveler's Wife.
There you have it...my reading for the day.
