Reading Slump Update

After my last post, I committed to reading every day during SIR15 (Silent Independent Reading for 15 minutes) with my 8th graders and reading with Girl Athlete every night. I usually try to read a little bit during SIR but between reading conferences and the other “teacher duties” that plague us all, I rarely get in 5 minutes before it’s time to close the books and get to our class activities. But, making this commitment and sticking to it has jump-started my reading life again.

I finished SCARLET by Marissa Meyer and decided to abandon DANTE & ARISTOTLE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERRSE by Benjamin Alire Saenz. I am a HUGE abandon-aphobic; I call this the clean-your-plate syndrome in reading. But that’s another post in the making.

I have gone back to, and devoured, Hound Dog True by Linda Urban and have a stack of three library books and six ebooks waiting on me. In jumping back into reading, I am getting back to reviewing after abandoning my all-too-gracious authors for a few months. I’m excited for what I will discover in the reading world in the coming months and happy to be back to constantly having my nose in a book. I appreciate all the suggestions and support. Happy reading, Book People.

Reading Slump Update

After my last post, I committed to reading every day during SIR15 (Silent Independent Reading for 15 minutes) with my 8th graders and reading with Girl Athlete every night. I usually try to read a little bit during SIR but between reading conferences and the other “teacher duties” that plague us all, I rarely get in 5 minutes before it’s time to close the books and get to our class activities. But, making this commitment and sticking to it has jump-started my reading life again.

I finished SCARLET by Marissa Meyer and decided to abandon DANTE & ARISTOTLE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERRSE by Benjamin Alire Saenz. I am a HUGE abandon-aphobic; I call this the clean-your-plate syndrome in reading. But that’s another post in the making.

I have gone back to, and devoured, Hound Dog True by Linda Urban and have a stack of three library books and six ebooks waiting on me. In jumping back into reading, I am getting back to reviewing after abandoning my all-too-gracious authors for a few months. I’m excited for what I will discover in the reading world in the coming months and happy to be back to constantly having my nose in a book. I appreciate all the suggestions and support. Happy reading, Book People.

Best Bridge Books of 2012

It seems only fitting on the last day of 2012 to post about the best Bridge books that I have read in 2012. The intent of the blog is to help classroom educators figure out which books best lend themselves to use in the English Language Arts classroom, as pairings with classical canonical novels, and in other disciplines. So, what better way to close out the year than by picking a few of my favorites that lend themselves to easy use in middle and high school classrooms. By no means have I read all the MG and YA books that have come out this year and neither were were the books mentioned here all published in 2012.  I would love to hear suggestions for other books that were published this year or that you have read this year that would also work well in the classroom. Without further ado, here is my list in a thematic order.

• BOOKS THAT TEACH COMPASSION AND KINDNESS – Two of the best books I read this year were Wonder by R.J. Palacio and The One and Only Ivanby Katherine Applegate. If there’s one thing that most middle grade and high school teachers would agree on, it’s that adolescents need a healthy dose of compassion and reality in their lives. These students seem so self-centered and all of their very minor and sometimes petty problems seem so big to them. These books help bring perspective to that mindset and teach students that kindness and compassion are sometimes the only things that can overcome what seem like insurmountable odds.
• BOOKS THAT CROSS DISCIPLINES – Across the Universe by Beth Revis and BZRK by Michael Grant offer so many cross-curricular teaching opportunities. While a Language Arts teacher can certainly focus on literary themes and motifs, of which there are plenty in both texts, there are myriad applications for science and mathematics. Researching the science behind both of these science fiction books would be incredibly enlightening and encompass quite a few sub-disciplines within the science family. There are also computations to be done in relation to time and space travel in Revis’s novel as well as size and distance calculations for the nanobots in Grant’s novel.
• BOOKS THAT FEED NEW READERS – YA writers and their works come under constant attack for lack of “good writing”. To read a much better well-written discussion than any rant I could provide (with which I whole-heartedly agree), read Sarah Rees Brennan’s Rants About Rants About YA. The fact remains that all readers, YA or not, enjoy a variety of texts. No one wants to read easy, simplistic literature all the time whereas constant ingestion of existential and complex books would wear readers out. So, after reading what I like to term “Gateway Books” which are usually series like Twilight, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, or Pretty Little Liars, developing readers need better writers and richer texts to continue developing once they’ve caught the reading bug. I like to send these kids to other series so they don’t read one more complex title/author and then have nowhere to go. Some of the best titles I’ve read this year are Cinder by Marissa Meyer,  Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, or The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod by Heather Brewer. All of these authors continue with the themes and humor that engage young readers while infusing their stories with character and plot complexity that will challenge and develop these budding readers.
• BOOKS THAT PROMOTE VISUAL LITERACY AND INFERENCING – Graphic novels and books that use multi-modal text to engage readers are becoming more and more common in the YA consumer base. Some of the best visually engaging books that I read this year are Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick and Why We Broke Up Daniel Handler. The text paired with the illustrations make readers infer connections and connotations that are not explicitly discussed in the text. In addition, the artwork is just beautiful.
• NONFICTION BOOKS THAT INSPIRE – I don’t read enough nonfiction. This is one of my weaknesses and I know it. But two that I read that were FANTASTIC and made me want to read more nonfiction were The Watch That Ends the Night by Allan Wolf and How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous by Georgia Bragg. Both books made me want to do more research and read more about the subjects of the writing. In addition, both books are extremely well-written and engaging with emotion, humor, and intelligence. These titles are perfect for reluctant nonfiction readers like me.

Lastly I’d like to leave you with the book that made the most impact on me as a reader and teacher this past year. Once again, I have to go back to Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. I’ve already posted it about it here on the blog twice and I recommend it to everyone who asks me for a good book suggestion. Once again, I must say that Wein is a master craftsman and I am indebted to her for her gifts of Queenie and Maddie. And with that, I anxiously await all that is to come from Wein, Clare, and others in 2013.

Cynical Sorcerers and Cruising Castles

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TITLE: Howl’s Moving Castle

AUTHOR: Diana Wynne Jones

LENGTH:  336 pages

PUBLISHER: Green Willow Books

SUMMARY: (via amazon.com) In the land of Ingary, such things as spells, invisible cloaks, and seven-league boots were everyday things. The Witch of the Waste was another matter.

After fifty years of quiet, it was rumored that the Witch was about to terrorize the country again. So when a moving black castle, blowing dark smoke from its four thin turrets, appeared on the horizon, everyone thought it was the Witch. The castle, however, belonged to Wizard Howl, who, it was said, liked to suck the souls of young girls.

The Hatter sisters–Sophie, Lettie, and Martha–and all the other girls were warned not to venture into the streets alone. But that was only the beginning.

In this giant jigsaw puzzle of a fantasy, people and things are never quite what they seem. Destinies are intertwined, identities exchanged, lovers confused. The Witch has placed a spell on Howl. Does the clue to breaking it lie in a famous poem? And what will happen to Sophie Hatter when she enters Howl’s castle?

BRIDGE: It seems I’m coming across a lot of books lately that lend themselves to studying fairy tales. This book would be a good bridge to traditional Grimm stories or other fairy tales. There are elements of Lewis Carrol and even Tolkein. Jones mocks these traditional fairy tale elements and it would be a good starting point for a discussion of satire and parody. Along with these elements, students could also study the use of humor and sarcasm in character development and the creation of character relationships.

READERS: Fans of fantasy and magic will enjoy this book. Readers who have a tast for sarcasm and parody will also enjoy this title. It has several levels of meaning and will appeal to middle level readers as well as high schoolers and adults.

OTHER TITLES: Readers who enjoy this book might also like Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver, Enchanted by Alethea Kontis, or Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Enchanted by Melded Fairy Tales

TITLE: Enchanted

AUTHOR: Alethea Kontis

LENGTH:320 pages

SUMMARY: (via amazon.com) It isn’t easy being the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday’s only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true.

When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical. One night Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed him back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland—and a man Sunday’s family despises. The prince returns to his castle, intent on making Sunday fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sunday is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attraction for this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hidden in his past—and hers?

BRIDGE: This book proves that the fairy tale genre is not overdone or dead. Kontis is able weave multiple fairy tales together in a way that makes them new again. It is fun to dissect Sunday’s story and identify all the separate threads of Sunday’s story that interlock in a beautiful tapestry that would rival any of Friday’s skirts.

Teachers could use this story to reignite students’ interests in fables and fairy tales. Students could mine the pages for the basic elements of all fairy tales or compare Kontis’s version with the originals. With a dash of Grimm and a dollop of Disney, Kontis is able to make these classic tales less gruesome but equally impactful. Comparison to the original versions of the fairy tales would be a fairly simple exercise. Students could also write an extension to Sunday’s story, perhaps including missing or obscure elements of some of the fairy tales already seen in the book. And, of course, acting out or modernizing different scenes from the book would be great fun.

READERS: People who enjoy a new twist on an old tale will enjoy this book. In addition, this book will appeal to lovers of adventure, mystery and romance. The blending of fairy tales makes this an interesting mix of genres that will appeal to varied readers.

OTHER TITLES: Readers who enjoy this book will also enjoy Cinder by Marissa Meyer, The Riders of the Apocalypse series by Jackie Morse Kessler, or Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.

Special thanks to Alethea Kontis & Harcourt for inviting me to read this great tale. And look for an interview with her soon here on YA Book Bridges.