Chiggers by Hope Larson

A while back I read Mercury by Hope Larson and really liked it.  I've been trying to beef up the collection of graphic novels in my classroom library, so I picked this one up.  It was pretty good.  I most enjoyed the fact that it was about camp.  I loved reading about the camp atmosphere and activities.  Bunk life is crazy, and it was fun to be reminded of old times at summer camp.  I thought that the characters were cool, but overall it was just ok for me.  I wasn't terribly moved by the story at all.  I will add it to my collection, but will probably recommend Mercury first.

Wonder by R. J. Palacio

OMG.  I loved this little book.  I was so inspired not only by Auggie, but also by all of the supporting characters.

So Auggie Pullman has a deformed face.  It's so bad, he tells you in the very first chapter, that whatever you're possibly imagining....his face is worse.  Yet, he decides to try to go to school.  He's been home-schooled until now, but his mom can't keep up with his studies.  He needs to go to school.  But let's all be realistic, school's hard enough even for kids who have it all together - this is going to be a nightmare for Auggie.

So the story begins.  Auggie will impress you at every turn.  I found so many little nuggets of wisdom and kindness.  I really felt moved by the book.  So maybe the ending was a little too sweet, but who cares....I want to live in a world where people accept Auggie for who he is.

Kids need to read this book.  Kids who are in middle school, high school, college, and even us adults who are students of the world.  You need to meet Auggie because he helps you get some perspective on your life and what you're facing.  A great walk in many characters' shoes.

Read it!  Now!

A snippet - Page 59 to Page 60
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I'm not sure why, but all of a sudden I started to cry.

Mom put the book down and wrapped her arms around me.  She didn't seem surprised that I was crying.  "It's okay," she whispered in my ear.  "I'll be okay."

"I'm sorry," I said between sniffles.

"Shh," she said, wiping my years with the back of her hand.  "You have nothing to be sorry about...."

"Why do I have to be so ugly, Mommy?" I whispered.

"No, baby, you're not..."

"I know I am."

She kissed me all over my face.  She kissed my eyes that came down too far.  She kissed my cheeks that looked punched in.  She kissed my tortoise mouth.

She said soft words that I know were meant to help me, but words can't change my face.
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Hello!  Doesn't this just break your heart.... Yet this kid makes it.  He faces mean kids and comments and stares.  And he still tries and gets up every day and does his best and sends out positive energy for others.

And here's a bit from Auggie himself - page 65 - Auggie's paper about one of his class assignments:

"This precept means that we should be remembered for the things we do.  The things we do are the most important things of all.  They are more important than what we say or what we look like.  the things we do outlast our mortality.  The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they've died.  T hey're like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs.  Only instead of being made out of stone, they're made out of the memories people have of your.  That's why your deeds are like your monuments.   Built with memories instead of with stone."

My Really Late Summer Reading List

So, I moved from one city to another this summer.  Started a new job.  It's been busy.  But...here are the cool books I read this summer that I thought y'all might like.

Just a quick word about each one.

Maniac Magee - Can't believe I never read this one, but it was such a gem. A classic story with memorable characters.  One of those that you just have to read no matter when it happens.

Divergent - Beatrice lives in a future Chicago in which society is divided into factions.  She's in Abnegation but must decide when she's sixteen what faction she will align herself with.  Her choice could have serious consequences not only for her but also for all the people she loves and knows.  This was the first book/series that I thought came close to The Hunger Games.  I really loved this book.  Couldn't put it down.  Loved the characters and just the questions it brought up about people/their personalities.




Insurgent - Sequel to Divergent.  A must read if you like the first one.  I am, of course, just sad I've got to wait until the final book comes out.








The Name of the Star - I love, love, love anything by Maureen Johnson.  She's a smart, cooky, cool writer.  This book is different from her others.  It follows Rory, who's going to boarding school in London.  She's from Louisiana, so it's a huge culture shift.  But, she's game.  She meets people at school.  What's interesting here, though, is that London has a lot of history....not all of it great.  Someone has been recreating the Jack the Ripper murders from the past.  This book is boarding school fun meets London ghost hunting.  Super, fantastic fun!!!



Where Things Come Back - An award winning book and definitely worthy.  I loved this book because it is written from two totally different points of view.  The two narrators aren't even a part of each other's story...until they are.  I remember thinking...how is this all going to connect, and when it did....I was floored.  It was a really good, gritty book.  Check it out.






Out of My Mind - An easy read, but a really moving book.  This book is from the point of view of a girl with cerebral palsy.  She can't move or talk, but there's so much happening inside her mind.  You get a front row seat at she works through all these challenges at school.  A good read to remind you to walk in another person's shoes so that you can understand new perspectives about the world and how you treat and view people.

Anya's Ghost - I've been  trying to read more graphic novels.  This one was great!  I really, really loved it.  Anya is having issues with friends and school and just everything like every other kid in the world.  Her family's Russian and she deals with that, too.  Anyway, she ends up falling into a well and there is a skeleton down there!!!  She ends up talking to the ghost who belongs to the bones.  At first it's actually kind of cool, but then it begins getting weird....A fun high school, annoying ghost, be who you are story.

A Million Suns by Beth Revis

Obviously, since this is the second book in a trilogy, I don't want to give too, too much away for people who haven't read it.  But I will say, I really enjoyed book two!  I felt like it was fast paced and exciting.  It picked up right where the first book, Across the Universe, left off and didn't slow down for one minute.

The series is about two main characters, Amy and Elder.  Elder is a leader on the spacecraft Godspeed.  He's part of an elaborate hierarchy of leadership aboard the vessel.  He finds out in book one that what he thought he knew about the ship isn't true at all, and he faces many choices and decisions.  Amy, on the other hand, is not a member of the Godspeed crew like Elder is.  She, along with her parents, was frozen when Godspeed left Earth.  That is until someone unplugged her way before her time.  She's lucky that she made it.  But when she looks around at the mono-ethnic people on the ship, she realizes that her pale skin and red hair make her stand out and that she might be lucky to be alive, but she's certainly not safe.  Amy and Elder continue to work together during the first and second books to get the ship where it needs to be and to focus on the one important thing in the future - completing Godspeed's mission of landing on another Earth-like planet, Centauri-Earth.

Revis is a fun writer.  Both books, once they got going, were fast reads.  I kept wanting to turn pages so I could find out what in the world would be next.  I highly recommend if you like sci-fi sort of stuff. 

P.S. I absolutely love both of the covers for these books.  The first book had a two-sided cover.  I wish the second book had a reversible cover as well, but it didn't.  Still great covers, though.

Why We Broke Up

I liked this book.  I remember performing a Maira Kalman book for one of my classes at UNC.  I love her illustrations.  The art included in the book makes this a really special book.  Unique.  I enjoyed the read.  I wasn't really taken with the story at first.  I wasn't sure what I thought of the voice of Min as the narrator.  But once I got into the story, I was hooked.  I was hooked because obviously, I knew they broke up but wanted to get the details.  But I was also hooked because I've been heart broken.  This book as quotes from all kinds of writers about their first or biggest heartbreaks, and that's really what's here.  Straight up heartbreak.  It's messy.  You're feelings are hurt.  But you still love the person.  It's complicated.

Min is labeled as "arty" by some, though really she can't even draw or anything.  But suffice it to say, Min isn't one of "the" popular kids.  She's got her gang.  She knows a fair amount of people.  She's just a high school girl.  Enter Ed Slaterton.  Somehow, he and Min cross paths.  He's interested.  She's interested....I mean, this is basketball co-captain Ed Slaterton.  Things happen...and this unlikely pair turns into an actual couple.  But it doesn't last.  The book itself is Min's "Why We Broke Up" letter to Ed.  She has put all the objects, souvenirs, etc. from their relationship into a box and has THUNKED the box onto his door step.  Who knows what he'll do with it.  Who knows if he'll read Min's letter.

I liked that this book was honest.  One of my favorite parts is when Min is saying just how normal she is.  She's not different.  She's not arty.  She's just a girl.  We all do so much in our lives.  We fill many roles and we have many responsibilities.  I don't care who you are or how smart your are or how athletic you are or how interesting you are....You are still a boy....or you are still a girl....and when we give our hearts to another, there's always that possibility of heart-break.  But what would life be without the ups and downs, right?  This is a great read.  While it's sad because you know what ultimately happens between these two....it's still nice to read about someone going through something that we all deal with - the break up

Oh, and here's the website for The Why We Broke Up Project....if you want to share.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I finished The Marriage Plot and Wuthering Heights right at the beginning of the year, and then I took up John Green's latest.  I don't want to post too much because I know so many people are reading the book.  Also, it was just so good, there's not a whole lot to say, or maybe, I am just not sure what to say.  In short, you are immediately in love with Hazel Grace Lancaster from the moment you read the first sentence.  This character is unique and real.  What she says about life and her disease is honest and funny and terrifying all at the same time.  I knew I would probably shed a tear or two at the end of the book...I mean, how can you not?  It's a Cancer Kid book, right?  When I read Jenny Downham's Before I Die, I was weeping at the end.  But what shocked me was that I teared up multiple times throughout, and then, of course, I was sobbing at the very end.  But I thought that this was fitting.  I mean who wouldn't cry all the time (like Hazel's dad) if you were going through all of this.  It's sad.  I am just so amazed at how Green got me to feel so much for these characters.  I also love how books like this help you put your life into perspective.  What I love about literature and this book is that we read it and we experience something that we might never experience in all our days.  It's tragic...but like the classic definition of tragedy....it enlarges and ennobles us.  We are better for having witnessed what happened to these characters and we can appreciate our own lives and the relationships we have.

One last thing I will say I loved about this book was the fact that Hazel was just around her parents and her few good friends.  So many kids and adults today are so concerned with the appearance of being busy and involved in every freakin' activity possible.  Sometimes I feel like kids and grown-ups might feel like if they aren't getting straight A's AND playing three sports AND being really popular AND taking music lessons on the side AND volunteering five million hours a week AND finding time to still cook and read for pleasure AND maintaining a perfectly positive attitude all the time....then they aren't doing enough.  But you know, that's just not true.  I think this book shows that what matters is relationships and family.  Basketball wasn't that important to Augustus.  And the people who knew he played or knew him in high school didn't really KNOW him.  What matters is knowing people and appreciating them for exactly who they are.  Conversations matter.  Time with people matters.  Friendships and relationships matter.  Not all that other stuff. Not that that stuff is bad, but it's not always that important.  I recommend this book to every person in the entire world.  It's a great story with a great narrator and great characters and a great message.  LOVED it.  I did.

A Monster Calls

I'd been wanting to read this book for a long time, and I finally got it finished.  I really enjoyed the book a lot.  The book itself is beautiful.  The illustrations bring the story to life in a haunting way.  The book tells the story of a young boy named Connor who's dealing with his mother's illness.  He deals with enough every day, and then even more when a monster shows up to his bedroom one evening.  The monster is as old as the world itself and as wise.  But Connor isn't scared of the monster.  You should be.  This monster is strong, powerful, dangerous, and all-knowing.  But Connor doesn't flinch.  The monster has been called by Connor.  The monster says that he will tell Connor three stories and that then Connor will tell the fourth.  The fourth story will be the truth.  The truth is that the book is great.  I teach only seniors right now, so it might not be as good a fit for this age group.  But I really think this is an absolutely fabulous pick for middle grades and early high school.  A great story.  This book will mean lots to readers for years to come.  It's just perfect.  Very important.