if you're lost you might need to swim against the tide

I started reading Counting By 7s  by Holly Goldberg Sloan and couldn't put it down. I finished it in one day. I knew from the very first chapters that this book would become 'one of my favorites'.  It made me smile and cry in the way that One For The Murphys and See You at Harrys did. I loved it.

Willow Chance is a very special 12 year-old girl. She is a 'genius' who finds herself all alone in the world.

The ending might not add up to an adult reader, but it will be magic for young adults.

Some of my favorite quotes:

A genius shoots at something no one else can see, and hits it.

I felt human. That was the only way I could describe it.

Everyone, I now realize, lives in a world of pain. But I'm certain that mine is greater than hers.

I would live here at Beale Memorial Library, if it were any kind of viable option. ...as I walk through the double doors of this place I do wish that it were possible. Because books=comfort. To me anyway.

For someone grieving, moving forward is the challenge. Because after extreme loss, you want to go back. 

The world where we live so much in our head.

When you care about other people, it takes the spotlight off your own drama. 

The story of Willow Chance will grab you right from the start. It is a beautifully written story of triumph over tragedy.

  

may the force be with us...

I loved The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppet by Tom Angleberger. It may be my favorite book in the series so far.

The Origami Yoda series has always been a favorite in our house. We love how Tom Angleberger addresses life in middle school.  Jabba the Puppet, however, reaches for issues a little bigger... federal mandates for testing in education.

I love how in this book Origami Yoda explains, "Gather a tribe you must." It's ironic that we read this book during the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Like Yoda implies in the book, many small acts, peacefully done together, can create big change.

Now, back to federal mandates for testing...
I've always wondered what the tipping point would be for students to unite against 'the testing machine'. 

More specifically,  what would happen if students decided that they no longer agreed to being falsely measured by SAT testing. If students 'gathered a tribe' -  and as Origami Yoda says "Nothing you should do." -   refused to take the tests, what would colleges do? Would they have to measure students based on the portfolio of work they have done... on their creativity, innovation and curiosity?

Perhaps... lead the rebellion we must.

Gone Fishing

Are you learning about poetry this year? Haikus and Hyperbole... Alliteration and Acrostic poems? What about Double Dactyl, Free Verse, Ballads or Odes?

If you want to know more about poetic forms, grab a copy of Gone Fishing, a novel in verse, by Tamera Wissinger.

Gone Fishing is the story of nine-year-old Sam and a fishing trip with his father... the trip is "ruined" when his little sister, Lucy, comes along. The story is told in three voices: Sam, Lucy, and the father, using many different styles of poetry (labeled under each title). It is a clever, fun, beautiful way to experience poetry.

My favorites, if I had to pick, were GULP a free verse poem and AMENDS a Cinquain poem.

Be sure to read "The Poet's Tackle Box" at the end of the book. It is a wealth of information. I loved Tamera's note at the end: "In fishing and in writing, I wish you the best." I think she and I should be friends.

:)

I can not be more excited...

that was summer in Bluffton

I just read the beautifully illustrated graphic novel BLUFFTON by Matt Phelan.

Matt Phelan's watercolor illustrations are a work of art and perfectly depict the magic and imagination of summers in the early 1900s.

It's the summer of 1908 and Bluffton was the name of a small neighborhood on the western bank of Muskegon Lake in Michigan. Bluffton is also a wonderful story of friendship and big dreams. The story is a fictionalized look at summers in an actors' colony and the early life of Buster Keaton ... with just the right amount of history sprinkled throughout.

It's a fast paced book with creative segues between summers.

Be sure to read the author's note at the end of the book. It may inspire you to read a bit more about Buster Keaton or The Actors' Colony at Bluffton, which existed in Muskegon Michigan from 1908 - 1938.

Also check out...

Buster Keaton's film The General on YouTube

For me, this book lead me to look into the Gerry Society or as it's known in our house... the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. It was interesting to me how the Society was seen in such a negative light for the Keatons. It just goes to show that even the best intentions can have flaws.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.

to the past and future children of the movement

When I read that Congressman John Lewis was at Comic-Con, I thought... "What the heck?" Then I read further...  Congressman Lewis collaborated with his staffer (and comics aficionado) Andrew Aydin as well as NewYork Times best-selling comic-book artist Nate Powell to create the graphic novel MARCH book one.

The book is dedicated to the past and future children of the movement.

Well, this was a book I knew I had to read. And I loved it.

MARCH is the first graphic novel in a three book series. Book One follows Congressman Lewis' life from boyhood in rural Alabama to meeting Dr. Martin Luther King to the rise of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins.

If you've heard Congressman Lewis speak, you can hear his voice in these pages. It's a book everyone should read and read again, and then pass along for someone else to read.

The language and images are powerful, disturbing, joyful, and unforgettable. The idea that this trilogy is in the form of a graphic novel is brilliant.


If you aren't familiar with Congressman John Lewis, be sure to watch this piece by Bill Moyers:

Little Rock Girl 1957

Our fiction/non-fiction pairing finishes with...

Little Rock Girl 1957: 

How a Photograph Changed the Fight for Integration.

When 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford headed to her first day at Central High School, her path was blocked by the Arkansas National Guard. An angry crowd yelled, "Go home!" and chanted, "Two, four, six, eight - we don't want to integrate!"

Photographer Will Counts snapped this photo as Elizabeth tried to leave the mob:

Little Rock Girl 1957 is, not only, an amazing walk through one moment in history captured in a photograph, but also a detailed timeline of the before and after. 

We find that in 1896 the US Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson upholds "separate but equal" accommodations under Jim Crow laws. But in May 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court rules that separate is not equal and segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. Thurgood Marshall, the African-American attorney who argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court, explained why separate was not equal:

"Equal means getting the same thing, at the same time, and in the same place."

But, in 1957, when Elizabeth Eckford showed up for school at Central High in Little Rock, the governor of Arkansas ordered the National Guard to prevent the Little Rock Nine from entering the school. 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower went on television and announced his plan: he sent in the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the federal court's order to integrate the school. He also federalized the National Guard, which meant the the president, not the Arkansas governor was in charge.

One day the National Guard was told to prevent the Little Rock Nine from entering the school, and the next day they were told to protect the Little Rock Nine from the mobs as they entered the school.

And, May 27th 1958, Ernest Green becomes the first black student to graduate from Central High School.

However, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus was determined to defy the federal government. By September of 1958, Governor Faubus closed Central High School in Little Rock rather than let black students attend.  

Civil Rights leaders eventually won the conflict at Central High School. By 1972, fifteen years after the Elizabeth Eckford tried to enter Central High School, Little Rock's public school were fully integrated.






But... what about that photograph? What was learned from the power of a single photo?

A single photo can change history. News coverage can change and/or inspire a movement.

Watch Jonathan Klein's TED talk on 'Photos That Changed The World'...

Has an image ever provoked you to act?