Unstoppable

On a long flight over spring break I read 

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith.

It's an amazing book on so many levels. On the one level, it starts off like most teen novels: there's adolescent angst and coming of age drama, bullying, and sexual confusion. But then, on another level, there's this whole end of the world, science fiction, metaphor that will knock you over part.

And, I loved it!

The story is creepy and violent and hilarious and sexual and rude and dramatic and heartbreaking and so completely clever.

It's the story of sixteen-year-old Austin Szerba and how he and his best friend, Robby, brought about the end of humanity and the rise of an army of unstoppable, six-foot tall praying mantises in Ealing, Iowa.

Here's the beginning from Part One: Ealing

I read somewhere that human beings are genetically predisposed to record history.

We believe it will prevent us from doing stupid things in the future.

But even though we dutifully archived elaborate records of everything we've ever done, we also manage to keep on doing dumber and dumber shit.

This is my history.

There are things in here: babies with two heads, insects as big as refrigerators, God, the devil, limbless warriors, rocket ships, sex, diving bells, theft, wars, monsters, internal combustion engines, love, cigarettes, joy, bomb shelters, pizza, and cruelty.

Just like it's always been.  

Grasshopper Jungle is one of those books that is amazingly clever in how it tells a story.

History is my compulsion.

I see the connections.

And that was our day. You know what I mean. 

You should probably be about fifteen or sixteen to read this book due to the swearing and the sex and the violence… but, you could probably be fourteen… because good books are always about everything.

the way things look, and the way things are, are very different

The movie trailer for The Giver is out...



If you've been to middle school, odds are you read The Giver by Lois Lowry.

Not yet? Be sure to read it before the movie comes out on August 15th. The movie trailer appears to be more Sci Fi in style than I remember the 1993 novel… but, awesome! (Although what happened to everything being in black-and-white? Perhaps I'm being too picky)

The story belongs to Jonah (who in the book was 12 and now played by 24-year-old, Brenton Thwaites), who's exposed to a world beyond his clean (colorless?) utopia when he's selected to receive the memories of The Giver (Jeff Bridges), the only citizen who still knows the pain that used to exist in society.

"When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong."  What do you think? Would you choose to live in a world where all the sharp edges have been softened or would you take drastic measures to have a world that included disorder, and color, and suffering, and joy?

a magical place to call home

This week I read A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd.

It's the debut novel by Natalie Lloyd, a lover of books and bluegrass music and words. Her favorite words are starlight, firefly, violet, and love. 

Again, like I say a lot, Natalie and I should meet and become friends.

A Snicker of Magic is, well, magical… and lyrical and pure and sweet. To quote our heroine, Felicity Juniper Pickle, it's "factofabulous".

I knew from page one that this was one of those books that comes along and is such a privilege to read. Here's how it begins…

"They say all the magic is gone up out of this place," said Mama.

She looked straight ahead as she drove, past the white beam of our headlights, deep into the night, like she could see exactly what was up ahead of us. I couldn't see anything though: not a house, not a store, not even an old barking dog. A big fat moon, pale white and lonesome-looking, was our only street light. I watched the way the moonlight painted her profile: the dark shadows under her cheekbones, the tight pull of her mouth. I didn't need to see her eyes to know how they'd look: sky blue and beautiful. Full of all the sadness in the world.

If you know a lover of wonderful middle grade fiction, you need to tell them about this book. Read it along with them. Get a blue notebook and become word catchers. Go to tattly.com and buy yourselves bird tattoos. You'll be glad you did. 

Like Flea says:

Because I'm convinced Midnight Gulch can't be the only magical town in the world. I bet there's a snicker of magic on every street, in every old building, every broken heart, every word of a story. Maybe it's hidden away and you need to look harder for it. Or maybe the magic is right there, right in front of you, and all you have to do is believe.

Of course she couldn't save the world. She was only eleven years old.

After reading the beginning to Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee, I thought, "I should give up all other genres and just read middle-grade fiction." 

Here's an abridged version of how it begins:

In the end the Queen was nothing like she was in the stories the Marvelous Boy had been told, first as a child beside the hearth and later by the wizards. There were no claws. No sharp teeth. She was young. Her pale hair dripped over her shoulders. She opened her blue eyes wide and smiled sweetly at the King.

"I do not like him, my darling," she said, not once raising her voice. "I do not like him one little bit."

"I should like him locked away," she said.

She really was very cruel.

The boy did not struggle as he was led to his room. He had struggled already. Three times since the wedding he had tried to run from the city, and three times he had been returned.

"You have failed in everything you have set out to do," she said when they were alone, just the Marvelous Boy and her. "I do not know why the wizards chose you, such a poor, sorry thing. Why did they think you could defeat me?" She did not pause for his answer. "And this charm that is bestowed on you so that I cannot harm you - it is nothing but an irritation. When the charm has worn off, I will run you through with my sword."

She said it very pleasantly, as though she were talking about marshmallows or afternoon tea.

"I will find the sword," the boy whispered. "And the one who will wield it." 

It's an awesome beginning.

You can read a preview of the book for free on amazon. You can also listen to a clip of the audiobook.

Ophelia Jane Worthington-Whittard, our heroine, loves science and is grieving the loss of her mother. She and her sister Alice move to a new city where their father takes a job in an unusual museum. On her very first day in the museum Ophelia discovers a boy locked away in a forgotten room.

Can Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy save the world?

"Of course she couldn't save the world. She was only eleven years old and rather small for her age, and also she had knock-knees. Dr. Singh told her mother she would probably grow out of them, especially if she wore medical shoes, but that wasn't the point. She had very bad asthma as well, made worse by cold weather and running and bad scares." 

Yet. Perhaps. Maybe.


I'll be giving away a copy of Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy on Friday, March 7th. Leave a note in the comments to be included in the drawing.

book basket

Another Basket of Books… this one donated to the Longfellow Elementary School auction. I always love to come up with a collection. It's exciting to imagine who will "win" the books and what children will get to read them. This time I tried to find books that would appeal to a wide range of elementary school tastes, either to be read by kids or as read-alouds.

Here's what I came up with:

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Flora and Ulysses by Kate DeCamillo

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt

Battle Bunny by Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett

Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made by Stephan Pastis

The Real Boy by Anne Ursu

Wonder by RJ Palacio

The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes

In addition, I attached my thoughts on the joy of reading. Of course, anchoring them with a quote from Donalyn Miller, the Book Whisperer herself.

Reading belongs to readers. If we want children to see reading as anything more than a school job, we must give them the chance to choose their own books and develop personal connections to reading, or they never will.
Readers have the right to read below their Lexile level and beyond their ATOS score.

“Reading changes your life. Reading unlocks worlds unknown or forgotten, taking travelers around the world and through time. Reading helps you escape the confines of school and pursue your own education. Through characters – the saints and the sinners, real or imagined – reading shows you how to be a better human being.”

― Donalyn Miller

The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child

  

Cliché… a once lovely phrase now worn out from use.

I was following #tctela on twitter this weekend. It was the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts conference. Teri Lesesne (@ProfessorNana) was presenting, and though I was 1,500 miles away, I was hoping to learn from a distance.

I was following Donalyn Miller's tweets (@donalynbooks) of professor nana's slides when she tweeted:

Donalyn Miller ‏@donalynbooks  Feb 2

Excited about Once, Twice, Thrice Told Tales. Writing advice for young writers. #tctela

So, of course I had to order Once, Twice, Thrice Told Tales by Catherine Lewis.

It is not exactly a writing manual, but Lewis tells the story of the three blind mice in the most creative and educational ways. It's amazingly clever and every middle school and high school needs to own this book. 

Once, Twice, Thrice Told Tales is a crafty, artful retelling of the familiar nursery rhyme. It ingeniously teaches readers about literary terms which are then defined in a brief “snip of the tale.”

The APPENDIX alone is worth the price of the book.

Some of my favorite parts were the retelling under STYLE:

Dickens Mouse… They were the best of mice, they were the worst of mice, they lived in a cage of despair, they lived in an age of wisdom, they had everything before them in the lab, they had nothing before them in the wild, they were all going to survive, they were all not going to - in short, their lives were so far like the present period of our own.

Homer Mouse… Sing to me of the mice, Muse, the mice of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once they had torched the Love Labs of Inc.

Hemingway Mouse… Three mice. Woman with knife. No tails.

The Snip of the Tale… It's not just the idea, but the author's way of putting it. Style begins on the level of the sentence, including things like vocabulary, imagery, word order, and length.

I also loved the bit on SENTENCE DIAGRAM. The Snip of the Tale declared: 

Depending on your optic, diagramming sentences is an old form of torture or a delightful way to play with language.

I have always found diagramming sentences delightful... #nerd.

It would be a wonderful idea for every Language Arts / English teacher to use pieces and parts of this book. Not only will students be learning something – they’ll also be laughing as they enjoy learning something.

she was reading a book

In a house full of books...



...there is creative reading.