Sparking Readers by Sara Kajder

Together, books and readers create “sparks” – the moments of possibility that open when a reader and the words on a page connect in such a way as to require a new way of seeing, enacting, and carrying forward.  This is the story of one such “sparking,” one built out of a towering TBR pile, an author’s generosity of spirit, a courageous reader, and three special bonobos.

In early December, my TBR pile was staggering, spilling from my single “dedicated” bookshelf where it had started in July and now was snaking up the space between furniture and the wall.  (Moment of teacher-reader confession – so, it didn’t “start” in July.  It simply was “restarted” as I literally moved the previous tower into a closet.  I needed the shelf to feel possible and pray that the book-Gods will forgive…) In a moment of dedication, I swore to read my way through that shelf as things were clearly getting a bit out of hand.  I started with that first book from July – Eliot Schrefer’s Endangered.   (Since I’m in a teacher-reader confessional space, I think it is important to note that books don’t sit in my pile as long as this one had.  I’d been dragging my reader-heels.  No matter the accolades the book had received, I was resisting it for fear that it would reduce the realities of the Congo and round the corners on issues that are hard and pointed.) I curled up with the book, instantly gripped by the first line, “Concrete can rot.”   The book and I “sparked.”  I was transported, wrestling with ethical issues, hiding from danger, and entranced by the relationships between the bonobos and the people who entered, challenged and supported their lives.

When readers “spark,” the world melts away, replaced by the story.  When teacher-readers “spark,” we slow to experience the last pages of a book and, when the spell breaks, we move into action.  I paged through unit plans, looking for ways to conserve space in a tightly-planned year that would allow my eighth graders to enter this book-space that I had just inhabited.   I emailed my department chair, requesting that we find a way to fund the purchase of at least a class set of books.  And, in a moment of what felt like insane courage muted only by the reality that I was still “sparking,” I emailed Eliot Schrefer.

And, he replied.  Ten minutes later, he was in my inbox, and offering not just to possibly skype with students but to actually come to our school.   His generosity leapt off of the screen and the moment exploded with possibility.

Fast-forward to February.

“Sparks” abounded.  Endangered was shared as a school-wide book in January, including students, faculty, staff and parents across grades six through eight.  Students initiated a fundraiser with the goal of adopting a bonobo from Friends of Bonobos, the charity with whom Eliot Schrefer partnered while writing the book.  Discussions broke out in English, Social Studies, and Science, filling classrooms and hallways with readers’ talk and “sparks.”

At the end of the month, Eliot spent an entire day with us, speaking for over an hour with each grade level and spending an elongated lunch for a few students who self-identified as writers eager to learn lessons of craft, of process and of even starting.  And, as happens when teacher-readers get caught up in the planning of these kinds of incredible days, I was drowning in scheduling, details and real-time “emergencies” (as in how to get an outdated, limping-along laptop to step up to the demands of a multimedia-rich Prezi just moments before the day began).   And, as often happens to teacher-readers, I was immediately reminded of the energy and unique possibility of the day when I was slowed (and schooled) by a student.

During my eighth grade’s hour with Eliot, I noticed that “Erin” (pseudonym) was quietly writing in her journal while he spoke.  Erin, an unusually hungry reader, maintained a quiet, almost-not-there presence in my English classroom.   Her writing would be rich with connections and thoughtful ideas, but it was regularly late or something I’d find on scattered scraps of paper left by her seat after class.  I had yet to see her bring a book to class. Her focused attention caught my eye as I scanned the room through my camera lens, fixated on capturing photos of our day (and not seeing that I was failing to actually experience any of it).  Out of respect for her quiet, I lowered my camera and slowly navigated to her corner of the table.  Looking over her shoulder, I caught glimpse not of written notes but of an immaculately drawn bonobo.

  She looked up, eyes-wide, and whispered, “do you think [Eliott] will be angry?  I think in pictures.  Maybe, he’d like this?  Words don’t fit this book.”  I almost wanted to take a photo of her bedraggled hardback book, newly-taped together with pages turned, marked, and, in many cases, falling out of the binding.   I instantly recognized it as the beloved book of a reader… the kind that speaks out to those of us who have loved books into very similar states in similar brief lengths of time… the kind that outwardly shows the kinds of “sparks” it inspired.  I nodded to her in agreement, but, more importantly, I put down the camera and picked up my own reader’s writer’s notebook.    I lowered myself into a seat, started hearing (not just listening) and allowed myself to be a learner alongside my students – the stance I most comfortably inhabit.

We read together – with Eliot.  We wrote together, creating found poems merging lines from the book with our own ideas – again with Eliot as our guide.  And, in her own act of courage, fueled by her readerly “sparks,” Erin surprised us all by approaching Eliot, sharing her picture, and engaging him in discussion about where he finds his inspiration.  She held onto four words, “from readers like you.”

In that moment, I learned what might be the most important lesson of all.  Yes, books and readers come together to create “sparks,” but nothing is like the light generated when books and readers AND authors come together.  That light is magic that helps students to find voice, to find untapped courage, and to stretch into new roles. “Sparks” seek out other “sparks.”  And, when they do, within magic moments where communities that grow from glimmers of courage and possibility, we can do things that matter.  Erin lead our schoolwide effort to adopt three Bonobos from the sanctuary. Bigger, her voice has found a way to make itself heard in our English class.  And, she has already started her own list of books she recommends we take on as a school next year.  There is such magic in what we do.

Sara Kajder is, among other things, a writer, a reader, a runner, a teacher educator, and mother to two growing boys. Currently she is teaching middle school at Shadyside Academy where she gets to experience the joy of creating “sparks” for her student readers. You can find Sara on Twitter as @skajder. 

Who Needs the Mail? by Matthew Olshan

You can’t retire,” cried Diamond Jacques. “The people need you!”

“Perhaps,” Lalouche replied, “but even more, the people need their mail.”

At the end of the nineteenth century — just as at the beginning of the twenty-first — the tradition of sending handwritten letters was under siege. The telegraph was already a mature technology, and the advent of the telephone meant that more and more people were turning away from pen and paper for the instant gratification of a spoken conversation.

Nevertheless, the French postal service, or “La Poste,” offered no fewer than eight collections and deliveries — per day — in Paris on weekdays, and a mere five on Sundays and fête-days.

If those eight deliveries didn’t suffice, there was another technological wonder in the wings: an elaborate system of pneumatic tubes that could whisk a letter from one end of town to another in the blink of an eye.

The preferred method of delivering mail was changing, too. Horses were phased out in 1873, thanks to the greater efficiency of trains. Twenty years later, in 1893, La Poste authorized its carriers to use newfangled bicycles for their routes on an experimental basis — although without compensation. Perhaps they were worried the carriers would have too much fun!

Within a few decades, practically all the mail would be moved by automobile. But where’s the romance in that?

The pleasure of seeing a real, tactile, bona fide letter, addressed by human hand, come wiggling through my mail slot was one of the starting points of The Mighty Lalouche. Everyone remembers the childhood excitement of getting something in the mail — a letter or package, sent from who-knows-where, arriving as if by magic at the front door.

I still feel that magic when our faithful postal carrier delivers a special letter — or better yet, when he rings the doorbell to alert us to a package.

The sound of that bell takes me right back to childhood, when I first came to understand that the envelope had my name on it; that just those letters and numbers spelled out the place where I lived; that someone, somewhere, had fed this letter to a big blue metal box with a noisy mouth.

How the letter got from the belly of that faraway box to my trembling hands was a mystery; for all I knew, the brave men or women in postal uniform were adepts of a secret society whose sole mission was to connect me with family and friends.

The bright “ding!” of an incoming email reminds me of the pleasure of letters, but in a diminished way. In my little world, the arrival of the mail — the real mail, be it six times a week or merely five, be it full of grocery store circulars or no — is still good for a daily thrill.

“Why get so excited?” my friends will ask. “These days, it’s all junk. Anything important happens electronically.”

Of course, they’re right.

“Perhaps,” I say. “But for whatever reason, I need my mail.”

MATTHEW OLSHAN is the author of Finn: A Novel, a modern telling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with girls as protagonists rather than boys. His latest novel, The Flown Sky, is a fantasy in the tradition of C. S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles. He is also the author of the recently published picture book The Mighty Lalouche. Olshan lives in Baltimore, but also has a little farm in south central Pennsylvania, called Pencil Creek. Visit him at MatthewOlshan.com.

Enter below for a chance to win a copy of Matthew’s newest book, The Mighty Lalouche signed by illustrator Sophie Blackall.

A World So Large with Possibilities by Toni Buzzeo

Just this past week, I spent three days at Ridge View Elementary School in Dexter, Maine with PreK, Kindergarten, First, and Second Grade classes. We sang, we performed puppet plays, we discussed illustration, plot, setting, and especially characters. But it wasn’t until Friday morning, when I met with the first of my second grade classes, that I remembered what a wealth of information and ideas and inspiration my readers can be.

 

I’ve just published a new picture book, Just Like My Papa (Hyperion, 2013), gorgeously illustrated by Mike Wohnoutka http://www.mikewohnoutka.com/. It’s the second in a trio of books about animals on the East African savanna, so of course, we were talking about the savanna, looking at photographs from my trips there, and discussing the shape of the trilogy.

In Just Like My Papa, Kito, a lion cub, quite literally shadows his father, the king of the pride, in everything he does, from guarding the pride against ever-present dangers, to protecting the territory they occupy, to following the lionesses in the hunt, preparing to enjoy its spoils. Kito is enthusiastically devoted to his father, sometimes to the point of peskiness, but even the king of the beasts will take a few minutes to entertain his eager little fluff ball. A perfect Father’s Day book!

 

After discussing Just Like My Papa, we turned to the first book, Stay Close to Mama, featuring giraffes, who are naturally curious creatures. Twiga, a baby giraffe, is endlessly curious and puts himself, quite innocently, in many dangerous situations, threatened by hyenas, crocodiles, and leopards despite his mama’s repeated warnings to Stay close. Stay safe.

 

Finally, we turned to talk of the last book in the trilogy, My Grandma Always Remembers, which Mike is painting right now. As you will have guessed, it’s about a grandmother elephant, the matriarch of her family, and her little granddaughter elephant in the time of a serious drought. We talked about droughts and the need in families for one animal who remembers times long before where precious water and grasses could be found across parched and dusty plains.

Suddenly, one little girl piped up, rather passionately, with, “You actually need a fourth book about a grandfather animal.”

“I know,” I said. “But so far, I haven’t managed to find a single animal species on the savanna with a grandfather patriarch who remains with the family.”

There then ensued a lively and truly invigorating conversation about possibilities. Had I considered members of the wild dog family—though not, of course, hyenas, who are so unpopular. Or how about REPTILES? Snakes! There must be snakes aplenty on the savanna. Birds, perhaps, as they are so plentiful in East Africa and they do often mate for life? And what about INSECTS? Those stinging ants in Stay Close to Mama—might the hive actually have a king in residence rather than a queen?

Oh, in those seven or eight minutes the world seemed so large with possibilities.

And that is it, isn’t it? It’s one of the things I love most about kids. The world can be quite limitless when you are eight years old, or nearly there, seven and three quarters, perhaps. Kids don’t quickly shut doors as we sometimes might. They fling them open, one after another after another. What about THIS? Or THIS? Or THIS? Or how about THAT too?

So, I’m on a hunt, so to speak, for patriarchs in the animal kingdom of East Africa. If you’re an eight year old—or just think like one—feel free to toss me an idea. Maybe Mike and I will have a quartet of books after all!

Toni Buzzeo is a former school librarian, so she comes by her love of books and kids quite naturally. In fact, it was while teaching at Longfellow School in Portland, Maine that she began to write for children, right after her first trip to Kenya in 1995. She has published nineteen picture books thus far, with two more under contract, including My Grandma Always Remembers. Toni’s book One Cool Friend, illustrated by the distinguished illustrator David Small, won a 2013 Caldecott Honor. Many of her other books have garnered award attention as well. Toni and her husband live in Buxton, Maine from May through December, where she writes in a lovely writing cottage above the brook. But just after the winter holidays each year, she high-tails it down to sunny Sarasota, Florida where she can listen to the birds singing outside her office window during the day and zip over to walk the beach at sunset.

 

Find Toni online at www.tonibuzzeo.com and watch the video of that sweet writing cottage being built!

A Call for Pictures – Summer Reading Edition

If you’re anything like me, right around the time I start realizing that we have less than a month of school left and I start to feel overwhelmed by my to-do list, I start to fantasize about a different list – my summer to-be-read list.

After all, that list (or, if you live dangerously, physical stack) of books you have going from a school year’s worth of #titletalks and book reviews is just begging for some attention and summer is the perfect opportunity to curl up with a cool drink and just read. (Doesn’t that sound wonderful?)

Thanks to Donalyn’s #bookaday invitation yesterday, you’re probably already thinking about your summer TBR list, so we’re asking you to share a photo of you with your summer bookstack with us. We’ll use the photos we get to make a video montage once the dust settles from the end of the school year.

Please send your photos to nerdybookclubblog@gmail.com no later than 11:59 pm on June 1, 2013.

Cindy Minnich is lucky enough to live the charmed life of a high school English teacher, mom to one future librarian, and wife to a fellow reader. She can be found on Twitter as @cbethm, on web at http://www.chartingbythestars.com, and in real life on her princess chair enjoying a book and a cup of coffee.

The Fifth Annual #Bookaday Challenge

Every year, I prepare for summer with the same comforting rituals. I buy a pack of Goody black hair elastics and new flip flops. I write end-of-year notes to my students. I recheck my summer travel plans. And I publicly announce my intention to read a book for every day of summer break.

This ambitious challenge began as an attempt to catch up on the landslide of books piled around my house and reconnect with my reading life. Over the years, the Book-a-Day challenge has evolved into a social event connecting readers who share book recommendations and celebrate reading. Nerdy Book Club fun fact, I “met” Colby Sharp for the first time when he joined the Book-a-Day Challenge on Twitter in 2011. Mini Book-a-Day events pop up during spring and winter breaks, and literacy gurus like Teri Lesesne post book titles under the #bookaday hashtag all year.

That book on your nightstand for the past two months? That biography someone gave you last Christmas? That cascading pile of journals on your office floor? Isn’t it time? Won’t you join me in the Fifth Annual Book-a-Day Challenge?

Imagine languid days reading an entire book in one sitting. Picture yourself staying up past midnight to finish one more chapter. Summer (reading) is coming.

The rules (more guidelines, really) are simple:

Read one book per day for each day of summer vacation. This is an average, so if you read three books in one day (I know you’ve done this!) and none the next two, it still counts.

You set your own start date and end date.

Any book qualifies including picture books, nonfiction, professional books, audio books, poetry anthologies, or fiction—children’s, youth, or adult titles.

Keep a list of the books you read and share them often via a social networking site like goodreads or Twitter (post using the #bookaday hashtag), a blog, or Facebook page. You do not have to post reviews, but you can if you wish. Titles will do.

Let me admit a secret. I probably won’t make my Book-a-Day Challenge this year without reading more than a few picture books and graphic novels to hedge my bets. You probably won’t either. Book-a-Day is not a competition. It’s an opportunity to enjoy marvelous reading experiences and rededicate ourselves to daily reading. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what we read, or how much, or when. What matters is that we have fun and indulge in our favorite leisure activity—reading a lot of books!

I like a little bit of everything, but here are ten books I plan to read:

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt

Standard Hero Behavior by John David Anderson

Doll Bones by Holly Black

Dreams and Shadows by C. Thomas Cargill

Unnatural Creatures by Neil Gaiman

Red River Stallion by Troon Harrison

Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler

The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan

Golden by Jessi Kirby

Winger by Andrew Smith

 

I hope you have an adventurous summer both inside and outside the pages. Please share the books you plan to read this summer and help our reading lists grow.

 

Donalyn Miller is a fourth grade teacher at Peterson Elementary in Fort Worth, TX. She is the author of The Book Whisperer and the upcoming Reading in the Wild. Donalyn co-hosts the monthly Twitter chat, #titletalk (with Nerdy co-founder, Colby Sharp), and facilitates the Twitter reading initiative, #bookaday.

Top Ten YA Road Trip Novels by Ben Kuhlman

When the weather starts to warm up, the trees put their leaves back on, and the sun decides to stay up for more than just a few hours, many of us start to think about travel.  There are just more places to go in the summer, more time to go there, and more desire to get out and look around. 

 

In short, the summer is a great time for a road trip.

 

I’ve participated in a few of these, from family trips to Grandma’s house in Columbus, Ohio, with my five siblings packed (or maybe smashed) into a station wagon for three hours, to a 14-hour haul across seven states to our college Senior Trip in Myrtle Beach, to driving across the plains from Chicago to Denver (Nebraska is HUGE!).  Road tripping (sorry, bear with me) is a staple of American life.  So, it follows that it might be a staple of American YA fiction.  We remember these trips because they so often aren’t merely empty time spent behind the wheel.  Things happen on road trips – bizarre things, scary things, sad things, beautiful things.  The trip itself is often part of the event, and part of the story we tell – and hear.  So, here’s my best attempt at tipping my hat (metaphorically, of course) to some of my favorite YA Road Trips, and some that you might want to check out.

 

In reverse order of awesomeness:

10.  13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

I tried several “girly” road trip books, and many of them were disappointing for one reason or another.  This book didn’t feel formulaic or Disney-esque.  It was just a good story with some quirks, some fantastic Old World settings (which were not all uniformly positive or interesting, a nice way of making it feel more real), and two strong, distinct voices (the primary narrator, Ginny, and her crazy aunt who orchestrates this continental scavenger hunt).  Perhaps some parts of this book are predictable – the introduction of the love interest, Keith, feels inevitable when it finally happens – but there are several false romances, and Johnson plays around with some of the expectations we have of her. The best feature of this book is how messy everything is.  There are lots of loose ends, or problems that crop up during the trip.  There are disappointments that are unresolved.  The ending is disappointing but completely believable.  And the characters are distinct and interesting.  It’s a fun read, despite the sad premise, because the adventures feel real, and Ginny’s struggles are honest.

 

  

9.  Savvy by Ingrid Law

This is probably the “cutest” book on the list, and the only one involving the use of fantastical “powers.”  Perhaps this isn’t a pure road trip book, and it’s probably a stretch to call this book YA.  But it has a solid, road-trippy premise and much of the material common to the type (new faces, growth or change played out through travel).  So I’m including it.  I like the quirky voice of this book a lot, and that goes a long way toward getting a sophisticated reader like myself (ha!) beyond the young characters and the mostly-PG rating.  Mibs is a pleasant mix of naughty and nice, and her “savvy” is unusual – something that makes her uses of it unpredictable and interesting.  And I like poor Lester – he’s such a hard-luck case that his turnaround (though predictable) is a lot of fun to watch.  Throw in some mean bad guys, and it’s a fun story about a really crazy family on the run.

 

 

 8.  Chaos Walking/Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Okay, I’m cheating by putting this on a “road trip” list.  But it’s a fantastic sci-fi series with a kind of Mark Twain/Huck Finn feel.  With aliens.  It has some rough parts, with some violence and some seriously dark themes.  But most of the story is the story of a journey.  And the main characters are discovering things and growing as they go.  There is also a mystery (and some serious problems) to solve.  It’s a great sci-fi road trip story, and Ness does a great job creating an unusual context with interesting, believable characters.  We sci-fi nerds talk a lot about world-building, and this world is built strangely but well.  I love the talking dog, Manchee, and I’m afraid of the Mayor and the preacher.  Most fitting of all for this novel on this particular list, Todd is forced to change his entire way of thinking about the world.  Perhaps all of the women in his town didn’t really die from the germ that makes men able to hear each other’s thoughts.  (So what did happen to all the women?  Hmmm. . . .) It’s a really original story, and a great example of a kind of road trip.

 

  

7.  The Disenchantments by Nina Lacour

I really enjoyed this book, and I’m putting it on this list, though I’m worried that many of you reading this will try to read it and fail.  I don’t know if this is an idiosyncratic, subjective choice, but I think it’s worth sharing because it’s such a nice imagining of a YA road trip.  Basically, the main character (Colby) agrees to help drive his best friend (Bev) and the rest of her band around the Northwest on their last summer “tour” before the band moves on to college.  Of course, Colby has a romantic interest in his “best friend,” and has for a long time.  Of course, something goes wrong.  Bev announces that she will not be accompanying Colby on the tour of Europe that they have been planning together for years.  Instead, she will be moving on to college without him.  Colby, crushed, betrayed, and with no plans for his future without the trip to Europe and the girl of his dreams, is forced to follow through with the band’s “tour,” despite this horrible disappointment.  He gets petty, mean, and the rest of the band tries to cope.  Lacour resists the temptation to make this story about musical genius – the band is terrible – and the choice is refreshing and fitting.  The ending is a little uncertain but satisfying.  But it’s a solid, interesting story with some unpredictable twists and turns that make this a fun take on road tripping.  (It helps that it’s a rock band on tour through an interesting part of the country.)

6.  Rules of the Road by Joan Bauer

I’ve read other books by Joan Bauer and enjoyed them, so I don’t know why it took me so long to get to this one.  But I sat down and read this book in one sitting, and it was great.  A fantastic Road Trip novel if there ever was one.  Jenna, the main character, is talked into driving her (female) employer from Chicago to Dallas, with stops at her shoe stores along the way.  Of course, she becomes close with this woman, and the plot thickens nicely.  Bauer is a master of the carefully-crafted simple sentence, and she manages to put together a positive, hopeful story that doesn’t feel sappy or cloying.  This book is adorable in places, suspenseful and action-packed in places, and wrenching in places.  Jenna struggles with her father’s alcoholism, and Bauer doesn’t dismiss or sugarcoat the suffering this entails.  But it can be beaten.  That’s the lesson here – despite the shoe-store main plot, the real story is about dealing with alcoholism, and Bauer tells that story clearly and honestly.

 

 

5.  Jerk, California by Jonathan Friesen

Adam Sandler made Tourette’s Syndrome into a joke, and I’m not sure that was a good thing.  In this book, the main character, who has Tourette’s, starts a journey that helps him change from the “freak” who was teased and horribly bullied in high school to a mature, well-adjusted adult with a manageable disability.  In the first half, he leaves his abusive step-father behind and moves into the “Old Coot’s” house to work in his landscaping business.  In the second, he takes a Road Trip to Jerk, California, because his friend wanted him to, and because a beautiful young woman wants to go with him.  It’s a good story, with some real conflict and internal struggle.  The self-loathing and its gradual defeat really drives the novel, and Sam/Jack (he changes his name halfway through) fights constantly with himself, easily backsliding into despair, and losing control of himself at inopportune times.  It’s a thoughtful, sensitive, and vivid portrait of a young man struggling to like himself when so few other people want to.

 

4.  Trouble by Gary D. Schmidt

This book is solid all the way around, with several interesting characters, an engaging setting and scenario, well-crafted plot twists, and a masterful sense of tone.  This is a great road trip story because of the breadth of learning that the main character, Henry, goes through as he gets to know and understand Chay, the Cambodian refugee who is so badly mistreated by Henry’s prosperous New England community (and his older brother, Franklin, a leader in the abuse).  This book is just so full of tension – in a good way – that it’s incredibly engaging and suspenseful.  Poor Henry is tied up in knots, and his mixed feelings about his brother take a long time to unravel.  Plus, the whole Mount Katahdin thing (which is also the end of the Appalachian Trail) is a nice goal for a Road Trip book.

 

 

3.  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

I read this while I was still in high school, and I didn’t die, so I’m going to call this YA.  It’s a fantastic example of the road trip as philosophical and spiritual exploration, and it’s deep and probing.  It’s a hard book, and I’m not sure that it’s a great book for most YA readers.  I had a philosophy professor say to me once, “you should read this book once every four years.”  I’ve tried to stick to that, and it’s been a different book for me every time.  It’s about a father and son driving across the United States on a motorcycle, while telling the story of a philosopher/writing teacher, and making connections to motorcycles and taking care of machines.  I’ve identified with the son, the father, and with the teacher at various points in my life, and I’ve always found time with this book to be well-spent.  It’s a worthwhile challenge, in my humble opinion.

 

 

2.  Whirligig by Paul Fleischman

This is a great book by an original YA author (also the author of Seedfolks, a similar kind of multi-voiced work of fiction about interconnectedness and community).  It’s about a kid named Brent Bishop who makes a huge mistake that causes the death of an innocent young woman.  He spends months traveling around the country building whirligigs – decorative, wind-powered weather-vane things – to atone for his terrible decision.  Through a series of interlaced chapters, between Brent’s experiences traveling all over and building these things, and the chance encounters people have with his work and how it changes them, we find out about how one person’s actions can affect another, through good or ill.  All of the chapters connect with Brent and his whirligigs.  While some of the connections are serious and life-changing, and some are not, it is clear that Brent is changed as a result of the experience.  It’s a strange reading experience, and the connections are not always immediate or close to each other.  But they’re there.  It gives Brent’s penance a weight or a kind of echo that it wouldn’t otherwise have.  It’s short, and dense, and challenging, and the collective weight of so many interlocking stories is imposing, perhaps even inspiring.

 

1.  Abundance of Katherines/Paper Towns by John Green

I’m not ashamed to be a John Green fanboy.  Both of these novels are fantastic in so many ways.  Green has, in my opinion, become one of the best YA writers working today.  Perhaps one of the best of any kind.  Margo Roth Spiegelman fascinates me, not only because of her image at her school, but also because of the intricacy of her planning and the . . . ending.  Her revenge before her disappearance in the beginning is breathtaking.  Paper Towns is a kind of missing-persons mystery, and it culminates in a hilarious-yet-scary road trip that made me laugh, made me scared, and resolved the mystery in a satisfyingly ambiguous way (is that possible?).  It’s true that the road trip comes late in this novel, but that doesn’t ruin its awesomeness. If that really is a problem, I added An Abundance of Katherines to this spot.  It’s an earlier novel by the same author, almost as awesome as Paper Towns, and almost wholly about a road trip and extended stay.  Heck, read both.  They’re both worth it.  If you don’t know John Green, he’s a master craftsman of teenage character and dialogue.  Check him out.

 

This has been a fun task – hope you enjoyed reading the list, or maybe some of the books!  I’m thinking about writing a post about writing this post . . . and about what didn’t make this list.  Thanks for reading!

 

Mr. Kuhlman is a 7th grade Reading and Writing teacher in the Chicago area who loves to read, loves to talk about reading, and who wishes he could read in his sleep. He’s very proud to officially join the ranks of the Nerdy Book Club after years in training. He’s also a reading specialist, a member of the National Writing Project, a Reading Specialist, and a Skylanders fiend.

Expanding Their Worlds Through Books by Tara Smith

I teach in an affluent suburb of New Jersey, and my students are fortunate enough to have parents who attend to their needs and wants in equal measure. As privileged as they are, my kids have an awareness that they are lucky, and that there are children nearby and all over the world who struggle daily for just  the barest essentials to survive.  My sixth graders are eager t o learn about the great wide world around them, and they are at a stage in their development where they are able to consider  abstract  issues of social justice, war and the struggle for peace,  and social  activism.  Reading wonderful books that transport them into other lands and other lives becomes all the more important at this stage, I think, because our kids seem to be so receptive and eager to learn about their world.

I try to find books like these for my sixth graders, and sometimes (oh, happy day!) they find such  books for me.  That was the case with The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis.  Sarah, who had found this book prominently displayed at the town library and had checked it out herself, was completely enthralled with the story.  Her enthusiasm was contagious, and soon many students were asking first for The Breadwinner, and the other books in the series.   I purchased as many copies as I could get my hands on, and each made their way from student to the next, with many spirited conversations along the way.

 

The Breadwinner and its sequel Parvana’s Journey are set in war ravaged Afghanistan, where the Taliban have taken control of some areas and American soldiers battle against them on land and from the sky. Parvana’s family has lost everything, but they still have each other and together they manage to scrape by. Then Parvana’s father is taken away by the Taliban, and she must pretend to be a boy so that can continue to make a living for her family doing her father’s job as a letter writer and reader. But nothing stays constant in Afghanistan – and the first two books follow Parvana’s journey from one catastrophe to the next: she is separated from her family, rescues abandoned children, and moves from one area of devastation to another in search of her mother and sisters.  The sights she sees and the situations she experiences are vividly described – and Parvana herself emerges as a strong young lady, who is both believable as well as admirable.  Ellis is able to describe suffering with a type of unsentimental clarity that really appeals to my sixth graders – the details are just enough to allow for inferences and to provoke thinking.

Mud City is the story of Parvana’s best friend Shauzia, who fled Afghanistan for a better life elsewhere, only to find herself on her own and struggling to survive on the streets of Peshawar, Pakistan. Enduring harrowing experiences of her own, Shauzia is rescued by the Red Crescent…and then makes the brave decision to return with this humanitarian group to the country of her birth, and do what she can to help the thousands in need just across the border.

My Name is Parvana picks up the narrative some time later. Parvana has been captured by American soldiers who suspect her of being a terrorist. Parvana refuses to speak; she remembers the events of the past four years when she was reunited with what was left of her family and helped them to open a school. The Taliban threaten death and destruction unless the school closes down – and they carry through with their promise. But the American soldiers believe that Parvana was somehow connected to this event, and so Parvana sits alone in jail, until a dramatic bombing of the base forces Parvana to risk her life once again.  At the end of this book, Parvana faces a choice – to leave Afghanistan for safety  in France, or to stay and help those who don’t have such an option. When she makes the decision to stay, she says to her friend Shauzia, half in jest:

“So…more of the same then. More hunger, more fear and more work.”

And her friend responds, truthfully:

“This is Afghanistan… What do you want – a happy ending?”

For the children of Afghanistan, happy endings are few and far between.

It’s been important, I know, for my students to read about Parvana, Shauzia and the other wonderful Afghanistani  characters that people Ellis’ books.   Afghanistan seems so far away, and when my kids see stories about this country and the ongoing war that seems to continue without any end in sight, they often pause to focus only on our brave soldiers and the difficulties and sacrifices they make every day in the name of our country.  When they think of the Afghani people, they often think about the Taliban, or the Afghan soldiers.  The children of Afghanistan, the families whose lives have been torn apart over these years, and the landscape of the country itself have remained on the edges of their consciousness.

Ellis’ books opened up this world for my students.  In the conversations that I overheard, and in our one on one  reading conferences, this new knowledge was exciting to share and discuss. Students used Google maps to examine the Afghan  terrain more closely, they investigated timelines to understand the many phases of the war   in Afghanistan, and they began looking for connections between the themes explored in this series with themes in other historical fiction books they had read.    They began to explore humanitarian organizations that are committed to assisting the Afghan people and their children in particular.  They wanted to know how they could help in the building of schools, and in the purchasing of school supplies.  The war in Afghanistan no longer seemed so far away and so abstract.  When we learned that  most of the royalties for Deborah Ellis’  bestselling books go to the organization “Canadian Women for Women of Afghanistan”, we checked out their website  and learned  about ways in which readers can become active in this humanitarian cause.  They went beyond just reading about happenings far away to becoming engaged in matters that affect the world they live in.  It was just an amazing journey in the power of reading for our class.

We are now on a book hunt for other authors like Deborah Ellis, and other series like The Breadwinner.  Ellis herself has written the following books which are now on order for our classroom:

 

Set in Bolivia, these books follow the story  of Diego who is trying to fend for himself  among the dangers of the  coca leaf trade  when his father is imprisoned.

 

This is the story of twelve year old Valli, and her life picking coal in the coal town of Jharia, India.

 

This is the story of 15-year-old Abdul has made the  long, dangerous journey from his war-torn home in Baghdad to a migrant community in Calais, France which seems just as fraught and terrifying.

 

This novel is set in Malawi, Africa and is the story of Binti  and her siblings.  Orphaned by AIDs, they must find a way to be reunited and build their lives together again.

 

We are really looking forward to the arrival of these books…and the new reading adventures they will inspire.

 

 Tara Smith teaches sixth grade in Glen Rock, New Jersey.  When she is not teaching, she can most often be found reading…and when she is not reading she is most likely on the hunt for new books to read.  Tara blogs about her experiences teaching Reading Workshop, Writing Workshop and Social Studies at  A Teaching Life.