Dead End in Norvelt

Dead End in Norvelt is a novel about an incredible two months for a kid named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation excitement are shot down when he is “grounded for life” by his feuding parents, and whose nose spews bad blood at every little shock he gets. But plenty of excitement (and shocks) are coming Jack’s way once his mom loans him out to help a feisty old neighbor with a most unusual chore—typewriting obituaries filled with stories about the people who founded his utopian town. As one obituary leads to another, Jack is launched on a strange adventure involving molten wax, Eleanor Roosevelt, twisted promises, a homemade airplane, Girl Scout cookies, a man on a trike, a dancing plague, voices from the past, Hells Angels . . . and possibly murder.
~Amazon.com

Dead End in Norvelt was selected as the 2012 Newbery winner.

The cool thing is that we were already reading it in a book partnership. These are some of our thoughts at the conclusion of our reading.

Brent:
Something that I really enjoyed about reading Dead End was how the title held multiple meanings throughout the story. I like when authors create witty titles whose meanings I can ponder throughout the story. Did you notice the same as you read?

David:
Yeah, it hit me all of a sudden about midway through that there are a lot of dead ends in the book — from the bodies that start piling up to Norvelt itself which is dying off.

Brent:
Jack’s dad views Norvelt as a personal dead end. He is a WWII vet who now feels he should have his slice of the American Pie. Being a construction worker, he is unable to get any jobs in a dying town, and travels a lot seeking employment. His main goal is to move the family to Florida where he can obtain what he thinks he is due.

David:
In fact, Jack’s dad is even trying to further the demise of Norvelt by physically moving houses to a different town. Speaking of Jack’s dad, I notice a power play between him and Jack’s mom. They have a different paradigm of how they should live their lives and what role they should play in the community.

Brent:
Gantos shows this beautifully when he’s describing their family Monopoly game. It’s a small glimpse into their individual outlooks, but it’s very telling. Dad says that Monopoly is “the American dream in a box,” as he buys all the expensive properties and pops hotels on each, waiting to bankrupt others. On the other hand, Mom verbalizes her dislike of Monopoly by saying, “It teaches you how to ruin other people’s lives without caring.” Predictably, she owns the low-rent properties.

David:
Exactly. Jack’s mom reveals her outlook when she doesn’t have enough money for a certain medical procedure, and she tries to barter with the doctor. She also grows a garden to produce food for the elderly in Norvelt. I won’t give away what happens with the garden. It’s a focal point of the struggle between the mom and dad.

Brent:
Jack is stuck in the middle, trying to please both parents at the same time–a difficult place to be. It is very interesting to see how Jack maneuvers his way between these two opposing viewpoints within his own family.

David:
One of my favorite aspects of this book is how Gantos weaves historically accurate information into the story. For example, Norvelt is really a town set up by (Elea)NOR (Rose)VELT in the early 1930s. When the mine shut down, Norvelt quickly went downhill and that’s where we find it in this story. Check it out! Towards the end of the book, Jack mentions that Marilyn Monroe died “yesterday”. Since Monroe died on August 5, 1962, that would mean that this page of the story is taking place on August 6th, 1962 . It’s so cool to know that.

Brent:
I agree. It is neat to know when and where this story takes place without having to guesstimate. I also love Mrs. Volker’s message: Those who fail to study and learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I think that is so true (being a former SS teacher myself). Jack even comments on this when trying to explain to his dad Volker’s reason for writing about history . He says, “Maybe she thinks that remembering it is a good thing. Because if you do something bad and forget about it, then you might do the same bad thing again. But if you always remember it, then chances are you won’t do the same bad thing twice.” This is why I think Volker writes her histories–from worker’s rights in old England to the bombing of Hiroshima–in the obituaries.

David:
Do you think kids will like this book?

Brent:
I think most kids can really get into this book. I found it to have less of a Historical Fiction feel to it than I thought it would at the beginning. Maybe that is because of my age and it being recent history. But what’s recent history for us seems ancient for our students.

David:
As long as the reader appreciates a good story packed with humor and quirky characters, this will be a good choice. Be prepared to bust a gut laughing at Jack’s gushing nosebleeds, Mrs. Volker’s melting hands, and deer hunting with Jack’s dad.

When David Etkin and Brent Peterson aren’t reading, Tweeting, blogging, drinking coffee, and trading recipe ideas, they teach 6th grade language arts at Sweet Home Middle School in Amherst, NY. They are Nerdy Book Club enthusiasts and blog about their reading lives at (David) Words Read & Words Written [http://mretome.wordpress.com/] and (Brent) Turning the Page [http://bjp7834.wordpress.com/]. To catch up on their previous conversations about Dead End, visit their blogs to watch and listen. You can follow them on Twitter @DavidAEtkin and @BrentJPeterson.

BOOKSHELVES

Book collectors are a breed apart from normal readers. Robertson Davies describes them as combining “the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.” For better or worse, I was born into a family of book collectors. And when I look back on the places I have lived in over the last thirty years, I do not see kitchens or hallways or bedrooms—instead I see bookshelves.

First were the living room bookcases from my infancy in New Jersey; these unvarnished giants that were the fuzzy backdrop to my earliest memories. Next came the dining room-turned-library in my Arizona home—a sort of improvised torture chamber in which I was forced to complete hours of homework. By the time we moved to Canada, my parents had taken great pains to prune their collection. I recall my father hauling black trash bags filled with books to the local used bookstore; any volumes he couldn’t sell were blithely tossed into the dumpster. I realized then and there that my parents’ shelves were no longer a safe place, and so (with the help of my mother) I began to build my own bookcases.

Any time I have moved to a new place, the storage of books has been a primary concern. When I left home for graduate school, two large bookcases were my only real furniture purchase. By this point, my collection had expanded, and I had to store books two-deep. I spent hours negotiating which volumes deserved to be in the front row and which should be banished to the back. I somehow managed to dismantle those same shelves and fit them inside my tiny Corolla when I moved to Los Angeles. Again I found myself in a new city without job or friends, and those bookshelves represented some version of home.

I married a woman whose reading habits put mine to shame. We spent most of our engagement discussing how to merge our libraries—a union I anticipated almost as much as our wedding ceremony. We registered for new bookshelves, which were quickly filled to capacity. We developed a knack for re-purposing old furniture to better hold our collection. Wardrobes, end tables, shoe racks, and cupboards were transformed into bookshelves. To this day when I enter someone’s home, I can’t help but silently study the placement and construction of their bookcases.

Let me be clear: my fixation is on the furniture itself. Furniture, I might add, that is wholly unnecessary in our current age. Book collecting is unarguably frivolous. Any quotation or reference you seek can be found online. Any story you crave can be downloaded or borrowed from a library. Moving books is prohibitively expensive. Storing them wastes precious square-footage. And yet a room without bookshelves—my bookshelves—will never feel like home.

This fixation, I think, speaks to the broader idea of what makes a “home.” Even the most sensible among us line our living spaces with totems and fetish objects. Who needs framed photographs on the mantle? Who needs tchotchkes in the china cabinet? (Frankly, who needs a china cabinet?) We keep these things near because they create continuity between the different places we have lived—objects from our different worlds come together to tell the story of who we are.

When describing the Garden of Eden, John Milton observes that it contains “Nature’s whole wealth” in a “narrow room.” That is to say, paradise does not force one to choose between geographies. In our world, however, we are very much forced to choose. To love the sunny coast is to shun the snowy mountain. To pursue a new career in the city is to abandon one’s roots in the country. Carrying objects between these places helps ease the pain of separation; the trinkets become surrogates for the people and places we have lost.

Presently, my wife and I are in the midst of another relocation—moving back to Pittsburgh in anticipation of a first child. We have bought our first house, which we will no doubt one day leave behind. The stairs creak, the windows sag, and the floors have a decided slant. We should be spending money to repair the cracked chimney and century-old wiring.

Instead, we are building bookshelves.

Jonathan Auxier

@jonathanauxier

Jonathan is the author of Peter Nimble & His Fantastic Eyes. He lives in Pittsburgh with is lovely wife and their lovely pet umbrella. You can visit him at www.TheScop.com, where he writes about children’s literature old and new.

My Reading Testimony

I love the Nerdy Book Club. I can distinctly remember when Cindy, Colby, and Donalyn were talking about it back in December. I remember there was a Thursday reveal, and I remember how excited I was about this blog, this group, and the discussions we would have! I have not been disappointed. But I have a confession to make:

I have not always been a member of the Nerdy Book Club.

At least, not in my opinion. I was baptized into the NBC, brought up with its traditions of reading, but then, in my teenage years, I entered into a prolonged Reading Dark Night of the Soul. I left the Nerdy Book Club. I was fed up with its ways and with books (or so I thought). I was entering a life of a dedicated book atheist. I didn’t believe good books, books actually worth reading, existed.

Many of our older, wiser members would probably have looked at me and thought “oh, don’t worry about Brian; he’ll be back. He‘s still a member. He‘s just lost his way.” Well, you were right. Here I am. How did this all happen?

I grew up in a house where reading just happened. It was part of life. I actually can’t remember not being able to read. My mom tells me a story where I came back from day care (or maybe it was Kindergarten), surprised, saying “Mom — did you know there are people who don’t know how to read?!” Well, of course there were. But reading was just always there for me.

And I loved it.

There were regular trips to the library from an early age. I was always enrolled in the summer reading challenges. I remember checking out Arrow to the Sun practically every week. Why my parents never purchased it for me, I don’t know. Probably because we had — hello — regular trips to the library!

In elementary school, reading was a huge part of what we did. There was one moment in 2^nd grade where we had to write a thank you letter to our student teacher, who was finishing up her time with us. I didn’t have my letter done, but then it was magically finished later in the day. My teachers, not being stupid, asked me when I did it. I told them during DEAR time (though I actually did it during recess). As “punishment,” I had to sit out 2^nd recess to read. Punishment? I was given a chance to read Freckle Juice again! Also, I learned a valuable lesson about lying: it might cost you two recesses!

I was an active participant in my school’s Battle of the Books. I read Maniac Magee with a passion, and was ready to answer any questions anyone could come up with.

I loved going to our school library or our classroom library and finding books to read. It was never just one. I devoured books. I went through a speed-reading phase where I would “read” about 10 pages a minute, just glossing over the words, though I did get some of the meaning (I still need to “re-read” [actually, read for the first time] The Chronicles of Narnia). Books became something to get through as much as they were something to enjoy.

Looking back, that was the beginning of the end.

By middle school, I was checking out more CDs than books at the library, and most of the books I was getting were how-to-draw books (didn’t work) or comic books (down the same aisle as the how-to-draw books). Nothing was wrong with that, but I was definitely distancing myself from novels and from stories.

In school, things were worse. In 8^th grade, we read The Crucible in class. That’s one of the last books (or plays) I remember reading, and that one was done entirely in class. I’m not sure what the last book I finished outside of the school walls was. I do know I didn’t read The Call of the Wild that same year, though it was assigned. I was taking the title of “Nerdy Book Club member” and casting it aside. I wanted nothing to do with that.

High school was where my love of reading really went to die. My teachers would say things like “this is such a good book!” but without passion behind their words. Or maybe there was, but I wasn’t noticing; I was too busy talking with or listening to the people sitting around me. I sure wasn’t going to waste my teenage years paying attention in class, or worse, reading. Especially not the boring stuff we were asked to read.

For the good of my teachers (and my grades), though, I pretended to care. I jumped through the hoops they set up. One would think the D I earned on my test on Frankenstein would have opened my eyes. To some extent, it did: I started reading Cliffs Notes and discovered the brand-new resource of SparkNotes in addition to just reading the book until I fell asleep. That’s how I made it through high school.

Well, I didn’t just make it through. I graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I earned a 36 on the reading section of the ACT (I had perfected the art of answering questions about something I didn‘t care about and didn‘t read completely). I don’t say these things to brag. I say them because I did these things all while never. finishing. a. single. book. in high school. I would have fit right in with these guys for the first half of the video.

In case you’re wondering, that is NOT OKAY.

So how did I see the light in that Dark Night? Well, a lot of it is thanks to my 8^th grade English teacher, Mr. Dennis, and my senior year Creative Writing teacher, Mr. Hebestreit. They inspired me to go to school to become an English teacher. I wanted nothing to do with reading, but I loved writing. I wanted to share this inspiration with others.

So I went to college, and as it turns out, English degrees require a lot of literature classes! I continued to apply the formula I learned in high school: read about 50 pages, check out SparkNotes, listen to the class conversations on the rest, take good notes, and churn out a 2-3 page paper. I did that for. . .oh, I think it was Mrs. Dalloway for a British Lit class. My professor, Dr. Harding, gave me back my paper, a solid B- I think, with these words: “You wrote a lot without saying much.” Well, yeah. That’s what’s always worked. It took until college for anyone to call me out on that, though.

So what ended up bringing me back? Not surprisingly, it was when I found something I liked. It was great talking about Huck Finn and Heart of Darkness and all the other books I was supposed to read. I enjoyed talking about these books. I enjoyed their literary qualities. I didn’t enjoy reading them, though. Unsurprisingly, the first book I read in years was one I actually enjoyed: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. “Whoa. Is this what reading is supposed to be like?” I thought. Enjoyable? I tried another: England, England by Julian Barnes. That was good, too! And then, I did the unthinkable: I stepped foot in a library looking for a book to read. Not one I had to read for class. Just a book to read. I didn’t even know what I wanted. I found another Auster book. And it wasn’t as good as The New York Trilogy, but it was still good. I was enjoying reading!

That made me want to re-join the NBC, but I wasn’t there yet. I was just curious. I still needed to learn more about it. Then I was slapped in the face with an invitation I couldn’t refuse: Young Adult Literature.

In the worst summer of my life (a high school friend died, I was helping with research for my math advisor [not bad, just time-consuming], and I had about 300 miles of driving each week, living in two places), I took a YA Lit course with Dr. Susan Steffel (and fellow NBC member Sarah Andersen!). I couldn’t believe what we were doing. We were enjoying books. And these books were powerful. I had never even heard of books such as Speak and Monster, or authors such as Chris Crutcher and Lauren Myracle before this class. I needed these books. I needed something to pull me along through that summer. These books did it. They brought me back. I don’t want to get too dramatic, but who knows — they may have saved my life.

What made them matter? They were (and are) good. They’re real. And we read them not to over-analyze every last detail about them. We read them because they were stories that we needed to hear, written in wonderful ways. That’s what reading is? I HAD FORGOTTEN! It had been so long! “Oh, reading!” I wanted to cry out, “You don’t suck! You never changed! I’m sorry I left you. Please take me back!”

And it welcomed me back, with open arms. Now, a full-fledged, card-carrying member of the Nerdy Book Club (do we have cards yet?), I consider it my honor to not allow another Brian Wyzlic to make it through school like I did. Reading is awesome. We need to shout that from the rooftops.

When not writing really long blog posts, Brian Wyzlic teaches 7th and 8th grade literature, pre-algebra, and religion at a Catholic school in Ann Arbor, MI. He also fairly regularly updates his book blog, Wyz Reads. He can often be found trying new and creative ways for his students to enjoy reading more than he ever did. Sometimes, it works.

Tracking Down the Vicar: My Pre-Internet Search for Every Roald Dahl Book

 

Roald Dahl is the reason I’m a school librarian. As a kid, his books influenced my becoming a reader more than anything else. Between Jughead Double Digests, Far Side anthologies, and Groo comics, they were the only “real” books I read for a decent stretch of my life. After taking in a few of Dahl’s classics – The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I was on a mission to read them all. My visits to the bookstore and library became visits to the D section. I would head straight for the Dahl titles in hopes of finding anything I hadn’t read.

 

But being an amateur completist in the days before the internet was pretty difficult. I wanted to read every book, but the thought of asking an adult for help in my search seemed out of the question. I had to hunt them down myself.

 

Before Wikipedia there was this:

 

 

The front of the book. These lists of the author’s other titles were my lifelines. Each time I would find a new Dahl title, I’d flip to this page, run down the list and do a mental check.

 

The next few books were no sweat – Matilda, The Witches, Boy – but it wasn’t long before things got more difficult. Dirty Beasts was tough to find. As was The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me. But I was still making progress.

 

The list got shorter and shorter until there was only one left: The Vicar of Nibbleswicke.

Published in 1991, shortly after Dahl’s passing, the book was written to benefit the Dyslexia Institute of London and is one of the author’s lesser-known works.

 

And I couldn’t find it. Anywhere. Each unsuccessful attempt added to the disappointment. I felt the nagging discomfort of a mission stalled.

 

It’s a cliché to say I’d given up hope, but in the interest of being honest, that was the situation. Some time later I was visiting family in Kalamazoo, Michigan and my parents dropped me off at the bookstore off Westnedge Avenue in Portage. I made my typical first stop to the D section. And…check. Double-check. Well, there it was. The Vicar. Royal blue and much slimmer than expected.

 

 

I didn’t have a cent on me. But I did have time. I sat down right there and read it from cover to cover. Sorry keepers of Roald Dahl’s estate – I had to. I don’t think I stopped smiling the whole time. Some of the best celebrations happen in silence and all alone.

 

Later that year I found out from a clerk at my public library that Dahl had passed away. It’s a clear memory, the moment I received that news. The mission was over. After all that time and effort, I realized I never actually wanted to complete the list.

 

Now that I’m a school librarian, I hope I can move kids to track down every book from authors they love. But they’ll be able to Google it. Lucky dogs.

Travis Jonker

@100scopenotes

Ten Books for Laughing Out Loud

I absolutely adore books that make me laugh.  I am not saying that I don’t read tearjerkers.  I read many of those too, but life would not be tolerable without the funny ones.  When I have had a bad day, when things are going wrong, when I need a lift, the giggly, goofy, giddy books can turn everything around.

Here are some of the books that have made me laugh, though you should be warned, a few of these same books also had the power to make me cry.

Lane Smith sets up comedic situations and just makes me belly laugh and once in awhile there are tears, but not the sad kind.  I’m just laughing so hard.  Smith’s humor can be more than a little twisted and I love that about him.   With The Happy Hocky Family, Smith pokes a bit of fun at the old early readers, but also creates wonderful cringe worthy situations with this rather accident prone family.  I cannot read it without laughter and smiles.

 

Jack Prelutsky delivers some fantastic poetry in a Pizza the size of the Sun.  Two tried and true poems reside in this book.  Children of all ages love to hear, “I Was Walking in a Circle” particularly once they realize that they too can annoy the daylights out of someone by reciting this never-ending bit of fun.  The other favorite is “I Often Repeat Repeat Myself” which also plays with repetition.  His clever word play gets me every single time.  What’s great is that there are simply tons of great poems in this collection.

Calvin and Hobbes really just speak for themselves.  No explanation required.

Having gone through a “brace face” episode in my past, I totally related to this completely fabulous graphic novel and think that Raina Telgemeier managed to create a classic.

The stupid, stupid rat creatures just crack me up.  I love their quiche references and endless petty squabbling.   On top of that, the Bone series has the amazing ability to bring children back into the reading fold.  I have had students tell me they hate reading then after giving Bone a try, magically, they are back in love.  Thank you Jeff Smith!

Young Adult

In the middle of a virtual reality game, Giannine finds out that due to damage to the equipment, she is trapped in the game, which may cause brain damage unless she can exit the game, but the only way to exit is to win.  As in most video games, the only way to get to the end is to try over, and over, and over again.  This totally reminded me of the movie Groundhog Day.  The chapter titles are a hoot too.

The cover of The Wee Free Men did not inspire me, but I heard so many good things about Terry Pratchett that I finally gave it a try.  I am so glad I ignored the cover.  Those little blue men are flat out hilarious and I love how Tiffany Aching deals with the little scallywags.  They steal sheep, they drink waaaay too much and get into fights at every opportunity, but they love pretty strongly too.

Sherman Alexie manages to crack me up over and over in this book, but he also breaks my heart.  This is one of those that bring out both the laughter and the tears as Junior leaves his Spokane Indian Reservation to go to an all-white high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.  This is one of my all time favorites.

Another laughter and tears book was Will Grayson, Will Grayson.  I highly recommend the audio version.   The readers were completely awesome and you get to hear the songs from the Broadway style musical at the end too.   Here is the first line, When I was little, my dad used to tell me, “Will, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friends nose.”  Of course, we soon learn that his father was fallible.

When I discovered that The Princess Bride was actually a book, I had to read it immediately.  I was not disappointed.  It was love at first read.  Action, adventure, love, fight scenes, and truly everything you could want in a romance come together in this hilarious fairytale spoof.

So, when you need a spoon full of sugar, a little pep in your step, or some sunshine in your day, one of these titles may just do the trick.  I wish you laughter!

Crystal Brunelle is a Library Media Specialist who dabbles in photography & technology when she’s not busy with family, running, or reading. She is a proud member of the #nerdybookclub. You can find her on Twitter as @librarygrl2 and on her blog at http://readingtl.blogspot.com.

A Love Of Reading Starts Between Us

I teach at a tiny inner city school, located in Vancouver’s downtown eastside. The school is located in what some have described is the country’s poorest postal code. Looking at factors from census statistics like parents’ educational attainment and the number of families living below the poverty line, our school is described as vulnerable even amongst schools who also have inner city status.  So, like all teachers my mission is to teach children to read and hope that I can also make them passionate life long readers. But I know the statistics that link poverty to limited access to books and limited access to books to levels of school achievement. So I feel an urgency to create a community of readers in the classroom. And . . . I want that community to extend into children’s homes and futures.

We do a lot of fabulous things at my school to ensure that our children read and have access to fantastic books. What I am particularly passionate about this year is the buddy reading between my Grade 2/3 class and the K/1 class. (“Really? We’re the big buddies? Wow!” my students marveled when I revealed our buddy reading plan) We meet together Wednesday afternoons for forty minutes but my class spends time everyday making sure this weekly reading is as successful as possible.

My role is collecting books, modeling reading aloud, nurturing the joy and providing feedback. I have raided my home bookshelves for early picture books I read to my children. Beautiful alphabet books so letters can be chased all over the page, Thanks to Audrey Wood for the popular Alphabet Adventure.  I brought in lots of rhyme and repetition like Phoebe Gilman’s feisty Jillian Jiggs, Mem Fox’s Where is the Green Sheep? and all of the Five Little Monkeys books written by Eileen Christelow.

Recently I received some designated funds for my classroom book collections. I purchased board books for our buddy reading. My students will tell you that board books are great for little five year old hands and you don’t need to remind anybody to be gentle turning pages. Each morning I read a new book to my students with the intention of doing a few things. Of course, sparking excitement and interest in the new book is a priority. But I also model. “When you read to your little buddy you could ask them to guess which animal is on the next page,” I point out while sharing Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett. “Ask your little buddy to do the animal sounds with you,” I encourage as we read Alice Shertle’s Little Blue Truck. Now I have students coming to me with classroom books. “Look Ms. Gelson I could read this book to my little buddy and they could say the parts that repeat with me!” One girl found a Fairy Tale book told in rebus style. “This is a good one for little kids, you can ask them what the picture is.”  Thinking about our little buddies is hardly just a Wednesday afternoon event.

Now as I watch my students together with their little buddies, I am delighted to hear them trying out new things we’ve talked about. My eight year olds are encouraging choral reciting, asking little ones to guess, predict and turn the page to find out. There is reading, laughing, talking and much joy shared.

I have one student who won’t read to any adult who visits our class but he is a star in buddy reading. A little kindergarten girl who struggles a lot with managing her emotions in class and often needs breaks and extra supports makes a beeline for this boy every Wednesday afternoon. She sits engrossed in their book sharing for forty minutes. None of us can believe it. But of course we should. It is the magic of books doing their thing!

This boy in my class who shines as a buddy reader is reluctant to accept compliments. So I sneak them in casually but my feedback is specific. “Erich,” I say. “It is amazing to watch you read to Kayla. You involve her in the stories. You listen carefully to her questions. Reading with you is such a happy time for her.” Erich grins cautiously but his pride radiates. Now I am passing him books to take home and read to his younger siblings. “You are so great at this. It is such a wonderful thing to be able to share books.” He doesn’t tell me a lot about reading at home to his siblings but he brings the books back and he asks for more.

I know these Wednesday afternoons mean a lot to all of us. The little buddies and the big and the lucky teachers who witness it all. A love of reading starts between us and it spreads. Together my students and I are passing on the joy of reading. We are letting books work their magic. Books are the tickets to our future and we are loving every step of the journey!

Carrie Gelson is a Grade 2/3 teacher at Admiral Seymour Elementary in Vancouver, B.C. where she has taught for sixteen years. She loves to fill her classroom with books and make passion for reading contagious. Carrie runs a student book club with Grade 3-6 students with the goal of putting great literature in the hands of students. She is also the school coordinator of a BLG Reads to Kids program that brings staff from a large law firm into primary classrooms each week to read aloud and donate a new beautiful picture book. Read her classroom blog Seymour Division 5 (please hyperlink: http://jo-online.vsb.bc.ca/div5/) where she shares her passion for books and her students’ learning. Follow her on twitter: @CarrieGelson

Anne of Green Gables – Retro Review

I recently reread Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  I found it on my teenage daughter’s bookshelf hemmed in between some anime’ and classic literature from high school courses.  I’d forgotten that I’d given it to her with my best you’ve-got-to-read-this-book blessing.  I was in the mood for a precocious character and Anne Shirley was the perfect fit.  So I settled into my chair with a warm cup of coffee and allowed L.M. Montgomery to drift me away to Prince Edward Island where the most amazing characters live.

 

Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert are the odd couple.  Older in age, Matthew is quiet and Marilla will speak her mind and tell you you’re being irreverent.  Matthew is patient.  Marilla wants things in their place exactly as she expects them.  She is pragmatic.  That’s why she sent Matthew into town to get an orphan boy to help out with the chores around their property.  Matthew brings home an imaginative, clever, red-haired girl named Anne who chatters on and on about “divinely beautiful” sunsets.  Everything for the Cuthbert changes.

 

Also living in Avonlea is Rachel Lynde, the local busybody.  She’s the antagonist throughout much of the plot.  Marilla and Rachel interact a lot in the story.  Touché moments between the two of them are very entertaining.

 

Twirling around in a sea of romantic word choice is our young day dreamer, Anne.  Anne is eleven years old and has lived a rough orphan’s life.  “My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes”, she tells Marilla.  She hopes to find a kindred spirit in Avonlea.  She hopes to find a bosom friend.  Marilla hopes Anne will be seen and not heard.  Good luck with that, Marilla!

 

As I reread Anne of Green Gables I couldn’t help but remember back to when I first read the book.  I was 16 and had just moved from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Winamac, Indiana.  Tulsa you’ve heard of…Winamac?  Winamac is a very small town nestled in a grid of corn fields and county roads.  Nice people in Winamac, but pluck an angsty teen from her friends and plop her down in a corn maze…those are ingredients to a bitter recipe.  I was grinding a terrible grudge against my parents.  At some point during the first few months after the move I found Anne of Green Gables.  Anne Shirley made me smile.  Anne Shirley gave me permission to use my best vocabulary.  Anne Shirley gave me hope that there might be a kindred spirit for me too!  Figuratively speaking, ANNE was my kindred spirit.  But I really did begin to think that I could find a friend in that little small town.  The book brought me back.  Amazing how a book can change your life, isn’t it?

 

Anne of Green Gables is a “royally beautiful” book with characters that will be your kindred spirits.   The character, Anne, has kindred spirits in more contemporary books, as well.  She reminds me of KateDiCamillo’s character, Despereaux, and also Katherine Hannigan’s character, Ida B.  If you haven’t read Anne of Green Gables…you need to add it to your TBR stack immediately!

Amy Bright

@brightteacher

Amy Bright teaches Fifth Graders at Cibolo Green Elementary in San Antonio, Texas.  And hasn’t held a grudge against her parents since 1986.

(Be)Holden: Everything Happens Today

“People said that writers were driven by the need to create a world over which they could exert total control, but Wes knew…that in writing you often ended up making something that was very different from what you intended to make when you started out.” (195)

 

I started out intending to write a review of Jesse Browner’s Everything Happens Today. I intended to discuss the book’s debt to The Catcher in the Rye (teenage prep school protagonist Wes, anxious about sex and worried about his little sister growing up and being corrupted, struggles to overcome the sadness he sees all around him in New York City, crying literally and figuratively about the phonies while being one himself). I meant to create a clever calculus like “Holden Caulfield as interpreted by filmmakers Whit Stillman and Wes Anderson,” and then stress how I meant that as a compliment, and that Browner’s novel was thoughtful and often beautifully written. I intended to mention how some books (like my two most recent reads, The Fault in Our Stars and Everybody Sees the Ants) I talk about with all my students, while others, like Everything Happens Today, I save for a targeted few, in this case those who will appreciate a main character who decries how André in War and Peace was “choking on his own philosophical boner,” and then proceeds to fill page-length paragraphs doing the same thing. (And those who will not be offended by a book that makes liberal use of a word that has a phonetically similar opening to Holden’s “phony.”) I intended to discuss how a teenage protagonist does not a young adult novel make (despite the claims made by the publisher on the flap).

 

But I could not escape this line from early in the book: “His father had told him once, with his usual wistful bitterness, that you never again read books with the passion and intensity you bring to them as a teenager, and that was easy to believe” (27).  I should not claim to speak for the entire Nerdy Book Club, but I think Browner just gave us another operational definition of a Nerdy Book Club member: If you still read books, all kinds of books, with the passion and intensity you brought to them in your youth, then you are a Nerdy Book Club member. For this insight I am beholden to Browner and his adult young adult novel.

 

I sense Browner himself should be an honorary member, as he fills Everything Happens Today with references to Borges and the Library of Babel, Granta, Mary Poppins, Brave New World, The Great Gatsby, The Master and Margarita, and even Twilight–in addition to the aforementioned War and Peace, which plays a major role in Everything Happens Today (It is Saturday and Wes has until Monday to rewrite an English paper analyzing it, what with his English teacher feeling that Wes’ initial draft, an exegesis of the US Army’s M16 Operator’s Manual, was “an unfit subject for an honor’s class in European literature”). This is a bookish novel, and your connotation of “bookish” may well determine how much you enjoy it.

 

Lucy, one of the causes of Wes’ sexual anxiety, calls him out on his interiority. “I mean, you seem to have a lot of these preconceived notions about people, like you don’t know how real people think, like everything you’ve ever learned is from books. Bookish” (163). If, like me, you are often wistful about how much certain books meant to you, but you are never bitter, even though you may, like Wes does by the end, recognize that being “bookish” not only provides you with paths into other worlds but also a path into loneliness, then Everything Happens Today may resonate in ways both pleasurable and painful.

William Polking

Teaches reading to high school freshmen and dual-credit college composition to high school seniors. From November to February, the head coach of a high school large group speech team. From March to the beginning of June, the head coach of a girls high school soccer team. Reads like it’s his job (which thankfully it is). Found on Twitter @Polking. Has no friends so only plays Words.

Nerdy Newbery (honor)

C.S. Lewis once said, “We read to know we’re not alone.” That certainly describes one of the reasons I read as a kid. Growing up, I attended five grade schools, two junior highs and two high schools. And this was in a time when people tended to stay put. I also wore glasses and had a weird name (Kirby Miltenberger) so new schools weren’t much fun. I quickly learned that, no matter where I went, I could always find a friend between the covers of a book.

I spent so much time with my nose buried in books that one grade school teacher wrote on my report card that I needed “to spend less time with stories and more time with schoolwork.” After that, I worked harder in school, but kept right on reading. Third grade brought a program called SRA – and it ruined me as a reader. You had to start at the lowest level (was it orange?) and pass a test before you could move on to the next color level, and so on. I quickly figured out that the best stories were in the top section (turquoise?) so I rushed through all the other colors to get there. That turned me into a reader who devours, rather than savors.

What did I read outside of school? At my grandpa’s house, I’d disappear into the basement where my dad’s old comics (sadly, long gone) were stored: Batman, Green Lantern, even Little Lulu and Richie Rich. The story line that most fascinated me was the Bizarro world in Superman. The characters looked like they were drawn by Picasso’s slightly demented younger cousin. I vacillated between secretly hoping such an alternate world existed and being terrified that it did.

After trips to the public library, I’d settle in with books like Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, and National Velvet, and those fake biographies of famous people like Florence Nightingale (anyone else old enough to remember those?), and the wonderful Mushroom Planet books by Eleanor Cameron, and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. I idolized Encyclopedia Brown’s ability to solve mysteries, and dreamed of becoming a detective just like him (a dream I’ve achieved, in a way, as a writer of historical fiction). Somehow, I totally overlooked classics like Charlotte’s Web or Anne of Green Gables, though I read them later.

At home, I’d get lost in a lovely collection we had put out by Doubleday, called Junior Deluxe Editions. They had colorful bindings and inviting covers and I read and re-read them, especially the fairy tales.

As much as I loved reading as a kid, I did have this one funny quirk: I HATED writing book reports or making dioramas or talking about the books I’d read. I wanted to keep “my” stories and my feelings about them all to myself. Now, I love talking books with anyone who will listen. And even people who might not want to listen. In fact, stop reading this post right now and go read Tom Angleberger’s Horton Halfpott, Linda Urban’s Hound Dog True, or anything by Karen Cushman or Barbara O’Connor!

Bio: Kirby Larson is the author of ten books for young readers,including the 2007 Newbery Honor book, HattieBig Sky. In addition to her historical fiction (The Fences Between Us; TheFriendship Doll), Kirby has partnered with Mary Nethery to write twoaward-winning nonfiction picture books, TwoBobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship and Survival, and Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine anda Miracle. She also owns a tiara.

LEGACY

I can’t remember a time I wasn’t a member of the #nerdybookclub. I went to kindergarten already a reader. To this day I have my whole collection of Nancy Drew books and sitting on my shelf is the first book I remember receiving as a gift from my parents (although I know there were others!). I cherish the memories of walking to the library every Sunday after church to the army base library and walking out with the maximum number of books you could check out.  And my career choice, as an English teacher and literacy specialist, was guided by my membership in this group of awesome people.

I married a math guy who thought reading was reserved for statistics problems. Today he is an active, avid member of the club. So, when we became parents, it was a no-brainer that there would be books as a part of our 4 boys’ lives.

Every night in our house is reading time. The deal since our boys were younger has been if you get in bed “on time” you can stay up 15 minutes “late” to read in bed. There have been many nights where there have been tears shed as the beloved reading time was lost because the bedtime deadline was missed. I can remember my youngest just a few months ago exclaiming “But, Mom, I NEED to read!!!!”

When the boys were young, we started a Christmas tradition . Everyone receives a book and snuggly pajamas. This past Christmas the tradition continued. Colin was elated to find an autographed copy of Chris Crutcher’s Deadline. Devin loved that his autographed ARC of Eye of the Storm was written by one of Mommy’s “Twitter friends.” Nathaniel, our cross country runner, exclaimed as he opened the biography Pre, the life story of Steve Prefontaine. Ian, our future trauma surgeon, thinks we spent a fortune on the embossed, illustrated edition of Gray’s Anatomy.

As I watched my boys’ true, unadultered joy at receiving books, I realized the gift, the legacy we are leaving them.  We may not have fancy cars or vacation homes or oodles of money to leave them, but we have endowed them with lifelong membership in the #nerdybookclub. And I can think of no better company to share with them.

Teresa Bunner is mom to four awesome boys, wife of one cool husband, teacher of many amazing students. You can find her on Twitter as @RdngTeach.