Eye of the Storm by Kate Messner
Published March 13, 2012
I have loved all the books I have read written by Kate Messner, so when I saw a chance to be one of the first to read her new middle grade book, Eye of the Storm last summer, I jumped at it. She was looking for teachers and librarians to read her new book and discuss it using Google Hangouts. I immediately submitted my name and waited on baited breath to see if I would be chosen to participate. When I received a message from Kate Messner, that I was chosen and would be receiving a signed copy of the book, I literally jumped up and down. The next day at summer school I told my Blast Through Books (the best summer school class ever where we read books of our own choice and discussed them through Edmodo and small group discussions) class my great news and they all got it! See that is what it is like being a part of a community of readers. You get it, when these cool book experiences happen. Here is a picture of the envelope I received with the book inside it. Yes, I am that nerd who took a picture of it prove to my students that it came from the author. I enjoyed sharing my thoughts with other librarians and teachers about this book. It was great to ask Kate Messner questions about the book and the characters. I have Skyped with her with my students for book clubs several times with different books she has written. Did I mention she does this during her lunch, since she is till in the classroom teaching every day? What an amazing author!
This book is amazing! It is full of suspense, and the characters are so well developed that you feel like you know them. Jaden is sent to go live with her father for the summer while her mom goes on a work assignment. She hasn’t spent much time with in recent years because of his research and him starting a new family. She will also be attending a well-known science camp while she is with her dad. The setting is in the future about fifty years from now and killer tornadoes are the norm and happen often. Jaden’s father is a scientist and has built a corporation around trying to keep people safe from these killer storms. He even built a “Storm Safe” community where storms do not reach. Jaden makes fast friends with some of the kids that live in the storm safe community who are attending the camp with her. They are ach given a data slate which is a mix of an I-pad and a phone. The science and the technology are intriguing and fit well for fifty years in the future. They are given science experiments to do take through the scientific process. When this happens, Jaden and her friends uncover strange things that puzzle them and put them on a road of danger and mystery to prove their hypothesis to their science experiments. If you like to be on the edge of your seat and you like dystopian novels, you will love this book by Kate Messner! This book is by far my favorite Kate Messner book so far.
Melissa Biehl is in her third year as librarian at Bellerive Elementary in St. Louis, Missouri. She sometimes has to pinch herself that she gets paid to do a job that brings her so much joy! She loves kids and books and connecting books and people is lifetime passion of hers. She can be found traveling near and far to meet and talk with authors as she loves sharing these stories with her students. She often brings authors to her school in both person and through Skype for her students to build relationships with the authors they love. She also dreams of having Kate Messner visit her school. You can find her on Twitter @mbiehl1.
I have to admitt that Kate is a great author and teacher. My students met her last year and loved talking to her about Sugar and Ice. The conversation my girls had with Kate is one that was so great and something they remind me on Edmodo every once in awhile. I just ordered Eye of the Storm and can’t wait to read it and pass it along to my students.
I would love to hear more about your Blast Through Books program. I love your excitement! I have been fortunate to receive several books from authors and my family thinks I am crazy the way I carry on each and every time!
I loved my Blast Through Books reading summer school class. I set this class up as a reading workshop and each day for four weeks for two hours a day that is what we did. I read aloud to them, we did some technology with book recommendations, we had book clubs based on their interest and they had 40 minutes a day or more to read independently.
Wow-it sounds like a really good book, & you sound like quite a wonderful librarian, Melissa. How neat that you bring authors into students’ lives as well as their books. Thanks for telling about this new book.
I LOVED this book. I read it in my preservice education language arts course at MSU! I am so glad that this was one of our book club books to choose from. The language used in thise book is perfect. The way that Messner interjects the issues that occur today into the words of the characters is seamless!!