A BOUNTY OF THANKSGIVING READS

Did a little reading between sporting events this weekend…The three books I read range from easy to medium to pretty difficult.

LIKE PICKLE JUICE ON A COOKIE is a book I have been reading about for the past six months. Finally saw it during a trip to the library on Friday. It's an easy chapter book, told in verse, perfect for those kidlets who are just making their way into novels. Eleanor Kane, has had the same babysitter for eight years, actually since she was born. Now Bibi's father is very ill, however, and she must move to Florida to care for him. Eleanor misses Bibi horribly, but comes to love her new sitter, the mancala playing Natalie. A great little book about saying goodbye, about grieving, and about starting over again…

TROUBLEMAKER is Andrew Clements' newest, or maybe just one of his newest. Clayton is a sixth grade troublemaker, with a two inch thick behavior file to prove it. When the book opens, he is in art class, drawing a caricature of his principal, Mr. Kelling, disguised as a donkey (WARNING: the word in used the book is jack***, which some people may find offensive). He can't wait to show the picture to Mitch, his older brother and role model, newly released froma 30-day prison stay. Mitch, however, is not as excited about the picture as Clay thought he would be. It seems that Mitchell has learned some invaluable lessons in prison, and wants his brother to change. That weekend, he takes Clayton to the mall to reshape his image, then it's up to Clay to prove he really has changed. Clayton soon discovers, however, that change is hard and getting people believe you have changed is harder still…

BREADCRUMBS, by Anne Ursu, is the third book I read this weekend. I feel like I need to preface this review with a warning. I am not an allegory reader. I'm one of the few teachers I know who doesn't especially like MANIAC MAGEE. I think it's really well-written, I think it's got great life lessons, I know most people love it, but I just didn't much care for it. I have never read it aloud in a classroom, nor have I handed it to a kid to read. I'm also not a big fantasy lover. I only read 1.5 of the HARRY POTTER books and have only seen a couple of the movies.

Even so, I loved BREADCRUMBS. BREADCRUMBS is the story of Hazel and Jack, ten-year-olds who have been best friends for a long time. This year, however, things have changed . Hazel's mom and dad have split up. Hazel has been forced to leave a private school, where she was viewed as artsy and creative and wonderful, and attend a more traditional public school, where her dreaminess and creativity is viewed much less positively. The only good thing about the public school is that Jack also attends there, but then he stops talking to her…

It turns out that Jack has been hit in the eye by the shard of a mirror, broken by a goblin in a faraway world. Jack's heart is frozen and he becomes a very different person, eventually leaving all that he loves, including Hazel and his family, to follow the Snow Queen into the frozen woods. Hazel, being his best friend, decides she must go after him. On the way, she encounters any number of different friends and enemies, including some who appear to belong in one category, but then end up belonging in the other.

This novel, a takeoff on Han's Christian Anderson's "The Snow Queen" is way, way, way too complicated to try to explain. In fact, I'm not even sure that I'm ready to talk about it, but I'm hoping that some other people will read it and be ready to talk about it. A story of grieving and friendship and oh so much more…

NO PASSENGERS BEYOND THIS POINT- Gennifer Choldenko

On Thursday at our state reading convention, I heard Jeff Wilhelm talk about the texts kids, especially middle and high school kids choose. Wilhelm talked a lot about video games and how boys use those as kind of heroic journeys. I have been thinking about his talk all weekend, both in terms of my own sons (Son #2 is a video game addict) and also in terms of a book I've just finished.

NO PASSENGERS BEYOND THIS POINT, by Gennifer Choldenko, is an epic/heroic journey/fantasy tale. At the beginning of the book, sibling trio India, Finn, and Mouse Tompkins find out that their mother has lost their house to foreclosure, so their family will be moving to Colorado, to live with an uncle until the mom can get back on her feet. The mom, however, is a teacher, and has to finish the school year, so the kids will be traveling by themselves, with their mom joining them later.

At this point, the book takes a surprising turn. The plane "lands" but when India, Finn and Mouse disembark, they are not in Denver, where they were planning to land. Instead, they are in a deserted and unfamiliar airport. They are met by Chuck, a strange chauffeur who drives a shocking pink taxi covered with white feathers. Chuck explains that the children are not in Fort Baker, a small city outside of Denver, but have instead landed in a town called Falling Bird. At first, it seems like Falling Bird might be a perfect place to live. Each of the kids starts out in a house designed especially for that person- India's has all kinds of teenager delights, Finn's highlights his love of basketball, and Mouse gets to indulge in her love of science. Soon, however, the children discover that these delights are only temporary, and they set out on a problem-filled heroic journey to get back to their mom and to their new life in Fort Baker.

To me, this book feels a little like the action movies I sometimes see with my sons. There is a lot going on, lots of action, lots of adventure. There are symbols that keep appearing and reappearing- puzzle pieces, a white cat, and magical watches. I kept waiting for something to happen with those symbols, but for the most part they were just important for a few chapters, then faded away. Sometimes that bothered me a little, but I don't think it would bother kids, especially not those who are fast moving and just like a good plot. I'll be interested to see what my fifth and sixth grade readers think of this book.

THE BIRTHDAY BALL- LOIS LOWRY

Hmmm. How to describe my latest read? OK, well, imagine a fairy tale with a strong and independent princess, a touch of Roald Dahl (including the bodily functions humor that causes 8-10 year olds to roll on the floor in glee), throw in a little bit of mistaken identity, and a little word play, and you pretty much have Lois Lowry's THE BIRTHDAY BALL.

THE CAST:

• Princess Patricia Priscilla- a bored adolescent princess, five days from her 16th birthday, where she will choose a husband
• King Lepodoptera- the Princess' butterfly-studying, naturalist father
• Queen Romelda Rebozo- the Princess' somewhat deaf mother
  
• Suitor #1: Duke Desmond of Dyspesia- so ugly a team of Royal Splashers do synchronized swimming exercises in lakes so the Prince will not see his own reflection
  
• Suitor #2- Prince Percival of Pustula- a black-clad, black-hearted prince who spends his days admiring himself in the mirror. The prince's valet, Hal, spends his days brushing dandruff off the prince's shoulders
• Suitor(s) #3 and #4- The Conjoint Counts, Colin and Cuthbert, who have never agreed on anything, except the fact that they want to marry Princess Patricia Priscilla

THE STORY:
The Princess, accompanied by her cat, Delicious (the one liners associated with the cat could provide weeks of word study- It's nutritious, Delicious! Stop looking avaricious, Delicious! No need to be surreptitious, Delicious!) decides to liven up her life by attending school with the peasants in the village, where she meets Rafe, the schoolmaster. The Princess invites the entire village to her birthday ball at the castle, where she declares her love for her true prince and they begin a not-so-typical happily ever after…

This book works for me on lots of levels- great story, terrific humor, well-crafted. I love Princess Patricia Priscilla's independence and also her compassion. I love the vocabulary and the word play-- this is the kind of book that makes kids fall in love with language. The pen and ink illustrations by Jules Feiffer (his best known work is probably THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH) are perfect for the story.

I wonder if I can squeeze this read aloud in somewhere in the the last ten days of school!

FALLING IN

Isabelle Bean is one of those kids that many of us who are teachers know well. She's smart, not the "get straight A's in school" kind of smart, more the kind of living in her own world, super creative, going to be an artist or inventor or entrepreneur as an adult kind of smart. She's quirky, but not the kind of quirky that kids, or even most adults, like or appreciate. Instead she is the kind of smart and quirky that causes her to be isolated and lonely. "By the time Isabelle reached third grade, she had given up on friendship. She'd grown tired of sending birthday party invitations to children who never RSVP'd, much less appeared at her door on the given date with brightly wrapped packages in their hands. She'd given up making persimmon cookies to bring to school, where other children called them Cootie Cookies and refused to eat them. She'd given up handing out Valentines stenciled with pictures of beating, winged hearts. She'd even given up smiling at girls who seemed shy and in need of a friend themselves."

Isabelle's situation becomes even sadder when we learn about her family- she lives alone with her mother, who was raised in an orphanage, and doesn't quite know how to parent her very different daughter. One day, Isabelle is sent to the office for not paying attention in class. She opens a door, and finds herself falling into a whole different world. She soon meets Hen, who is as pragmatic as Isabelle is spacy, and Grete, who after being declared a witch by her community, has been hiding out in the forest for more than fifty years.

FALLING IN is a fantasy, which is not generally my favorite genre, and even though I loved Frances O'Roark Dowell's SHOOTING THE MOON, I didn't absolutely love this book. Isabelle is a quirky character, and I can only think of two or three kids in my school, mostly our "Isabelles" who would really understand her. At the same time, I'd love to try the book as a read aloud early in the school year. I think FALLING IN could open up some really big and important conversations about how we treat and care for people in our community. And those are exactly the kind of doors I want books to open for kids…