STUPID FAST- GEOFF HERBACH

Despite my best efforts, I don't find many books that appeal to my school-hating, sports-loving, techno-god, artistic, rap-writing sons. They just don't find many books they even want to try. I think a lot of this is because the high school guys in books just aren't kids that my boys know or want to know.

I spent a good chunk of my afternoon reading STUPID FAST, a new YA novel by Geoff Herbach, an author that I really believe knows boys like mine. In a recent blog post, "So That Post- Pubescent Boys Shall Read" Herbach writes of his experiences as an adolescent:

"In some ways, I was a pretty mainstream kid: I played sports. I played in the orchestra (bad cellist). I joined clubs, etc. I looked good on paper. But, at the same time, I didn’t feel normal. I was paranoid. My feelings were bruised a lot. I had the sense that I didn’t understand the world. I showered twice a day, but always felt dirty. I always felt on the outside of something. Unpleasant. These weren’t terrible times, at all, but I often felt terrible. I could’ve used a good book…

Oh! I was so alone… Um, wrong, dork.

Having taught 18 and 19-year-olds for the last six years, I’ve come to the understanding that this generalized sense of somehow being unfit is the most generalizable aspect of teendom. It does not matter what demographic the kid comes from. What gender. What clique or sub-group of that clique. When my students write about high school, most write about themselves as feeling like dorks, being dorks, standing on the outside looking in.

These days, there are lots of titles geared for teen girls that speak to this outsiderness. There are not many for boys. Why?"

Felton Reinstein, the main character in STUPID FAST is a fifteen-year-old geek, a nerd, a dork. Felton's life is further complicated by a very difficult family life. His professor father committed suicide when Felton was five. Felton lives with his mom, who insists on being called Jerri, and a younger brother, Andrew, a gifted pianist.

The year he turns 15, Felton's luck begins to change. He begins to grow. And grow. And grow. In a PE fitness test, he discovers he has also become much faster, in fact, he has become one of the fastest kids in the school. The track coaches beg him to come out for their team. The football coaches also can't wait to get hold of this rising star. Felton makes new friends and finds himself fitting in with a crowd he had never imagined joining. He also falls in love with Aleah, a concert pianist, whose father is teaching a summer course at the local university.

While things with his peers are on the rise, however, things at home are falling apart. Felton's mother is sinking deeper and deeper into the throes of depression/mental illness. Felton escapes to the weight room or practice field, but his little brother has nowhere to go. And things just keep getting worse, and worse, and worse…

I loved this book. Loved Felton, whose insecurities mirror those of the teenage boys I know. Loved that STUPID FAST was about football and the power of sports as an outlet in kids' lives. Loved Felton's less than perfect family. Loved the format of the book- short chapters with great titles.

This one is going on my kitchen table in about the next five minutes. One of my guys just might pick it up!

POETRY FRIDAY- LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

It's the last day of school. My job was eliminated because of budget cuts, so I'm packing my boxes and heading out to a new assignment. But for the next month or so, I'm mostly looking forward to reading, and playing with my camera, and seeing friends, and reconnecting, I hope, with my sons…

Marcus Millsap: School Day Afternoon

by Dave Etter

I climb the steps of the yellow school bus

move to a seat in the back, and we're off

bouncing along the bumpy blacktop.

What am I going to do when I get home?

I'm going to make myself a sugar sandwich

and go outside and look at the birds

and the gigantic blue silo

they put up across the road at Motts'.

Read the rest of the poem at Poetry 180.

I subscribe to YOUR DAILY POEM. I absolutely love the poems that come to my mailbox every morning, tons of really great, short, modern work by poets that are new to me. Today's is by Suzanne Comer Bell, a preschool teacher, and it's a perfect end of school poem. Check it out here.

Heidi Mordhorst is hosting Poetry Friday at my juicy little universe.

HOW LAMAR'S BAD PRANK WON A BUBBA-SIZED TROPHY by Crystal Allen

We are two days from the end of the school year. I should be doing paperwork because I'm buried. Or unloading boxes from the car because I'm moving schools and the back of my car is full of books. Or even doing dishes, because my dishwasher is broken for the third time in six weeks. But I'm not. Instead, I've been reading, because I just found a terrific new novel by a first time author. Listen to this great lead:

Since Saturday, I've fried Sergio like catfish, mashed him like potatoes, and creamed his corn in ten straight games of bowling. And it's just the middle of the week. People call Wednesday "hump day," but for Sergio it's "kicked in the rump day." I'm his daddy now, the maddest, baddest, most spectacular bowler ever.

That's the voice of thirteen-year-old Lamar, the King of Striker Lanes Bowling Alley. Unfortunately, Lamar is also the brother of Xavier, "the Basketball Saviour," an all-star player who dreams of going to the NBA, if he can only pass his algebra class. Lamar and Xavier's mother has recently died and the two boys are being raised by their dad, who is much more impressed by his older son's basketball trophies than his younger child's bowling abilities.

Xavier is not a very nice big brother and finally Lamar has had it. He teams up with the town punk to pull off a get-even prank, which quickly backfires and alienates his brother, his long-time best friend Sergio, and his girlfriend, Makeda, not to mention the rest of his basketball loving town. Lamar has to figure out a way to get himself out of all of the trouble he has caused.

LAMAR'S BAD PRANK is an almost perfect middle school novel. It's laugh out loud funny (in some places the voice almost reminded me of WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM), but also a great story of sibling rivalry, and of a kid who makes a mistake and has to fix it.

A terrific read. I hope Crystal Allen has something else coming out really soon!

TORNADO! THE STORY BEHIND THESE TWISTING, TURNING, SPINNING AND SPIRALING STORMS- Judith Bloom Frindell and Dennis Brindell Fradin

When it comes to nonfiction, there are some publishers and series that I know I can count on. National Geographic definitely fits into that category. The books are attractive, with visuals engage even the most dubious reader. The writing is strong and interesting. The information is accurate. There are lots of terrific nonfiction tools- headings, charts, graphs, maps, glossary, etc.- that kids need to be able to use.

This week, some new books from National Geographic arrived in my mailbox. The first one on the stack, TORNADO! THE STORY BEHIND THESE TWISTING, TURNING, SPIRALLING AND SPINNING STORMS is one I will be using at school today.

TORNADOES, aimed at intermediate grade or middle school readers (but you know I will be leaving it on the kitchen table for my high school guys to find!) is divided into four sections. The first, "An Emergency Situation" tells the story of a tornado that struck Greensburg, Kansas, in May, 2007, destroying 95% of the town and killing 11 people. The second chapter, "Nature's Most Violent Storms," contains lots of terrific tools- gorgeous photographs, a diagram of how tornadoes form, a chart of the Fujita Scale (this measures the strength of tornadoes), a map of common tornado sites in the United States, a sidebar article about why tornadoes are often accompanied by hail, and a pictoral dictionary of some common tornado terms.

The third chapter, "Killer Storms," tells the stories of some of the deadliest U.S. tornadoes. The last chapter, "Twister Prediction" explains the science involved in predicting tornadoes, including a really amazing two page spread of 25 photographs of a tornado passing over a weather probe camera in South Dakota. End tools include a glossary, list of additional print and web resources, messages from a tornado survivor and a scientist, and a bibliography and index.

A terrific and very timely new resource!

Review copy provided by publisher

THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z- Kate Messner

Warning to readers: This is probably another one of those- everyone else read this book awhile, but I hadn't, and I loved it, and so I'm going to blog about it anyway (I certainly have been doing a lot of those lately!).

Gianna Zales is a middle school student. She is a talented cross country runner, and a gifted artist. She is not, however, a particularly strong student, or at least not one of those kids who always has a pencil, and finishes homework, and has the organizational skills to finish projects ahead of time.

Gianna's science teacher has assigned a giant leaf identification project. And if Gianna doesn't finish it, she won't be allowed to run in the cross country sectionals, even though she is a star runner at her school. Bianca, a nasty classmate, is eagerly waiting to take Gianna's place, and does all that she can to make that happen.

Gianna's family life is no less complicated. Gianna's beloved grandmother, Nonna, is in the beginning states of what appears to be Alzheimer's. Her mom, an ultra organized type A personality is having a hard time accepting her mother's declining health. And Gianna's father runs a funeral home, and insists upon carting Gianna around town in a hearse.

I loved this book. Kate Messner's characters were terrific. Gianna, a really good girl, a terrific friend and loving granddaughter who just doesn't quite fit into the school mold. Zig, Gianna's best friend/almost boyfriend, who is ultra organized and scientific does his best to keep Gianna on track during the leaf project, I love that Messner breaks the organized girl taking care of her boyfriend stereotype. Most of all, Nonna, who is at that very painful place where she knows she is forgetting things. Nonna reminded me of my very special, much loved grandma. I loved her sweet, sweet gentle wisdom. I loved the ending of this book, how Gianna resolves her leaf project problem in her own way.

A terrific read!

POETRY FRIDAY- Linda Pastan

A couple of years ago, I found Linda Pastan's poem, "To a Daughter Leaving Home." I loved it, and have kind of kept an eye out for her work. Here is one I stumbled across this week.

" A New Poet"

Finding a new poet

is like finding a new wildflower

out in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, and

nobody you tell believes

in its odd color or the way

its leave grow in splayed rows

down the whole length of the page…

Read the rest of the poem here.

Go here and read Marks.

And here are a couple of Pastan quotes (I think they are really excerpts) I found on the same website.

Evil is simply a grammatical error: a failure to leap the precipice between "he" and "I."'' Linda Pastan (b. 1932), U.S. poet. "Instructions to the Reader," lines 28-33 (1982).

''I made a list of things I have to remember and a list of things I want to forget, but I see they are the same list.'' Linda Pastan (b. 1932), U.S. poet. "Lists," lines 1-4 (1982). Poetry Friday is at Julio Larios' The Drift Record.

THE YEAR OF GOODBYES- DEBBIE LEVY

Debbie Levy's mother, Jutta, was approximately twelve years old when Hitler came to power. Jutta and her family, Polish Jews living in Germany, were one of the last families in their neighborhood allowed to leave Germany and immigrate to the United States. Jutta was allowed to bring her poesie album, (a book similar, but more elaborate, than American autograph albums), which had been signed by many of her friends and family members.

Levy used the poesie album as the basis for THE YEAR OF GOODBYES, which chronicles Jutta's last year in Germany, ending as the family arrives in the United States. Each chapter begins with a reproduction and translation of one page from the poesie album. This is followed by a story poem, told in Jutta's voice describing the events of that particular period. The poems are powerful and very real.

The book also includes a really detailed afterword, with more background information about the war, a timeline information about what happened to Jutta's friends and relatives, and also family photographs.

I loved this book. Think it would be a great way to help intermediate grade and middle school students begin to understand World War Two and the Holocaust. It would also be terrific in a basket of poetry novels.