Doll Bones (5), Holly Black

Zach loves two things: playing basketball and playing in an imaginary world he has created with his two best friends Poppy and Alice. Using dolls and action figures, this game has developed into an epic story, full of complex characters, plot twists, and the Queen, an antique porcelain doll Poppy's mother keeps locked in a glass case.

Zach's father, on the other hand, thinks that Zach is too old to play with dolls. After an argument with is father, Zach decides his only course of action will be to tell the girls that he no longer wants to play the game with them. Then, Poppy informs him that the Queen came to him in a dream and told her that she is the spirit of a murdered girl, whose bones were ground up and put in this doll. Now all three of them are cursed unless lay the doll, and the dead girl's remains, to rest in the girl's hometown. The final chapter of their game begins as Zach, Poppy, and Alice embark on an adventure to lay the Queen to rest.

Author Holly Black, cocreator of The Spiderwick Chronicles, weaves a magnificent story melding the real, the gothic, and the paranormal. This is a wonderful book about growing up meant for 10 to 14-year old readers. It walks the line between the fantasy and innocence of childhood and the cynicism and reality of adolescence to tell a story so specific but universal. When do we have to leave the toys of our youth behind? As an adult, and an educator, I raged against the father who wouldn't understand his sons relationship with his friends and the creativity involved in their game.

I read this book in the middle of summer and actually had to put it down at one point because I was a little creeped out. I mean, it was 1am and I should have been asleep anyway but still. I'm trying to read more middle reader books so that I have some idea about what the kid's are reading when I am teaching next year. I was inspired by Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer last year as I was working on my grad school applications, and in my dream world I would be able to craft my Language Arts curriculum based on some of her ideas. Now, being in my second quarter of grad school and actually studying Literacy and curriculum development, it seems like a dream world but also a movement that schools are working towards. Most of the schools that I have been in have developed programs around student's reading a lot of books. What was special about Miller's curriculum was that she gave the students time to talk to each other about the books that they are reading and have loved. As a voracious reader, this feels like the missing piece in many schools. Yes, obviously we need to teach children how to read, but its also important to help them find joy in reading to create lifelong readers.

Wow, that was a long soapbox rant wasn't it? And I just promised you all I'd write shorter posts. *sigh* the lies I tell myself.

Grown Up Gothic

Let's Talk Love Story

More MR fantasy

lighter MR

 

Netflix + Series of Unfortunate Events = The Best?

A Series of Unfortunate Events is coming to Netflix?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

“I can’t believe it,” Snicket said from an undisclosed location. "After years of providing top-quality entertainment on demand, Netflix is risking its reputation and its success by associating itself with my dismaying and upsetting books."

I am so happy. If this is not real I am going to go cry. The worst thing about growing up was that, unlike J.K. Rowling, who wrote the Harry Potter series to grow up with us, Lemony Snicket wrote all 13 of his books for the same age group, so I grew out of them mid-series. Don't get me wrong, I eventually read all of them, but it is not the same to read A Series of Unfortunate Events as a 5th grader than it is after you've just read The Bell Jar in 9th grade. And you know it.

Lemony Snicket is the pen name of author Daniel Handler, who begins the series like this:

Dear Reader,

I'm sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe. From the very first page of this book when the children are at the beach and receive terrible news, continuing on through the entire story, disaster lurks at their heels. One might say they are magnets for misfortune.

In this short book alone, the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, and cold porridge for breakfast.

It is my sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales, but there is nothing stopping you from putting this book down at once and reading something happy, if you prefer that sort of thing.

With all due respect,

Lemony Snicket

The series is deliciously smart and dark and funny. You should read them. The movie was pretty horrible which was sad because Jim Carey and Meryl Streep and a bunch of other fabulous people were in it. It's a testament to the books and my laziness that I sometimes still watch it, as I no longer own the books. I did, however, read a picture book by Lemony Snicket awhile ago.

Hopefully your reading will go better than the last time I picked up a book just because they made a TV show out of it, "so it must be good." 

Found the news here/on the facebook.
Or you can read about it on NPR, where I found out that they don't even have a director yet so don't get too excited!

June Books For (& About) Kids

(for the littlest readers)

Cute little story about a little panda named Chu who might have to sneeze. Bad things happened when Chu sneezes. 

(slightly older)

A fun nonfiction read about the life of mathematician Paul Erdos. What I love about it is that it shows math as being a) creative and b) social and NOT c) boring. The illustrations are filled with colorful numbers and real-life uses for math. Its all about why math is cool. 

For more picture books check out my May recommendations

(middle reader)

When mom leaves dad with the kids for the week, disaster strikes at breakfast. There is no milk. Not for breakfast cereal, and not for dad’s tea. Dad goes out to get milk but takes ages and ages to get back. Upon his arrival, he regales the epic story of his hunt for the milk, filled with time-travelling dinosaurs, aliens, wumpires (NOT the sparkly kind), and other mayhem.

Verdict: A fun bedtime story for the kiddos. It reminds me of a Shel Silverstein poem that I memorized in elementary school. If they liked it, try reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to them. If YOU liked it, try TheOcean at the End of the Lane, also by Neil Gaiman, which I would not recommend reading to the kiddos.

The book was also gorgeous, and used all of the illustrations (and even the fonts) to tell the story and add emotional colors to the book. It’s definitely worth getting the physical book as opposed to the kindle version. 

For Grown Ups, but About Kids

In How Children Succeed, journalist Paul Tough explores the education system and current research on what factors make a child grow into a successful adult. The story told to children now is that if you study hard and get good grades AND good test scores, you will get into a good college and then you will get a good job and be a successful adult. According to Tough's research, intelligence and a good SAT score will only get you so far, and children who are well equipped with skills like grit, curiosity, conscientiousness, and optimism will be more successful in college and beyond. Having these skills can help a child/adult more than raw intelligence or even growing up in a more financially stable home. Tough discusses how we can teach children these skills and how they will help them in later life.

I don't know if you've heard yet, but I'm going to grad school to get my Masters in Teaching. I've always been very interested in teaching, but that whole being super interested in acting thing took over my life for a little while. I always assumed I would one day be a teacher, but what and where I was going to teach were questions that kept me from getting my BA in Education.

I feel like it got a little lost near the end, when we got so involved in the chess world I sort of forgot what was actually being discussed. Overall, this book reminded me of all the reasons I want to get involved with the public school system.

For more on teaching, read The Book Whisperer

My New Spirit Animal + May Kid's Books

Boyfriend: Are you reading a picture book?

Me: Yes

My inner monologue: Don't you read my blog? what kind of a boyfriend are you? the non-stalker kind?

Me: For teaching. I want to find good books to read to the kids. And I use them for acting class scripts sometimes.

Boyfriend: Oh!

His Inner Monologue: I thought the recent Game of Thrones had so psychologically damaged you you gave up reading books for grown ups.

See, he cares.

This Month's Picture Books

Super cute book for little ones that gets them involved in the action, with something for them to do before you turn each page. 

"Make loud noises to distract them!" -- my favorite thing to do in class, probably not my neighbors favorite thing for me to do in class...

Definitely saving this one for the little kid classes I'm teaching this summer!

I have a confession: I was never super into Maurice Sendak, as a child. I think Where the Wild Things Are scared me. (So did The Muppets and most of the rides at Disneyland, to be fair.) This book is like an acid trip eulogy, so also probably would have scared me as a child.

I mean, it is a eulogy. To his brother, his partner, his youth. So it's sad. But pretty.

Good thing I have like six months till I'm actually teaching because I'm pretty bad at finding kid's books I would actually read to children.

This Month's Middle Reader

(good enough for adults)

I LOVED this book. I would argue that this is good enough for adults to read -  like the Disney movie equivalent of a middle reader book.

 Thirteen-year-old Nate, with the help of his best friend Libby, decides to run away to New York City to audition for E.T. The Musical.

This is every (theatre) kid's fantasy, obviously: to run away from his hick town where no one likes him or understands him, and find a place where he feels home. Yet, author Tim Federle makes the tale feel fresh, peppering Nate's inner monologue with his own brand of swearing -- using sensationally terrible Broadway musical flops instead of your average swear words, such as: "Holy Sideshow! - A Broadway musical about circus freaks." This made it extra fun for me, since I have actually heard of most of these shows. I really believed Nate's experience in the audition room, and I think it's the kind of story every theatre kid should read, because it's filled with some Don'ts, but also some Do's, aand I think it really shows that the most important thing in the audition room is to Be Yourself and to remember that Broadway is Everything....you are here because you love it more than anything. And sometimes, that's a fun reminder for adults as well.

It's everything NPH is singing about at 6:00

(PS I am 100% sure he deserved his Tony Award nom this year, even if he is super famous.)

Tim Federle used to dance on Broadway and now writes children's books and cocktail recipes, which I realized when I glanced at the cover of this book that I bought last week sitting on my desk:

SO BASICALLY Tim Federle is my new spirit animal and I'm going to go stalk him on twitter now.