teaching

It’s All About The Beach

First of all, take a minute and look at this cover. Really. Look at it. Imagine yourself there. Who wouldn’t want to be spending their weekend on that balcony, reading a book, listening to the waves? Exactly. Everybody in their right mind would want to be there right now, which is why I’m recommending it this weekend.

The Guest Book is a great modern romantic read for any time of year. Of course, right now as we head into winter, it’ll have you looking forward to the fun possibilities that every summer brings and begging your parents for a weekend at the beach. Like, NOW. The characters are fun and full of life, especially Macy, the protagonist. There is a sweet, very romantic mystery involving the Guest Book that had me guessing all the way to the end and left my heart super happy.

Enjoy the book… pretend you’re on that porch on the cover as you read. It’ll make it even more fabulous.

I’m blessed to know this author personally (a bunch of her kids have already had to endure my Language Arts class, and her youngest once chased my son around the church classroom to kiss him when they were two years old… hahaha). Marybeth Whalen and her family have had a great impact on me personally, for which I’m eternally grateful.

But, while all of that it nice and warm and fuzzy, it’s not the reason I’m recommending her book on my blog. I’m recommending it because it’s GOOD STUFF. When I first read it, I found myself becoming totally jealous of this family and their annual time in the beach house, as well as the protagonist’s fun, artsy, mysterious romance. I wanted to stalk the locations and spend my summer in it. I resisted, but mostly just for financial reasons. :)

Anyway, Marybeth Whalen’s books aren’t typically what you’d consider YA or teen fiction, but teenage girls love them! I’ve had them in my classroom library, and they’re checked out regularly. While I’m focusing on The Guest Book for this recommendation, I also would recommend The Mailbox for teen readers. Yeah, the protagonist is older, but it’s overall a hopeful story that inspires younger girls.

She’s So Dead To Us

After that very serious and difficult to write review of Lois Lowry’s Son, I need a fun brain break. And the perfect book for a fun brain break? Kieran Scott‘s She’s So Dead To Us. Now, that’s not to say that this is a dumb book. It’s not. It’s full of great stuff to think about… but it’s also just really enjoyable.

http://www.amazon.com/Shes-So-Dead-Hes-Trilogy/dp/1416999523/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352508305&sr=1-1&keywords=she%27s+so+dead+to+us

In this book, the first in a trilogy, protagonist Ally is forced to move back to the town where she grew up – and is now an outcast. Why? Because her dad pretty much screwed the families of her very wealthy friends out of a lot of money, so all of her old friends totally hate her for what her dad did. Plus Ally has moved back with just her mom, her dad having left the family out of his own shame, and they’re living on the poor side of town.

As if this isn’t all hard enough to deal with, there’s a new family living in her old house, and their son, Jake, is downright dreamy. And he’s now friends with all of Ally’s old friends. While there are undeniable sparks between the two of them, all of these social issues are bound to come between them. Luckily they each give their own POV in the narrative, so we get insight into what they’re both thinking throughout the trilogy. It’s pretty awesome.

These books are great for the high school crowd and enjoyable for the rest of us, too. As I was doing some research for this post, I discovered that Kieran Scott also writes under some pen names, and I’ve actually read TONS of her books when you take the pen names into account. But it brings me to ask this question: WHY would an author write under a pen name if it wasn’t a secret??? Any thoughts?

Anyway, ENJOY this trilogy! It’s so fun.

~Melissa

The World of The Giver

One of my very favorite books of all time is Lois Lowry’s The Giver. It’s a classic. It’s fun to teach. It makes you think. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to get it out of your head, always popping up to make crazy connections with controversial current events. I’ve had many conversations with former students about The Giver several years after I’ve taught it to them. The book is alarming to say the least, but I feel like it’s ultimately hopeful. At this point, after teaching it for 10 years to over thirty separate classes, I’d say I’ve read it 12-15 times. I just really, really love it.If you haven’t read it, you MUST.

As Lois Lowry has published companion novels to The Giver, I’ve read them eagerly. They’ve been good, but not quite as amazing as The Giver. Of course, for me, it’s hard to live up to the standard set by The Giver. In Gathering Blue, we see a different community that’s equally as strange with a female protagonist named Kira. Definitely worth reading. In The Messenger, we see yet another community that is less strange, more free, and has specific references to some of the main characters from The Giver. (I’m trying not to give away spoilers. I want you to read these if you haven’t already, and I refuse to spoil the ending of The Giver for anybody.)

Now, I thought this would be the end of The Giver books. And it was a good ending. So imagine my surprise when I discovered a fourth and final book, Son, in this weird little series was being published! I pre-ordered my copy immediately and set about waiting. Impatiently.

Now, I’ve already admitted my extreme love of the original Giver book and how hard it would be to live up to its excellence. So it’s impossible to detach myself from that and truly JUST read Son without all of my previous Giver experience.

In a nutshell, Son was not what I’d hoped. It tied up all the loose ends left dangling in the previous three books, gave another viewpoint (and we all know how I love alternate POVs) of the community from the Giver, and wrapped it all up with a pretty little ending. You’d think all of that would be GREAT. You’d think I’d be HAPPY.

The thing is, Lowry’s books have always been a little mysterious and ambiguous. She has said in interviews that she MEANT for the ending of The Giver to be hopeful, but she wanted the reader to think about the ending and come up with the characters’ futures for themselves. And so I did. A lot. Jonas and Gabe and The Giver and the Community have been moving forward with their futures in my head for over 10 years. In my head, they’re all happy and successful and have become better people after going through their conflicts. But then Lowry comes along and wraps her version of their futures up into Son, and they didn’t match with what was in my head.

So I guess what I’m saying is that if you read all four books now, you’d probably think Son is perfect. If, like me, you read The Giver ages ago and you have deep emotional connections to it, you might want to avoid it… but you probably won’t because the thought of another Giver book is pretty irresistible. So just brace yourself. If you’re interested in reading an interview with Lois Lowry about Son, you can find one here. It’s interesting, for sure, to hear her motivations for writing Son… but at the end of the day I still wish she hadn’t. Sorry if that’s harsh.

I also stumbled upon this article about a possible movie version of The Giver… I don’t know if I could handle that, either! :)

Enjoy the worlds Lois Lowry has created in these books!

Dangerous Pie

As an English teacher, nothing makes me happier than seeing my students really connect with and enjoy a book that I’ve forced upon them. This book, Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, is one of the few books I’ve ever taught that literally EVERY student liked. Unfortunately, I’ve switched grade levels and don’t get to teach this book anymore, but I still recommend it. Constantly and quite forcefully.

Jordan Sonnenblick has a way of storytelling in this book that can have you laughing through tears, putting yourself into situations you hope you’ll never have to face, but that you’re happy to accompany his characters through. In it, we follow Steven through the journey of his eighth grade year. He’s a skinny dork with glasses and braces, a hopeless crush on the hottest girl in school, a total band geek, and a little brother that ends up turning his whole world around. While this book does have a main character with cancer, it’s not a book about cancer. It’s about growing up and going through crap that makes you better for having lived through it.

The fact that this is Sonnenblick’s first novel is amazing to me. I’ve read most of his other books, which are good too… but not quite as magical as this one is. The companion/follow-up to this, Notes From The Midnight Driver, is a close second though. Just the first chapter had me laughing out loud (I guess the death of porcelain lawn gnomes will always be funny).

If you haven’t read any Sonnenblick, you should. And you should start with Drums. This is literally one of the best books I’ve ever read. Enjoy!

Side note to English Teachers: Don’t let the fact that this is modern YA keep you from teaching this book – not everything has to be old to be good. There’s a ton of rich text in this that make it VERY appropriate to teach in a 7th/8th grade classroom, and also a lot of interesting author’s craft stuff (like his unique way of handling dialogue that switches at the very end of the book) that goes right along with Common Core Standards. It’s all kinds of awesome.