I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into with Nancy Farmer’s Newbery Honor (2003) book, The House of the Scorpion.  I don’t even remember reading the back cover when I bought it.  Sometimes it’s fun to experience a book that way–as a complete surprise.  Anyway, this was a good one about our changing technological world, and will provoke ...

I happened to read the beginning of Call it Courage during the school day a few weeks ago. The beginning blew me away, so I ordered the book immediately after school that day.  I’ve been looking for a book to start the school year with that is both meaningful and gripping, and I definitely feel like I found it with this one. Via Amazon Armstrong ...

A few weeks ago, I read and loved Laurie Halse Anderson’s Chains, so I was in a rush to read the sequel, Forge.  I thought I got so lucky at the airport last week, when I found a copy of the sequel, but unfortunately, I did not love it as much as Chains. In Forge, we follow the plight of Curzon, Isabel’s friend.  The story is told from his ...

In sixth grade, students spend the year learning world history.  The textbooks my school uses are fantastic, but historical fiction also does a great job bringing the times to life, so I decided to spend this summer trying to find some fiction and nonfiction to supplement the curriculum.  The first book I found was the Newbery winner, The Door in ...

Wow.  Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson is a tour de force.  Two complaints: 1) The book stops in the middle of the story, so you really need to have the sequel, Forge, on hand to read when you’re done with Chains.  2) The book is very violent, and so probably not appropriate for elementary readers. Via Amazon Isabel is a young slave living in the ...

I had to read The Higher Power of Lucky a year or so ago for a class in college, and I did not love it when I read it then.  But it did win a Newbery in 2007, so I decided to give it another chance this last weekend. Via Wikipedia Susan Patron’s novel, The Higher Power of Lucky, stars Lucky, a 10-year-old girl living in a dusty small town in ...

I’ve read The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder a few times, and each time I love it a little more.  It’s dark, for sure, but the urban violence is also a sign of the times. In The Egypt Game, April is essentially abandoned by her actress-mother, and is brought to live with her grandmother.  April soon befriends a girl named Melanie, and ...

After I read the Newbery award-winning Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!  Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz, I decided I better buy her other books and see if they were as excellent.  I was not let down with A Drowned Maiden’s Hair.  In turns, slightly dark, suspenseful, and heartbreaking, I couldn’t put it down. The protagonist of A ...

The Invention of Hugo Cabret  by Brian Selznick is a book much loved by older struggling readers. It’s a thick book and apparently carries some weight of prestige, though it is basically a Caldecott-award picture book in novel format. My students have been suggesting I read it for months, and when my mom recommended the movie Hugo to me, I knew I ...

A rigorous national curriculum should include a set number of books that all students should read at each grade level.  The Core Knowledge curriculum recommends students learn about King Arthur and the Round Table in the fourth grade.  I LOVED the King Arthur legends when I was a kid, so I was excited to read the Core Classics book King Arthur ...