The Diary of Anne Frank

The Kite Runner

Good masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schlitz, illustrated by Robert Byrd

Voices from a medieval village. This book won a Newberry award for its distinguished contribution to American children's literature. Laura May Schlitz brings this historic period to life through the stories of villagers. She includes people from all sectors of society. We meet Jacob the moneylender's son and learn about his his encounter with Petronella the merchant's daughter. We find out how children and youth lived and worked in the medieval period. This book reminds me of Karen Cushman's wonderful medieval novels . I highly recommend Good Masters !Sweet Ladies!

Paper Towns by John Green

Paper Towns is a funny but insightful look into the lives of high school students who are on the brink of graduation. Green's portrayal of his characters is realistic and relatable, and I think that students will enjoy the humour as well as the more challenging material.

Heather Sherrard

(Please see comments)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Two students are reading the Hunger Games. Please read their comments.

The Nine Lives Of Charlotte Taylor by Sally Armstrong

Students in the secondary English class are reading this book. Please see their comments.

Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks

How about a curriculum that lists contagion, mutatation, pure evil, loopholes, misinformation,and embezzlement as courses. Then there is Thaddeus Roth as the professor who teaches basic lying. The young evil genius of the title is Cadel Pigott ,he has a brain beyond belief and loves nothing better to than disrupt city services with such novelties as a bomb threat. The plot whips along filled with action and suspense filled moments. The character of Cadel is not as real as Phin in Amphibian. I found the book filled with funny lines and ideas and generally off the wall. I think it will be popular due to its breakneck pace and fantasy plot lines.

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesaic by Gabrielle Zevin

We live vicariously through the heartbreak of the 'teen angel' years . Naomi Porter loses a coin toss to William Landsman and subsequently gets herself knocked out. She and William are co editors of the yearbook , and she has a boyfriend named Ace and her mom and dad are divorced and she and her dad live in a new house. Unfortunately for Naomi she does not remember any of this as she has amnesia.
A charmingly funny and tender book about a girl growing up .It is beautifully written.

Brick Lane by Monica Ali

Also set in the UK, is Brick Lane by Monica Ali. The setting of this book is significant as it is the location of the Jamme Masjid or Great London Mosque ;which is on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street. This building is a perfect illustration of the East End's role as the point of entry for immigrant groups. It was originally founded as a church for Hugenots - French Protestants who fled to London to avoid persecution at home. The chapel was later used by Methodists. In the late 19th century, when Whitechapel became the centre of the Jewish East End, it became the Machzike Adass, also known as the Spitalfields Great Synagogue. With the dispersal of the Jewish community and a new influx of Bengali immigrants, it became the Jamme Masjid or Great London Mosque in 1976.

IN Monica Ali ‘s story the historic forces of the past , shape the father’s view of life in the UK .He lives in Brick lane here only to return to Pakistan while wife and two daughters are attempting to colonize themselves in British ways on Brick Lane London
This story is important as it provides and example of extremism and the radicalization of Brick Lane’s Muslim youth . - confusing the daughters’ complacency. There is to be no peaceful solution to life in the UK . for the second generation immigrant or cultural minority. Brick Lane provides a powerful post colonial perspective .“Colonialism is… destructive historical force that shapes not only the political futures of the countries involved, but also the identities of the colonized and the colonizing people”(p.189).

White Teeth by Zadie Smith
A well written at times grim view of the life for first and second generation immigrant in the United Kingdom..

• Most reviews focus on the supposed hilarity of the novel
• “Quirky, sassy, Extremely funny... witty... comedy ..”
• Only the financial times
• writes” hope for a multicultural society”
• This Whitbread winner could not be ignored by the literary establishment

  Zadie Smith writes:

  • But despite the intensity of the hunger- spiritual, physical, sexual- Samad still did his twelve hours daily in the restaurant.
  • By mid August he had upped his working hours to fourteen a day.. the ritual of it – folding pink napkins… polishing a glass…
  • He had taken one tedious skill and honed it to perfection… Here he was a one handed genius.”(p.141)
    
  • By reading a collectivity of popular cultural texts one may begin to reflect on the newcomer and minority sense of marginalization, and exclusion. However no single story provides a full understanding of the journey towards a cross cultural understanding.
  • We look for repeated patterns of behaviour and repeated storylines. These are important in understanding the total concept of how people live in new life worlds .

Amphibian by Carla Gunn

A first novel by writer Carla Gunn who also teaches psychology at St Thomas University, in Fredericton NB.
Mission Amphibian is the brainchild of Phin and his friend Bird. The plan is to rescue a white frog ( Cuddles) from the classroom aquarium.
However Amphibian is about so much more . Phin is in grade four and his mum is very much a part of his story - she is exasperated by his fear of sleeping alone in his own bed, and by his use of inappropriate language at school. Even though she sometimes agrees that he was provoked.
Phin is a boy who thinks and worries about almost everything. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the natural and scientific world which leads to even more anxiety about what the future holds for plants and animals.Thus leading to the freeing of Cuddles the white frog.
It is hard not to be utterly charmed by this brilliant boy - whose thoughts are very wise for one so young. He questions everything , a nuisance to his teachers, an irritant to his psychologist , even his mum sometimes wishes he would just stop his constant demands on her time.

Readers I will write more about Phin later- HJR

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie Anderson has written a novel that will engage teen readers as well as their teachers and parents. The main character ,Melinda Sordino is starting High School. She has become a pariah amongst her social group.Her crime according to her former friends was that she called the cops to break up an end of summer party. Melinda feels like an outsider and becomes depressed. Readers will empathize with her- laugh with her and feel just as confused as she does as she tries to fit herself back into a community of friends , teachers and family.
The book is well written realistic fiction . I recommend for ages 14-20.

"I think both Twilight and The Secret Life of Bees would be interesting for HS readers. I am wondering what the male readers would think of each, esp Twilight. Probably many teenage boys would LOVE to be vampires...with all the advantages!" RH
Thanks RH I still do not really know how to let people post comments
HR

Marcelo in the real world by Francisco Stork

Marcelo in the real world
Well written, absorbing, about Aspergers and 16-year-old Marcelo, whose father wants him to work at his law office for the summer. This worries Marcelo but he does as his father wants and learns some coping skills. The reader learns how this boy thinks and wonders and learns how to make sense of the 'real world', when all his life his internal world has been fine as was. Peers, parents and teachers will find that this book provides insight into many of the issues surrounding adolescence. Marcelo finds himself in social, emotional and educational situations that would perplex even the most 'average teen'. He is a critical thinker and has the ability to solve and resolve many of the issues, beginning friendships, decoding co- workers confusing conversations, and beginning to make reasonable assumptions about what is going on in the law office. A book I found to be very readable and interesting at many levels. I plan to recommend to Secondary English course

Cathy's Book

Running press book publishers has released a very interesting book ; Cathy's Book

by Stewart and Weisman

I resisted reading this book as it looked like it might be trying too hard to be interesting and hip to young readers. I finally opened it up and found a pretty good story interspersed with the main character Cathy's drawings and journal entries. The drawings and handwritten notes provided a side story for the main story.
Cathy meets a mysterious man Victor - he takes her airplane flying , they have a date - she dumps creme brule on his head , he consoles her when she tells him about her dad dying. The plot thickens as Cathy tries to find out more about Victor by breaking into his bio tech company office, and by visiting China town to seek out his uncle.
I found the whole thing fun, but at times I went back to look at previous entries and drawings to make sense of what was going on. The reader will have to pay attention and become engaged - I think most will.

summer reads

Title: How I live now by Meg Rosoff

Author: Meg Rosoff

Review:

The book is about two teenagers who are facing a bleak terror filled world of war and terrorism. The setting is England, the time is the near future, the mood is is mixture of tender young love and the fear of the invading armies.

questions about books for teenagers

R H visited me yesterday and we discussed what she had been reading this summer. She is currently reading the Secret Journal of Dr Hudson and has also read Secret Life of Bees and Twilight, which relate more to the blog I am keeping. She asks" What is the appeal of the two YA books- to girls in general?"" What does Twilight say about how girls should behave as compared to the girl in The Secret Life of Bees?" We speculate " in the first there is an obsessive relationship of boy and girl, in the other a relationship which explores loss and a girl creating relationship amongst a group of woman. The genre and ideas in these books are so different . Can we even compare ?Do we recommend Tw. or TSLB? Both have been widely read and produced as successful movies- "
My readers' instinct tells me that Twilight 's popularity is based on its romance, fantasy and overall creepiness,whereas the SLBees will become a classic. I will have to read them. I look forward to Bees but not Twilight - why I wonder?

Wild Girls, Wednesday Wars, Monkey Town, In Search of Mocking Bird

I have finished Wild Girls by P Murphy. The ending is sure and leaves the reader satisfied. I will recommend this book.

Now I am reading The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt . The main character is a teenage boy , Holling,who as he says lives in a 'perfect house' with his parents . The novel is set during in 1967 and the Vietnam war is being reported on nightly TV . Walter Cronkite is "announcing new bombing Vietnam." while Holling Hoodhood gets into Shakespeare and other scrapes at school under the watchful eye of Mrs. Baker his teacher on Wednesday afternoons. Holling also works on Bobby Kennedy's campaign.
There are many amusing characters in Holling's story and it is probably a good choice for some students . I am having trouble finishing this book- I am a little bored .

My next review and high recommendation is for Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial by Ronald Kidd. I loved this book . This is a teen book that will appeal to many students. It is set in 1925 and is based on a fictionalized account of the Scopes monkey trial in Tennessee. As readers we become caught up in the day to day life of Frances the daughter of Frank Earle Robinson, a leading citizen of Dayton and owner of Robinson 's Drugs. The store sells sodas, ice cream, and Mr Earle, as he is called, dispenses everything from remedies for aches and pains to solutions to local problems. A problem does arise when local teacher Johnny Scopes is accused of teaching evolution.
Author Ron Kidd's Frances is just brilliant in bringing to life the characters especially when retelling Clarence Darrow's and Williams Jennings Bryan's court debates before Judge Raulston. Frances' wide- eyed humorous recounting of the story reveals many points of view - still controversial today. To teach or not to teach the survival of the fittest in high school biology? Frances shares H L Mencken's and his newspaper friend's point of view as they witness a country preacher, Brother Furdew holding a revival meeting . We listen as the crowd shouts out "Dayton is Sodom, and Morgantown ain;t much better" in reference to the blasphemous science teaching of Johnny Scopes. H L Mencken wrote about and ridiculed the town in the Baltimore Sun that summer . After you read this book why not look at news archives of your own local paper to find out how they reported on the Scopes trial.

Some reviews compared the Monkey Town book to - To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee. The ideas in both stories are intense - however Monkey Town is completely different in tone , time, characterization, and mood , only the southern setting is somewhat similar.

Having brought up TKAMB I now need to tell you about a new book for adolescents, that is directly connected to Harper Lee's classic.

In Search of Mocking Bird By Loretta Ellsworth is a coming of age novel . Teenge Erin is going on a road trip to seek out Harper Lee. She does this by- running away from home and by meeting several interesting people on her bus journey to find Harper Lee, herself as a writer and her connection to her dead mother.
I did like reading about her companions on the bus. Erin sits beside Sedushia , a self named exotic dancer and a neglectful mother to her adult son Boomer. Erin and Sedushia contact Boomer , but the reader is not sure what will happen in that mother and son relationship. Erin then falls in with Epp a self proclaimed computer game designer who looks and acts like Clifford the Big Red Dog / big and clumsy but well meaning. Will Erin get to Monroeville to find Harper Lee ? I am sure you can't wait to find out- please read this book. A reviewer suggests that this book could be read as a companion to TKAMB. It is a very appealing and readable book with an estimated reading level of grade 4/5 ( my guesstimate).

summer reading: Wild Girls again and Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Wild Girls by Pat Murphy - I am still thinking about this book. It was pretty good
I will put it on my course reading list- best for ages 11-14
This book will appeal to girls who are a bit introspective and who like to read and write themselves, as the two characters join a summer writing class at UCLA.

have finished Wintergirls by L Halse Anderson. This was a fascinating book - topic best for ages 14- 20.
The main character a female is suffering from dysmorphia ( is that right - distorted body image?)
It is written in the first person and has elements of fantasy and horror - she is suffering - her mother and father have split and her best friend has died tragically . Her desire is too be so thin that she disappears. She is also haunted by the ghost of her dead friend .
If you are interested in anorexia, this is a book you should read. The author has done research into the disease and has essentially written a case study , convincing us of the terrible consequences of such an affliction. The book ends with the character trying to recover- do you think anyone can really recover? Would this be a good choice for an anorexic? Will I use this book ? not sure yet ?Update a student has chosen the book