Books I Read in May

I've been in a reading slump the last few weeks, but here are the books I read in May. Links go to blog posts about those books.

The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Bone: Tall Tales by Thomas E. Sniegoski
The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger
Boot Camp by Todd Strasser
The Raven (Skeleton Creek #4) by Patrick Carman
Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblick
Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser
Shine by  Lauren Myracle
Rebel Angels (Gemma Doyle #2) by Libba Bray
Voices after Midnight by Richard Peck

Review: Shine

Shine by Lauren Myracle

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've enjoyed other Lauren Myracle novels--the Internet Girls series, Kissing Kate--so I was optimistic going into this one. Myracle didn't disappoint.

Shine is a coming of age story. Cat has kept to herself since an unfortunate incident (to put it midly) from middle school. When her former best friend, Patrick, gets beaten, tied to a gas pump and left to die with the gas nozzle in his mouth, Cat decides that it's time to make up for the time she did not speak up for Patrick.

In her quest to find out who hurt her friend, she finds out that in her self-imposed absence, people around her have grown up, changed, and may not be who she thought they were.

This one may be difficult for struggling readers. The story is interwoven with flashback as Cat reflects on the events that brought her to the place she's currently in. Keeping up with the timeline may be difficult.

The fact that Patrick is gay is an aspect that helps the story move along, but it's not overstated or heavy handed. The story is really about Cat and her own path to forgiveness and her own return to the world.



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I Must Be Doing Something Right

The last grading period this semester my students participated in book groups. They used Edmodo to converse with students in other classes and completed imaginative response projects as a way to respond to their reading. In my morning classes, many of the students finished their novels well before the end of the grading period. Because they're writing me book notes, and it is a reading class after all, they were/are still required to read during full-class SSR.

Of the 15 students in my first period class, 8 are reading books I've either started during a read-aloud, or books that they've seen me read over the course of the semester. Two of those eight students asked me specifically for a book they saw me read that they found interesting. One of the kids saw one of my reader response projects and asked me to explain. I told him to read the book to figure out what it meant, and he did.

All of this is to say there is power in reading aloud to middle school students. There is power in doing book talks with reluctant readers. There is power in completing and displaying the projects you ask students to complete. There is power in modeling silent reading and entertaining the questions they ask about your book. They're NOT always stalling. And teachers shouldn't listen to instructional leaders who say that middle school students shouldn't be read to.

Some of the books I've read this semester that students picked up:

• Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar
• Looking for Alaska by John Green
• Unwind by Neal Shusterman
• The Schwa Was Here by Neal Shusterman
• Tears of a Tiger by Sharon Draper
• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
• ttyl by Lauren Myracle
• Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman
• Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson

Banned Books

S sent me a list of banned books from FindLaw. Check it out here. Personally, I love reading banned books if only because it says "Ha!" to those people who would challenge anyone's freedom of expression. Censorship is always a touchy issue, and on the real, I'm not sure where I stand, especially when it comes to censorship within the school system. I will admit that I suggested one of my book buddies not read Gregory Maguire's Wicked because I didn't think it was appropriate yet, and I'll also admit that I suggested that Lauren Myracle's ttyl be pulled from our middle school library because I don't think the students are mature enough for it. Here's where I differ from many who censor and challenge books -- I've read them both. I actually very much enjoyed both novels. And if my book buddy were older and wanted to read the novel -- either novel, really -- I'd give it to her without a second thought. I'll tell you this much, I wouldn't suggest a ten-year-old read Chuck Pahlinuck's short story "Guts" from Haunted either (if you want to read the story, read Palahiniuk's essay on it first), but I think he's one of the most fantasic writers I've ever read. Maybe the argument about censorship and how one sits on the issues depends upon the evidence the challenger can present and the background the challenger comes to the table with. Challengers have to understand that while they may not want their children exposed to novels like Rowling's Harry Potter, there are parents (even religious parents) who see more than just the setting of the novel, or who will allow their children the choice to read such novels. Is it fair to deny other people's children the choice? At what point do the interests of one parent for his or her child extend to the interests of other people's children?

Some of the books I've read from the list of most banned in the last century:

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
• The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
• The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton
• To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
• Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes
• Harry Potter (Series), by J.K. Rowling
• James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl
• Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
• Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
• Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
• Native Son, by Richard Wright
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
• Where's Waldo?, by Martin Hanford
• Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Greene