Review: Everfound

Everfound by Neal Shusterman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Everfound, the final battle between Mary Hightower and her followers, and The Chocolate Oger, Mikey McGill and Allie the Outcast. While Mary is asleep, her second in command continues to follow her orders to bring more and more children into Everlost.

As someone who likes to read books in a series, I was a little wary going into this one when I found out that a new character had been added. Jix, another skinjacker with a fancy for jaguars, fits seamlessly into the plot as it was set up in Everwild. His introduction does not solely serve to move the plot forward, but also to round out another character, and to lead us back to other characters that we haven't seen in a while.

Everfound is a character driven story. Each character has his/her agenda that they, for whatever reason, are working toward. And none of the characters are flat. That there, for me, is the mark of a well written story, especially when one has as many characters as the Skinjacker Trilogy does. To be able to trace a character's agenda from the first book to the last, and watch how the decisions made further that agenda while staying true to each character...Awesome.

I don't want to give anything away, so I'm going to stop there. Everfound, the third book in the Skinjacker Trilogy, will be released on May 3. As always, I'm excited to read anything Neal writes. Keep an eye on his Facebook page and his twitter feed for more information about projects he's working on.

If you get a chance, check out my video blog (links in the sidebar)
Happy reading, and don't forget to be awesome.



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Review: Mindquakes: Stories To Shatter Your Brain

Mindquakes: Stories To Shatter Your Brain by Neal Shusterman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This collection of short stories continues my love affair with Neal Shusterman's writing. I love stories that lead me to predict incorrectly, and that is true of each story in this collection. Here's my question: When will Ralphy Sherman get his own book?



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Rough Start

Last week was the first week of school, and the first time we've ever started on a Monday. In previous years, we started on Wednesday or Thursday--two or three days to get to know the students, then the weekend and Deming Duck Races, then we'd hit the ground running the next Monday. Everyone felt like the week was a little long. It didn't help that all the housekeeping type items that had to be completed were completed during first period.

Despite ongoing internet problems, it is very exciting that so many of my students are excited about the books they're reading. Almost all of them have selected books out of my personal library. I admit that there are some books I was more excited about students reading than others -- I think there are four students reading Patrick Carman's Skeleton Creek, and three reading his novel Trackers, drawn in by the fact that there are videos. Others are reading Shusterman, Anderson (both MT and Laurie Halse) and a myriad of other books on a myriad of topics. The neatest thing is to see one student lean over to another during independent reading and point to something in the book they're reading, then look to see if they'll get in trouble for talking. I encourage this kind of interaction. I want my students to talk about books, not just with me, but with their peers as well. And it has already begun.

I do hope that the server problems, particularly in the afternoon, are resolved. Because I teach the Title I Language Arts class, there are some requirements must make sure my students meet, like using the Scholastic READ180 program so the powers that be have the ability to pull student reports to monitor progress. I also hope that this week passes with less frustration than last week did.

Why do they call him Bruiser?

Bruiser by Neal Shusterman


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I've been waiting for Bruiser since April of last year, and it was well worth the wait. In Bruiser, Shusterman uses multiple perspectives again, and more successfully than in Unwind. This time, we're only in the heads of the principle characters, rather than many different characters.

Brewster is an empath. He absorbs the feelings of the people that he likes. I can't imagine what it would be like to absorb the feelings of the people whose company I enjoyed. I think about the empath in an episode of Charmed, who had to shut himself off, living in an abandoned building to get away from the feelings of all the people in the city.

Because I don't want to ruin the story for my faithful readers, I'm not going to say anymore than that. Enjoy!

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An Unwind Sequel?

I saw this tweet in my feed today and had to share. This was not a book I expected a sequel for, but I'm interested to see what Shusterman does with it. I'm definitely looking forward to the release of his novel Bruiser, on June 29th. My copy's already pre-ordered.

Books Read in April

We're now well into May and it was brought to my attention this morning that I haven't posted in a while. The best way to get back into things is to share the books I read in April. I think this list might be longer than usual.

This is the second book in Jeff Stone's Five Ancestors series. This one follows Malao, master of Monkey kung fu, as he is trying to find himself and help his brothers, and keep the one rogue brother who burned his home and killed the grandmaster, from keeping the Dragon scrolls he stole from the temple. 

Skeleton Creek and Ghost in the Machine by Patrick Carman are a different take on the thriller genre of storytelling. Ryan, the narrator, is laid up because of an accident. He and his friend do research in order to figure out what is going on in the town. Sarah, Ryan's best friend, takes video of different places/people in the town and secretly sends it to Ryan. The forward movement of the novel, and the fact that the videos that Sarah sends Ryan need to be viewed by the reader may get the reluctant reader interested enough in the story to read both novels. (Or it might be the same cliffhanger at the end of Skeleton Creek that made me go buy Ghost in the Machine the next weekend...)

 Jeff Smith's graphic novels, Bone Volume 1: Out from Boneville and Bone Volume 2: The Great Cow Race, I read because they're so popular in our school library (Out from Boneville has been checked out 37 times and The Great Cow Race has been checked out 47 times, which doesn't count the times that they've been lent to friends or read simultaneously by more than one reader. Completely unrelated, The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things has been checked out 34 times, but I haven't read it yet.) The Bone books are rather amusing, but, as I learned since I had the second and not the first initially, they don't stand alone. They're also quick reads, which may account for my impatience in regards to discovering the motivation of the antagonist in this series (I don't own Volume 3 yet).

I think this is my second copy of Street Pharm by Allison van Diepen, the first having not been returned when I taught 9th grade. This one I read because three of my students read it at the beginning of the semester and said that I should. I have to admit that my expectations weren't that high; the last book I started that had anything to do with drugs was Smack by Melvin Burgess and I couldn't get into it. The language, and the African-American protagonist, drew me in. Street Pharm is a story of redemption, but not done in a way that's near as heavy-handed as novels like Go Ask Alice.

In the NCTE/IRA podcast Text Messages in the episode "Connecting with the Classics," Jennifer Buehler talks about books that adolescents can read to make connections between the classics they're required to read, and the YA literature that they're more likely to read. Perfect Chemistry is another modern look at the Romeo & Juliet story along the lines of West Side Story but without all the singing and with significantly more angst. Perfect Chemistry is the first novel in a trilogy, but it's not one of those trilogies that I feel like I need to continue. Kind of like how The Prophet of Yonwood doesn't follow the characters from City of Ember and The People of Sparks, the second novel in the series, Rules of Attraction, follows one of the main character's brothers, not the characters I came to root for in Perfect Chemistry. More than likely, though, I'll get over my bias sooner or later.

I love Neal Shusterman, but I hate (and avoid most of the time) buying books in hardcover. So when Everwild was added to our school library, I was excited. Everwild is the second book in the Skinjacker Series, after Everlost and to be followed by Everfound. In this installment, Nick, the Chocolate Ogre, is being taken over by his chocolate, he and Mary are now going head-to-head, and Allie is still trying to find her way home. and for those who are the McGill fans, he makes a return. Not bad, but I'm really looking forward to the release of Bruiser at the end of June. (And yes, I preordered this one in hardcover.)

This read isn't in the YA lit category, but I read it because my friend read it. I don't have a lot to say about this one, but I like Jodi Piccoult. My reaction to The Pact was very different from my reaction to My Sister's Keeper. With the latter, there was a lot of crying. When I read The Pact, the reaction was primarily visceral, and I ended up being pretty angry. Anger does not a bad read make, however.

The other non-YA lit book I read this month was Her Sister's Keeper. This one was given to me to read by my niece. It reminded me of the books I read in high school--closer to the John Grisham category. It was tough to get into at first because I'm so used to YA and because the stigma behind Harlequin novels. No skin in this one folks. For the record, there's only one review of this book on Goodreads (no, it's not mine) and it doesn't give a lot of insight into the novel, just like my comments here. 

This is the second novel I've read by S.E. Hinton, and I have to say I like it better than The Outsiders. A few of the characters from Hinton's first novel make cameos, which will help some readers make connections between the two novels. What I really liked about That Was Then, This Is Now is that the ending is real. It's not--all loose ends are sewn up nicely--it's the reality of some friendships and growing up.

Kissing Kate was Lauren Myracle's debut novel, and because of the subject matter, I'm impressed. This is my LGBT read for the month--a coming of age story about a girl whose best friend gets drunk and kisses her, and then the drama that spills out from there--from ignoring that the event happened, to confrontation, to growing apart.

Last but definitely not least... My obsession with John Green continues...

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. This is like Big Bang Theory in novel format. When I read my first two John Green novels Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns, I asked myself, "Does John Green write anything where the boy gets the girl?" With An Abundance of Katherines, I got my answer to that question. For the sake of spoilers, I won't tell you what that answer is. What I can say is that the footnotes really make this novel. And I was one of those readers who went to the end of the book first, only to be told in a note from John Green (written into the text) that I should go back and read the novel from front to back like normal. 

*All book covers from Goodreads (and they should link back there if I did this right).

Connections -- Unwind in Real Life

One of our librarians showed me this article from the Las Cruces Sun-News. She read Unwind by Neal Shusterman a couple of weeks ago and saw a connection between this text, and Unwind, one of the strategies I try to teach my students.

http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_14876026?IADID

--
"There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul."
--Edith Wharton.

You Gotta Read Past Page 6

I was talking with my best friend today (my school's librarian, go figure) about students who abandon books early. She spoke with a student who checked out Neal Shusterman's The Schwa Was Here. When asked his opinion about the novel, his first response was "It was okay." Through the course of the conversation, this rockin' librarian comes to find out that the kid didn't read past page six. Apparently there was another student in the conversation who decided to check out the book. When she checked in later in the day, she reports that she's on page 23. She definitely has room to one-up the kid who gave the book up. The comment in this story that caught my interest was "The good stuff started on page 7."

I had a student who finished Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs yesterday, and he was looking for something with some action. He said he liked the novel, but he wanted something a little different. I have two copies of my recent action recommendation, The Hunger Games, but both of those are currently checked out. I also added The Maze Runner to my list of action/adventure recommendations, but I lent that to another teacher. So I went with Shusterman's Full Tilt. When I handed him the novel I said, "Now, I know you wanted adventure. This novel has some adventure, but it takes a couple chapters before it gets there. Don't give up on it." The kid I gave the book to said he'd give it a try. At the end of class, on his way out the door he calls back to me, "Hey, Miss! I'm going to take this one with me. I really like it."

I think dialoguing with students is key to keeping them interested in their books. Especially for reluctant readers, just the strategy learning isn't enough. Because I asked the kid in my first hour class to give the book a shot and not give up on it too quickly, promising him that the action would come, he was willing to stick it out and is enjoying his novel.

The moral of the story is: Talk to the kids who want to abandon books. Find out why they want to give up on them. I don't accept "I'm bored with it," as an answer. Sometimes "I'm bored" is code for "It's too hard and I don't want to admit it." Sometimes it's code for "I'm lazy and I just don't care." Just another reason why it's important to have dialogue with students.

Preview: The Eyes of Kid Midas by Neal Shusterman

It's no secret I'm a huge Neal Shusterman fan. I'm anxiously awaiting the novel Bruiser, which he talked about when he addressed the NM Library Association conference in April 2009. So I was excited to see a representation of his novels at Books-a-Million yesterday. I was disappointed that Borders, my default bookstore when in Indianapolis, wasn't even carrying his most recent release, Everwild, the second book in the Skinjacker trilogy.

Anyway, I saw they had The Eyes of Kid Midas and I remembered the story that Shusterman told during lunch about how he began his career as a storyteller. I can't remember exactly how it goes, but I know that Shusterman was a camp counselor once, and one summer he had trouble getting his boys to settle down so he decided to start telling them a story. That settled his boys down. Quickly word got out that this guy was telling a neat story. That story is the story that turned into The Eyes of Kid Midas--what should prove to be an interesting take on the King Midas story of Greek Mythology.

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

Don't Get Unwound

One of my colleagues didn't like Unwind, so he gave me his copy and I added it to my classroom library. I covered the third hour of one of my fellow English department cronies last week, carrying that novel with me, and did a short book talk to her class. One kid, who I really thought wasn't listening, wandered over, picked it up, and wandered back to his seat with it. For the remainder of the period, he sat in the corner reading this novel. At the end of class, when the kids were packing up to leave, he stands up and goes, "Okay, Miss. I'm taking this with me." I think it surprised him when I replied with, "Okay."

On Tuesday, he brings the book back to me saying, "It was awesome, I finished it in two days, and then my sister read it and loved it." Because it was the end of the passing period and he was on his way to class, I didn't get a chance to engage with him about it, but I am quite stoked that both he and his sister enjoyed it.

On Read-Alouds

I'm not sure I have a blog roll on my blog anymore, especially since the blogs I follow all run through my Google Reader, but I read this post on The Reading Zone, and had to share.

One of the strategies I started using this year to get my students interested in stories is the read-aloud. I had a novel that I read aloud to the class when we'd have extra time at the end of the period. The only one we got to this year was Dreadlocks by Neal Shusterman, but I already have a list lined up for the fall, including Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sharon G. Flake's The Skin I'm In, and Richard Wright's Rite of Passage. I might pull in some more Shusterman, but I haven't decided yet. Hopefully, the book talks I'm planning to put into my weekly podcast will help me and the students decide what I should read to them--what will get them interested in reading the most.

My favorite book off of her list has to be The Giver by Lois Lowry. I recently finished the third in the series, called Messenger. Fantastic. I should have blogged about it, but I think it's one of the novels I read recently that has yet to make it up here.

One aspect of TheReadingZone's post that I particularly liked was her students' comments on their novels. She mentions that she has students read a variety of genres, authors, etc. so at least something resonates with each of her students. What I like even more was that she has them register an opinion. I want to take a page out of her book.

The List of novels (and only the novels) I'm considering for my 8th graders (they'll get to choose)

• The Giver by Lois Lowry (of course -- and I might teach this full class instead of small group)
• Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
  
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• Bad Boy: A Memoir by Walter Dean Myers
• Tangerine by Edward Bloor
• That Was Then, This Is Now by S. E. Hinton

I think there might be more on that list, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

First session of summer school is almost over, and I'd like to get some reading done over the July 4 holiday. I know it's a ways away, but I figure I'd go ahead and make a list of my current Must Reads.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Graveyard Book by Neal Gaiman (which I'm reading aloud with one of my book buddies)
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak (which I've started already, just need to finish it)

Four books in three days. That's reasonable, right?

Full Tilt

The end of this novel was a long time coming. Due to school, work, etc. our read-aloud time was severely lacking. I read this novel because, when I was sitting next to Neal Shusterman at the New Mexico Library Association Conference in April, he told a story about a teacher who bet a student $5 that they would like this novel. If the student disliked the novel, then the teacher would cough up the dough. As it turned out, the student liked the novel and the teacher didn't lose any money. Of course, being the "extraordinary" reading teacher I am, I had to find out about this novel and see if I could entice my reluctant readers with the same bet. After finishing the novel, I'm fairly certain that many of my readers will enjoy it, if only for the intense ride the main character has to go on. They probably won't get the allusions to famous places around the world, or some of the novels the main character read (like Melville's Moby Dick), but even without that prior knowledge, students are in for an adventure.

Shusterman, N. (2004) Full Tilt. Simon Pulse.

Classic Fairy Tales

A point that caught my attention from the introduction of Classic Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar came from the Brother’s Grimm discussion of why they wrote the stories they wrote. They are quoted in Tatar as saying that their tales “tried to capture the pure, artless simplicity of people not yet tainted by the corrupting influences of civilization” (Tatar, 1999, p. xi). It seems as if the brothers are arguing for nurture over nature, like children are blank slates and the stories are written to shield them from the harsh reality that exists outside the walls of their parents’ house.

The brothers, when writing, however, “must have recognized that fairy tales were far from culturally innocent, for they extolled the ‘civilizing’ power of the tales and conceived of their collection as ‘manual of manners’ for children” (Tatar, 1999, p. xi). While these fairy tales were exalted, the brothers took the main points of the stories and recrafted the tales into a handbook of sorts for children, guiding them to be moral citizens. The question is, who defined those morals the brothers were trying to ingrain in children? Were they determined by the brothers themselves, or are they extending morality based upon the morals with which they were raised, those determined by a particular class as important to be a productive member of the social structure?

The conversation about how children are influenced before they have a chance to truly interact within society makes me wonder about children today, so many of whom are not read to, be it fairy tales, Mother Goose Rhymes, or the newspaper. How are the morals and ideas children are inculcated with in the present due to their preoccupation with electronics and reality television? When I wonder about how fairy tales have changed with the present time, the first thought I have is of Neal Shusterman’s Dark Fusion series. Shusterman fuses the Medusa myth with “The Three Little Bears” in Dread Locks, fuses werewolf and vampire mythology with “Little Red Riding Hood” in Red Rider’s Hood and the legend of the Fountain of Youth with “The Ugly Duckling.” Many of the themes are the same, but Shusterman adds discussion of self-sacrifice, family values and revenge to his mix.

Shusterman, N. (2005). Dread Locks. New York, Speak.
Shusterman, N. (2005). Red Rider’s Hood. New York, Speak.
Shusterman, N. (2006). Duckling Ugly. New York, Speak.
Tatar, M., ed. (1999). The Classic Fairy Tales. New York: W. W. Norton & Co

Duckling Ugly

Duckling Ugly is the third in the Dark Fusion series by Neal Shusterman, the first two being Dread Locks and Red Rider's Hood. Duckling Ugly fuses the stories of "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Fountain of Youth." There's one particular piece of this novel that struck me. The protagonist says

How do you judge beauty? They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but that's not true. Beauty is in the spirit of the world in which you live. It's where the world tells you it is...and if your world finds beauty in the black pit of ugliness, then that's where your beauty lies. (Shusterman, 2006, p. 200)

With the discussion of commodification in my media class first semester last school year, and the stock that teenagers take on what they see on television, striving to be what can only be achieved with airbrushes, I'm inclined to agree with Shusterman here. I had a discussion with a friend of mine before school let out for the summer about Marilyn Monroe. We saw a picture of her on the wall at Dairy Queen. The question ended up being, at the time of The Seven Year Itch, how much did she weigh?

The idea is that people's perception of what is beautiful is what the media says is beautiful. So if Marilyn Monroe (who is still considered beautiful) is put next to one of the skinny models of today, who do you think people want to look more like?

Shusterman, N. (2006). Duckling Ugly. New York: Speak.

Dread Locks

The first YA lit book I've read in a while is Dread Locks, part of Neal Shusterman's Dark Fusion series. In this particular novel, Shusterman fuses Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Baers) with the story of the gorgon Medusa.



So far, a bored teenager has befriended the kooky girl who just moved in next door, who has golden ringlets that often seem alive, and a thing for dark reflective sunglasses. No doubt, Tara, the girl, is supposed to be a gorgon, most likely the gorgeous one who offends Athena, though I'm not sure yet how much of the mythology is infused in the novel. She does have two sisters, however, but they're away shopping in Europe.



The meet-cute for the two main characters, Parker Baer (sound like 'bear' anyone?) and Tara whose last name is French and more than I can remember off the top of my head, is one that Tara describes as "memorable," and I am inclined to agree with her. Chapter two, when Parker comes hom from riding around on his motorcross bike, his father is roaring something akin to "Who's been sitting in my chair?" A chair that is designed and adjusted to support Mr. Baer's back problems and has since been moved. Then, at breakfast, Parker's younger sister Katrina cries about someone having eaten her cereal. Of course, since Parker is our main character, the climax of the scene comes when he runs out of his room, in search of his father because "someone's been sleeping in my bed." And clearly is still there.

It is Tara's sunglasses that interest me the most. In the myth, it is the gaze of Medusa that turns anyone who comes up against her into stone. There are many statues in Tara's house, but she wears these reflective sunglasses all the time. I gather that she is relatively old; she said she came from Crete, and the sunglasses are an effective way for her to be part of society, claiming (and rightfully so) to have sensitive eyes.

Stay tuned for more adventures of Tara and Baby Baer...