Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
I decided to read this book after having a number of students at the school that I was student teaching at not be able to tell me anything about the story. I was amazed that they didn’t have an idea about what was going on but they could read to me passages from the book with very little issue with the vocabulary. They did keep reading the book and my time in their classroom was over before any of them finished the book.
I was hooked on the book by the second chapter. The main character is a high school senior that used to be “Nerd Boy” until he got caught and arrested for doing graffiti on the school building. Now he is either a person to be avoided, a person to be snubbed or an extremely cool person, depending on who you asked. The book is written from Tyler’s point of view. He opens up about many of the social issues that people face in school. There are times that he seems to be suicidal but that is never sensationalized. There is hardly any romance in the book although Tyler talks about his interest in one of the most popular girls in the school.
The students who could not tell me anything about the story where 8th grade males. I think that part of the reason may be that they did not want to have to talk about the emotional roller coaster that they face in their lives.
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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I will have to say that this is one of the first books that kept me up until the wee hours of the morning to finish reading in a long time. I have done so a few times in my life but it has been many years.
This novel takes places in the future but has parallels to the present. There is suspense and adventure enough to catch the male readers but enough philosophy and romance for the female. The main characters of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are both in their late teens and face the challenge of the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are used as a way for the ruling class to keep the masses controlled. The Hunger Games are a fight to the death between a male and female from each of the twelve districts that ring the Capital of Panem, a nation that is where North America is today. The winner is rewarded with riches and fame, where the loser gives their very lives. This is all done on live TV.
I started reading the book with one of the students in my classroom. I was going to try to read only as much as he did so that we could talk about the book as we read. It did not work. I was hooked on the book in the first chapter. The student did read a fair amount, I never told him that I finished the book in one day. (I hope that he does not read this post.) He was involved in reading and really had some wonderful things to day about what was going on in the story. There were a few words that he had to look up in the dictionary but he is in the 8th grade.
If you are looking for a page turner that has something for everyone in it, read this book. I am patiently waiting for the next one to come out. (The book ends with the words END OF BOOK ONE). The second book comes out in September 2009!
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Football Genius by Tim Green
I read this book simply because I heard Tim Green speak at the middle school that I was doing my student teaching. He is a very engaging speaker and the eight graders that I worked with had positive things to say about his talk.
Football Genius is Tim Green’s first book for young adults. It is very well written and keeps the action moving from chapter to chapter. The main character, Troy, is a young man who loves playing football but never gets the chance to because his coach does not put him in any games. Troy is a quarterback and so is the coach’s son, even though Troy is the better player he does not get to play. Troy also has a gift. He can predict any football play before it happens. His Mom gets a job with the Atlanta Falcons and Troy sees that as his chance to help his favorite team get out of the slump that they are in. Troy finds that proving that he can help is not going to be easy. Very few adults will lesson to an eleven-year-old boy.
I read the book in a day but then I read very fast. It is a page turner though which kept me from putting it down. The chapters are just the right length but you read on because you want to discover what happens next. I recommend the book even for people who do not really like football. (I am not a big football fan and can’t even name more then a few football teams.) The characters are written as if they are real people and you care about them. With each turn and twist of the plot, you want to find out if Troy can prove that he is a football genius, save his Mom’s job and help the Falcons win a championship.
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Swindle by Gordon Korman
Swindle is a fun book to read. It is all about Griffin, a Man with a Plan and how he plans to get back a baseball card that he found in a old house back from a collector that tricks into selling the card for a lot less then it is worth. No, it is not a sport story; there are very little sports in the book. It is about the plans that Griffin comes up with to get the card back and the group of kids that he gets to help him. There is a “dog whisperer” that deals with a large Doberman, a up and coming actor that distracts the busybody next door. There are a young lady, whose family are into rock climbing, who helps the kids get into the collector’s house, a bully, who becomes the muscle for the group, and a nerd, who hacks into the collector’s computer. I won’t go into much more detail. I don’t want to spoil the fun!
The ending is somewhat of a surprise but in a good way. Even though there are a lot of problems and troubles that the kids encounter in creating and executing the plan, it works out fine at the end. There is room for the museum and a skate park in the small town.
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To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifetime Obsession by Dan Koeppel
SUMMARY: Excellent book by a son about his bird watching and listing obsessed father.
I am not really a bird watcher. I have a bird feeder in my back yard and see the birds. I can name some of them. But the author Dan Koeppel’s father is obsessed. I has travelled all over the world seeing and listing over 7000 species of birds. Reading this book kind of makes me want to pay more attention to birds, and see how many different kinds I have in my back yard. But this guy would travel the world, passing by the sights, looking only for birds. There were some interesting sounding birds such as the Monkey Eating Eagle and the Harpy Eagle. Other big listers as they are called are talked about. People who can identify birds simply by thier sounds. They sound like an interesting bunch. I love to travel, and maybe I will pay more attention to birds. But there is no way that I am going to travel halfway around the world JUST to look for birds!
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