Mrs Payan Reads

This weekly meme is hosted by the lovely ladies at Teach Mentor Texts.  Head over there for more great ideas of kid literature and young adult books to add to your TBR.

Books I Finished This Week:

I was really interested in reading Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi both because of the Printz challenge and because the cover was so interesting.  This book is well-written and beautiful while at the same time quite disturbing.  It took me quite a while to get into the story in part because the world in the book is so bleak.  Once I was invested, the story picked up for me and I found myself reading quickly so that I could see what would happen to Nailer.  This is definitely a dark vision of a post-apocalyptic world.  I will certainly recommend this one to teens and adults alike, although it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea.

Thanks to netgalley I was able to read Bruised by Sarah Skilton which will be released on March 5th, 2013.  I highly recommend this book for teens.  Imogen is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.  She was the youngest student in her dojang to reach this belt level.  She has dedicated her life to the study of martial arts and she is quite proud of herself.  Then one day she is in a restaurant at closing time and a gunman enters the place to hold it up.  Imogen feels like she did not do enough to help the situation and is living with the guilt she feels after this traumatic situation.  This is a really interesting look at what a trauma like this can do to a teenager.  I was fascinated with this story throughout the entire novel.  I will absolutely be looking for this book to buy it for my class library as soon as it comes out.

I ordered this series from a Scholastic catalog for fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  This is a fun book about middle school and getting in trouble.  It is a perfect book for students who might be below level and it mixes graphic and text really well.  I enjoyed this story and will certainly recommend it to students, especially those students looking for easier texts.

I have had Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin on my TBR shelf for quite a while.  If I had to think about book gaps, my weakness would involve books that I think may be heartbreaking in some way.  I am the same way with movies.  If I think it is going to be a sad story, I avoid the movie.  So suffice it to say, I was avoiding reading this book.  I thought the premise sounded really good but I was afraid of heavy crying.  I should not have worried so much!  Elsewhere is about the afterlife.  Specifically, Liz has been hit by a car and wakes up on the boat taking her to her new life (death?) in the afterlife.  The adjustment to being in Elsewhere is tough for Liz and she wants to spend her days spying on her family and friends on Earth.  This book is about the process of letting go.  The original idea about how the afterlife might be for people is both beautiful and troubling.  I will definitely recommend this one to my students and will be curious to hear what they have to say about the ideas presented in this novel.

While looking for ideas for my unit teaching American Born Chinese, I stumbled upon a preview chapter of Teaching Graphic Novels: Practical Strategies for the Secondary ELA Classroom by Katie Monnin.  I was intrigued by the lesson idea so got on Amazon and ordered the book.  This book is full of interesting ideas and strategies for teaching with graphic novels.  I definitely appreciate the first chapter which has examples and handouts for helping students understand terminology unique to graphic novels.  However, some of the strategies and graphic organizers suggested are quite complex and confusing.  I will need to reread the lessons to determine if I want to use those ideas.  Overall, this book is helpful but a little disappointing.

What I am Currently Reading:

Energize: Research Reading and Writing by Christopher Lehman has already given me great ideas for starting the informational/expository research projects I will be doing.  I will be finishing this book soon so that I can begin to use the practical ideas and strategies to help my middle schoolers learn to research well.  I am also reading Adventures in Graphica by Terry Thompson because I was curious about the ideas I would find in this book for teaching graphic novels.  I love the ideas in this book so far and will be able to apply them in my 8th grade classroom even though the book is written for younger grade level teachers.

On the Horizon:

I want to read All the Broken Pieces this week.  I will probably also pick up Before I Fall and Beautiful Creatures.  I also should read Unenchanted on my Kindle because I have a student who just finished it and wants me to talk to her about it.  I have Ashes, Ashes on audiobook that I will listen to during my workouts this week.

Books I Read This Week:

I absolutely LOVED Nancy Drew when I was younger so I was excited to see how the stories translated to graphic form.  As an adult, the mystery is not as intense as I remember them being when I was young and impressionable.  I will enjoy sharing this graphic novel with my students and will look for more to buy.  I am now curious about the Nancy Drew, Girl Detective series and will pick one up from my class library to read.

The Baby-Sitters Club was another favorite series from when I was younger.  I love the way Raina Telgemeier interpreted this story in graphic form.  You can tell that she also was a fan of the series because the things that I remember being important were highlighted.  Kristi’s Great Idea was a great read and I loved being able to spend time with old friends again!  I especially love that I will be able to share this series with another generation of teens.  I highly recommend this graphic novel and can’t wait to read the rest of them.

Resistance is the story of some resistance fighters in France during World War II.  I loved that this story was told in graphic novel format.  It would be a great book to pair with Maus in a study of the war.  I am excited to recommend this one to my students.

I was very excited to get my hands on this book.  I had read many lists that recommended the book as a read aloud for middle school and did not get a chance to read it yet.  I have to say that I really found the supernatural references in the book to be a bit unbelievable and I would think that my students might also.  The book does portray slavery in a realistic way and that is always an important lesson for students.  I will recommend it to students who enjoy historical fiction.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle is one of my all-time favorite books.  I have read it dozens of times and was so excited to see how this one was adapted to graphic novel form.  I have to say that I completely agree with what others have been saying about this one.  Hope Larson did a phenomenal job with this book and conveyed everything that I found to be important in the story.  I cannot wait to share this one with my students!

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver is an excellent book!  The only thing that I was sad about was the absence of a certain character that I was hoping would show up in this one.  I am really looking forward to the conclusion of this trilogy.  I hope that things can work out for everyone involved.  I highly recommend this series to fans of dystopian fiction.

I flew through Rebel Heart by Moira Young in one sitting.  The world in this series is amazing and the characters are so complex.  The way that Saba and Lugh were having such a hard time communicating was infuriating as the way that Saba treated Emmi in Blood Red Road.  In this book there is a new regime taking over and people are losing their land.  Saba and her family end up mixed into the struggle and they go through a lot together.  I will absolutely recommend this series to my students and I am anxious to read the third book.

I read this one because one of my students RAVED over it after reading it and told me I HAD to read it.  I will definitely steer her toward more books by Lisa Yee.  I really liked this book also.  It really portrays that awkward time when girls and boys start to see each other differently and it is a little difficult for friends.  I have to say also that my student was absolutely ecstatic to get a message back from Lisa Yee on Goodreads after she sent a fan letter.  Yay for authors!

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am reading a netgalley of Bruised by Sarah Skilton and Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Books on the Horizon:

I don’t really have a plan for what I will read next.  I will try to finish the books I have already started but then will probably be re-reading some other books for planning my next reading unit.

Have a great reading week!

   
     Over winter break, I had the opportunity to visit The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles.  I had seen a blog post about this amazing store recently and asked my brother-in-law to help me find this treasure when I was visiting.  My husband, my brother-in-law, and I traveled to downtown LA so that I could go there.  The store did not disappoint!  It is an incredible shrine to books.  I love how the store owners really celebrated the beauty of books by making the decorations from books.  Every piece of art in the store was some sort of celebration of books.

   As I wandered through the second floor, I felt overwhelmed by the place.  I stumbled through this amazing place with awe and quickly realized that I could spend HOURS in this place.  There is something about the smell of books and the endless rows of selections that brings out a secret desire for the treasure hunt.  Standing there, I felt like many treasure seekers must feel before going off on an adventure.  Unfortunately for me, I was there with two other people so I had to condense the looking down to only a few shelves (I also had in mind the flight back to Wisconsin and knew I could not take a ton of books with me).  My husband, knowing the bookish nature of my soul, looked at me and said, “You could spend a long time here.  This is like heaven for you.”  And he was so right about that and I love that he understood so thoroughly how amazing just being in that place was for me.

A tunnel made from books!

     While meandering through the space and smelling the used book smell, I started to think about my grandparents.  My grandmother and my grandfather were instrumental in creating the book monster that I am today.  While growing up, I had the good fortune of living very close to my grandparents and being the oldest grandchild by 5 years.  This meant that I had a lot of time alone with these two wonderful people.  Both of my grandparents were readers.  My grandfather was really interested in history, specifically Civil War history.  He belonged to the Civil War Round Table and went to the conference every year.  The shelves in their living room were filled to the brim with gigantic tomes that chronicled the battles of the war as well as biographies of key people.  But my grandfather did not stop there, he read newspapers, magazines, and anything left out on the table in your house.  I am absolutely certain that if he had chosen to go on Jeopardy, he would have been a big winner.  He knew so much about so many things!  My grandmother also was a reader.  She was a mystery reader.  It is because of her influence that I hold a special place in my heart for mysteries also.  She introduced me to Agatha Christie when I was ready and inspired me to read all of Dame Christie’s novels as she had done.  I remember when an independent book store called Booked for Murder opened in Madison.  My grandmother waited to visit the store until I could go with her because this is something we shared so deeply.

      My grandparents would have LOVED The Last Bookstore.  Both of them loved a good bargain on a book and hardly ever bought new books.  They introduced me to used bookstores and library sales and the three of us would go on a hunt each time we entered one.  There were multiple times in my childhood in which I spent a few days with my grandparents in Florida.  Part of the magic of those vacations was discovering used bookstores in the area.  We would go into the store and disappear from each other for a little bit while we each hunted down what we were looking for.  My mission became looking for Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books to fuel the love of mysteries that had started for me.  My grandparents taught me the art of hunting books and enjoying the spaces where book lovers roam.

     While I was reminiscing about these experiences, it really dawned on me how lucky I was as a child.  I have known it all along, but this was a different kind of epiphany.  I was amazingly lucky to have been brought into a bookish family.  Not only did my parents love to read, my grandparents were even bigger bibliophiles and I had the luck to be the grandchild who most directly benefitted from that.  This made me think about the unfortunate statistic that more and more adults are spending less time reading.  I work every day to help my students learn to love reading as much as I do, and I always have an uphill battle.  My students most likely do not have grandparents or parents who teach them to love books, and that puts them at a horrible disadvantage.

     I work in an urban school.  At my school about 65% of the students are on free or reduced lunch.  This is considered to be a high-poverty situation.  The kids at my school are not as bad off as other students in the city.  The majority of them have a roof over their heads and food on the table every night.  They have clean clothes and school supplies.  However, most of their parents do not really have extra money to spare.  They do not have book shelves full of books at home, many do not even have a library card or they owe money for fines so cannot use their cards.  When they do have extra money, many of these families spend it on game systems and video games for their children not on books.   When we talk about test scores and failing schools, we need to talk about these things.  My students do not have the same opportunities that I had growing up.  It isn’t even really about the money.  It is about the role models.  We need to have adults who read and enjoy books and teach kids to do so also.  There are so many great teachers out there that are working on this and cultivating a love of reading in their classrooms.  However, there are also many teachers out there who “don’t have time to read”–how can they say this when their students are depending on them?

     I wish sincerely that my students and the kids all over the United States were as lucky as I was when I was their age.  I wish that they had parents and grandparents that loved books and taught them to love books.  I wish that they had parents and grandparents who read them bedtime stories from when they were too young to remember them until they were teenagers (or at least as old as possible).  But the sad reality is that many of these students do not have these things.  As a teacher, it is my mission to provide as much book love in my classroom I can and I do this every day.   However, what I really want for my students is to be able to give them the experience of walking into a bookstore or a library and feeling at peace.  I want them to feel that excitement that only a good book hunt can give me.  I want them to want to see that Scholastic box arriving in the classroom.  I want them to see adults in their lives that are excited about books.

     This is why what we do in the classroom is so important.  If I can influence my students to become life-long readers, I can provide a new generation with the incredible luck of growing up in a bookish family and that is a very lucky thing indeed.

Every week I participate in this meme hosted by the lovely ladies over at Teach Mentor Texts.  Jen and Kellee had the brilliant idea to adapt this meme to talk about the great young adult and children’s literature that we are reading.  Head over to their blog for more great reads and a plethora of recommendations of great kidlit.

Books I Read This Week:

I enjoyed the high fantasy book Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson.  Elisa is married off to the King of a nearby land in a hurried deal.  She has always been the younger princess who does not get involved with court issues.  She likes to eat and is self-conscious because of her weight.  She does not understand why she is being sent off so young.  The only thing she knows that she has going for her is the fact that she carries a godstone.  This means that she has been chosen by God but she does not know when she will have to act or what she will
                have to do.  Throughout the book, Elisa evolves and turns into a very strong female      
                character.

Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach is definitely a boy book.  I can see teenage boys really identifying with Felton and understanding his angst.  I was a little tickled with the references to landmarks I know well since the story is set in a small Wisconsin town.  This book is a about a kid who figures out that he has athletic talent and begins to be more accepted by his peers because of it, but it is also about complex psychological issues.  Felton feels like everything outside of his home is coming together so nicely, but meanwhile his family is
                falling apart.  This book is more geared toward high school boys, but I have a student in mind
                that I think will really like it so I will be recommending it to an 8th grader.

Brain Camp by Susan Kim is a fun sci-fi graphic novel.  The story is about a summer camp and two kids that go there after the summer has begun.  Something is not quite right at camp and these two are determined to figure out what is happening.  What they find out is almost more than they can handle.  I really enjoyed this book and I know that my students will love it.  However, there is one sequence in the book where the young teen has a dream about the
                girl he likes and wakes up suddenly.  The next frame shows him in the bathroom rinsing out
                his underwear.  Although I recognize that this is something that happens to young teenage
                boys, I dread the way my 8th graders will deal with this scene.  Maybe I am wrong about the
                way they might react, but I don’t see the necessity for this sequence and wish it were not in
                the book.

I was super fortunate this year with Christmas gifts.  My sister gave me a writing themed gift with three books I have been wanting to read about writing.  I already had this book, but I was thrilled to get another copy of it.  I especially was excited to read this one during our flight home.  It was a great insight into the writing process of Walter Dean Myers and I am excited to share it with students.  I definitely will either read the whole book aloud or excerpts of it before doing NaNoWriMo next year.  I like that Myers has a process for
                planning his books and I think I might be able to use some of his advice in my own writing as
                well.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn has been on my to-read list for quite a while.  I enjoy mysteries and this one sounded like it would be right up my alley.  I did enjoy this book, but found it to be less of a mystery and more of a book about psychology and relationships.  The author did manage to surprise me throughout the story and I think the premise is fantastic.  I really enjoyed the complexity of the characters and the situation they all were in.  I would recommend this book to other adults, but I did not love it like I thought I would.

The Always War By Margaret Peterson Haddix is another high-interest, low-readability book that I know my struggling readers will love.  I enjoyed the post-apocalyptic tale which included high amounts of adventure and three very likeable protagonists.  I will recommend this one to all students but especially those that need a good book with less challenge.

I have been wanting to read this one for quite a while.  It was another Christmas gift from my awesome sister.  In Delerium by Lauren Oliver, Lena lives in a society that has been saved from an awful disease.  Love has been cured and this makes their lives safe and secure.  Every person receives the cure for this awful disease when he or she is 18 years old.  Until then, teenagers must be kept separate lest they get infected with the disease.  Lena is a good girl who follows all the rules because she has always lived under a cloud because her mother
                was never cured and committed suicide.  She is a normal 18 year old who is looking forward
                 to her match and her cure.  Once these things happen, she will be able to go to college and
                then get married when she is done with school.  She is excited for all of this until she meets
                Alex.  He changes everything for her and she starts to realize that maybe love isn’t this awful
                disease after all.  I really liked this book although the ending almost ruined it for me.
                Hopefully the rest of the series will make up for that.  I am glad I have Pandemonium here in
                the house and will be able to read it this week.  I will recommend this book to students who
                enjoy dystopian fiction.

What I will read this week:

I will start 47 by Walter Mosley today.  I have wanted to read this book for years.  I will also get to Pandemonium soon.  I have a box of books in my trunk from the warehouse sale and don’t remember all of the books that are in there but I will probably pull a book or two from that box this week.  I also have the graphic novels Resistance and The Walking Dead (volume 1) that I will read.

What are you reading?

Every week I participate in this meme hosted by the lovely ladies over at Teach Mentor Texts.  Jen and Kellee had the brilliant idea to adapt this meme to talk about the great young adult and children’s literature that we are reading.  Head over to their blog for more great reads and a plethora of recommendations of great kidlit.

Books I Finished This Week:

The Dark Monk by Oliver Potzsch is the second book in the Hangman’s Daughter series.  It is a murder mystery set in medieval Germany.  I love the interesting characters in this series.  It is fun to read about a historical period that I do not know much about and I am intrigued by the idea of the hangman as a healer.  These are good mysteries and make for very interesting reading.

I really enjoyed Legend by Marie Lu.  It is truly a dystopian book in that the protagonist truly does not know that her world is not the way that she has always believed it to be.  I love the way that Day and June find kindred spirits in one another.  I am looking forward to reading the sequel.  The other thing I loved was the alternating points of view.

The book Endangered by Eliot Schrefer is one that I would not have picked up if I hadn’t seen the gushing tweets of Jillian Heise.  I did not realize that this was such a powerful story and I am so glad I paid attention to her recommendation!  I bought this one through the Scholastic book catalog for a very reasonable price and will be looking for more copies to add multiples to my class library.  The story takes place in Congo and as you can imagine it is a powerful story of survival in a war-torn country.  It is also a very informative book about bonobos and their habits.  I love learning about animals in books!  I consider this a must-read and will be trying to put it in the hands of all of the readers in my classroom.

Rebecca Stead has such a fun style in her writing.  I really loved the characters in this book and sympathized with Georges throughout the story.  Liar and Spy is a great mystery and fun to read.  I would recommend it for middle grade readers.

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles is a sappy romance book with which I can see many students relating.  I think the two protagonists are complex characters with a lot of layers and it is fun to see them learn to recognize a kindred spirit in each other.  I was interested in how their story would go and enjoyed the book.  It is definitely young adult with a few things wrapping up a little too perfectly…maybe more of a fairly tale that could happen but most likely wouldn’t happen.  I, however, am an adult with a little more cynical view of the world and I know the girls in my classroom will love this one!

Books I am currently reading:

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson.  This one grabbed me right away and is quite different from what I was expecting.  So far, I really like the story.

Books on the Horizon:

I will probably get to a lot of books that are stored on my Kindle.  Since I am travelling, I will prefer to read those books than have a bulky suitcase.  Some books that I might get to while traveling: Stupid Fast, Cold Kiss, Eve, IQ84, or The Night Circus.  

Title:  Out of the Easy
Author: Ruta Sepetys

Publishing date: February 13, 2013

Source:  Netgalley ARC

My Summary: Josie Moraine is yearning for more in her life.  The daughter of a prostitute, she has had a tough life in the New Orleans Quarter.  Even though she is a smart girl and did well in school, she has not gone on to study in college.  This is mostly due to the fact that she does not want to be known as the prostitute’s daughter anymore.  Josie wants to live her life on her own without having to feel that people are judging her.  So Jo plugs along working at the book store and cleaning the brothel in the mornings to save up for the day when she will be able to leave New Orleans.  

What I Thought:  This book was a beautifully written novel.  I enjoyed the depth of the characters and fell in love with all of them.  I loved how the author wrote about characters that society would usually think of as people on the margin.  It really made me rethink the quick judgements I might be inclined to make when thinking about prostitutes and madams.  I also liked the way the author surprised me on a number of occasions throughout the story and kept me on my toes as a reader.  There are some true scoundrels in this narrative, but also some true gems who I would love to know and count as friends.  I was rooting for Josie throughout the book and worried about her almost as much as Willie did.  If you are anything like me, this is a book that you will not be able to put down.

This was another gem of a book from Ruta Sepetys.  I will certainly continue to look for more from this author in the future.

Inspired by the annual book survey of Jamie at The Perpetual Page-Turner, this is a survey of my own reading from this year. To see more amazing bloggers and their answers to these questions, visit Jamie’s blog here.

1. Best Book You Read In 2012? (You can break it down by genre if you want)

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer and The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin were my favorite series this year and I can’t wait for the conclusion to the trilogy.
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater was my favorite book overall.

2. Book You Were Excited About and Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chobsky was a good book but it just didn’t really pull me in. I was really annoyed by the narrator and had a hard time seeing what everyone else sees in that book. A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz is one that I know my students will love, but I did not like it as much as I thought I might.

3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2012? 

Every week I participate in this meme hosted by the lovely ladies over at Teach Mentor Texts.  Jen and Kellee had the brilliant idea to adapt this meme to talk about the great young adult and children’s literature that we are reading.  Head over to their blog for more great reads and a plethora of recommendations of great kidlit.

This week was a really tough one for me.  I thought I would be able to get through a lot of books, and was looking forward to a successful week at school and a good reading week at home.  Then, I got a phone call at noon on Monday that changed everything.  My step-brother Jeff passed away very suddenly on Monday.  Although I was home from work most of the week, I was unable to focus enough to get much reading done and I was also busy with the funeral and visitation.  My sister and her husband came to stay with us too.  I am hoping this week will be a little better for me, but I am not sure my focus will be much better.