SOME DEWEY
100 WEA A Young Person’s Guide to Philosophy: “I Think Therefore I Am” published by DK Publishing, 1998
Mostly two-page spread for each philosophy from the early Greeks to philosophy today. Includes information about the schools of philosophy.
92 TRU Only Passing Through: The Story of Sojourner Truth by Anne Rockwell, illustrated by R Gregory Christie, 2000
Short biography, but too long to read during one sitting. Broad-stroke paintings with exaggerated hands or heads.
Crazy in Love by Dandi Daley Mackall, 2007
High school senior Mary Jane Ettenmeyer has a crush on Jackson House, who is currently dating Star, one of the girls in her group of girlfriends. But Star is going out behind his back, and he starts paying attention to Mary Jane. Her Plain Jane inner voice can’t believe he’d be interested in her, but her MJ inner voice is screaming “go for it!” When she starts getting a slew of phone calls from other guys as well, she knows her reputation has been jeopardized and she suspects Jackson at first, until one of the boy callers spills that Star is the one spreading the rumors. Her sister Sandy plays on a Special Olympic-type basketball team. Her two best friends (Red and Alicia) have formed the AIA (abstinence in action) club with her, but now Alicia is at college, in love, and no longer a practicing member of AIA. Since Red has a long-time boyfriend, Mary Jane wonders if she is the only one still in AIA. By the end of the story, Alicia has been hurt by her “true love” and Red is still waiting, working on a solid relationship with her beau. Despite myself, I enjoyed this book. The message is good, the inner voices of Mary Jane ring true, and I felt it captured the angst of high school and dating well.
Some memory-jogging tags: Love story. High school. Family life. Friendship. Abstinence. Special needs sibling.
MS Rating: Not advisable. It is too old for my population.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Fairest by Gail Carson Levine, 2006
Aza is no beauty. In fact, she is ugly enough to cause rude stares from the patrons at her adopted parents’ inn. But her voice is one of the most beautiful heard anywhere in the kingdom, which is a great gift indeed in a kingdom that breaks into song at a drop of a hat, and plays composing games for fun. When a lady-in-waiting falls ill, Aza ends up at the castle. This retelling of Snow White is perfectly delightful, from Queen Ivi, a foreigner and no singer, who is vain enough to be tricked by the evil magical Skulni who inhabits the inside the hand mirror, into some vile acts, to the little gnomes (and her friend zhamM) who give Aza shelter after she is accused of tricking the kingdom. Aza throws her singing voice for the queen, making it appear the queen is singing, thus deceiving the court, but she is not guilty of being a traitor to all Ayortha’s ways. Before running away, she takes a beauty potion but Prince Ijori is happy when it finally wears off. I found this companion book to Ella Enchanted also enchanting.
Some memory-jogging tags: Kingdoms. Magic. Fantasy. Beauty. Singing. Self-acceptance. Identity. Fairytale.
MS Rating: Great.
Aza is no beauty. In fact, she is ugly enough to cause rude stares from the patrons at her adopted parents’ inn. But her voice is one of the most beautiful heard anywhere in the kingdom, which is a great gift indeed in a kingdom that breaks into song at a drop of a hat, and plays composing games for fun. When a lady-in-waiting falls ill, Aza ends up at the castle. This retelling of Snow White is perfectly delightful, from Queen Ivi, a foreigner and no singer, who is vain enough to be tricked by the evil magical Skulni who inhabits the inside the hand mirror, into some vile acts, to the little gnomes (and her friend zhamM) who give Aza shelter after she is accused of tricking the kingdom. Aza throws her singing voice for the queen, making it appear the queen is singing, thus deceiving the court, but she is not guilty of being a traitor to all Ayortha’s ways. Before running away, she takes a beauty potion but Prince Ijori is happy when it finally wears off. I found this companion book to Ella Enchanted also enchanting.
Some memory-jogging tags: Kingdoms. Magic. Fantasy. Beauty. Singing. Self-acceptance. Identity. Fairytale.
MS Rating: Great.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The Wednesday Wars and Greetings from Planet Earth
Greetings from Planet Earth by Barbara Kerley, 2007
Set in the same time period as The Wednesday Wars, this book has a much different pacing and feel to it. It tells the story of Theo, whose dad is MIA from the Vietnam War. His science teacher, Mr. Meyer, gives the class an assignment inspired by the golden record carried by Voyager 2 to the farthest reaches of space: Who are we? The chapters – third-person accounts of Theo and his interactions with his mom, grandma JeeBee, his sister Janet, and his best friend Kenny – are introduced with short monologues in Theo’s voice musing about who we are, both in the cosmic sense and as an individual. His family has two unspoken rules that he’s figured out: If you pretend everything is OK, then everything is OK; and, Don’t talk about Dad, ever. By the end, he is ready to abandon these rules, and convince his family to do the same. I couldn’t help comparing this with The Wednesday Wars. While the latter shows how a year’s worth of events and experiences can add up to gaining a new sense of self, the former shows how uncovering one well-hid truth can change the course of a life.
Some memory-jogging tags: Vietnam War, fiction. Historical fiction. Voyager 2. Space program. Family life. Fathers and sons. Letters. Family secrets. Grandmothers.
MS Rating: Great.
Quotes: P 224: The mom said, “I never acknowledged the sacrifice he made, how much he had to give up. It killed him to leave you and Janet – he knew he’d miss so much of your growing up.” She closed her eyes. “You’d think I could have written and told him that.”
P 155: Mr. Meyer said, “I’ve met a lot of people in my life, Theo. People who truly examine things – examine themselves, even. And people who don’t I see it in school all the time – the kids who just memorize for the test and the kids who really want to understand. You’re someone who wants to understand. The road you’re choosing is the harder one. But your life will be richer because of it.”
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt, 2007
Holling Hoodhood is the only child in Mrs. Baker’s seventh-grade class at Camillo Junior High that is not either Jewish or Catholic and doesn’t dismiss early on Wednesday afternoons to attend religious class. So Mrs. Baker teaches him Shakespeare. The story follows Holling through his school year, month by month, filled with humor, humiliation, clumsiness, family dysfunction, Shakespeare, friendship and first love, baseball, track, camping, and finding himself. Set against the background of the Vietnam era, I found this story humorous and very engaging.
Some memory-jogging tags: Vietnam War, fiction. Family life. Long Island, fiction. Baseball, Yankees, fiction. William Shakespeare’s plays, fiction. Humorous story. Historical fiction.
MS Rating: Great.
Quotes: P 118: Vengeance is sweet. Vengeance taken when the vengee isn’t sure who the venger is, is sweeter still.
P 223: I saw my town as if I had just arrived. It was as if I was waking up. You see houses and buildings every day, and you walk by them on your way to something else, and you hardly see. You hardly notice they’re even there, mostly because there’s something else going on right in front of your face. But when the town itself becomes the thing that is going on right in front of your face, it all changes, and you’re not just looking at a house but at what’s happened in that house before you were born. That afternoon, driving with Mrs. Baker, the American Revolution was here. The escaped slaves were here. The abolitionists were here. And I was here.
P 226: And I realized that the biggest part of the empty in the house was my sister being gone. Maybe the first time that you know you really care about something is when you think about it not being there, and you know – you really know – that the emptiness is as much inside you as outside you.
Set in the same time period as The Wednesday Wars, this book has a much different pacing and feel to it. It tells the story of Theo, whose dad is MIA from the Vietnam War. His science teacher, Mr. Meyer, gives the class an assignment inspired by the golden record carried by Voyager 2 to the farthest reaches of space: Who are we? The chapters – third-person accounts of Theo and his interactions with his mom, grandma JeeBee, his sister Janet, and his best friend Kenny – are introduced with short monologues in Theo’s voice musing about who we are, both in the cosmic sense and as an individual. His family has two unspoken rules that he’s figured out: If you pretend everything is OK, then everything is OK; and, Don’t talk about Dad, ever. By the end, he is ready to abandon these rules, and convince his family to do the same. I couldn’t help comparing this with The Wednesday Wars. While the latter shows how a year’s worth of events and experiences can add up to gaining a new sense of self, the former shows how uncovering one well-hid truth can change the course of a life.
Some memory-jogging tags: Vietnam War, fiction. Historical fiction. Voyager 2. Space program. Family life. Fathers and sons. Letters. Family secrets. Grandmothers.
MS Rating: Great.
Quotes: P 224: The mom said, “I never acknowledged the sacrifice he made, how much he had to give up. It killed him to leave you and Janet – he knew he’d miss so much of your growing up.” She closed her eyes. “You’d think I could have written and told him that.”
P 155: Mr. Meyer said, “I’ve met a lot of people in my life, Theo. People who truly examine things – examine themselves, even. And people who don’t I see it in school all the time – the kids who just memorize for the test and the kids who really want to understand. You’re someone who wants to understand. The road you’re choosing is the harder one. But your life will be richer because of it.”
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt, 2007
Holling Hoodhood is the only child in Mrs. Baker’s seventh-grade class at Camillo Junior High that is not either Jewish or Catholic and doesn’t dismiss early on Wednesday afternoons to attend religious class. So Mrs. Baker teaches him Shakespeare. The story follows Holling through his school year, month by month, filled with humor, humiliation, clumsiness, family dysfunction, Shakespeare, friendship and first love, baseball, track, camping, and finding himself. Set against the background of the Vietnam era, I found this story humorous and very engaging.
Some memory-jogging tags: Vietnam War, fiction. Family life. Long Island, fiction. Baseball, Yankees, fiction. William Shakespeare’s plays, fiction. Humorous story. Historical fiction.
MS Rating: Great.
Quotes: P 118: Vengeance is sweet. Vengeance taken when the vengee isn’t sure who the venger is, is sweeter still.
P 223: I saw my town as if I had just arrived. It was as if I was waking up. You see houses and buildings every day, and you walk by them on your way to something else, and you hardly see. You hardly notice they’re even there, mostly because there’s something else going on right in front of your face. But when the town itself becomes the thing that is going on right in front of your face, it all changes, and you’re not just looking at a house but at what’s happened in that house before you were born. That afternoon, driving with Mrs. Baker, the American Revolution was here. The escaped slaves were here. The abolitionists were here. And I was here.
P 226: And I realized that the biggest part of the empty in the house was my sister being gone. Maybe the first time that you know you really care about something is when you think about it not being there, and you know – you really know – that the emptiness is as much inside you as outside you.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Heir Apparent and Alphabet of Dreams
Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde, 2002
Giannine Bellisario receives a gift certificate from her distant father at Rasmussem Gamming Center, a total immersion virtual reality center, which she requested for her fourteenth birthday present. She goes through some picketers, who feel such entertainment isn’t appropriate for children, and decides to play Heir Apparent because the desk attendant describes it as bean soup – there are many ways to make a good soup but also many ways to make mistakes, and also because the picture of the prince in the advertisement is cute. While she’s playing the game, she’s Janine, the heir apparent in a kingdom of half-brothers, former queen, wizards, advisors with various degrees of loyalty and helpfulness, seven-league boots, a midas crown, enslaving ring, and flesh-eating dragon. If she’s killed she gets to start over, but time is running out. The picketers have broken into the store and damaged the equipment. If she doesn’t become crowned king soon, she’ll never win. Her brain will be fried. A heavenly messenger tells her this while playing her first scenario and gives her some cryptic clues.
It is a thoroughly amusing read. The tone is humorous. I thought the premise was cleverly done, with a Groundhog-Day-esque pacing and hilarity.
Some memory-jogging tags: Virtual reality. Role playing. Magical kingdoms. Fathers and daughters. Learning from mistakes. Dragons. Magic. Duel identities. Trust.
MS Rating: Great. Fun read, especially for girls. I've heard from some of my MS students that they really liked it.
Alphabet of Dreams by Susan Fletcher, 2006
Mitra and her young brother, Babak, are living as beggars in the city of Rhagae, sleeping in the precarious safety of old catacombs in the City of the Dead and staying as far away from their neighbors as possible. Mitra, living as a boy named Ramen, doesn’t trust anyone. This secret is too dangerous, as is her other one – that she and her brother are the children of a would-be king nobleman who tried to overthrow King Phraates and ended up killed as traitors instead. She has convinced her older brother, Suren, to try to find the rest of the family, but he hasn’t returned. This is the beginning. As she waits for Suren, Mitra discovers that Babak can dream other people’s dreams if he sleeps with a piece of their clothing. This gift comes to the attention of a powerful magus named Melchior. They become part of his caravan; make friends with a kitten (Shirak), a donkey (Gorizpa), a camel (Ziba), and a boy (Pacorus); are joined by two other magi; are kidnapped for ransom but escape and given shelter by Koosha and his family; are returned to the caravan by Giv; and follow the stars to Bethlehem. Mitra eventually accepts her new life and is freed from having to keep secrets.
I had a hard time getting into the rhythm of the writing. It was choppy with lots of sentence fragments, which made it hard for me to get lost in the story. Though I enjoyed the overall story by the end, I didn’t much enjoy the reading of it.
Some memory-jogging tags: Hidden identify. Brothers and sisters. Nobility. Ancient Persia, fiction. Dreams. Jesus Christ, nativity, fiction. Historical fiction. Bravery.
MS Rating: OK. Beehive 07-08 nominee. Map at beginning.
Quotes: P 153: Koosha says, “You are entirely yourself, no matter how you hide.”
P 258-9: Balthazaar says, “I keep musing upon paradise and the way to attain it. Of the Prophet’s admonition that greatness comes neither from wealth nor knowledge nor nobility of birth, but from our own good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. By these lights, he tells us, even a slave can cross to paradise, while many a king plunges into the abyss. The highborn and the lowly are as one.”
P 259: Balthazaar says, “…this birth [of the baby in Bethlehem] has less to do with kingly power and priestly knowledge, and more to do here” – he placed an outspread hand upon his chest – “with the heart.”
P 280: Divining dreams were a grand and precious gift, like the gifts the Magi had brought to Bethlehem. But the freedom to dream ordinary dreams, dreams that were truly one’s own – perhaps this was more precious still.
Giannine Bellisario receives a gift certificate from her distant father at Rasmussem Gamming Center, a total immersion virtual reality center, which she requested for her fourteenth birthday present. She goes through some picketers, who feel such entertainment isn’t appropriate for children, and decides to play Heir Apparent because the desk attendant describes it as bean soup – there are many ways to make a good soup but also many ways to make mistakes, and also because the picture of the prince in the advertisement is cute. While she’s playing the game, she’s Janine, the heir apparent in a kingdom of half-brothers, former queen, wizards, advisors with various degrees of loyalty and helpfulness, seven-league boots, a midas crown, enslaving ring, and flesh-eating dragon. If she’s killed she gets to start over, but time is running out. The picketers have broken into the store and damaged the equipment. If she doesn’t become crowned king soon, she’ll never win. Her brain will be fried. A heavenly messenger tells her this while playing her first scenario and gives her some cryptic clues.
It is a thoroughly amusing read. The tone is humorous. I thought the premise was cleverly done, with a Groundhog-Day-esque pacing and hilarity.
Some memory-jogging tags: Virtual reality. Role playing. Magical kingdoms. Fathers and daughters. Learning from mistakes. Dragons. Magic. Duel identities. Trust.
MS Rating: Great. Fun read, especially for girls. I've heard from some of my MS students that they really liked it.
Alphabet of Dreams by Susan Fletcher, 2006
Mitra and her young brother, Babak, are living as beggars in the city of Rhagae, sleeping in the precarious safety of old catacombs in the City of the Dead and staying as far away from their neighbors as possible. Mitra, living as a boy named Ramen, doesn’t trust anyone. This secret is too dangerous, as is her other one – that she and her brother are the children of a would-be king nobleman who tried to overthrow King Phraates and ended up killed as traitors instead. She has convinced her older brother, Suren, to try to find the rest of the family, but he hasn’t returned. This is the beginning. As she waits for Suren, Mitra discovers that Babak can dream other people’s dreams if he sleeps with a piece of their clothing. This gift comes to the attention of a powerful magus named Melchior. They become part of his caravan; make friends with a kitten (Shirak), a donkey (Gorizpa), a camel (Ziba), and a boy (Pacorus); are joined by two other magi; are kidnapped for ransom but escape and given shelter by Koosha and his family; are returned to the caravan by Giv; and follow the stars to Bethlehem. Mitra eventually accepts her new life and is freed from having to keep secrets.
I had a hard time getting into the rhythm of the writing. It was choppy with lots of sentence fragments, which made it hard for me to get lost in the story. Though I enjoyed the overall story by the end, I didn’t much enjoy the reading of it.
Some memory-jogging tags: Hidden identify. Brothers and sisters. Nobility. Ancient Persia, fiction. Dreams. Jesus Christ, nativity, fiction. Historical fiction. Bravery.
MS Rating: OK. Beehive 07-08 nominee. Map at beginning.
Quotes: P 153: Koosha says, “You are entirely yourself, no matter how you hide.”
P 258-9: Balthazaar says, “I keep musing upon paradise and the way to attain it. Of the Prophet’s admonition that greatness comes neither from wealth nor knowledge nor nobility of birth, but from our own good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. By these lights, he tells us, even a slave can cross to paradise, while many a king plunges into the abyss. The highborn and the lowly are as one.”
P 259: Balthazaar says, “…this birth [of the baby in Bethlehem] has less to do with kingly power and priestly knowledge, and more to do here” – he placed an outspread hand upon his chest – “with the heart.”
P 280: Divining dreams were a grand and precious gift, like the gifts the Magi had brought to Bethlehem. But the freedom to dream ordinary dreams, dreams that were truly one’s own – perhaps this was more precious still.
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