tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87531241014328929942024-03-14T02:07:33.034-07:00That Blog Belongs to Emily Brown!xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.comBlogger170125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-74850906403151287982017-05-31T19:06:00.003-07:002017-05-31T19:13:42.230-07:00Media Smart Libraries Reflection<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">This blog post is the last piece of evidence I am submitting to earn my Media Smart Libraries certification, and it feels appropriate to finish with a reflection. When I applied to be part of the program, I wasn't sure what being a "media smart" librarian meant. I associated media literacy with deconstructing cigarette ads in magazines and political ads on TV. I didn't occur to me that since media has proliferated in terms of form and content since I was a teen, media literacy has necessarily expanded as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">There were times during my involvement with the program that I wasn't sure a clear definition of "media smart" would emerge for me. I attended workshops that interested me, from Minecraft to stop-motion animation to infographics to 3D printing, but I didn't see the links between these topics. How were they connected and what did they have to do with media literacy?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">Then I took Faith Rogow's ABCs of Media Literacy and realized my problem: I only considered certain media "literate" enough to require media literacy. I didn't consider navigating apps, playing games, or designing graphics online as acts that required media literacy. But after listening to Faith Rogow speak, I felt a new urgency to help young people interact with all of these forms of media effectively, responsibly--even amazingly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">I think I am not the only librarian who has been reluctant to take on all media. Many of us are still more comfortable with books, and while we may have embraced online research and dabbled in media creation, I don't think many of us would identify as experts in all forms of media. And yet, a stated goal of the Media Smart Libraries program is to "Create a cadre of digital and media literacy expert librarians."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">So now that I am almost done earning my MSL badges, I feel like I have to ask myself: Am I an expert? What do I know that distinguishes me from the average parent trying to monitor their child's media intake? What can I do with digital media that an average high school student couldn't figure out faster than me? Is it even possible to be an expert in media literacy in an era when media is so vast and varied? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">I'm not sure I'm ready to claim expert status, but I will say this: I now have a framework. When a parent asks me about rules for screen time, I know to step back and ask questions about the content of the media their kids are consuming and their relationship to that media rather than suggesting ways to count minutes or lock down devices. When a kid asks me for help using a new digital tool, I know to ask them the kind of questions that will allow them to figure it out for themselves rather than taking the mouse or the tablet away from them to do it myself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">I think at its core, media literacy is about asking questions rather than just consuming media. The questions vary: What does this mean? How can I use this? What message do I want to send? But the framework remains the same. I don't have to be an expert on every form of media. I just have to approach media with curiosity and a desire to contribute, and I now believe it is my role as a librarian to engage with all forms of media that influence the lives of the children I serve.</span>xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-50143259097837329822016-05-27T06:34:00.001-07:002016-05-27T06:46:48.265-07:00Rhode Island Picture BooksI haven't been here in a while, but I wanted to document my preparation for a recent storytime at the grocery store across the street from my library. They were having a local food fest, and they asked me to offer a "local" storytime, with books set in Rhode Island or by Rhode Island authors. <br />
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I instantly knew I would read <i>Blizzard</i>, by John Rocco, but I was surprised not to find a list of other titles anywhere on the Internet. So, here's the list I was looking for (also <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/36427311-emily-brown?shelf=rhode-island-connections">here on Goodreads</a>):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVpESmWfIIgpeUQC44zC-qGGQvbf_R4lDBumifuZ5yslfsLXDwBYiQTSj7WHeN4QBEKUxaIXhmGz_by8Y3La6j2A7G93bTHw6WifzIsJR9jE4s6ktaJc7OF2JhHg9JQ13_wC0pb2UQAqs/s1600/blizzard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVpESmWfIIgpeUQC44zC-qGGQvbf_R4lDBumifuZ5yslfsLXDwBYiQTSj7WHeN4QBEKUxaIXhmGz_by8Y3La6j2A7G93bTHw6WifzIsJR9jE4s6ktaJc7OF2JhHg9JQ13_wC0pb2UQAqs/s200/blizzard.jpg" width="170" /></a></div>
<i>Blizzard </i>by John Rocco<br />
The author was a little boy in Rhode Island during the blizzard of '78, and he tells the story of how he put tennis rackets on his feet to walk to the store. Rocco's a recent Caldecott honoree, so you know the illustrations are fantastic.<br />
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<i>Lost and Found</i> by Bill Harley<br />
This ever-so-slightly magical story of a boy who must brave the school's grumpy janitor to recover the hat his grandmother knit him is dedicated to the students of Paul Cuffee school.<br />
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<i>The Bravest Woman in America</i> by Marissa Moss<br />
This picture book biography of a female lighthouse keeper in Rhode Island makes for an exciting adventure story!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0axlYFyoSNK0wItKdjT-pdVzeP4nHggPuLiC2ZAHMgCFpak-9ogSmd5OalX9PU4OjXgAFSRNAf5KWSLnjspVcP5z8eILd3CTHzAKbYAt_7X11jRqj0JDu0yke1N5-xKA7SIQ1Q1MC108/s1600/RIred.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0axlYFyoSNK0wItKdjT-pdVzeP4nHggPuLiC2ZAHMgCFpak-9ogSmd5OalX9PU4OjXgAFSRNAf5KWSLnjspVcP5z8eILd3CTHzAKbYAt_7X11jRqj0JDu0yke1N5-xKA7SIQ1Q1MC108/s200/RIred.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<i>R is for Rhode Island Red</i> by Mark R. Allio; illustrated by Mary Jane Begin<br />
A classic ABC book. I didn't read this one straight through, but I had kids guess the words on some of the pages. Their favorite page was "T is for Tasty Treats," with the Big Blue Bug. This also provided tons of inspiration for future "local" storytime topics: pirates, carousels, animals in Naragansett Bay ...<br />
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<i>Olga's Cup and Saucer</i> by Olga Bravo<br />
This is basically a vehicle for the recipes, but the illustrations are cute and it introduces lots of produce!<br />
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<i>Black and White</i> by David Macauley<br />
Chris Van Allsburg and David Macauley are probably to the two most famous RI illustrators and RISD grads, although I don't believe either one lives in RI anymore. However, David Macauley graduated from Cumberland High School, and his <a href="http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20140215/entertainment/302159988">two</a> <a href="http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20130622/Business/306229936">murals</a> along RI highways are still visible. And this is a ground-breaking picture book. Any excuse to share it is acceptable. (Also, <a href="http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20130815/NEWS/308159994">Macauley's response to graffiti</a> on one of the murals is kind of interesting.)<br />
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<i>There's a Wolf at the Door </i>by Zoe B. Alley, with pictures by R.W. Alley<br />
The husband and wife team behind this oversized fairy-tale retelling in graphic novel form lives in Barrington. You can probably find many books illustrated by R. W. Alley on your shelves. This one's a little challenging to read aloud, but worth it for the snappy humor and true-to-the-original plotting. And you can just read one story and encourage kids to check out the book to read the rest.<br />
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<i>Under the Sparkling Sea</i> by Mary Jane Begin<br />
I would only read this aloud to a pro-My-Little Pony crowd, but I mention it because it has two RI connections: Mary Jane Begin is a Rhode Islander who teaches at RISD and My Little Pony is owned by Hasbro, which is headquartered in RI.<br />
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And if you need more, just pick anything by Chris Van Allsburg. Although he <a href="http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20130921/ENTERTAINMENT/309219932">moved to Massachusetts</a> a few years ago, he created most of his work while living in RI, and most kids are impressed when you say, "You know that book, <i>The Polar Express</i>?"<br />
<br />xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-16780331590356608032015-01-12T15:36:00.000-08:002015-01-12T15:36:27.373-08:00Review: Ambassador by William Alexander<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Two criticisms come up frequently in reviews of William Alexander's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ambassador-William-Alexander-ebook/dp/B00BSAOGEM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421078897&sr=1-1&keywords=ambassador"><i>Ambassador</i></a>: the sci-fi adventure plot "<a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4424-9764-1">sits uneasily</a>" next to the family drama plot, and the family drama remains unresolved at the end of the novel. I would like to go on record saying that neither of these things bothered me. In fact, I love the length of the novel (222 pages), and I'm glad Alexander didn't make it longer just so he could tie everything up nicely.<br />
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The story is first told from the perspective of an envoy, a highly intelligent plasma-like creature who must select an ambassador from Earth. He chooses Gabriel Sandro Fuentes after observing him babysitting his twin siblings at the playground. He builds a blackhole in the dryer in Gabe's basement and uses it to send a sort of projection of Gabe to another playground, one where child ambassadors from all over the galaxy meet to play games as a way of negotiating with each other.<br />
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I wish I could have read the novel without knowing that, back on Earth, Gabe's family was going to be picked up by Immigration. (His parents and older sister are undocumented.) But you can't review this book without acknowledging the way Alexander plays with both meanings of the word "alien," and the way he uses the sci-fi adventure plot to show how different groups of people (and aliens) can misunderstand each other, leading to terrible and unnecessary conflict.<br />
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Because I was anticipating what happens to Gabe's family, I don't think it had the dramatic effect it would have otherwise. So for me, the book didn't really become dramatic until half-way through, when the mystery of the ships at the edge of the solar system comes into focus and extraterrestrials start targeting Gabe violently. At that point, I was hooked.<br />
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I did have a moment at the end of the novel when I asked myself, did Gabe change and grow over the course of this novel? Did he even make any mistakes? He is selected to be an ambassador because of his thoughtfulness and ability to "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching">code-switch</a>," and he uses these skills to good effect throughout. Where's the moment where he acts out or resists the role that's thrust upon him? I don't think this novel quite follows the usual "hero's journey" arc.<br />
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But after thinking about it, I realized that Gabe does make mistakes--at least two, which I won't describe because it's spoilery. But his mistakes are of the unintentional, understandable variety. And that fits with what I think the author is trying to show: that people of different backgrounds may misunderstand each other, and this can lead to terrible consequences if we do not make the effort to get to know each other rather than retaliating.<br />
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All in all, I think this is a remarkable adventure story. It celebrates a character who avoids conflict and acts thoughtfully, but it is still full of action and Zorro-like wise-cracking. And every adventurous episode supports the big idea. I do think that Gabe accepts his role as ambassador with surprisingly little resistance, but I love the idea that children make the best ambassadors because they are more curious and flexible, and therefore more likely to befriend creatures who are different from them.<br />
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As for the unresolved nature of the family drama, there will be a sequel. But frankly, I think this book can stand alone. In fact, I think it's a hallmark of Alexander's work to leave some things unexplained and unresolved. It still drives me a little crazy that I don't know why certain people change into goblins in the world of <i>Goblin Secrets</i> and <a href="http://emilyruthbrown.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-ghoulish-song-by-william.html"><i>Ghoulish Song</i></a>, but that just keeps me thinking about the stories. xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-75046630242713631892013-09-06T17:45:00.001-07:002013-09-06T17:45:40.693-07:00Online Tools: Collaborative Writing Pads<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Around January of last year, I started using the phrase "writing collaboratively" without really knowing what I meant. Actually, I knew what <i>I </i>meant. But I was only vaguely aware that other people were using the term to mean something rather specific.<br />
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What <i>I</i> meant was that I wanted my students to be able to add to and comment on eachother's writing without doing any of the following:<br />
<ul>
<li>printing documents out and writing all over them</li>
<li>sending documents via email (students can't access email at school)</li>
<li>saving documents to external devices and opening them on other computers</li>
</ul>
What I was looking for was basically<b> an online text editor that multiple people could type into at the same time, </b>without a lot of complicated logging in. That was my idea of collaborative writing.<br />
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But when I started looking for online tools to accomplish my goals, I realized that (hello!) collaborative writing is a Thing. Seriously, just <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_writing">look it up on wikipedia</a>. <br />
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<b>So, about those tools I was researching. </b> Now, I already knew about <a href="https://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a> and I already knew about wikis (like <a href="http://www.wikidot.com/">wikidot</a> and <a href="http://pbworks.com/">PBworks</a>)*. But both of those are a little complicated for elementary school students, and they require a certain amount of logging in, which is tricky with under-13-year-olds who don't have access to email at school.<br />
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But it turns out that there's a better option for creating single documents, and I am in love with it: Etherpad. Unfortunately, it no longer exists in its original form. Google acquired Etherpad, the first realtime collaborative text editor, in 2009, presumably because it would complete with Google Wave. Etherpad ceased to exist and its users were invited to join Google Wave. However, Google released the source code, and there are now a number of sites that use the Etherpad software. So it's like it's been resurrected!<br />
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Of the sites that use the EtherPad software, I have two favorites: <a href="http://titanpad.com/">TitanPad</a> and <a href="http://www.twiddla.com/">Twiddla</a>.<br />
<h2 class="subhead">
TitanPad </h2>
<a href="http://titanpad.com/">TitanPad</a> is super simple. It does not require a login. Once you start typing, the site generates a web address. If other people go to that address, they can start typing, too. Each person's text is highlighted in a different color, so you know who wrote what. There's no hierarchy of users, so one person can also strike out or delete another person's work, so you need to have a good working relationship! You can also send each other chat messages while you're typing. Those appear in a window on the right.<br />
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The only thing I did not like about TitanPad is that there are no copy, cut, or paste buttons on the toolbar. You can use the CRT key, but I miss my buttons.<br />
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That's literally my only disappointment. Everything else works flawlessly. And you can export your document at any point into a txt, pdf, word, or html file. Another cool feature is the timeslider which is like a motion capture of your document being created. You can stop the replay at any point and save or export a specific version, as well. <br />
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This is great for students, because they can jump in and start using it really easily--no logging in or figuring out a tricky interface. There's also very low risk of them losing a document, because they can either export it or just go back to the address where their pad will be saved for a generous amount of time. <br />
<h2 class="subhead">
Twiddla </h2>
<a href="http://www.twiddla.com/">Tiwddla</a> is a bit more complicated than TitanPad and makes it more difficult for you to save your work (you have to login to export or take a screen shot). But there's always copy-and-paste! And this site also offers many more options for marking up existing documents. In fact, I was delighted when I found it because I think it will make it a million times more fun to use my SmartBoard in the computer lab!<br />
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Tiwddla markets itself mostly as an online whiteboard and defaults to a pen tool that you can use to draw. You can also call up a webpage or a document from your computer to scribble all over. Or you can click the EtherPad tab and switch from the "pen" tool to the "browse" tool to start writing.<br />
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<b>Take note: in order to get a normal cursor and start typing, you have to click the "browse" tool</b> which looks like a hand. That didn't make a lot of sense to me and I can see my students (who rarely listen to directions) struggling to figure that out on their own.<br />
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Your other tool options are a "select" arrow and a "text" tool which actually puts little text boxes on top of your document--it doesn't let you type on the EtherPad. FYI.<br />
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Like TitanPad, Twiddla lets you chat with other users and even add audio so you can straight-up talk to them. You can also upload documents and images to share. It even allows you to add bits of code and mathematical formulas to your document.<br />
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So basically, Twiddla's a powerful tool for collaboration, but you're still limited in the extent to which you can create a final document without logging in. It lets you do more, but there's a bigger learning curve.<br />
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I am super excited about using these tools with my students. I think they will take me one step closer to my true dream of initiating a library resource which kids actually contribute to and maintain--like a small scale wikipedia for my school. But that's a post for another day!<br />
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*Oh, and <a href="http://padlet.com/">Padlet</a>. I like Padlet, but it doesn't result in a single document, and it's sometimes really slow to load. But shout-out to Padlet anyway. It's definitely in my rotation.xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-3596939772965984392013-08-29T18:38:00.000-07:002013-09-06T17:46:10.135-07:00Review: Homesick by Kate Klise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm7Ad6awuiPhENa42ih7WEMyvdP5OOCjIo4sV48VI861OovejmMQG-1XAt7ScNBhLQo3ZsYa6H9nNSCJT6JiOXPGJhP7R9noU1oqcUVGhyEbooceMTTnKe2zQA1flghPFcpTQuMJw0ID0/s1600/homesick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm7Ad6awuiPhENa42ih7WEMyvdP5OOCjIo4sV48VI861OovejmMQG-1XAt7ScNBhLQo3ZsYa6H9nNSCJT6JiOXPGJhP7R9noU1oqcUVGhyEbooceMTTnKe2zQA1flghPFcpTQuMJw0ID0/s200/homesick.jpg" width="135" /></a></div>
If you're looking for a chapter book for your fourth grade class's unit on the 1980s, then <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Homesick-Kate-Klise/dp/1250008425/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376858740&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=home+sick+kate+clise"><i>Homesick</i></a>, by Kate Klise, is the book for you! Of course, nobody teachers units on the 1980s, but wouldn't it be awesome if they did? With its land lines, game boards, and mix tapes, this book answers the question, what was life like before the internet? Also, it's about hoarding. <br />
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Benny's dad is a hoarder, and the book begins with his mom insisting that Benny's dad throw something out. His dad refuses, so his mom gets in the car and starts driving to New Orleans, where she grew up. It's an attention-grabbing opening, and on top of that, it's written like a radio transcript. Benny explains that he learned how to write transcripts while hanging out at his small town's radio station, which is basically this aging rocker's kitchen.<br />
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The radio station is a cool device--it allows for all kinds of eaves-dropping, on-air arguments, and interviews of local characters. Much of the town gossip swirls around Benny's dad. The man is infuriating! In addition to being a
stubborn hoarder who turns their house into a filthy mess, he's also
very smart and will stand up to anyone.<br />
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There's also sort of an inside
joke with the reader--Benny's dad is always going on about how someday
there will be a world-wide computer network on which he will sell all
the useless junk he's accumulated. While everyone in the story thinks
he's crazy, the reader knows that he's 100% right. It's called the
internet.<br />
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So Klise does a good job of making Benny's dad
well rounded. But it's still totally clear that he's not taking care of
Benny. Benny's kind of matter-of-fact about the roaches and the pizza
boxes and the smell, but you feel for him. The other characters'
attempts to help Benny change his Dad's behavior are pretty
whimsical--possibly excessively whimsical in light of the seriousness of
the problem. One involves a ouija board. But, hey, they keep the
plot rolling!<br />
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Personally, I started reading this book in a bookstore, and I bought it because I couldn't put it down. I'm always looking for books that will (a) hook readers right away and (b) pay off with a slam-bang finish. I know that's a lot to ask, but I serve a whole school full of reluctant readers, and I need a book to win them over as well as pay them back for the time they invest reading the whole thing. This book is exactly what I'm talking about. It starts with a screaming match and ends with--well, I won't give it away.*<br />
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This book is a winner not because any one aspect of it is brilliant, but because when you put it all together and shake it up you get a never-boring, something-for-everybody, funny and fast-paced story. <br />
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*I basically knew how the book was going to end from reading other reviews, so maybe you already do, too. Those same reviews said the ending was a little "deus ex machina," but isn't it true that natural disasters appear out of nowhere and put all our other problems in perspective?xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-19032967385494798922013-08-22T16:08:00.000-07:002013-08-29T18:38:52.166-07:00Review: Listening for Lucca by Suzanne LaFleur<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0QkDKGjwUJj6ZgYVF2QhqDqw30MEoME0Lf5Yj_1R7_i92MmJrZJEeg-u8wqh0-AlBSgHEQ7_pof3CQFs5gLNhU5EJK96n_rQlOBFMo_BfPvVoL2DIU6V3BQjnkepnTQE9zDW9n7XyWF8/s1600/lucca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0QkDKGjwUJj6ZgYVF2QhqDqw30MEoME0Lf5Yj_1R7_i92MmJrZJEeg-u8wqh0-AlBSgHEQ7_pof3CQFs5gLNhU5EJK96n_rQlOBFMo_BfPvVoL2DIU6V3BQjnkepnTQE9zDW9n7XyWF8/s200/lucca.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
I loved the mood of Suzanne LaFleur's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Listening-Lucca-Suzanne-LaFleur/dp/0385742991/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376847721&sr=8-1&keywords=listening+for+lucca"><i>Listening for Lucca</i></a>: summery, sinister, dreamy, mysterious. Siena's family moves to a house on the beach in Maine, hoping the change will encourage Siena's little brother Lucca to start speaking. Siena welcomes the move. In Brooklyn, she has developed the reputation for being weird because she sometimes sees things that are not there.<br />
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Siena doesn't exactly see ghosts. She sees the past. She'll be looking at a park or a street or a subway station and suddenly, she'll see it as it was 100 years ago, rather than the way it looks today.<br />
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She finds these visions terrifying because she can't control them, predict them, or even talk about them. At first I thought they were a metaphor for trauma, but it's subtler than that. It's like Siena has realized that, despite what parents say, bad things can happen at any moment, and she wonders how people live with such uncertainty. It reminded me of how watching a scary news story could really upset me as a child, and I appreciated how the author dealt with this theme. <br />
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When Siena's family arrives in Maine, Siena recognizes their new house from her dreams. Soon she becomes fascinated with a brother and sister who lived in the house in the 1940s. She finds ways of extending her visions of the past, believing that if she can understand what happened to the siblings, she might understand what is happening with her brother.<br />
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<b>Siena's visions of the past are intertwined with a well developed real life plot as well.</b> Siena is very thirteen. She plays a role in parenting her brother, analyzes her interactions with kids her age, and craves her parents' attention at the same time as she withholds information from them. <br />
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Although the character development is strong, I did wonder about Siena's friend Sam. I loved the scenes at his family's store, but I never got why he was into Siena. Perhaps because she seems a little dark and mysterious? We're seeing things through Siena's eyes, so maybe she wondered herself. He seemed a little too-good-to-be-true for a 13-year-old boy. But I did like how Siena told him a little about her visions and instead of believing in her magical journey, he worried she might kill herself. <br />
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<b>This book operates according to a kind of dream logic. </b> The present mirrors the past, but not perfectly, and I wasn't sure how they were going to work together to produce a satisfying conclusion. So the good thing here is that I couldn't figure the plot out ahead of time. The bad thing is that I'm not sure it really made sense. Without giving anything away, there's an object that passes through past and present very conveniently, like a dream coming to life.<br />
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However, the mood of the book makes this seem possible. Siena's visions are always unpredictable and dream-like and the problems people in the book have are mostly psychological. The problems are with the way people see things, not the way they are. So it works for the solution to be more symbolic than actual, like Dumbo needing a feather to fly.<br />
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Certainly, this is my favorite kind of magic--not the kind with elaborate rules and prophesies and arch villains and new worlds. No, this is the kind of small-scale, inexplicable magic that makes small toys come to life or transports a single child to another time. It's the kind of E. L. Konigsburg, Margaret Mahy, Zilpha Keatley Snyder magic that could almost happen to you. <br />
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So I loved the book. It was perfectly tailored to the middle of August, and one of the best middle grade books I've read this year. xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-20196874106893746642013-08-15T17:31:00.000-07:002013-08-22T16:12:15.471-07:00Book Review: YA Roundup<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiesAcLvNnMMJHpU9tQ4N3al1gNCh8n9_3rnDfrYANHZVH-Vnzu49eegndslREo35yY-vZHhXTctVchK5GkEP5ImZkpSv-_87n1_5LUPLTgLyNijua5DBIqqq1_LDGwDJV0ik1f07ps5qo/s1600/easy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiesAcLvNnMMJHpU9tQ4N3al1gNCh8n9_3rnDfrYANHZVH-Vnzu49eegndslREo35yY-vZHhXTctVchK5GkEP5ImZkpSv-_87n1_5LUPLTgLyNijua5DBIqqq1_LDGwDJV0ik1f07ps5qo/s200/easy.jpg" width="133" /></a>Since I work at an elementary school library, I can't really call my YA reading "professional." In light of that, I don't usually post reviews here. But sometimes I just have to say something about what I've read! So I've decided to occasionally indulge in some mini reviews of YA books that got my attention.<br />
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<i>Out of the Easy</i> by Ruta Septys</h2>
What fascinates me about this book is that almost nothing is revealed. There's a murder, but the killer is never convicted. There's a shakedown, but the gangster never faces justice. There's a gay character, but that person never comes out. The heroine begins the novel wondering who her biological father is, and by the end, she still wonders. People die or disappear rather than being confronted by anything. I think this is actually really realistic. A single young person can't change a bad neighborhood. They can only get out of it. It feels unusual and morally ambiguous, but contains a powerful message for young people who feel trapped in bad situations: solutions aren't found by making sense of the past but by creating a different future. <br />
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<h2 class="subhead">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidsy7GPwCjWW1N8ug0Z1BHy9X4CG75qUD5bn6fJXxM3KmEdWzQ46OJDMo628vcQt2t4iSsSUncJz_HoNdC48YU4QtJRj-jEyKhPvNP3HBMQx-l0GN22_7CtL0CddtfJXBLTR8b5YUI-1g/s1600/paper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidsy7GPwCjWW1N8ug0Z1BHy9X4CG75qUD5bn6fJXxM3KmEdWzQ46OJDMo628vcQt2t4iSsSUncJz_HoNdC48YU4QtJRj-jEyKhPvNP3HBMQx-l0GN22_7CtL0CddtfJXBLTR8b5YUI-1g/s200/paper.jpg" width="133" /></a><i>Paper Valentine</i> by Brenna Yovanoff</h2>
This is either a cool ghost story or a lame murder mystery. Or it's both. It takes place during a smoldering summer when a serial killer is loose in a suburban community. The main character doesn't actively investigate, but she does have unique access to information about the crimes because she works at the Photography store that develops the crime scene photos. You can figure out the murderer by process of elimination, so that part's not so good. At the same time, the main character is being visited by the ghost of her best friend, who died of Anorexia. Hard not to compare the book to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wintergirls-Laurie-Halse-Anderson/dp/014241557X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375834998&sr=1-1&keywords=winter+girls"><i>Wintergirls</i></a>, which is a hard book to be compared to. It's just so chillingly good. But this is a genuine ghost story as opposed to a story of madness, and although I saw the ending coming, it still left me with a lot to think about.<br />
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<h2 class="subhead">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeaip18HthmXLpec9UI_9Qg8gbCscIyKiHK9puxc3WjdZOKrCYSInoXxPuMQbFZ3jrKIebG-JjnSlvXe1h6HuqCqw7hVcU-Wcygkv3jIx5CwbHLPqbq5XIzNwyj6lnLXPyOMBdww1-yw/s1600/quintana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBeaip18HthmXLpec9UI_9Qg8gbCscIyKiHK9puxc3WjdZOKrCYSInoXxPuMQbFZ3jrKIebG-JjnSlvXe1h6HuqCqw7hVcU-Wcygkv3jIx5CwbHLPqbq5XIzNwyj6lnLXPyOMBdww1-yw/s200/quintana.jpg" width="133" /></a><i>Quintana of Charyn</i> by Melina Marchetta</h2>
This was more like <i>Froi of the Exiles II</i>. I liked how the author focused on a surprising and different character in the second book in this series, and I wish she'd switched perspectives again in the final installment of the trilogy. There weren't any new characters in this book, and while it was satisfying to find out what happened to all the people I'd met in the other books, it wasn't thrilling. Marchetta wrote <a href="http://reviewofaustralianfiction.com/issues/volume-3-issue/">a short story about Lady Celie</a>. I feel like this should have been Celie's novel. Also, the explanation of what almost kept two very important characters apart at the end? Very contrived. In spite of that, it's an essential read for anyone who liked the first two.<br />
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<h2 class="subhead">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigjrUiBil7x82F7PhwJSCK8rz-zWBrY9olZ2hYS1Px-HcJBWVtQLQVcLw9dpk0xYo82spKGCHPcdMBjmea_lsOM76H9spNnUVOgiXGyEjyi1lTWAInHCfYY2pPDf8xx0Yk-L2odlHq5VQ/s1600/white.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigjrUiBil7x82F7PhwJSCK8rz-zWBrY9olZ2hYS1Px-HcJBWVtQLQVcLw9dpk0xYo82spKGCHPcdMBjmea_lsOM76H9spNnUVOgiXGyEjyi1lTWAInHCfYY2pPDf8xx0Yk-L2odlHq5VQ/s200/white.jpg" width="131" /></a><i>A Corner of White</i> by Jaclyn Moriarty</h2>
Holy-Oh-My-Goodness-and-Good-Night! No wonder this won the <a href="http://reviewofaustralianfiction.com/issues/volume-3-issue/">Boston Globe-Horn Book award</a>. I started it and thought, this is cute, and put it aside. Then it won the award and I thought, there must be something I missed. So don't let the charm trick you: it's not a light book. It's delightful, but not light. There's a sad little rich girl in modern London exchanging letters with a popular boy on an impossible mission in another world. There's bunches of characters in both worlds, most of them dealing with rather serious issues against the backdrop of utterly whimsical settings/situations. So it all comes off as sort of fluffy and adorable--as though the author just wrote down the first thing that popped into her head. But then, in the end, it All Comes Together and it becomes obvious that the author always had a grand plan. I haven't been so delighted by an ending since I read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0143112120"><i>Special Topics in Calamity Physics</i></a>. Seriously wondrous.xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-60885497457190924322013-08-06T14:52:00.002-07:002013-08-15T17:34:41.623-07:00Online Tools: Infographics<a href="https://magic.piktochart.com/output/8051f647-5dad-4860-a6fb-7ebfcbad2a66" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb1tAZxusXnBclAABSqgpqVz7iuEE_Xe0vRqvFZ57ngrszNhIp1gNtkQy7RNl3SDiZ1-DjXB5xKg_ex7o9uUjQyd55Tf3z55Ffefm3mKuTDpOce3MY9X6NYqyuUepcq1HQFMTbDiZLJbY/s400/2012-2013+infographic.jpg" width="145" /></a>I decided that I wanted to make an infographic as part of my annual report this year. So at 12 p.m. yesterday I started playing around with a couple sites and 11 hours later, I had an <a href="https://magic.piktochart.com/output/8051f647-5dad-4860-a6fb-7ebfcbad2a66">infographic</a>! Seriously, I spent forever on this. But sometimes you just have to give yourself permission to be obsessive and inefficient so you can learn a new skill, right?<br />
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Fortunately, I am really happy with the results, and I have a few thoughts on the sites I tried and on infographics in general.<br />
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First, of all, my fave and the site I used for my finished product: <br />
<h2 class="subhead">
Piktochart</h2>
I can't believe it's free! <a href="http://piktochart.com/">Piktochart</a> initially appealed to me, because it was laid out the way I wanted: in a long vertical column but wide enough to fit two or more charts next to each other. It also has robust chart-making and picture-editing tools, and a variety of export options. <br />
<br />
There are a few little tricks you have to learn--for example, you have to hold the shift key while resizing something if you want to keep the proportions the same. But it's pretty intuitive: drag and drop to add text boxes, charts, and pictures; select an object to change its color, angle, or transparency. <br />
<br />
<b>I only came across one really frustrating glitch:</b> sometimes when you make a chart, the chart-maker puts all this space between the chart and the legend. And you can't remove the space, because it's all one object. The solution to this, however, is pretty simple: just hide the automatically created legend and make your own. <br />
<div class="pullquote">
Of all the tools I tried, Piktochart gave me the most choices and helped me achieve a professional look. </div>
Piktochart also gave me myriad choices for saving and/or exporting my finished product. I have no problem with the big old logo that gets slapped on the bottom of my free infographic, because I'm happy to promote such a useful and flexible tool. <br />
<br />
<b>However, there are two other tools that are worth mentioning. </b> They have fewer options, but they are both easier to use and each one has a one or two features that Piktochart doesn't.<br />
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<a href="http://infogr.am/Kizirian-School-Library/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG-HjWFLJ7MlGG4QUoMdYB-yIObmTkphwLtBYe7YHwsNtNkuthCGVTO0yYVLtzC-SL4hC4-A-gM2sMkcylXS257_gjE5229zHEC1lhouxqybmWp4HmwDL1I63BKiNWTbzVCqErvdMyIU8/s400/infogram.tiff" width="107" /></a></div>
<h2 class="subhead">
Infogr.am</h2>
<a href="https://infogr.am/">Infogr.am</a> looks like it's designed for viewing on mobile devices: the layout is one long vertical column, and you can't put two things next to eachother.<br />
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The interface is very spare and easy to use. You still get lots of chart options, so it's a great one for mathy infographics. In fact, it has a few charts that Piktograph doesn't offer, like a treemap, a word cloud, a progress bar or gauge, and a candle stick or waterfall financial graph.<br />
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You're not encouraged change colors and fonts around on this one--you just choose a theme at the beginning and the website makes decisions for you. You can go a few clicks in if you really want to change each color manually, but it's not the easiest. <br />
<br />
In addition to text and graphics, infogr.am allows you to add video, or a map--but it appears you can only add a world map. It's not like you tap into Google Maps or anything really flexible. Also, the site does not offer you a menu of cute little icons.<br />
<br />
<div class="pullquote">
Infogr.am is good for numbers-based infographics that you only want to publish online.</div>
My main problem with infogr.am is that you can't download your infographic unless you go pro--you can only publish it online. <br />
<h2 class="subhead">
Easel.ly</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.easel.ly/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4K0YKYahXk25ehCVB6FnOVukvhcAHbaGrDQ6UhnKg1lh3JF7dqlRaKCTn2ONM7uPuT-0MsC-ba1Q2T71TEyyNpHKxb7Yw4OlN6h4qQG4KLqqSoykIS9xgHreAFFnVNidlI88Tq4v6bRo/s320/easelly.tiff" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.easel.ly/">Easel.ly</a> is a good choice if you want to make a more whimsical, less mathy infographic. The default layout is a bit wider than the other choices--closer to an 8.5x11 sheet of paper--and you can slap text and pictures on there any way you like.<br />
<br />
Easel.ly does not include a chart-maker, but you can of course save your excel charts as pictures and upload them. However, that means you have to make sure the design stays consistent.<br />
<br />
Speaking of design, you can choose a theme on this site (or just a cool background), plus there's a lovely array of cute icons, arrows, banners, etc. But you have to change the elements one by one to your specifications. For example, if you add a text box, the color and size of the text doesn't default to something that matches your theme.<br />
<div class="pullquote">
Easel.ly definitely allows you the most freedom to lay out your
infographic the way you want, so it's the best choice for non-linear
infographics. </div>
<br />
But the thing that really drove me crazy, and still would make me pause before using this site, is that if you resize your text box, it resizes the text in the box. So if you set your text to 12 points, and then you drag the corner of the text box to make it a larger size, the text will get larger, too, but it will still say it's "12 points." So how do you standardize the size of your text??<br />
<br />
On a positive note, Easel.ly does allow you to download your graphic as well as share it online. <br />
<h2 class="subhead">
Finally</h2>
A couple thoughts about these products in general:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>When designing for print, I was taught to use text size to create a hierarchy between headings, subheadings, and body text. But when creating for the screen, I noticed that many nice looking infographics use colors to show make certain text stand out. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li>One thing you have to get used to is entering your own line breaks. In MS Publisher and other design software I've used, you type or paste text into a box and it just flows to fit the box. With these tools, it's a pain to resize the box and you don't even have the option of adding borders. The boxes aren't important--you decide how much space the text will take up by hitting the enter key when you want one line to end.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li>You have to know what data you want to include before you get started. These tools don't magically help you figure out what you're trying to show. I was most successful when I sketched what I wanted on paper and then recreated it online. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li>Why do so many of these tools have punctuation in the middle of their names? </li>
</ul>
xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-26874761355448015782013-07-12T09:10:00.003-07:002013-08-06T14:53:39.935-07:00Online Tools: Websites for Making Avatars (for kids under 13)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaLIkaWntCNzZ0cgMjV_B1nPiDe3cJ3yhZ0RGT7xW9Mnbt7oa1eigb0lkOMKOGIxWwIOFf8ptjjKwREoGPn99HMeCmeO7uvOqNSyfvhU4hSeo75Ny2ZDXtSug1sc95InTDt1f52NsRe3U/s1600/robot.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaLIkaWntCNzZ0cgMjV_B1nPiDe3cJ3yhZ0RGT7xW9Mnbt7oa1eigb0lkOMKOGIxWwIOFf8ptjjKwREoGPn99HMeCmeO7uvOqNSyfvhU4hSeo75Ny2ZDXtSug1sc95InTDt1f52NsRe3U/s200/robot.tiff" width="200" /></a>I'm doing a program for 3rd-6th graders this summer, at the public library. After a rocky start, I've sort of focused on the goal of teaching kids how to make stuff online. I'm sure I'm being influenced by the whole <a href="http://makerfaire.com/">Maker movement</a>, but I also notice that lots of kids use the computer passively--watching videos and clicking madly, but rarely contributing by commenting or creating something new. So now I'm on a mission to change that.<br />
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<b>So what's the easiest thing to make online? An avatar. </b> And it also helps me teach kids part one of online citizenship: creating a safe online identity. I've been telling kids that<br />
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<i>There are three parts to your "online secret identity": username, password, profile, and avatar. The avatar is a picture that represents you, but is not a photo of the real you. </i></blockquote>
And we talked about why you might not want to use a real photo.
Of course I'm using <a href="http://www.edmodo.com/">Edmodo</a> as the site where they create their online secret identity. It's awesome, and it allows you to upload your own avatar, which <a href="https://www.biblionasium.com/">Biblionasium</a>, for example, does not.<br />
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<b>Making avatars also gives me a chance to teach them the basics of uploading, downloading, and right-clicking to save. </b> We haven't talked about copyright concerns yet, but this is good: they're using their right-clicking power on images they created. We'll deal with other images later.<br />
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So here are the avatar-creating sites that worked and were popular with the kids. Since I'm working with kids who are under 13, <b>I am only using sites that require no registration</b>--which narrows things down fast, let me tell you.<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Sites</span></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599;">1.</span> </span></b></span> <a href="http://www.clayyourself.com/">Clay Yourself.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.clayyourself.com/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZUsNe6OWjlOUVYodEjqPXHGqAItp3p8H8m4sPL13c279-L5iUr6nIqW5z-JXbNDkSCiisH0sj-4W4smO8Ho45u50Oi8mCtqj_o0ePAXBmcn2UA0PnJfBeUGj3UmnQvr1vCJLXf2vYncw/s1600/clay.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Style</b>: This site allows students to create a claymation-style versions of themselves. It's just the head and shoulders, so the final image is perfect for uploading to a profile, and this turned out to be the avatar that most participants used on Edmodo. It also has some urban accessories, like headphones and airbrushed baseball caps, that the kids loved.<br />
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<b>Performance</b>: The site takes a minute or so to load completely before you can start making your avatar, but then it works smoothly. It does require Flash. The site also allows you to upload a photo for reference so you can make the avatar look more like you, but we didn't try that.<br />
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<b>Saving</b>: And although you can log in to take advantage of extra features, you don't have to log in--you can just click "finished" and then "download" to get a nice jpg to open in your browser. Then you do your right-click magic and save to desktop. We used this website first, because it was perfect for teaching basic downloading and because it inspired kids to create an avatar that really looked like them. Oh, also, if you click "finished" before adding a certain feature, like ears, a speech bubble pops up and reminds you to add ears, so it also helps kids explore all their options and prevents them from giving up too soon.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-size: large;">2</span>.</span> </span></b></span><a href="http://cpbherofactory.com/">The Hero Factory.</a><br />
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<a href="http://cpbherofactory.com/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_jj8tdYJpMSh7ShQjjDW3B-hQAcFTDr1C5mXTODSqQhBuzhiQTrIcHKM3P7rq9LrdLBN1FC3GZT1TZofx5nGxSDg6eISZfN9ZugxF73dSkLmrY_0bvgR8B9Rz685XF6ayatEJ9DySipo/s1600/hero.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Style</b>: This site allows students to create a superhero version of themselves. However, most kids just wanted to make a cool looking character as opposed to anything that looked like them.<br />
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<b>Performance</b>: The site loads instantly, uses Flash, and includes a crazy number of options in drop-down menus. The only aspect that confused some kids was that there's a separate section just for colors. So if you're in the "head" section, no matter what hairstyle you click on, it comes out orange, even if the image you clicked on is brown or black. You have to actually switch to the "color" section to change the hair color.<br />
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<b>Saving</b>: Similarly to "Clay Yourself," you click "finished" and then "download" when you're done. This site automatically opens a "save as" window, so you don't have to right click. And there's not options or incentive to log in.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-size: large;">3</span>.</span> </span></b></span> <a href="http://www.buildyourwildself.com/">Build Your Wild Self. </a><br />
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<a href="http://www.buildyourwildself.com/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvz5SK5JHuRox-yWwgo1M5-yEXrpUIR4h9PHPIXnV9SubjYcqw7sYhsS5p10lvEE-xbDUsn_67YjALBqxyK-qL_f9hFSDNasx_AYFF_q-mF5HuRFe5rGxOfpVIhNU70rnSjflbLcJj40o/s1600/wild.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Style</b>: This site is noisy, FYI. Every time you click on something it makes noise, including animal noises when you click on animal body parts. Fun, but noisy. The site was created by the New York Zoos and Aquarium and it allows kids to choose some human features (eyes, nose, mouth) and then animal features (horns, wings, tentacles). The result is awesomely creepy and has a children's book illustration aesthetic instead of something cartoony. It's my most favorite and probably the kids' least favorite, which is not to say they didn't like it, because they liked all of them.<br />
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<b>Performance</b>: However, the site is a little glitchier than the others--in older browsers some the menus don't work correctly--you click on a picture of horns and you get the moth feelers. Also, there's no easy way to undo a feature you don't like. You have to replace it with something different or start over. And it's weird that first you choose human features, but then you just cover them up with the animal features. Why choose human eyes in the first place? However, the site is also the most educational--it tells you the name of the creature you have created and then what special adaptations you have selected.<br />
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<b>Saving</b>: When you're finished, you have to type in your name, click "I'm done," and then click "get a wild desktop" in order to get your file. Then you get a jpg in your browser and you can right-click. It's not hard, but the language is a little different from the others. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-size: large;">4</span>.</span> </span></b></span> <a href="http://www.dudefactory.com/free-avatars-buddy-icons-display-pictures.html">Mess Dudes.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.dudefactory.com/free-avatars-buddy-icons-display-pictures.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNZPG305rdwddh34t9r_BBY1ZCzx9eg2e-3L19ZFu9pVZbdVaZsAoXS0VaXshCDCdZboJ5gLFX3F9DoMnJXxHM_e0MlQpDRD5f49HTH8F_f3Ogt0rMwHgoWL5buFuYxyIQ6dE47coOnnM/s1600/dude.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Style</b>: I almost didn't include this site because its aesthetics did not appeal to me at all. You get these short, squat cartoony avatars with tons of possible accessories. But then I remembered that the program isn't for me. It's for the kids. And guess what? The kids loved it.<br />
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<b>Performance</b>: This site requires Flash and a plugin to download your image. Everything works quickly. The site does have ads, which the others do not. <br />
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<b>Saving</b>: There's a button under your avatar that says "Click HERE to download," and when you click it, it asks you to choose your resolution and click "get download," which is an added step. Then you can also choose the size of your image, and <i>then</i> you right-click to save. However, this does require a plugin that was not included on the Google Chrome browsers I used for the program. It worked fine on my outdated Firefox browser, and I didn't investigate to see what was needed, but this is definitely a site you need to test drive in the setting where you will be using it.<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Reflections</b></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaXKUjnP38VzjFFiH-e76JNGG7JWVGsaLbd2_H7NsZxl2hE6BpBX0XqQmjRf7uqjPio2L4mcDM-8Vm17yGzTaMO6gHLLDSj29qR90NcWhD2TVySNM0g2O279_GD68LxzhFOyHVRxSbn8o/s1600/body.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaXKUjnP38VzjFFiH-e76JNGG7JWVGsaLbd2_H7NsZxl2hE6BpBX0XqQmjRf7uqjPio2L4mcDM-8Vm17yGzTaMO6gHLLDSj29qR90NcWhD2TVySNM0g2O279_GD68LxzhFOyHVRxSbn8o/s320/body.tiff" width="320" /></a>A couple thoughts on making avatars: <b>the first thing all of these sites do is have you choose gender and then skin color. </b>It's sort of an interesting commentary on how we think about identity. It's also interesting that all but one of the sites default to the lightest skin color rather than something in the middle. It's even more interesting to see whether or not kids try to match their actual skin and hair color. I was working with a group of black and Latino kids. I'm sure it would depend on the population you were working with. <br />
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The difference between the male and female bodies were interesting not only because of differences in shape, but because of differences in stance.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaWfwuVh4Dn27AKlGZ79KPmy7ZWemea9OYnHcKXwGUyq1TL5Ybmb1V6aNK94rN1RaF0caZw90tjTEZfeiYHzpc3bcnp8ZYi4BiT3oCUb9VKQ8tHj8t8xf9Jjb9iUQNAnYKtiuk-BhQy9Y/s1600/headshape.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaWfwuVh4Dn27AKlGZ79KPmy7ZWemea9OYnHcKXwGUyq1TL5Ybmb1V6aNK94rN1RaF0caZw90tjTEZfeiYHzpc3bcnp8ZYi4BiT3oCUb9VKQ8tHj8t8xf9Jjb9iUQNAnYKtiuk-BhQy9Y/s320/headshape.tiff" width="320" /></a><b>When you put all of this together, it makes Clay Yourself seem even more awesome. </b> Although it does have you choose between male and female headshapes, the differences are basically just that the female headshapes have more neck. And then the only difference in the following options is that male headshapes can have beards and female headshapes can have earrings. Also, they get different hair and shirt choices. However, they get the same hats, the same eyes, the same mouths. In general, the site de-emphasizes gender difference, although it could go farther. (Women can't choose the hoodie option for clothes, which is stupid.) Also, it defaults to no skin color as opposed to white. <br />
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<b>Finally, note that Hero Factory and Mess Dudes allow users to choose guns as accessories. </b> In the context of the Hero Factory, it makes sense, but I can imagine that some educators would be uncomfortable with that in a school setting. <br />
<br />xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-83948249173711284242013-07-06T09:14:00.000-07:002013-07-12T09:11:10.224-07:00Review: The Adventures of a South Pole Pig by Chris Kurtz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYpGkhoz1azcrrmDQvCs1lx3B7gAdZF6ytrA2bXaWoZ_hUpffIJ-qg8etRiW9lLwHBVKOaL3cv21ZmDihnC4yv7MDa7x7hvSCTlZRtuB3nbn_eYyZI5GP_E6Hsw2MFyaQ__KQpfoon024/s1600/pig.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYpGkhoz1azcrrmDQvCs1lx3B7gAdZF6ytrA2bXaWoZ_hUpffIJ-qg8etRiW9lLwHBVKOaL3cv21ZmDihnC4yv7MDa7x7hvSCTlZRtuB3nbn_eYyZI5GP_E6Hsw2MFyaQ__KQpfoon024/s200/pig.jpg" width="142" /></a></div>
I was looking for readalikes for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/By-Kate-DiCamillo-Despereaux-Princess/dp/B0082RAVVG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373127022&sr=8-1&keywords=tale+of+despereaux"><i>The Tale of Despereaux</i></a>, which the teachers at my school like to read aloud, when I came across <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-South-Pole-Pig-courage/dp/0547634552/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373127084&sr=1-1&keywords=adventures+of+a+south+pole+pig"><i>The Adventures of a South Pole Pig</i></a>. It has an old fashioned way about it--well spoken animal characters, true danger, and a slightly bumbling but good-hearted hero. And while I don't usually go in for talking animals, I was quite charmed.<br />
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It started with the design of the book--I don't know that I should be talking about this before I talk about the plot, but it's what we first notice about a physical book, right? I like this book's squarish shape, its spot illustrations, the white space around and between the lines of text. I even like the slightly criss-crossed font of the title, and I like the subtitle: "a novel of snow and courage." <b>I wish more novels for 9- and 10-year-olds were just this size and shape: fat but with lots of room on the page.</b><br />
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The novel is about a pig named Flora who lives on a farm where they train sled dogs. Flora is fascinated by everything going on outside her pig pen, but her only source of information is a supercilious (but kind of cool) cat named Luna, a champion rat killer and good storyteller. Both Luna and Flora's mother try to banish thoughts of adventure from Flora's head--in fact, I'm going to quote what they say, so you can see how the author uses simple language in ways that stick in your head.<br />
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Flora's mother: "We are farm pigs, and farm pigs are not in control of their lives. Our food is brought to us each day, and if we ask for more than that, it will make us unhappy and ill-tempered." <br />
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Luna: "You don't have to look for trouble. It will find you. And when that happens ... keep up that great spirit and make a plan, because nine lives is a state of mind."</blockquote>
See how it sounds old fashioned but not flowery? <b>Where some writers would have indulged in 19th century diction, Kurtz sticks with words kids know.</b><br />
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But back to the story: Flora takes a risk and finds herself aboard a ship bound for the South Pole. She thinks she'll be pulling a sled alongside the huskies, but to her surprise, she's chained to a box in the rat-infested hold. Her only company is a cat who doesn't have much rat-killing experience and a cabin boy who's fallen out of favor with the crew. <br />
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I want to keep telling you what happens next, but I don't want to give away too much of the story. Suffice it to say that things go from bad to worse. But the worst of the worst is probably the moment when Flora's new friends bury her in a shallow hole in the ice and leave her alone for two days to keep her safe from a cook who wants to slice her up and eat her. What makes this moment so tough is that until then, Flora truly doesn't realize why she was brought on the adventure in the first place.<br />
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What makes this book so readable is the balance between
the dark and dangerous situations Flora finds herself in and the buoyant, indomitable spirit she displays. She's just so ridiculously cheerful that you can't help but love her. At the same time, she probably would have driven me crazy if she wasn't always facing danger and unkindness.<br />
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<b>Now, to be clear, this is not a book that appears to be in any way realistic. </b> I did not learn anything about South Pole exploration or sled dogs or wilderness survival or seafaring. The solutions to most problems in the story are dubious. For example, Flora stops the rats in the hold from eating her dinner by turning backwards and kicking them in the head with her hind legs without looking. I assume pigs do not actually do this.<br />
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But that's a perfect example of something kids will not care about. As an adult, I found the absurdity a barrier to my emotional engagement. But I don't think kids will be concerned. <br />
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And while the solutions to problems seemed fake, the stakes seemed real. When Flora leaves the farm behind, she leaves it for good. I don't have the impression at the end that she's ever going to see her mother or Luna again. Instead, she embraces the uncertainty of her future. This conclusion, while indisputably happy, left me a feeling that the world is wide and almost overwhelming, the possibilities are endless. It's a big feeling for a pretty small book, and one that I would like to pass on to my students. xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-19047304553231782982013-06-26T18:28:00.000-07:002013-07-06T10:36:28.491-07:00Review: The Bamboozlers by Michael de Guzman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5QPfPaqee-SSYccvDF0mnWZsic9oFcairbqIBR114PHAoXL1-Fp62zZGgnY3aJ7mHREMKMb9DPh_4e2RBrpdnziIlTFaDwY19fJ6HXSn_dGMA14gK1Gj3RkCqJ4uh1C5Y9IT0GZug7Fk/s1600/Bamboozlers-210.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5QPfPaqee-SSYccvDF0mnWZsic9oFcairbqIBR114PHAoXL1-Fp62zZGgnY3aJ7mHREMKMb9DPh_4e2RBrpdnziIlTFaDwY19fJ6HXSn_dGMA14gK1Gj3RkCqJ4uh1C5Y9IT0GZug7Fk/s200/Bamboozlers-210.jpg" width="144" /></a></div>
I've often looked at the cover of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Bamboozlers-Michael-Guzman/dp/B0096A506E/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1371861923&sr=8-12&keywords=bamboozlers">The Bamboozlers</a>, by Michael de Guzman, and thought, what 11-year-old boy could resist this? It's got cash, a gangster-looking grandfather, a boy in a 3-piece suit, and a tiny dog. (It's actually a tiny 3-legged dog, but you can't tell on the cover.) Happily, this is an occasion when the inside of the book matches the outside (or vice-versa), and I don't know why it took me so long to read this kid-friendly heist story.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Bamboozlers-Michael-Guzman/dp/0374305129/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372296312&sr=8-1&keywords=bamboozlers+de+guzman"><i>The Bamboozlers</i></a> starts with Albert Rosengard pedaling home to the trailer he shares with his cocktail-waitress mom, desperate to get there before the principal calls, so he can tell his side of the story. But shortly after he gets home, a man he's never seen before shows up, claiming to be his grandfather.<br />
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Long story short, Albert defies his mother, goes on a road trip with his grandfather, meets a lot of shady people, and find himself drawn into a bit of a scheme. <br />
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<b>This is definitely an action-movie of a book. </b> The dialog is snappy and everybody's got taglines. Albert's grandfather carries around a violin case that no one's even seen the inside of, and there's a motorcycle chase with a hot girl near the end. <br />
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Mostly, I thought I knew where things were going, but I was blindsided by a trip to the emergency room right in the middle of the action. And while I knew that Albert's grandfather was a charmer and not to be trusted, the author successfully kept me guessing about all of this intentions. And that's one thing I really liked about this book: the characters didn't have only one reason for doing things. Their motivations were complex, a mix of good and bad motives. More like real life than the tidy character development you sometimes get in children's books. <br />
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<b>So basically, I liked it a lot. </b> The heist could have been more clever and the characters' conversations could have been a little less breezy--they never really explode with emotion. But I'm honestly glad that the ending isn't a bleak, Adam Rapp-like finish. It's realistic but hopeful and I was more moved than I thought I would be. I started to really like that Albert Rosengard.<br />
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I will unabashedly gush about this book to my fourth and fifth grade students next year (can you believe it's summer vacation?). The Benjamins floating around the cover ought to get their attention, and the short chapters and swift conclusion (187 pages!) will keep them reading. Winner.xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-12346169891571126182013-06-17T17:17:00.002-07:002013-06-26T18:28:42.706-07:00Review: The Sleepwalkers by Viviane Schwartz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVFcBrzmiZlMwhYUmsFNYIzsYt5mFhK_4d8298WdQaA86lFR2SGJchrdved1czkgOU7_0GPC2af0MdQiMvFZvIeAdHu0yqbD8DZmlzr8EGzEOoHiDie3xXfR9AAMc0F_-_v8lQuyk-_Yk/s1600/15841905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVFcBrzmiZlMwhYUmsFNYIzsYt5mFhK_4d8298WdQaA86lFR2SGJchrdved1czkgOU7_0GPC2af0MdQiMvFZvIeAdHu0yqbD8DZmlzr8EGzEOoHiDie3xXfR9AAMc0F_-_v8lQuyk-_Yk/s200/15841905.jpg" width="148" /></a></div>
I don't want to say that the concept of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Sleepwalkers-Viviane-Schwarz/dp/0763662305/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371514578&sr=8-1&keywords=sleepwalkers+viviane+schwarz"><i>The Sleepwalkers</i></a>, by Viviane Schwartz, is better than the execution. It's more like the execution is just really melancholy and full of the fear of death.<br />
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The concept is this: three superhero-esque sheep enter children's nightmares and rescue the children by turning the dreams around according to their own logic. <br />
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Brilliant, right? Don't you wish you thought of that? The possibilities are endless!<br />
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But the particular part of the sheeps' tenure that this graphic novel focuses on is the end--the part when the sheep train their proteges and retire from their Sleepwalking ways.<br />
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<b>The first weird thing about the book is that it takes a long time for the main characters--the ones on the cover--to enter the story. </b>The story starts with one girl going to sleep, putting a note under her pillow, and being rescued by the Sleepwalkers. Is the girl the main character? No, she wakes up and disappears from the story. So are the sheep heroes the main characters? No, they want to retire.<br />
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So on page 18 (out of less than 100), the sheep perform a ritual that turns an old quilt into a bear who becomes one of the sheep's proteges. They raise other curious creatures out of old objects and take these somewhat reluctant new heroes into the field before abandoning them by walking through a door that leads to the waking world.<br />
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So most of the book is about these new Sleepwalkers learning the ways of dreams, and can I pause here to say: <b>the dreams are stunning. </b> And the experienced Sleepwalkers treat them like new geography, studying the flora and fauna in fine 19th-century-explorer style. Schwartz's scruffy pen sketch style is most effective during the dream sequences. The illustrations rupture their panels and explode across the page, sometimes changing color scheme to a dramatic skeletal black-and-white or forcing the reader to turn the book sideways and read up-and-down while the characters fall through the sky.<br />
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<b>However, these kick-ass dream sequences are followed by sad, lonely passages </b>in which the proteges feel abandoned by their mentors and unprepared for what comes next. For example, consider this dialog between the former quilt, Bonno, and a former sock monkey, Amali:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: lightyellow;">
<i><b>A</b>: Bonno?</i><br />
<i><b>B</b>: Yes?</i><br />
<i><b>A</b>: I'm still sad. If I keep being sad, I will have been happy only one day of my life.</i><br />
<i><b>B</b>: Not necessarily. Yesterday was only sad in the afternoon. So you've had one and a half happy days our of two. At that rate, you'll be mostly happy.</i><br />
<i><b>A</b>: True. You know more than me. What's it like to be older?</i><br />
<i><b>B</b>: From what I can tell, it's mostly terrifying. So far I've been frightened every day of my life.</i></blockquote>
Hits you in the gut, right? This book is powerful like that, but it's also sad like that, and part of me wished for a more kick-ass, reassuring, happy story. When the older Sleepwalkers walk through the door to the waking world, it feels like they have died. So the book itself feels like a meditation on how to live your life when you have no idea what will happen next or how long the people you love will be in your life. In other words, how to live your life. <br />
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It's a lot to take, and I don't know how kids will react to this book, but it's one worth reading and rereading. It's also one that inspires you to rewrite your own nightmares and mine your deepest fears for great art. And the conclusion, which is both eerie and cosmic, feels very right. So this is a good title for children who relish the work of Joann Sfar and Neil Gaiman, and those who are thoughtful, serious, odd, and tough.xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-54925444918043678342013-05-29T14:40:00.000-07:002013-06-17T17:20:18.217-07:00Review: Doll Bones by Holly Black<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5L7ChaLFasMae7PUvKlzBprqCPUc1vCwpiv-QrS6_fqgPRIdaDfFaPFokxvvhcgMHQ_ID287XoQS5VNri4fM4S0ALBhTXixf8I0-j7QD5FxIYQSpWYZcC5Uq2ZLR7rAEordB-_LXguIc/s1600/doll+bones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5L7ChaLFasMae7PUvKlzBprqCPUc1vCwpiv-QrS6_fqgPRIdaDfFaPFokxvvhcgMHQ_ID287XoQS5VNri4fM4S0ALBhTXixf8I0-j7QD5FxIYQSpWYZcC5Uq2ZLR7rAEordB-_LXguIc/s200/doll+bones.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Doll-Bones-ebook/dp/B008J2BXX4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369863599&sr=8-1&keywords=doll+bones"><i>Doll Bones</i></a>, by Holly Black, is one of those "is it magic or isn't it?" stories in which a children's game "turns sinister." (I don't know what I'm quoting there, but it sounds like a quote from something.) For me, the game never turns quite sinister <i>enough</i>, but the dynamics of three friends entering middle school and ending a long-standing game of pretend are perfect.<br />
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What first drew me into the book was the game that Zach, Poppy, and Alice play. Using action figures, old barbie dolls, shoe boxes, and paper boats, they act out a nautical fantasy in which Captain William and thief Lady Jaye face carnivorous mermaids and shark kings to carry out the wishes of their Queen. The Queen is a creepy bone china doll that Poppy's parents keep in a glass cabinet. In the game, the Queen can never leave her glass castle, but she has the power to curse anyone who does not carry out her wishes.<br />
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<b>The game is so engrossing that I kept wishing the kids would go back to playing it. </b>But they don't. Because Zach's dad, a tough-guy cook who recently moved back in, does something that prevents Zach from playing the game. Then, instead of explaining what happened, Zach tells Alice and Poppy he's too old to play and just stops hanging out with them. So Alice and Poppy do something desperate to draw Zach back in: they remove the Queen from her glass cabinet.<br />
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In order for the rest of the book to work for you, you have to believe that Zach would do this, that he would just blow the whole thing off rather than tell Alice and Poppy what happened. And I think I believe it, because what Zach is really afraid of is that he will get emotional when he talks about what happened--he's not afraid of telling the truth; he's afraid of revealing the depth of his feelings about the game.<br />
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<b>This novel works really well on the thematic level. </b>After Alice and Poppy remove the doll from the cabinet, Poppy insists that the ghost of a girl associated with the doll has visited her in a dream and given them a quest. Although Zach and Alice have their doubts, they want to believe that their real lives can be a little like their games, that they can be a little like their characters, so they go along. And that's sort of the question the book asks: when you grow up, do you have to stop playing? Or is there a way to make your real life like the games you play as a child?<br />
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And there are moments when the kids act like their characters--Alice slips into a locked building like her alter-ego, the thief Lady Jaye, and Zach commandeers a sailboat. But, as Zach observes, adventuring turns out to be boring. The backdrop for the kids' quest is a semi-industrial area along the Ohio river in Pennsylvania, and their stops include a small park, a donut shop, a marina, and a library. While placing a quest in a boringly familiar setting serves the author's point, it also means she can't include the kind of world-building that draws many readers to fantasy stories.<br />
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It's tough. I really admire what the author is trying to do, but I don't know if she succeeds. Because after I finished the book, I still wanted to read more about the game. I still wasn't that interested in what happened next in Zach, Alice, and Poppy's lives. <br />
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<b>I also was disappointed that the ghost story never really gave me the shivers.</b> I wanted to be creeped out! I wanted to seriously doubt the sanity of the characters! I wanted to genuinely fear the wrath of the doll! I wanted a sense of impending doom to drive me to finish the book in one night! That didn't happen.<br />
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That said, this is a worthy book, one that respects fantasy readers and gets the details of middle school life right. I hope the cover is eerie enough that boys will pick it up, because we need more books that show boys having outward adventures as well as complex inner, emotional lives. And at just under 250 pages (with a few illustrations!), this book will be a good fit for my fifth graders.xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-33285402587966172732013-05-26T13:32:00.001-07:002013-05-29T14:41:30.617-07:00Cover Style: Cupcakes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3D2sLWXq5toVIXNakEN4W27vnTWBqjWS3HzBfMFANyDBYPzasgqT0fobGnQTpnnsG6Si3r2XRUL7HPdusEfPj8fLUWvaTLFkFkyc50qBLOTRyqSmKtnpCf8PEpGJKNCs1cd_PqfvdVcU/s1600/15780279.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3D2sLWXq5toVIXNakEN4W27vnTWBqjWS3HzBfMFANyDBYPzasgqT0fobGnQTpnnsG6Si3r2XRUL7HPdusEfPj8fLUWvaTLFkFkyc50qBLOTRyqSmKtnpCf8PEpGJKNCs1cd_PqfvdVcU/s200/15780279.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/A-Tangle-of-Knots-ebook/dp/B008EXNPP2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369600532&sr=8-1&keywords=tangle+of+knots"><i>A Tangle of Knots</i></a> by Lisa Graff had me thinking about baked goods and children's
books. Baked goods have always represented family, tradition,
sweetness, and warmth, so it's no surprise that they often feature in
books for children.<br />
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Baking is also a basically scientific process that appears magical--you put a soupy, sticky batter in the oven and you pull out a delicious cake. So slipping some magic into the baked goods is a good way to get kids to accept the existence of magic in an otherwise realistic work of fiction.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxwo3LlLygmHW4Rs2ZA69jQU9m9ks4CoDiSSaK260TiRbjyAmXNBaLjNan1Povlg2sp1qIit-f3BbPN_eLidlIUc2YEghzNXAUyPgCbHEC9OjcPG72hU7B0M8Gmf10rP16o32fNcLqvug/s1600/Magic+Baked+Goods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxwo3LlLygmHW4Rs2ZA69jQU9m9ks4CoDiSSaK260TiRbjyAmXNBaLjNan1Povlg2sp1qIit-f3BbPN_eLidlIUc2YEghzNXAUyPgCbHEC9OjcPG72hU7B0M8Gmf10rP16o32fNcLqvug/s640/Magic+Baked+Goods.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>The most popular baked good to appear on children's books</b> is undoubtedly the cupcake. I
first noticed the cupcake phenomenon at the last Scholastic book fair I
held at my school. There's a surprising number of series based on
cupcakes:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzBiOpo3qZp48jLzVKXXjW2bzH9ga3o5l5EFY-c4Rq8z5ff6qm-RlVaUIOXx0QNjEbekoropCCvFvZETTVyYmXOoABr2D-wivB8IK8-6Ho1iIH8yndVwXcdyde_8PLSOfpGiex0yAN6cY/s1600/Cupcake+series.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzBiOpo3qZp48jLzVKXXjW2bzH9ga3o5l5EFY-c4Rq8z5ff6qm-RlVaUIOXx0QNjEbekoropCCvFvZETTVyYmXOoABr2D-wivB8IK8-6Ho1iIH8yndVwXcdyde_8PLSOfpGiex0yAN6cY/s640/Cupcake+series.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I'm assuming that here cupcakes represent a certain kind of cute femininity that middle school girls are going for. But cupcakes can also represent entrepreneurial spirit and political power.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHqqYAswLy5H13A8wy3riKHGYxaBZKfEmgswKswGa2CNVrLUpLciXJegPt_oYn4Q0dfkXSrnWNasgacjOewmvC0hRKCazhHEPk4SboGaBhqFcqlZbZXzlqlKe8JhyQlPazlbV8bC3RScM/s1600/Cupcake+Money.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHqqYAswLy5H13A8wy3riKHGYxaBZKfEmgswKswGa2CNVrLUpLciXJegPt_oYn4Q0dfkXSrnWNasgacjOewmvC0hRKCazhHEPk4SboGaBhqFcqlZbZXzlqlKe8JhyQlPazlbV8bC3RScM/s640/Cupcake+Money.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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What most of these cupcake covers have in common is that <b>they seem to be offering you a bite.</b> What better way to get a kid to pick a book up off the shelf than to use an image that seems to be reaching out to you, holding something delicious?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3o9vLMXgAZq1Mjifd9X6ZcBAYTRfOxu5nhomT5zUyL37TYbBaT7IlrVWh2Nriw89H5ClrzpATjMAJhzmtGlC8vkbWRx-wLBu0V6goH8wtBRMShKVLoZd3nxhN-ZlYFzq_XTnPqqtet00/s1600/close+to+famous.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3o9vLMXgAZq1Mjifd9X6ZcBAYTRfOxu5nhomT5zUyL37TYbBaT7IlrVWh2Nriw89H5ClrzpATjMAJhzmtGlC8vkbWRx-wLBu0V6goH8wtBRMShKVLoZd3nxhN-ZlYFzq_XTnPqqtet00/s320/close+to+famous.jpg" width="211" /></a><b>One of my favorite cupcake books is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Close-Famous-Joan-Bauer/dp/B00ANY7J3Y/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1369598878&sr=8-1"><i>Almost Famous</i></a> by Joan Bauer. </b>It's about Foster McFee, a girl who dreams of hosting her own baking show when she grows up. When her mother runs away to a small town to escape her Elvis-impersonator ex-boyfriend, Foster starts baking cupcakes for a local restaurant as well as cleaning the house of a disgraced movie star. The book has lots of small-town flavor, plus recipes! The plot sort of careens all over the place, but it's still a super likeable story.<br />
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I also like the way Foster is depicted on the cover (although I wish her head wasn't cut off). The way she's standing projects just the right amount of self-confidence, the shooting star on her apron hints at the theme, and her skin tone is just right for her biracial background.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2AVJUkiK87uj7rYRRGLYBbGG9zHtvtsR6MgHqtqNJ3ebD0TKR4USrYsrzbU7K7I6N9zbQmhq4GYUlL1x6y47oNmc7YohokwHEJ87xhjKr99gtF1eq_ecJDFaDdOeFQZsu_MoBD9M0jCI/s1600/seeyouh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2AVJUkiK87uj7rYRRGLYBbGG9zHtvtsR6MgHqtqNJ3ebD0TKR4USrYsrzbU7K7I6N9zbQmhq4GYUlL1x6y47oNmc7YohokwHEJ87xhjKr99gtF1eq_ecJDFaDdOeFQZsu_MoBD9M0jCI/s320/seeyouh.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>
However, after studying all of these covers, <b>the image that keeps appearing in my head </b>is the cover of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/See-You-at-Harrys-ebook/dp/B007PVOFIK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369599680&sr=1-1&keywords=see+you+at+harry%27s"><i>See You at Harry's</i></a> by Jo Knowles. It's like the opposite of all of the above. Instead of a warm baked good, we have a cold treat. Instead of an array of sweets to choose from, we have a single sundae. Instead of something that's ready to be eaten, we have the remains of something that had to be enjoyed before it disappeared.<br />
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<i>See You at Harry's</i> is about a family-run ice cream parlor--but unlike so many fictional bakeries and candy shops, this ice cream parlor isn't a wish-fulfillment factory. The kids in the family hate being associated with it.<br />
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I didn't think about the cover of <i>See You at Harry's</i> much before I read it, but now that I've finished it, the cover seems sort of genius. In an abstract way, it prepares you for the wistfulness and melancholy you find inside the book. Empty ice cream bowl = the anti-cupcake.<br />
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Do you know of any other delicious covers?xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-923973447948954822013-05-12T13:19:00.000-07:002013-05-26T13:33:23.495-07:00Review: Ghoulish Song by William Alexander<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhboWbcNTFAGF8CpTBxRRZgJZnlPPy4FZ_opHSY5Va2LZE-dkMZCpHPXBQ4RS3aN3Jdunlw9jSeBLvwXGk8JmU4285hOX3HZ1Mf8z28vjjuQ0L8yaZpYWzpWtz71F1_DfGNNoeiUulFXxU/s1600/ghoulish+song.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhboWbcNTFAGF8CpTBxRRZgJZnlPPy4FZ_opHSY5Va2LZE-dkMZCpHPXBQ4RS3aN3Jdunlw9jSeBLvwXGk8JmU4285hOX3HZ1Mf8z28vjjuQ0L8yaZpYWzpWtz71F1_DfGNNoeiUulFXxU/s200/ghoulish+song.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
I think I would have really liked <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ghoulish-Song-William-Alexander/dp/1442427299/ref=bxgy_cc_b_text_b"><i>Ghoulish Song</i></a>, by William Alexander, if I hadn't already read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Goblin-Secrets-Alexander-William/dp/1442427264/ref=bxgy_cc_b_text_a"><i>Goblin Secrets</i></a>. I expected this second book to expand the world Alexander introduces in the first. Instead, it contracts it.<br />
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However, taken on its own, <i>Ghoulish Song</i> has many creepy pleasures to offer. It focuses on a baker's daughter who comes into possession of a flute carved from a dead woman's bone. The first time Kaile plays the flute, her shadow becomes separated from her body, and her parents, believing she is now a ghost, hold a funeral for her right in front of her eyes.<br />
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The girl sets out on a journey to find out whose bone the flute was made from, so she can reattach her shadow (who, by the way, doesn't like her very much). But her journey is interrupted by a group of musicians who believe the girl's flute may be capable of more than separating shadows from bodies. <br />
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<b>At first I was delighted to find that <i>Ghoulish Song</i> focuses on a character who appeared briefly in <i>Goblin Secrets</i>. </b> In case you hadn't guessed, Kaile is the same baker's daughter who offers a meal of fresh bread to the goblin troupe in the first book. In fact, <i>Ghoulish Song</i> takes place during the exact same time frame as <i>Goblin Secrets</i>, and focuses on the same problem: the river is rising and the city of Zombay may be swept away.<br />
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While at first, this overlap between the books made me feel like I was in on a secret, it eventually made me feel like nothing was at stake. I already knew from the first book that SPOILER ALERT the bridge of Zombay wasn't going to be swept away by the rising river. So while <i>Ghoulish Song</i> shows that other people played a role in saving the city, that role is way less epic than the role Rownie played in <i>Goblin Secrets</i>, which makes <i>Ghoulish Song</i> a less exciting read. END SPOILER.<br />
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Also, at the end of <i>Goblin Secrets</i>, I wanted to know more about the world in which the story took place--most of all, I wanted to know how and why some people changed into Goblins. I really thought that <i>Ghoulish Song</i> would answer some of my questions. But it showed me a smaller part of the city than I had seen in <i>Goblin Secrets</i>, and that was disappointing.<br />
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<b>On the plus side, <i>Ghoulish Song</i> stands on its own just fine, and in some ways is a better choice for my elementary school library</b>--it's slimmer, scarier, and has a much better cover. And I continue to be impressed by the way Alexander structures his novels: <i>Goblin Secrets</i> was divided into three acts and had elements of a play-within-a-play; <i>Goulish Song</i> is divided into verses, like a song, and turns out to be a ghost-story-within-a-ghost-story. <br />
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I wonder what it would be like to read the books in the opposite order. I have a feeling that reading <i>Ghoulish Song</i> will make some of the students at my school interested in reading <i>Goblin Secrets, </i>and that would certainly be a good thing.xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-7590289171266266572013-05-07T13:25:00.000-07:002013-05-12T13:19:28.239-07:00Review: The Center of Everything by Linda Urban<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd029d9HXd87RGcT1EALjKC5KrOsf3mfZZhLbtqVyQIcwSZ_qXlbWvWfSIy3BaEd7sEVftuD0bdHprTzo1xSxqbiTq0yp58fCUqC7CbwphzqErG0UZwvMJTObhBFN1gKxh8vRLwBtPAHs/s1600/9780547763484_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd029d9HXd87RGcT1EALjKC5KrOsf3mfZZhLbtqVyQIcwSZ_qXlbWvWfSIy3BaEd7sEVftuD0bdHprTzo1xSxqbiTq0yp58fCUqC7CbwphzqErG0UZwvMJTObhBFN1gKxh8vRLwBtPAHs/s200/9780547763484_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG" width="139" /></a></div>
About 40 pages into <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Center-Everything-Linda-Urban/dp/0547763484/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367876922&sr=8-1&keywords=center+of+everything"><i>The Center of Everything,</i></a> by Linda Urban, I thought,<i> is she doing what I think she's doing? Is she seriously writing a children's novel in which all of the action takes place over 10 minutes? </i> The answer is almost yes.<br />
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Toward the end of the novel, time moves a little faster, but most of this story happens in the few minutes in between when the Bunning Day parade starts and when the schoolhouse float at the end of the parade stops in front of Ruby Pepperdine so she can deliver her Bunning Day speech.<br />
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<b>So basically, this is the <i>Mrs. Dalloway</i> of children's books. </b> I never thought I'd get to say that! The story in the present is broken up by flashbacks to Ruby's past which explain why it is <i>so important </i>that Ruby deliver her speech in <i>just the right way</i>.<br />
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There are also short chapters where we get to see the parade from other people's perspectives: a bank manager who is dressed as Captain Bunning, a local artist who organized the parade, Ruby's little cousin who really has to pee. These short chapters are deliciously funny, which is nice, because although Ruby is a girl I like and her town is a place I would love to visit, Ruby's mood is sad and her sadness creeps into your heart when you read about it.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Side note: I said that I would like to visit this town, but the truth is, I am sort of convinced that Bunning is based on the town where I grew up. Admittedly, my town was not founded by a donut-inventing sea captain, but it is in Southern New Hampshire and it does have an annual Old Homeday's parade, which, like the Bunning Day parade, includes karate demonstrations, school bands, Shriners in small cars, and local politicians. But I suppose lots of towns have parades like this.</i></blockquote>
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I don't want to give too much away, because <b>part of what kept me reading this book were all the questions I had at the beginning</b>: Why are Lucy's friends mad at her? Why is Gigi not in the parade? What did Lucy wish for when her quarter flew through the donut on the Captain Bunning Day statue? But I will say that the book contains the following: stargazing, karate, donuts, community theater, convertibles, and clandestine meetings at the public library. Are you sold or what? <br />
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I also have to note that although Lucy's town is in Southern New Hampshire, the author has kept up with the times and made sure that there is a racially diverse cast of characters (applause!).<br />
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So this is definitely a book for children who like stories of small towns full of quirky people. (Do children really love these kind of books, or do adults just really love writing them for children? There seem to be a lot.) But it's also a book for children who like the slightly weird, the books that walk the line between reality and fantasy a la Zilpha Keatley Snyder, E. L. Konigsburg, Ellen Potter, and Rebecca Stead.<br />
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<b>If I have one critique, it's that the symbols don't always support the theme. </b> There are donuts, color wheels, and stars, and they all have something to do with stretching time and listening and things being the way they're supposed to be. But the themes and symbols don't all intersect like the spokes on a wheel, if you know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, then you know how I feel about the symbolism in the book.<br />
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Still, I am completely impressed with the structure of the novel, which seems quite daring to me. In addition to the 10 minute timeline and the many perspectives, the author uses the second person to put us inside Ruby's head. And here's the most important thing: it all works. It seems natural. When you stand back and consider what the author has done, it's remarkable, but when you're in the story, you barely have the chance to notice because you're too interested in everything that's going on.<br />
<br />xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-44815362967783674832013-02-15T20:03:00.000-08:002013-05-07T13:28:25.360-07:00Review: The Green Book by Jill Paton Walsh<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUmP8zva6jotxCq9wqb99quEIYZbLhnralNkVFVFN6EOzEX-qAfHZgfv6NS_z-Oy_hRHNDQPqhkBqFbZLjcDm5x2IDMWhuWzDT4LT5zlC_h0Wlodddd8RxFiq9o4Tk6HMzSyO-CEgNPAU/s1600/741800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUmP8zva6jotxCq9wqb99quEIYZbLhnralNkVFVFN6EOzEX-qAfHZgfv6NS_z-Oy_hRHNDQPqhkBqFbZLjcDm5x2IDMWhuWzDT4LT5zlC_h0Wlodddd8RxFiq9o4Tk6HMzSyO-CEgNPAU/s200/741800.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Green-Book-Jill-Paton-Walsh/dp/0312641222/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1361124844&sr=8-3&keywords=green+book"><i>The Green Book</i></a> by Jill Paton Walsh is a slim sci-fi novel that looks like it might be a good beginning chapter book. I read it as a child and the outline of the plot still stands out in my memory: a father and his three children choose the bare minimum of possessions to take with them to a new planet, but when they get there, nothing will grow, and there is no way to leave or get help.<br />
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Sounds simple and gut-wrenching, right? But the lyrical descriptions and complicated sentence structure make this a challenging read--they also cast some doubt on the surprise at the end of the story--but I'll get to that post-spoiler alert.<br />
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Here's an example of the kind of paragraph that makes this book both beautiful and demanding for a child reader. When the community arrives on their new planet (Earth is no longer habitable), they are struck by how very still and shiny everything is. The grass is actually brittle and sharp, like glass, and in the distance, there's a lake and a mountain:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: lightyellow;">
<i>And all the time we walked toward the lake, it did not move, or ruffle, even enough to shake the curtains of reflected mountain and reflected sky that hung in it. And though the air smelled good and sweet to breathe, it was windless, and as still as the air in a deep cave underground. Only the little rivulet that followed us across to the lake from the crag valley where the ship had lodged moved; it chuckled gently from stone to stone, and sparkled as brightly as the glass leaves and grass. </i></blockquote>
<b>This is definitely a book that exercises your brain</b>, not only with the prose but with the science problem-solving. When they arrive on the new planet, the community has to figure out the best way to build houses, create light after dark, and grow food. They have to test new materials they have never encountered before and divide the labor fairly. They accomplish most of these goals, except growing food. The tension builds as their livestock slowly die, the rations from the ship run out, and the food they plant transforms into something inedible.<br />
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I was riveted by this book, but I realized that wasn't because I cared about the characters. In fact, the characters seemed sort of removed. I never got inside their heads. Rather, I was riveted because I felt like <i>I was there</i>. I felt like I <i>was</i> one of the characters. I'm not sure how the author did this, but it's supremely effective. Maybe it is just the fact that each chapter has a purpose and the narrative never wavers or wanders. It is completely focused on how the characters will solve the problem of survival, and the result is a claustrophobic setting that seems very real. <br />
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<b>Now, about the ending. Consider this your SPOILER ALERT. </b><i>The Green Book</i> is told in third person, but on the last page, it is revealed that the whole story was written down by the 10-year-old girl, Pattie, who is sort of the main character. It's a satisfying reveal because Pattie's blank notebook is mentioned in the first chapter, so although I never made the connection as a young reader, it's possible to guess what's going on. However, the reveal isn't completely believable, because the prose doesn't sound at all like something a 10-year-old would write. That didn't bother me as a young reader, but as an adult, I feel like the author could have adapted her style. <b>END SPOILER.</b><br />
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Of course, my purpose in reading this and <a href="http://emilyruthbrown.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-white-mountains.html">other</a> <a href="http://emilyruthbrown.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-white-mountains.html">sci-fi books</a> is to find ones that would be good for my elementary school library collection. I actually already have this book on my shelves, but I have a version with this cover:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn9aMMzezLxGM8njPhcX27_UDKcxcw1JKMnVWjrMqS7tMIZxCcRo9fNo19ZS2m9x1e6pyZFJ6hlhLnJflq-t0uD4P2uJidxKskX0Nkr9cz-gExmwoJwDjsV43MQYNDgytuTjAWi1zySgE/s1600/h244.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn9aMMzezLxGM8njPhcX27_UDKcxcw1JKMnVWjrMqS7tMIZxCcRo9fNo19ZS2m9x1e6pyZFJ6hlhLnJflq-t0uD4P2uJidxKskX0Nkr9cz-gExmwoJwDjsV43MQYNDgytuTjAWi1zySgE/s320/h244.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
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So I'm considering updating to this cover, because I think it will appeal more to the precocious older readers who would be able to understand the descriptive passages. (Also, I'm intrigued that it includes the original illustrations.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBpiP0BnJubM1jKuynSMMPawKbWRe5dG5cvYuIBOKYqpQ6Invr7gQbwsf47gyWljXw3559CLoYon5UXTBWXWfTC4dlUIA78Kn8fJxiJCWr6wGAiftHy-1-KvZfnlS7XZ1b-QuznnCCKOg/s1600/the-green-book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBpiP0BnJubM1jKuynSMMPawKbWRe5dG5cvYuIBOKYqpQ6Invr7gQbwsf47gyWljXw3559CLoYon5UXTBWXWfTC4dlUIA78Kn8fJxiJCWr6wGAiftHy-1-KvZfnlS7XZ1b-QuznnCCKOg/s320/the-green-book.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>
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<b>However, I think this novel would really work best as a read-aloud,</b> and what a wonderful read-aloud it would be: short enough that you could finish it in a week if you read a chapter a day, lots of ways to relate it to the science curriculum, and lots of beautiful language with which to fill kids' ears and minds. xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-80189232503708533052013-02-13T14:18:00.000-08:002013-02-17T10:28:35.764-08:00Rant: Should Libraries be Quiet?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuhZIZ_YRIrg4f7c_kEyWTmB11POz40voXoxj6U3DDMDXu8vWYz8NrobuuWFDMhBiDJO9kACAymOAfrV9Vwz2FvFo5al5H8-RIVgkwqnoimk9Ngj3tT6Wvi3BCXwBBVMK5QBfobU7OJD0/s1600/quiet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuhZIZ_YRIrg4f7c_kEyWTmB11POz40voXoxj6U3DDMDXu8vWYz8NrobuuWFDMhBiDJO9kACAymOAfrV9Vwz2FvFo5al5H8-RIVgkwqnoimk9Ngj3tT6Wvi3BCXwBBVMK5QBfobU7OJD0/s200/quiet.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Does the answer seem obvious? Are other librarians asking themselves this question? Do you shush people? Do you feel guilty when you do? Or when you don't?<br />
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My mother recently directed my attention to <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/01/31/bring_back_shushing_librarians/">this article from Salon.com</a> which interprets a recent Pew study differently from the way Pew does. <br />
<a name='more'></a>The executive summary of the study highlights these facts:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: lightyellow;">
<i>80% of Americans say <b>borrowing books</b> is a โvery importantโ service libraries provide.</i><br />
<i>80% say <b>reference librarians</b> are a โvery importantโ service of libraries.</i><br />
<i>77% say <b>free access to computers and the internet</b> is a โvery importantโ service of libraries.</i></blockquote>
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The Salon.com article highlights the fact that 76% of respondents considered "quiet study spaces for adults and children" very important, too. An even greater number of African-American, Hispanic, female, and urban respondents considered quiet important. But you won't find that in the executive summary. Why was this result left out?<br />
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The Salon.com article points out that, "A relatively silent place to read is almost exactly as valuable to these people as the Internet!" and more important than many of the other innovative services libraries are offering. But the Pew study doesn't have anything to say about the importance of quiet.<br />
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::When was the last time you shushed?</h2>
This is the second time the issue of quiet in the library has come to my attention recently. The first time was when my father sent me <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323320404578215801157264528.html">this editorial from the Wall Street Journal</a>. (I know it seems like my parents are trying to tell me something, but I think it's a coincidence.) In it, children's author Peter Mandel says he was offended by the noise at his local Providence library and asked a staff person if she was going to do anything about it. The staff person said:<br />
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<i>"I don't shush people. That went out with sharpening pencils."</i></blockquote>
Since I used to work in the Providence libraries, I immediately forwarded the email to a colleague and did some cyberstalking to try to figure out who might have actually said that to Mr. Mandel. But I also thought a lot about Mr. Mandel's larger point. In fact, I had a number of friendly arguments with people about this editorial.<br />
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My position was this: I felt that Mr. Mandel wasn't a regular library user, and now that he had a children's books published, he was marching into public and school libraries and giving his opinion of how we should be doing things. <b>I care about the opinions of people who <i>actually use</i> libraries more than the opinions of people who don't. </b>That's my bias.<br />
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But most of the people I argued with agreed with Mr. Mandel.<br />
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I have to admit that I have my own story of not-shushing. It happened when an older man using the computer at the public library where I worked waved me over and said, "Can I ask you something? Is this a library?" I knew where he was going with his question, and let me tell you, I found his approach rude and condescending. I can't remember exactly how the rest of the conversation went, but I believe I assured him it was a library, and he asked me why it was so noisy, and I think I said something about the time of day. Truthfully, my library was always noisy between 4 and 6 p.m. when school children and working people flooded in and out. Come back after dinner and it would be a different story.<br />
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<b>So if you had asked me the question, "Should libraries be quiet?" a few weeks ago, I probably would have shrugged. </b>But now I'm starting to wonder if I was abdicating some responsibility. It sounds like this is something people really value. But I'm also not sure how to bring it back.<br />
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The public library where I worked right after graduating was one big room. The children's area was in the back and the circulation desk and adult area was up front. There were no separate spaces for different ages or purposes, and during busy times, there weren't even enough chairs for everyone who wanted to sit. I don't know how we could have kept it quiet when there were that many people coming and going in such a small space. But I'll also admit that we didn't try very hard. In our defense, we were busy troubleshooting computers, running children's programs, answering the phones, checking out the books, etc. etc. etc.<br />
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<h2 class="subhead">
::Privileging noise vs. measuring quiet</h2>
I can't help but link the issue of quiet in the library to the recent kidlit blogosphere debate about teaching introverts. A <a href="http://www.stackedbooks.org/2013/02/doing-disservice-to-introversion.html">number</a> of <a href="http://medinger.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/in-the-classroom-a-few-classroom-teaching-suggestions-from-an-introvert-teacher/">bloggers</a> have responded to <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/02/introverted-kids-need-to-learn-to-speak-up-at-school/272960/">an article by a teacher who believes introverts need to be pressured to speak up</a>. In their responses, the bloggers have talked about the importance of having quiet time to process and the opportunity to express ideas nonverbally. One sense that quietness and quiet people are under attack.<br />
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<b>I have always thought that libraries should be havens for introverts, geeks, day dreamers, thinkers, and romantics. </b>Certainly, the library was a haven for me. In fact, in college, my best friend and I referred to the library as NHQ, or "Nerd Head Quarters." We were proud of the fact that we knew our way around the LOC cataloging system, that we had favorite study booths, and that we could be found there on Saturday afternoons when the football team was playing their archrivals and everyone was else, it seemed, was tailgating.<br />
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So I can get on board with this. I can try to make my library a quieter place. But this is going to take some thinking. I now work at a school library, where 26 kids stream into my library at once and all select books within about 20 minutes. I'm not sure how I'm going to turn the volume down on that, but I'm going to try. I'm even more curious about how this will look in a public library. Are people going to write SMART goals about changing the noise level in their library? Are they going to buy devices that measure the decibles the way we have door counters for measuring traffic?<br />
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<b>Because the larger issue here is how we measure success. </b>We all like to count things, and we can count circs, we can count program attendance, we can count the number of people who come in the doors. We can't count quiet. In fact, we may see a decrease in some of those other numbers if we really insist on quiet. We may drive people away. Or we may entice certain people to come back. Is it possible we'll see a surge in our numbers as the introverts and other quiet people come back to us? Who's willing to try it and find out?xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-25571727989942368272013-02-09T10:10:00.001-08:002013-02-13T14:19:28.942-08:00Cover Style: Old Fashioned Borders<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixg9iQ8Ec45V8D20WEruqJ7WVP0GI8Eklx4Y7iaz5Xa8AVpD51Wjx5RpCEmQMZCasHnlxBuCucSJdBZ5o3nAzNuFkUBQoDHV40LFyQOX2pV96LDawxdrobSetNzUKcWaaBwLAAbbmVjnA/s1600/13503214.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixg9iQ8Ec45V8D20WEruqJ7WVP0GI8Eklx4Y7iaz5Xa8AVpD51Wjx5RpCEmQMZCasHnlxBuCucSJdBZ5o3nAzNuFkUBQoDHV40LFyQOX2pV96LDawxdrobSetNzUKcWaaBwLAAbbmVjnA/s200/13503214.jpg" width="137" /></a></div>
I'm reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chickadee-Louise-Erdrich/dp/0060577908/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360433575&sr=8-1&keywords=chickadee"><i>Chickadee</i></a> by Louise Erdrich, and I can't get over how girly the cover is. I know that's an irritating adjective--girly--but seriously, this book is being marketed to girls. Which I think is a real missed opportunity, since it's a fierce kidnapping adventure story that would appeal to boys, too. Especially boys who like Avi's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Ground-25th-Anniversary/dp/0064401855/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360433598&sr=1-1&keywords=fighting+ground"><i>The Fighting Ground</i></a> or Cynthia DeFelice's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Weasel-Cynthia-DeFelice/dp/0380713586/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360433624&sr=1-1&keywords=weasel"><i>Weasel</i></a>. But how many of those boys will pick up a book with a flowery border?<br />
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I knew the cover was reminding me of something, and I assumed it was the Little House series with its checkerboard border, but when I started thinking back on other borders, I realized <i>Chickadee</i> was really reminding me of this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVuA82krUzrkOEwvdni1vYE7Ue3-Qb5XBLRSy-eBnMFEtD1yjGKaD36oCgRMoXaqyYpYciBVrWSfBt8ZLjfrXC9uX0U3eRsm5oMUJNgoy_0psJ6cZ-ooVy8Jg2hPQ0JNHiyN8vjooNZdg/s1600/picisto-20130208174833-149349.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVuA82krUzrkOEwvdni1vYE7Ue3-Qb5XBLRSy-eBnMFEtD1yjGKaD36oCgRMoXaqyYpYciBVrWSfBt8ZLjfrXC9uX0U3eRsm5oMUJNgoy_0psJ6cZ-ooVy8Jg2hPQ0JNHiyN8vjooNZdg/s1600/picisto-20130208174833-149349.jpg" /></a></div>
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In fact, the <i>Chickadee</i> cover reminds me of a lot of classic "girl" books I read when I was younger. The original covers of these books may not have had borders, but the adorable paperbacks I bought in the 80s and 90s certainly did. I think borders are definitely code for "old fashioned."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEoNLuC1KOOJWWiJ3ltGkJifVgPbsQOA4xf7l88U_32gf9smOlrCu6_LQ-WCRWbaxQ_qjrEH98vNfEzMFIHauWsVITkK2QNmbwkiJplPzbbRupqxUJYDxLqCVDcUwow1pg_iM4iMI-qoc/s1600/picisto-20130208175924-883605.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEoNLuC1KOOJWWiJ3ltGkJifVgPbsQOA4xf7l88U_32gf9smOlrCu6_LQ-WCRWbaxQ_qjrEH98vNfEzMFIHauWsVITkK2QNmbwkiJplPzbbRupqxUJYDxLqCVDcUwow1pg_iM4iMI-qoc/s1600/picisto-20130208175924-883605.jpg" /></a></div>
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Some more recent books that are trying to harken back to another era have also employed borders to set them apart.<br />
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3637538-xemilyx?shelf=borders&utm_medium=api&utm_source=grid_widget" style="text-decoration: none;">Xemilyx's borders book montage</a>
</h2>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7825557-a-tale-dark-grimm" title="A Tale Dark & Grimm (A Tale Dark & Grimm, #1)"><img alt="A Tale Dark & Grimm" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1345696603m/7825557.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6202556-the-evolution-of-calpurnia-tate" title="The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate"><img alt="The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312066975m/6202556.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10788968-the-flint-heart" title="The Flint Heart"><img alt="The Flint Heart" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320522620m/10788968.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13414819-the-secret-of-the-stone-frog" title="The Secret of the Stone Frog"><img alt="The Secret of the Stone Frog" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333581514m/13414819.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9591398-the-girl-who-circumnavigated-fairyland-in-a-ship-of-her-own-making" title="The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1)"><img alt="The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1317793528m/9591398.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10425811-liesl-po" title="Liesl & Po"><img alt="Liesl & Po" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1298937848m/10425811.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10431447-wildwood" title="Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles, #1)"><img alt="Wildwood" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348232960m/10431447.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11184941-a-greyhound-of-a-girl" title="A Greyhound of a Girl"><img alt="A Greyhound of a Girl" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328486055m/11184941.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br />
But not all of these borders are flowery and girly. Why is <i>Chickadee</i> getting this treatment? It's true that this is the latest <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/series/96975-the-birchbark-house">a series that of books</a> that have, up until now, featured a girl as the main character. People talk about Omakayas like she's the Ojibwe Laura Ingalls Wilder, but I think that's sort of a narrow view. The series is based on Louise Erdrich's family history. It's rich in details of daily life in an Anishinabe community and unflinching in its portrayal of harsh winters, small pox, and the consequences of white people's encroachment.<br />
<br />
If you look at all the books in the series, this is clearly the girliest cover. It's also the most similar to the cover of the first book in the series, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Birchbark-House-Louise-Erdich/dp/0756911869/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360433661&sr=1-1&keywords=birchbark+house">The Birchbark House</a>.</i> The two middle books in the series, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Porcupine-Year-Louise-Erdrich/dp/0064410307/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360433682&sr=1-1&keywords=porcupine+year"><i>The Porcupine Year</i></a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Game-Silence-Louise-Erdrich/dp/0064410293/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360433706&sr=1-1&keywords=game+of+silence"><i>The Game of Silence</i></a>, have a very different look. However, they all incorporate Louise Erdrich's sketches of the characters.<br />
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3637538-xemilyx?shelf=omakayas&utm_medium=api&utm_source=grid_widget" style="text-decoration: none;">Xemilyx's omakayas book montage</a>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/159666.The_Birchbark_House" title="The Birchbark House"><img alt="The Birchbark House" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1280242695m/159666.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82998.The_Game_of_Silence" title="The Game of Silence"><img alt="The Game of Silence" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347313542m/82998.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2870769-the-porcupine-year" title="The Porcupine Year"><img alt="The Porcupine Year" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348757720m/2870769.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13503214-chickadee" title="Chickadee"><img alt="Chickadee" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1339534181m/13503214.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br />
The only book in the series to have a different look in paperback was <i>The Birchbark House</i>. As you can see, they went with a more realistic portrait of Omakayas.<br />
<br />
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<br />
I will be very interested to see what the paperback of Chickadee looks like.<br />
<br />xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-12605618455537375352013-01-31T16:08:00.001-08:002013-02-09T10:10:30.264-08:00Booklist: 2012's Most Destroyed Books for Kindergarteners<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One way to measure the popularity of a book is the amount of
destruction it has sustained. I'm not talking about one-time acts of
destruction, like dropping a book in a toilet, letting a dog chew on it,
or using it as a coloring book. I'm talking about the day-to-day wear
and tear that comes from being loved by a kindergartener.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<b>Watching kindergarteners choose books is sort of like watching animals in the wild. </b>
Most of them can't actually read yet, so they're not making choices
based on the titles and descriptions of books, or on the signs I use to
mark different sections. They don't know much about what other people
like to read and they have very short attention spans. So what actually
attracts them to a book is either really obvious (they like trains) or
completely mysterious (a book about fruit? was she hungry?).<br />
<br />
What I'm saying is, they often aren't very good at judging what a book is actually <i>about</i>.
And I'm also saying that it doesn't matter. They're just going to make
up a story or walk around showing off a cool illustration, or they're
going to wear the book as a hat. That's fine. They are learning to
appreciate books as objects. I encourage them to explore and
experiment. Just not to put the books in their mouths. Please.<br />
<br />
I
also try to purchase books my kindergartners will like, even if this is
hard to predict. And the best way to predict what they will like is to
look closely at the books that have been destroyed in the past year.
Sure, there's circ data, but then there's destruction data, which shows
not only how many times a book was checked out, but how many times it
was actually opened, paged through, pointed at, and possibly used as an
accessory or a weapon. <br />
<br />
So here is a list of the books
that were most quickly (and often completely) destroyed last year,
accompanied by my theories about why they were popular.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Notable-Childrens-Books-Younger-Readers/dp/0152024883/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359676739&sr=8-1&keywords=ain%27t+gonna+paint+no+more">Ain't Gonna Paint No More</a></i> </b>by Karen Beaumont<br />
Body
parts! I think that's the appeal of this book. If my kindergarteners
could read, I might think it was the rhyme scheme or the lying, but it's
probably the body parts. This is a book you could sing, the story of a
boy who keeps promising he "aint-a gonna paint no more, no more,
ain't-a gonna paint no more" ... and then he slaps paint on another body
part. Until he gets to his butt. Then mom dumps him in the bath. The
illustrations are literally splashed with color, and the butt shot is
priceless.<br />
<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/No-David-Shannon/dp/0590930028/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359676774&sr=1-1&keywords=no+david"><br /></a></i>
<b><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/No-David-Shannon/dp/0590930028/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359676774&sr=1-1&keywords=no+david">No, David</a></i> </b>by David Shannon<br />
Shannon
famously based the illustrations in this book on his own childhood
drawings. There's something freaky and a little disturbing about the
giant-headed, snaggle-toothed kid who rampages through the
illustrations, and I think kids sincerely respond to pictures that are
slightly <i>off</i>. They also don't have to read a word to know what's going on in this story. <br />
<br />
<i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Another-Important-Book-Margaret-Brown/dp/006443785X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359676854&sr=1-1&keywords=another+important+book">The Important Book</a> </b></i>by Margaret Wise Brown<br />
This
book has a mirror on the last page--actually, on the end papers.
That's pretty much why kids love it. They just love looking at
themselves. Happily, the book also has colored shapes for them to
count, a pleasant rhyme, a reassuring message (the important thing about
you is that you are always you, even as you change through the years),
and pictures of deliciously cute kids in all shades. Chris Raschka is a
genius. <br />
<i><br /></i>
<b><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/There-Was-Monster-Rebecca-Emberley/dp/054510145X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359677027&sr=1-1&keywords=there+was+an+old+monster">There was an Old Monster</a></i> </b>by Rebecca Emberley<br />
This
book is another singable one, and it might not have made this list if I
hadn't read it out loud. It's a little like "There was an old lady who
swallowed a fly," in that the monster swallows a series of odd
animals. But the refrain is jazzier and includes a lot of scritching
and scratching and monster dancing. The illustrations are semi-abstract
paper cutouts that I also use as part of a lesson on drawing as a way
of recalling stories. So maybe this is one that I kind of pushed on the
kids, but it really got stuck in their heads, and I'm planning on
buying more of Rebecca Emberley's beginning readers.<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/ABC-Kids-Laura-Williams/dp/0399240012/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359677081&sr=1-1&keywords=abc+kid"><i>ABC Kids</i></a> </b>by Laura Williams<br />
I'm
pretty sure the popularity of this book is due to the fact that the U
page has a picture of three kids in their underwear. Little Mouse gets
Ready seems to be popular for the same reason. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wolfs-Coming-Carolrhoda-Picture-Books/dp/1575059304/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359677114&sr=1-1&keywords=wolf%27s+coming"><i><b>Wolf's Coming</b></i></a> by Joe Kulka<br />
This
is one that kids like to look at in order to scare themselves. The
illustrations are weirdly Disney-like: you see a bunch of cutsey
woodland animals running away and hiding as the Wolf, his teeth dripping
with drool, approaches. Like Little Red Riding Hood, the narrator
lists all of the wolf's scary qualities. Then, surprise! We learn that
the animals weren't running away at all--they were preparing a surprise
party! It's the wolf's birthday! It never gets old.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Story-Knight-Ralph-Cosentino/dp/0670062553/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359677154&sr=1-1&keywords=batman+cosentino"><i><b>Batman</b></i></a> by Ralph Cosentino<br />
The
appeal of this book is obvious, and let it be known that this book
disintegrated within two months. I got the feeling that many of my boys
were really trying to get information out of it, the way they do the
vehicle books. They studied the illustrations and asked questions about
what was happening and who was who and then they acted it out. Maybe
other books about people they sometimes see on TV would be equally
popular, but I like to think that these kids are already showing signs
of geekiness. </blockquote>
<br />
I have to say one more
thing in case anyone's thinking I just let my students do whatever they
want with their library books: I do have rules. I do teach book care,
and then I reteach it and reteach it and encourage kids to report on
each other like it's Stalinist Russia. And most of my books are
returned to the library in excellent condition. So I don't encourage
the destruction of books. But I do study it.xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-91294223210587059032013-01-27T08:57:00.000-08:002013-02-09T10:11:06.164-08:00An Ode to Honey I Love by Eloise Greenfield<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXn5WjW0AJed4e6ZVpQXQwy5iEZnPTc-r_h8x0aeJT51v2SYHQzyIZEF-hCMMcOwSWnTEl1anYSyhD618jvkxXA5VWtNEYH5boZBefLOLcYffYM0szXfWgOUea02ya4Yzs0oPPjm23sI8/s1600/IMG_3373.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXn5WjW0AJed4e6ZVpQXQwy5iEZnPTc-r_h8x0aeJT51v2SYHQzyIZEF-hCMMcOwSWnTEl1anYSyhD618jvkxXA5VWtNEYH5boZBefLOLcYffYM0szXfWgOUea02ya4Yzs0oPPjm23sI8/s200/IMG_3373.JPG" width="150" /></a></div>
Teaching poetry to kindergarteners has made me realize three things:<br />
<br />
1. I don't know how to define "poetry."<br />
2. Kindergarteners do not recognize the letters "g" or "a" when they are written in serif font.<br />
<b>3. There is no children's poetry collection that has ever rivaled the amazing power of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Honey-Other-Reading-Rainbow-Series/dp/0064430979/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359305336&sr=8-1&keywords=honey+i+love">Honey, I Love</a> </i>by Eloise Greenfield.</b><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
I don't care what anyone says. <a href="http://www.shelsilverstein.com/indexsite.html">Shel Silverstein</a> may write a dashing blend of silliness and profundity. <a href="http://www.jackprelutsky.com/">Jack Prelutsky</a> may be able to conjure a rhyme for any word in the dictionary--and many that aren't in the dictionary. But when an unruly crowd of six-year-olds is tumbling on the rug, give me Geenfield. Every time.<br />
<br />
Other poets will get kids to laugh, but Greenfield will get them to listen. Her poems don't depend on a joke or a twist at the end (though I love Florian poems for often doing just that). They aren't stories or jump-rope rhymes (except when they are). They're poems. They have their own reasons for existence. <br />
<br />
<b>Her poems are full of rhythm and rhyme, but they never get ricky-ticky. </b> In fact, while I can sit down and rattle off page after page of<a href="http://www.maryannhoberman.com/index.html"> Mary Ann Hoberman</a> without stopping for breath, I have to slow down when I read a Greenfield poem. There are a number of different ways to read them--you can put the emphasis in different places and change the mood completely. But the poems won't even <i>let</i> you read them in a steady iambic kind of way. The lines often rhyme, but they aren't matchy-matchy. <br />
<br />
They're a good step in the direction of poems that don't rhyme. Not that you have to go there, but it's one way to extend kids' understanding of what a poem is. Greenfield uses rhyme, but some of her most memorable lines don't rhyme. <b>For example, the end of the poem "Things."</b><br />
<br />
I wish I could post all of the poem here, but I wouldn't do that to Ms. Greenfield without her permission. However, you can hear Katie Davies recite it <a href="http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/on_air/gmc_weekend/news_wtnh_celebrating_poetry_month_with_your_kids_200904251028#.UPYMroWnMko">here</a>, Ashley Bryan recite it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My4xFY3SqDE">here</a>, and hear a bunch of kids recite it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHWDfY3ruEg">here</a>. And for the record, the way I recite it is completely different, rhythmically, from the way any of them recites it, which just shows you how alive and changeable Greenfield's poems are. Actually, here's Ashely Bryan reciting it, just in case you don't feel like clicking anywhere else:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/My4xFY3SqDE" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
The last two lines don't rhyme with anything--that's after store, door, more, shore, etc. You expect it to rhyme, but the end is unexpected and it doesn't match and it's perfect and completely memorable, yes? <br />
<br />
But even later Greenfield collections pale in comparison to<i> Honey, I Love</i> (though "Nathaniel Talking" is a damn fine poem<i><b>*</b></i>). I wonder if her commitment to the themes of her later books--a desire to make all the poems fit together--is what diminished the effect of each individual poem. The themes in <i>Honey, I Love</i> range from playing dress up to being Harriet Tubman--and I defy you to read <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16485">that Harriet Tubman poem</a> without getting a little angry and teary at the same time. Here's a young youtuber practicing the poem for a theater audition:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vuz-ryon17M" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<b>And finally, the book itself.</b> The 1978 edition. Illustrations by the illustrious Dillons, a mix of childlike drawings and warm, smooth pencil sketches of radiant African-American girls. The book is hand-sized. I could slip it in my coat pocket. Sometimes I am literally tempted to steal it from my own library. Or I could just buy a used copy online, but that's less dramatic. And it's that good.<br />
<br />
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*You may also enjoy this rap video starring Eloise Greenfield. Yep, you read that right.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/muMLU39Aa9Y" width="420"></iframe>xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-72172949237262714482013-01-23T15:40:00.001-08:002013-01-27T08:58:12.967-08:00Review: Escape to Witch Mountain<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcYteZkO_BJASO4u-XgUAY0ssBOuNBxUcSg-_2u3h_v_VRrTWQHymR0UOsAGrvAUAsNwY0jwuAU5Nc4tNsQD92gddM1sf1PRwEw-DL9YImRd7itWLm8mKW3faPBri9XloMTwx6Pu_W5pU/s1600/6576481.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcYteZkO_BJASO4u-XgUAY0ssBOuNBxUcSg-_2u3h_v_VRrTWQHymR0UOsAGrvAUAsNwY0jwuAU5Nc4tNsQD92gddM1sf1PRwEw-DL9YImRd7itWLm8mKW3faPBri9XloMTwx6Pu_W5pU/s200/6576481.jpg" width="135" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2009</td></tr>
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<i><span id="goog_2056247719"></span><span id="goog_2056247720"></span>Escape to Witch Mountain</i>, by Alexander Key, is one of those books that's hard to slap a genre label on. If you know the story, you know it's sci-fi. But since the alien connection isn't revealed until close to the end, is it spoilery to call it sci-fi?<br />
<a name='more'></a> The copy I checked out has a "mystery" label on it, and I think you could just as easily mark it "adventure." I'd even argue that the mention of witches in the title is designed to make you think it's a fantasy. (Although that 2009 cover really gives it away, huh? Way to put the final dramatic scene right on the front of the book.)<br />
<br />
Librarian issues aside, I really enjoyed this book. The beginning captured me, because it described two kids from a tough, city neighborhood being taken to a group home because the old woman who had taken care of them for 10 years was hit by a car. Not only are Tony and Tia orphans, but they have no idea who their parents were or how they ended up with Granny Malone. With "olive" skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes, they don't look like any nationality, and they have some strange powers, like telekinesis and the ability to see and hear across long distances, that they have learned to hide.<br />
<br />
<b>This is the kind of hard-luck story kids love, </b>and I thought that the urban setting, although it wasn't described with any love, would be familiar to my students. Sure, the language is a little dated, but change "grifters and confidence men" for "hustlers and gangsters," and you're talking about a place my students would recognize. Point kids to the scene in which the kingpin of the group home attacks Tony with a shiv--and Tony takes him out with a pillow and a few swift kicks--and readers will be sold.<br />
<br />
But there's something else Tony and Tia can't fight: a network of very official adults who want to give custody of the children to a sinister man who insists he is their uncle. The children know in their bones he's lying, so they make a midnight escape from the group home and bang on the door of the local priest. Hey, remember when priests were associated with kindness to the poor rather than child sex abuse scandals? Anyway, Father O'Day is a very Madeline L'Engle kind of priest, and his spirituality gives him the ability to believe in the children's strange story and even stranger abilities.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2w22z-051ALrhEX2nzvnW0oLjufoniFDbxfSoDzPjffyYReFriNIB94HhTMwD8kpxOCLmxRRRv81sFnC2fvmDMrk7GaqZduvlOe1GeWFgyQBoAcnvGOXCZGDV6hMaZi7Jse-Y6ZCs57U/s1600/escape_to_witch_mountain_novel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2w22z-051ALrhEX2nzvnW0oLjufoniFDbxfSoDzPjffyYReFriNIB94HhTMwD8kpxOCLmxRRRv81sFnC2fvmDMrk7GaqZduvlOe1GeWFgyQBoAcnvGOXCZGDV6hMaZi7Jse-Y6ZCs57U/s320/escape_to_witch_mountain_novel.jpg" width="184" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1984</td></tr>
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The rest of the book is taken up by the children's race to escape their supposed Uncle and find the rest of their people. They have a few clues, but most of the mystery is unraveled by the device of having the children suddenly remember things they had forgotten about their past. It's not the kind of mystery you could solve at home.<br />
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<b>One thing that struck me about the book is its strong rural bias. </b>Not only is the city portrayed as a savage place, but there's more than one comment about how, when the children see forests and fields and mountains for the first time, they have a feeling of joy and homecoming. On the other hand, rural people are not portrayed very kindly. They are almost exclusively pitchfork and gun-wielding witch-hunters who are just as greedy and suspicious as city people. I suppose most of the adults in the book are pretty bad dudes.<br />
<br />
So, as I mentioned in <a href="http://emilyruthbrown.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-white-mountains.html">my review of <i>The White Mountains</i></a>, I'm rereading children's sci-fi classics to see which would be good additions to the sci-fi section in my elementary school library. And this one's a keeper! The book reads fast, and the dated bits shouldn't trip students up. Personally, I laughed when Tia mentioned she wasn't allowed to wear skirts in the group home, and I skimmed when Father O'Day started talking about Communists and Hungary. Actually, there's just one sentence about Communism. There's a much longer attack on capitalism, which made me wonder what kind of economy the author supported, but like I said, the author doesn't spend much time on these ideas.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpPoYeAdXVUgkpTKnEp1vqaMGUUdZbFhyphenhyphenIz95lKZNGXR9GlFyzwllNL5hZw7H6_lVMbyVQhkyLic1p2ba28vEOlRreQX7spX7u6CzwnbFW1qOJ_BohbaM1YYhS6BnH6exDh_PaWWE95ZM/s1600/EscapeToWitchMountainNovel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpPoYeAdXVUgkpTKnEp1vqaMGUUdZbFhyphenhyphenIz95lKZNGXR9GlFyzwllNL5hZw7H6_lVMbyVQhkyLic1p2ba28vEOlRreQX7spX7u6CzwnbFW1qOJ_BohbaM1YYhS6BnH6exDh_PaWWE95ZM/s320/EscapeToWitchMountainNovel.jpg" width="215" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1968</td></tr>
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<b>It's actually interesting to compare this book to <i>The White Mountains</i>. </b>After reading the comments about Communism in <i>Escape to Witch Mountain</i>, it occurred to me that the "capping" in <i>The White Mountains</i>, and the planet with the kids simultaneously bouncing basketballs in <i>The Wrinkle in Time</i>, is probably a depiction of the communist state. Also, both <i>The White Mountains</i> and <i>Escape to Witch Mountain</i> are backwards hero's journeys, in which the characters seek a real home and family rather than leaving one behind to seek adventure. And, obviously, they both locate these real homes in mountain ranges. <br />
<br />
However, one of my concerns about <i>The White Mountains</i> was that the technology in it feels so dated it makes the story a little confusing. <i>Escape to Witch Mountain</i> doesn't suffer from this, because we barely even see the tech. There's just references to ships and stars and the appearance of one flying saucer. And the aliens in the book have truly impressive powers, unlike the tripods in <i>The White Mountains</i>, who are menacing, but kind of clunky. So I'm definitely buying the book for my collection ... I just have to figure out whether or not to put it on the sci-fi shelf.xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-12586013189132224262013-01-21T09:45:00.000-08:002013-01-23T15:43:48.630-08:00Online Tools: Biblionasium<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixr5q-Q0vl5RWi9vpjV1VsZuEDHjGISoe66pRU3Bp0TZMFyYAv_QatMtTdK0O-zWZtJoRTQ0XlQeQkhyphenhyphenh5-3t2A-fhcSQb_YamjyXCr2de38FwSbmrzh797bnFxb1nXqZkBrxoA_cyg1k/s1600/biblionasium.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixr5q-Q0vl5RWi9vpjV1VsZuEDHjGISoe66pRU3Bp0TZMFyYAv_QatMtTdK0O-zWZtJoRTQ0XlQeQkhyphenhyphenh5-3t2A-fhcSQb_YamjyXCr2de38FwSbmrzh797bnFxb1nXqZkBrxoA_cyg1k/s200/biblionasium.tiff" width="200" /></a></div>
Recently, the "<a href="http://emilyruthbrown.blogspot.com/2011/07/social-networking-sites-for-kids.html">social networking sites for kids</a>" post on my site has been getting a lot of hits, so I wanted to talk about a newer site I've been using with my fourth graders. It allows kids to record their reading, either by pages or by minute, and create bookshelves with their favorites. If parents agree, it also allows them to recommend books to their friends or classmates. So you could call it <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/">goodreads</a> for kids. Or <a href="http://www.shelfari.com/">shelfari</a> for kids. My students really like the site, but they have a little trouble using it.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
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<h2 class="subhead">
::Popups galore</h2>
<a href="http://biblionasium.com/#tab/all-books">Biblionasium</a> requires teachers to create accounts for their students and to provide students with this login information--there's no option for students to enter a code and create their own accounts. However, the first time students login, they are prompted to agree to a simple "honor code."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Mok9qXflVkYz5hQx4-wPt5whNwmwNwWdS-vSZFflRIQN1PR6cJXGXJrdJ0cAWXwY2gzNgZH4cgqXcPw8gjPvBr2FXJfwVEea8R9eJDXK3-HM8k1oDYSesCZlPzk9Tg_-h3c-T82LSig/s1600/honorcode.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Mok9qXflVkYz5hQx4-wPt5whNwmwNwWdS-vSZFflRIQN1PR6cJXGXJrdJ0cAWXwY2gzNgZH4cgqXcPw8gjPvBr2FXJfwVEea8R9eJDXK3-HM8k1oDYSesCZlPzk9Tg_-h3c-T82LSig/s400/honorcode.tiff" width="400" /></a></div>
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I like that this puts some responsibility back on the students. It's also students' responsibility to provide their parents' email addresses if they want to "add friends." To be honest, I don't know exactly what happens when students "add friends," because none of my students have gone through the process. But I like how the site involves both students and parents, so that all decisions aren't put on the teacher.<br />
<br />
On the downside, this honor code is one of many windows that pops up on this site--students are constantly bombarded with word bubbles, tips, even videos that appear in front of the window telling them what to do. Of course, if my students actually read what was in those popups, it might be helpful to them, but they mostly get annoyed, because they want to figure things out for themselves. Plus, this slows down the performance of the site.<br />
<br />
<h2 class="subhead">
::Lots of options (maybe too many?)</h2>
Once students login and agree to the code, they can choose an avatar, change their background, and add books to their shelves. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQbIr38D9M4KvDenn6YCZCNyweJGmukPCxyz_lzM6DIkqLEjjjqD0I2ttzrMJQNjhNXGp_Xe1J40-ONE0RZeFvYdkpWF6dKrYElUew4iXpvA7w7fSN1wAUj2VYwjR1Xw4MbZJUyWv5OEc/s1600/searchwindow.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQbIr38D9M4KvDenn6YCZCNyweJGmukPCxyz_lzM6DIkqLEjjjqD0I2ttzrMJQNjhNXGp_Xe1J40-ONE0RZeFvYdkpWF6dKrYElUew4iXpvA7w7fSN1wAUj2VYwjR1Xw4MbZJUyWv5OEc/s320/searchwindow.tiff" width="320" /></a></div>
The process for adding books can also be a little slow. Here's what the results look like when you search for <i>Charlotte's Web</i>. Now, admittedly, the first result is probably the right one, but my students pick the picture that looks most like the cover of the copy they read, so my students keep reporting that they have read the entire box set of The Dork Diaries as well as the Chinese version of <i>The Polar Express.</i> <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl80-OrI7Uv1v03xLDsLLQy1-gRH5Rx3gtj1kUvCa23gLfO4PTW-6wWz7aYTNZuHW5G1Q8IDXr4A3l3s1eVp2FBEBtp-3PAT-DKhNtmQeaBB5m1EBTgHWIm-7hg0_hyphenhyphenA-j_roYADpj_2I/s1600/reviewit.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl80-OrI7Uv1v03xLDsLLQy1-gRH5Rx3gtj1kUvCa23gLfO4PTW-6wWz7aYTNZuHW5G1Q8IDXr4A3l3s1eVp2FBEBtp-3PAT-DKhNtmQeaBB5m1EBTgHWIm-7hg0_hyphenhyphenA-j_roYADpj_2I/s320/reviewit.tiff" width="320" /></a></div>
One thing to watch out for: if students check the "have read" box when they're adding a book, they won't be able to put it on their reading log. It took me and my students a while to figure this out, and I can see that Biblionasium has now added a note about this--sort of the online equivalent of those passive-aggressive office signs. Hopefully, they'll come up with a more intuitive solution.<br />
<br />
Once students add a book to their shelf, they can write a review, recommend it to a classmate, and add it to their log. They can also add "other material" to their log. The options include "magazine, newspaper, comic book, newsletter, other." Now, I love that they include "other material," but if they had asked me, I would have taken comic book off that list, because a comic book is a book, and I would have added audio book and website. But that's nitpicky.<br />
<br />
If you have your students use Bibionasium, you'll notice that the site automatically adds Lexile info. You can even search by Lexile, which I have absolutely not encouraged my students to do, because I think choosing books using a mathematical rating of their difficulty is stupid. But I admit that I have<br />
found it very interesting to see the Lexiles on the books my students are reading.<br />
<br />
<h2 class="subhead">
::But wait, there's more!</h2>
<div class="specs">
<h2 class="subhead">
Specs</h2>
<b>Name</b>: Biblionasium<br />
<br />
<b>Website</b>: http://biblionasium.com<br />
<br />
<b>Category</b>: Social Networking, Data Collection.<br />
<br />
<b>Subjects</b>: Reading, English.<br />
<br />
<b>Grades</b>: 2-7.<br />
<br />
<b>Skills Requirements</b>: Reading, Typing, Basic mouse skills, Entering information using the keyboard, Keyword searching, Selecting from dropdown menus.<br />
<br />
<b>System Requirements</b>: Works on all browsers.<br />
<br />
<b>Access</b>: Requires login. Teachers assign usernames and passwords to students. Students may enter parents' email addresses to give parents access.<br />
<br />
<b>Cost</b>: Free without ads.</div>
Now, maybe I've buried the lead, because I have not yet told you what is probably supposed to be a major selling point for the site. Here's what it says on the homepage:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: lightyellow;">
<i>"Log what you are reading at least 5 times a week and you will
automatically be entered for a chance to win an iTunes, Game Stop or
an Amazon gift certificate. We select new winners every week." </i></blockquote>
Pretty cool, right? I have no idea what the odds are that a student of mine will win, but I like that it emphasizes the frequency with which you read as opposed to the quantity.<br />
<br />
So far I've shown you the site from a kids' perspective, because that's what I'm most concerned about. But the experience of using it as a teacher is pretty great. You can see reports of what your students are reading, you can look at their book shelves, and you can recommend books, either by sending a message to one student or by creating a bookshelves of recommendations for the whole class. You can even create challenges, or mini-lists of books to read. <br />
<br />
In conclusion, the site isn't always perfectly intuitive, but it's improving. I'm not sure it gives me completely accurate information about what my students are reading, because they make mistakes using it, but it does give me a snapshot of what books they like and encourages them to reflect on and share their reading. And I care about that a lot more than I care about page numbers or Lexiles.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: lightyellow;">
Other Reviews:<br />
@<a href="http://expateducator.com/tag/biblionasium/">ExpatEducator</a> (6/6/12)<br />
@<a href="http://edlab.tc.columbia.edu/index.php?q=node/7829">EdLab</a> (6/18/12) <br />
@<a href="http://www.kleinspiration.com/2013/01/biblionasium-where-school-library-home.html">Kleinspiration</a> (1/10/13) </blockquote>
xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-2825389284821608222013-01-19T08:03:00.000-08:002013-01-21T09:46:00.094-08:00Cover Style: Hand Drawn Covers<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs0ECdt6Lfhp01wfRx7VOR22WzBcwQzCWUZKbNIqwxPZehS6rXgtT-Z0R26mtxPxsaEpZ-GrxmhqrDi7OMYTJJQewiSlnLmTbP4PrY0IxfWD-RwuIPyAf6za_3yf6R-mYmG9o7CeptByo/s1600/IMG_3340.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs0ECdt6Lfhp01wfRx7VOR22WzBcwQzCWUZKbNIqwxPZehS6rXgtT-Z0R26mtxPxsaEpZ-GrxmhqrDi7OMYTJJQewiSlnLmTbP4PrY0IxfWD-RwuIPyAf6za_3yf6R-mYmG9o7CeptByo/s200/IMG_3340.JPG" width="150" /></a>Look at the book I checked out from Warwick Public Library today!<br />
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I've heard of/thought of having kids design new book covers, but I worried it would hurt the circulation of the book. Although I often disagree with the way publishers market books, I recognize that kids are attracted to current-looking covers.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
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However, when this book appeared in my stack of holds, I thought: <i>Hmmm, which book is that? Did I place a hold on some diary book?</i> I didn't immediately notice that the cover was designed by a kid, and I think that's because of a trend started by Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The series' popularity has inspired lots of diary books, as well as lots of books with stick figures and handwritten titles.<br />
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<h2>
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3637538-xemilyx?shelf=handdrawn-covers&utm_medium=api&utm_source=grid_widget" style="text-decoration: none;">Xemilyx's handdrawn-covers book montage</a>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/389627.Diary_of_a_Wimpy_Kid" title="Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, #1)"><img alt="Diary of a Wimpy Kid" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1350396041m/389627.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8274537-tales-from-a-not-so-popular-party-girl" title="Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl (Dork Diaries, #2)"><img alt="Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344391253m/8274537.jpg" /></a></div>
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So this is the moment! If ever we were going to have kids draw new covers for books, we should do it now, when hand-drawn art is associated with the most popular childrens books in the library. <br />
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<br />xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8753124101432892994.post-29481927798740497282013-01-17T12:14:00.000-08:002013-01-19T08:03:19.726-08:00Review: The White Mountains<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpDOHe0oAc-2nvkhtSCbxQm92pyED7HwNUqNMpC_jdop8tdyj2CcXe0AEDpXkUZ5cPfc4A7VT7lhfVRkQdHAmiezqQnf3f2_28RagYj5HEAShxwefBXSuZTa6mkEZ2f6a6OGwFlrhUQNs/s1600/whitemountains.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpDOHe0oAc-2nvkhtSCbxQm92pyED7HwNUqNMpC_jdop8tdyj2CcXe0AEDpXkUZ5cPfc4A7VT7lhfVRkQdHAmiezqQnf3f2_28RagYj5HEAShxwefBXSuZTa6mkEZ2f6a6OGwFlrhUQNs/s200/whitemountains.jpg" width="120" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2003</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
You know what makes me feel old? Trying to explain to my students what life was like before we had the Internet. I was thinking about that as I read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-White-Mountains-John-Christopher/dp/0689856725/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358451808&sr=8-1&keywords=white+mountains"><i>The White Mountains</i></a>, because the aliens in it don't possess the kind of technology we would expect from a master race these days. But the book was written in the 1960s, so can you blame them?<br />
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I've been trying to beef up the science fiction section in my library, which has led me to reread some books I think of as children's sci-fi classics, and it's very interesting to see how they hold up. <i>The White Mountains</i> doesn't hold up all that well, but it does have its thrilling moments. I basically really like the first few chapters and the second-to-last one.<br />
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<span id="goog_772322574"></span><span id="goog_772322575"></span>The first few chapters outline a society in which tripods--giant, metal "hemispheres" with three long legs--control humans by "capping" them before they are adults. The metal caps fuse to people's heads and seem to keep them docile and peaceful. The world around them has returned to a feudal society, complete with lords and ladies and cathedrals and vassals.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwOWNfII-ppje712IGxxOJ73F29kaqms9JHUTxTKljrekoULwGJUn7N1nlQV2dpjw0uXwiIe9zrpOCc1pZwUXvN0hhZ-IfDR_zmphKdyMZ2cEQ7TADr00kH-NPvLDgP1zs_93GomORJ8k/s1600/5080.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwOWNfII-ppje712IGxxOJ73F29kaqms9JHUTxTKljrekoULwGJUn7N1nlQV2dpjw0uXwiIe9zrpOCc1pZwUXvN0hhZ-IfDR_zmphKdyMZ2cEQ7TADr00kH-NPvLDgP1zs_93GomORJ8k/s320/5080.jpg" width="190" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1988</td></tr>
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<h2 class="subhead">
::Meet Will (He's kind of a Jerk)</h2>
The story follows a boy named Will who sneaks away from his village shortly before it's his turn to be capped. He's heard that there is a group of free, uncapped people living in a faraway mountain range, and he's determined to find them. Unfortunately, the town bully sneaks out along with him.<br />
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You might think that this leads to a few funny scenes or at least some touching ones, as the boys get over their differences, but Will just gets more resentful and unlikeable as the story goes on. I imagine some readers appreciate the naturalism of having boys who dislike each other travel together and vie for leadership, but I kept hoping they would develop more as characters.<br />
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The boys' adventure/survival story starts out strong with a sea voyage, a kidnapping, and an escape. However, things slow down as the boys travel through what most readers will recognize as post-apocalyptic France. The author spends a lot of time describing the ruins of Paris, from the subways to the Notre Dame. But of course, he doesn't use the words "subway" and "Notre Dame," so I'm not sure my students would understand what he was referring to. Sometimes I didn't understand what he was referring to. Can someone tell me what this is supposed to be:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: lightyellow;">
<i>"Other things we could not understand--a rack full of wooden things ending in iron cylinders, for instance. They had small half-hoops of iron on one side with a little iron finger inside."</i></blockquote>
I'm thinking a gun, but I'm not sure. <br />
<h2 class="subhead">
::Is this the future or the past? </h2>
After an interlude in a castle where Will's commitment to being free is tested, the three boys set out on the last leg of their journey. And this is where changes in technology render the book weirdly unbelievable at the same time as the action picks up again.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv7c_qjebJNutioHGtKbEaNt9VdZIpjhUOPHkFl8CpD7yhdctCd1mjypDg9B600lTDsVeAPK7RAjDClE6W86VHiJkofduvAJDAPyQxeK0VyHlZsFJQmFcGsK89YS622vHh_El5CxnbPzo/s1600/white1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv7c_qjebJNutioHGtKbEaNt9VdZIpjhUOPHkFl8CpD7yhdctCd1mjypDg9B600lTDsVeAPK7RAjDClE6W86VHiJkofduvAJDAPyQxeK0VyHlZsFJQmFcGsK89YS622vHh_El5CxnbPzo/s320/white1.jpg" width="189" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1967</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The tripods start actively stalking the boys, but they do it by sight! They have giant search lights and they tramp back and forth through the woods sweeping the area. All the boys have to do is stay out of the light--no worries about the tripods detecting movement, heat, etc. It's also not clear that the tripods have any way of communicating with each other besides a siren-like call. The author actually addresses this in the foreword, explaining that infrared technology had not been invented when he wrote the books. But that doesn't change the strange experience of reading the book now.<br />
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I can certainly understand why readers still give this book rave reviews: the boys' relationships are authentic, the tripods are seriously menacing, and the story covers a lot of territory in under 200 pages. <br />
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However, there are also a number of reasons why I'd be unlikely to recommend this book to my students: the long passages about the ruins of Paris, the old fashioned technology, the way the castle scene reminds me of something out of Pilgrim's Progress, the abrupt conclusion. While I appreciate the historical significance of this book, I find it remarkably backward-looking for a sci-fi story.xemilyxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06226611626960189862noreply@blogger.com0