Author Archives: The Read-e-ologist

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 Dope Sick by Walter Dean Myers

Grades 8 and up

Lil J has been shot, so he rushes into an abandoned building as he tries to hide from the police.   While he is inside the building, he meets Kelly, a man who asks Lil J just the right questions, and may have an answer or two.  Together, they talk through what happened, and the events leading up to the situation that Lil J is in.  Lil J has a chance to get honest while he also decides how to get away before the police find him

My Rating:  3.5 Stars

The Get Rich Quick Club by Dan Gutman

Grades 1 through 5

Gina and her friends are determined to have a great summer. They decide to make summer better by finding a quick, easy way to make a million dollars.  They form a club, with 5 members, and start working, scheming and deceiving.

My Rating: 2.5 stars

 

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Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

Ages 10 and up

This book, told from the viewpoint of eleven-year-old Caitlin, is amazing.  Caitlin has Asperger’s syndrome, which makes functioning in the world a challenge.  Mrs. Brook helps Caitlin learn important social skills, like:  “Look At The Person”, using “YOUR MANNERS”, and respecting other people’s “Personal Space”.  Unfortunately, Caitlin has a bigger problem.  She is looking for “Closure” and a way to deal with “The Day Our Life Fell Apart.”  When Caitlin refers to “The Day Our Life Fell Apart”, she is referring to the day that her older brother Devon was killed, changing life for Caitlin and her father who are both grieving.

As Caitlin tries to learn to “Deal With this difficult situation called life”, she comes across a few people who may be able to help her find “Closure” too.

My Rating:  5 stars!

 The Juvie Three by Gordon Korman

Ages 12 and up

Gecko, Terence and Arjay have the opportunity to leave the juvenile detention center that they have been sentenced to so they can live in halfway house with Mr. Healy, a man who wants to work with troubled youth and make a difference.  Unfortunately, one night when the boys are fighting, Mr. Healy gets hurt and is knocked unconscious.  While he is hospitalized, the boys have to decide what to do.  They know that if they tell, they’ll land back in the juvenile detention center, so they try to keep their freedom.  They agree that one way to protect their freedom is to stay out of trouble, which is quite the undertaking for boys used to lives of crime.

My rating: 3 stars

Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblick

Ages 10 and up

When San Lee moves to yet another school, he sees an opportunity to reinvent himself. San is good at moving, and good at taking on a persona for wherever he is.  So far, he has been a skater, a Bible-thumper, a rich preppy kid, and a macho pretend-jock.  This time, as an eighth-grader in Pennsylvania, he lets the persona come to him.

As San becomes the Zen Master of his school, he struggles with who he really is:  an Asian kid who was adopted by white, American parents, with a father who is in prison, and a guy with feelings for a girl that might see through his lies.

My rating: 4.5 stars

 

 

 

Biographies, Memoirs, and such…

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Odd Boy Out:  Young Albert Einstein

by Don Brown

Ages 5 to 20

Odd Boy Out:  Young Albert Einstein by Don Brown, is a short biography of Albert Einstein, highlighting his younger years.  As a children’s picture book, the text is not lengthy nor is it extensive in details.  It is, however, written accurately, citing several sources in the bibliography.   Brown also included some supplementary details in his “Author’s Note.”

My Rating:  5 stars

 

Bad Boy:  A Memoir by Walter Dean Myers

Ages 14 and up

Walter Dean Myers attempted to give a balanced depiction of himself, and his own life in Bad Boy: A Memoir.  At the end of his book he wrote “In my heart I’ve always wanted to do the right thing and be thought of as a good person.  Even here I see that I’ve excluded many of the discipline problems I had in school.” (p. 205).  Myers describes his humble beginnings, living in a flat in Harlem.  “The apartments weren’t designed for that many, but that was what Harlem was about working people doing the best they could.” (p. 22).  Myers discusses the fights he got into, his best friend who had been homeless, and the poverty of his own family.  He also shared how his father’s advice was about hard work providing the only success “The white man won’t give you anything, and the black man doesn’t have anything to give you.  If you want anything out of life, you have to get it yourself.”  (p. 122).  This statement is consistent with portraying a subject (or in this case oneself) accurately, as it glorifies the eventual hard work that Myers put into writing rather than any superhero gifts that he was  showered in from birth.

My Rating:  4 stars

 

The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler

by James Cross Giblin

Ages 15 and up

Giblin, in trying to reflect Hilter fairly, wrote The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler as a balanced look at a human being.  Giblin wrote of Hitler’s early years, with a father who took his rage out on his sons, including Adolf.  (pp 6-7).  Giblin also described the shame that Hitler felt when rejected twice from art school in Vienna, and how he stayed on in Vienna regardless.  (pp. 10-13).  Once Hitler joined the German army and began his rose to power, he showed signs of stress and anxiety.  Giblin mentioned these episodes of anxiety several times throughout the book, including page 66 “… he admitted to the local Party leader that he suffered constantly from outbreaks of perspiration, trembling in his arms and legs, and severe stomach cramps. “  Giblin was also sure to include times when Hitler felt the opposite, like on page 156 “He might still suffer from stomach upsets and sleepless nights, but he confided in one Nazi commander that he felt as if he had evolved into a ‘superhuman state’ so that he was now ‘more godlike than human.’”  Giblin also was certain to incorporate the several times that Adolf Hitler contemplated suicide, right before being arrested in 1923 (p. 44), in 1932 when Hitler was trying to become the Chancellor of Germany (p. 70), again in January, 1945, after Hitler’s defeat in the Battle of the Bulge (p. 201), and finally when he and Eva (his wife of about twelve hours) ended their lives on April 29, 1945.

 

My Rating:  5 stars

 

 

More Historical Fiction

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Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

Ages 10 and up

Annemarie is in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1943, when Nazis have taken over.  At first, Annemarie doesn’t think much about it, as she hasn’t been directly affected.  Eventually, her best friend Ellen, and her family, are in danger so Annemarie takes greater steps to be brave, courageous and to see as much of the truth as she can handle.

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

 

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

Ages 11 and up

The book is written in freestyle verse, from the viewpoint of Billie Jo, the female protagonist. Billie Jo, her father, and her mother (who is with child) live in Cimarron County (in the panhandle of Oklahoma) during the dust storms of the 1930s.  Billie Jo describes life, and the way that her family tries to keep going in spite of the dust and dirt on everything they own.  Early on in the story, Billie Jo’s mother (and the baby) after a horrible accident that was caused by carelessness.  The rest of the story is about how Billie Jo and her father exist around each other while they each grieve.

My Rating:  5 Stars

Some Historical Fiction

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One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

Ages 10 and up

Delphine, and her younger sisters Vonetta and Fern, visit their estranged mother in Oakland, California during the summer of ’68.  When Delphine and her sisters go to a summer camp, run by the Black Panther Party, their eyes are opened to new ways of thinking about things:  some scary, some reasonable.  Through all of this, Delphine and her sisters also struggle to come to terms with their mother, her nonchalance about their existence, and who they are regardless.

My Rating: 4 stars

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko

Ages 10 and up

Moose and his family have just moved to Alcatraz Island, where his dad will be working as a guard.  Set in the 1930s, Moose is worried about the prisoners on the island, including Al Capone.  Moose meets Piper, the outgoing, overbearing, and very cute daughter of the warden. Piper is very talented at breaking the rules, while she has her dad convinced that she is blameless.  Moose has to deal with Piper,  his own sister who is autistic, a dad who is so busy keeping the Island safe that he isn’t around to keep his own family safe.

My Rating: 5 stars

 

 

Feed

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   Feed by M. T. Anderson

Ages 13 and up

Titus is a typical, teenage boy living in a future world that involves space travel and major media involvement.  Computers are no longer an external device that people carry around, but are internal devices, feeding directly into the brain.  The “feed” can be used to broadcast, chat, send messages, receive mass amounts of advertisements, and for shopping. Kind of like Facebook in your head! Titus and his friends go spend a weekend on the moon, seeking the ultimate party, and meet Violet.  While at a party, Titus, Violet, and several of their friends are hacked.  After a few days of hospitalization, and reprogramming, they are all up and running again- except for Violet.  Violet’s feed is malfunctioning.  As Titus continues to get to know Violet, he is forced to think about things form a perspective he had never considered.

My Rating:  5 Stars

Z for Zachariah

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Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien

Ages 12 and up

Ann Burden is a sixteen year old girl who has gotten used to living by herself.   After the war ended, all of the people she knew died from radiation poison.  It seemed that the valley (somewhere along the east coast) she lived in somehow “has its own weather.”  Ann begins to take care of herself, cultivates the land, and is surviving.  The book, written as a journal from Ann’s point of view begins with “I am afraid.  Someone is coming.”  When John Loomis, a chemist from Cornell University arrives in his green radiation-free suit, with his supplies and a Geiger counter, Ann has to decide how she will share the land with him, or if she even wants to.

My Rating: 5 Stars

 

A Few More Words

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You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You by Mary Ann Hoberman

This book of “very short stories to read together”, illustrated by Michael Emberley, is really a book of poems.  They are color-coded to show which parts I read, which parts you read, and which parts we read together.  “I Hate My Hat” is one of my favorites!

 

 

A Pocketful of Poems by Nikki Grimes

This poetry book alternates  between free-verse and haiku.  Each new topic is illustrated and has one of each type of poem.  The illustrations by Javaka Steptoe combine paper cut-outs and three-dimensional objects.

 

 

Science Verse by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

Scieszka and Smith explore (exploit?) various poems through scientific parodies.  They cover the digestive system, evolution, black holes, food chains, matter and more.  You will recognize the framework from many of the poems!  Read “‘Twas the Night Before Anything” for their interpretation of the Big Bang theory and “Astronaut Stopping By a Planet on a Snowy Evening.”  Fun stuff!

 

And Now for Something Completely Different… Poetry

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My man Blue by Nikki Grimes

This picture book by Nikki Grimes, was illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue in acrylics.   While it is written in poetry form, and each poem can stand alone, the book really tells a story about a boy, Damon, who eventually accepts his mom’s “old friend.”  Together, they face a class bully, anger, fear, and trust.

 

Here in Harlem:  poems in many voices by Walter Dean Myers

In this tribute to W. B. Yeats, Walter Dean Myers captures a vignette of Harlem.  Through 54 poems, Myers introduces the different people that made up the community of his childhood home, and gives voice to each of them.  Some of the people represented through poem include:  a retiree, a nanny, some students, a janitor, a hairdresser, and a street vendor.

 

Dark emperor & other poems of the night  by Joyce Sidman

This picture book by Joyce Sidman, and illustrated by Rick Allen is a picture book, a non-fiction book, and a poetry book all in one.  Allen illustrated using “relief printing” which involves blocks of linoleum, ink, and in this case gouache (an intense watercolor).  Sidman alternated between poetry that focuses on nature and a non-fiction explanation of the living things mentioned in the poem.

 

Snow, snow:  winter poems for children  by Jane Yolen

Photography by Jane Yolen’s son, Jason Stemple, is highlighted in this book.  Yolen wrote 13 poems to go along with, and inspired by, the photography.  The style of each poem varies, but the topic is the same: they are all about snow.

 

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  Bang! by Sharon G. Flake

Ages 12 and up

Mann is still struggling with the loss of his kid brother, Jason.   Even though the apartment has been cleaned up, Mann can still “see the blood” from where Jason died after he was shot.  In a world of poverty, crime, and shootings, Mann has to face life and learn how to deal with it himself.  After another incident, Mann’s father makes some decisions to harden his son, or to help him “be a man.”  Mann’s father has been reading about manhood initiations in Africa, and believes that some of the same acts might save his son.  Unfortunately, it might kill him first.

This book gives an authentic look at what life is like in the inner city, and how parents, and their children try to survive.

My Rating: 3.5 Stars

 

  After Ever After by Jordan Sonnenblick

Ages 9 through grown-up

In this sequel to Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie (one of the best books ever!), Jeffrey is in 8th-grade, and dealing with the effects of chemotherapy and radiation while being treated for leukemia when he was four.  He has a pretty severe limp and his brain isn’t as efficient with certain things, especially math.  This is nothing compared to what his best friend, Tad, has to deal with.  Tad dealt with cancer twice, and is virtually stuck in a wheelchair.  The boys support each other as they deal with life as 8th-graders, including issues like parents, siblings, girls, and something that “nobody is talking about.”

My Rating: 4.5 Stars