Red Glass, by Laura Resau

Red Glass, by Laura Resau, is a great "coming of age" story. Sophie is an outcast (much of it born out of lack of self esteem and other internal conflicts) living in Tucson, when a young boy, Pedro, enters the lives of their family. Pedro was crossing the border illegally when his family died, and he was left alone.

Now, first off, Red Glass is an excellent piece of young adult literature that would be appropriate to the reading levels and content appropriateness for young high school students, possibly 9th or 10th grade. The reading itself is surprisingly easy to get into, I actually read this book in two evening sittings, it's a fluid, wonderful love story.

I can see many students relating to either Sophie or her love interest Angel. The characters are so well written that at times I felt like I was reading a first person biography. The way the story moves from Tucson to southern Mexico and then off to Guatemala is entrancing. This book is great for students living in the desert Southwest or the border areas of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

I highly recommend this book, and its wonderful play with words and metaphors. The metaphor of red glass will not be lost on high school students. This book is one of the better ya novels written in the last few years (published in 2007).

Arrival, by Shaun Tan: The Tour de Force of Wordless Graphic Novels

I went down to the library this morning to pick up some graphic novels to keep me occupied during this last week of vacation. One of the books I picked up was The Arrival, by Shaun Tan. The Arrival is the ultimate graphic novel, it is quite literally all graphics, there is not a single word in the entire story. Also, this book doesn't necessarily qualify as a "picture book," something like a Dr. Seuss or another book you'd see in a primary classroom, it is much deeper and multi-dimensional.

From the top, the visuals of this story are unbelievable. It's a story of immigration, of a man leaving behind his wife and daughter and heading to a new, strange, industrialized world. Upon his arrival, the language is strange, the customs are strange, and the man is confused and lost. What is amazing is how well the images capture this, and how the reader becomes confused and lost as well. There were times when I was viewing this book that I felt confused and lost, that I found myself trying to understand the man and his thoughts, and that is the very essence of this wordless book.

How good is this book? I can put it best in two different ways. First of all, on goodreads.com (a book social site that I discuss frequently in this blog), there is one book that I've come across that carries an average rating of 5 out of 5 stars, and it is this book. Secondly, every teacher in the United States should have a copy of this book, and should go through it, in great depth with their classes.

Wordless books are great to use in the classroom, and yet, oddly, are something I do not have a lot of experience using. The book Zoom (Picture Puffin), by Istvan Banyai, is a wonderful wordless book in which you continue to zoom out of a picture, revealing more and more of the world as you do. It's a captivating story that students are easily drawn in to and want to experience time and again. The book Zoom has become a mainstay in literacy classrooms across the world, from kindergarten to high school classes, and I highly recommend it.

But wait, back to The Arrival and the classroom usage of the wordless book. There is a great many resources out there that discuss the merit of wordless books and the many different contexts in which they can be utilized. On EverythingESL.net, there is an article by Judie Haynes titled Wonderful World of Wordless Books in which ideas for the implementation of wordless books as literacy lessons are given (in the context of ESL students, but honestly, every child can benefit from ESL instruction, especially in the elementary setting). There is also a great wikispace that's all about reading wordless books, it is aptly titled How to Read a Wordless Book, and contains in depth examples of using The Arrival.

This is the first review of a wordless book that I have done on this blog, but now that I am thinking about it, I want to encounter more of these. Those of you who are more involved in this type of literature, please share some of the better ones you have read. Please, pick up The Arrival, by Shaun Tan, and "read" it. There are so many ways that this book could be utilized, and I'm just scratching the surface here in this posting.

The Diamond of Darkhold: The 4th Book of Ember

The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau, was a book that intrigued me when I first read it last summer (see my review of it HERE). I enjoyed the mystery that surrounded this dark city, and the post-apocalyptic nature of the book. Not to mention that it was wholly appropriate for elementary aged students (9-12 years old). Even the sequel, The People of Sparks(see my review HERE), was interesting. Although The People of Sparks was very similar in many ways to The City of Ember, it had something of socio-political intrigue, and continued the story of Lina, Doon, and the Emberites, which seemed to captivate many of my students (I read The City of Ember with my class, and four of them have gone on to read The People of Sparks).

I have still not had a chance to read the third book in this series, The Prophet of Yonwood, which is actually a prequel. So when I saw that The Diamond of Darkholdwas available at the library, I knew that I could read it without needing The Prophet of Yonwood as appropriate background material.

Right off the bat, I found myself captivated by the idea of this great mystery still hidden in the mountains, and wanted to read on to find it. I also found out, very quickly, that Jeanna DuPrau seemed to be unnaturally extending the story in The Diamond of Darkhold to make me want to keep reading, or to meet a minimum page requirement from her publisher. Whatever the case was, it felt very contrived. This book is by far the weakest of the series so far (out of the three that I have read). The protagonists, Doon and Lina, have been fully developed as literary characters since The City of Ember, and at this point, there's nothing left to be said about them other than that they single handedly save their people time and again, and seem to be the only people in the world who ever encounter adventure and peril.

It was nice to see familiar characters continuing a familiar story with (slightly) new twists in their familiar world. This is very important to remember when handing this book over to students who have read the other books. Sometimes a book like this is just what your students may be looking for. It doesn't require any great leaps of chance, not knowing what the book is about. For the timid reader who may have enjoyed the other books, this is a perfect choice for them.

But as far as this book being a great read all around, having great plot devices, nice character development, and value as a read aloud, it's slim, there's not much here. Pick up The Diamond of Darkhold and put it in your classroom, because it's part of the series, but that's about it. I wouldn't get too excited about this book, but it is a worthy addition to the series that will be enjoyed by many. Its reading level is right on par with the others (around a 5.5 or middle of fifth grade), but the fact that it doesn't require any new knowledge of setting, plot, characters, or anything else along those lines, for the student who has read the other books in the series, it could end up being maybe a 5 or so). Basically, if your students could read the other Ember books, they'll have no problem here.

The Dead & the Gone: A Book Review

As a 5th grade teacher in New Mexico, I am responsible for teaching United States history, from pre-Columbian times to the present day. One of the things I start each year with is a study of Mayan, Incan, and Aztec cultures, and their influences on early American culture. One of the things that always comes up is the Mayan calendar, and their belief that December 21, 2012 will be the end of their long count calendar (and, as some say, the end of the world). My students, each year I teach this, become enamored by this idea, and some continue to study it on their own or ask questions on and off for the rest of the school year. This is one small example of how apocalyptic tales and/or warnings intrigue even the youngest among us.

The Dead and the Gone, by Susan Beth Pfeffer, is a companion book to Life As We Knew It(see my review HERE). In the reality crafted by Pfeffer, an asteroid has hit the moon, jarring it out of its precarious orbit with the earth, moving it slightly closer. The consequences of this event, in which the moon has a stronger gravitational pull in relation to the earth, causes massive tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, and near nuclear winter conditions world wide. The apocalypse in this story seems as if it could happen anytime, from the telling of the story, there's nothing ridiculous about it on the surface.

In Life As We Knew It, the story is told from a small town in Pennsylvania, with the struggles for survival in an isolated area. The Dead and the Gone tells this same story from New York City, and as the story moves along, we see a world almost more isolated, more prison like, than the Pennsylvania story.

The Dead and the Gone, in my opinion, is a much more telling read than Life As We Knew It. It's more jarring, more true to the realities of post apocalyptic fiction, and lives up to its billing as a book for ages 12 and up. With its images of death, disease, and the decaying human condition, its a good story from beginning to end. I found that the characters of this story, Alex Morales and his sisters mainly, were easy enough to relate to, and would be for pre-adolescent/teen readers as well.

Post apocalypse has been a topic of interest for me recently, and I've tried to pick up and read books that approach this concept from different perspectives. Most recently, I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road (see my review HERE), and found slight parallels between it and this book, possibly a future topic of research, at least, it's an idea I'm throwing around. If you read both, you will see similar stories of survival, self-preservation, and the stark reality of the world after events that have put an end to life as we knew it.

So in any case, before I go on and on, I want to end this review by saying that I enjoyed The Dead and the Gone a lot, more than Life As We Knew It actually, but understand that its content is a bit more mature. This is a great book, one that I enjoyed from beginning to end.

A Christmas Wish List: The School Aged Literature I'd Like To See

The time for Christmas is almost upon us. It's a time of rest for teachers all across the world, as schools close for the holidays. My last day of work was this past Friday, and I don't have to head back until January 5th, so this is always a nice time of rejuvenation, relaxation, time with family, and time to read as many books as I possibly can.

I think I've chosen some pretty good books to sit down with here, but as good as they are, I sometimes find myself wanting something else, something that might not even exist out there in the world of children, adolescent, and/or young adult literature. Here are a few topics I'd love to see written about, my personal wish list of literary awesomeness:

1. More books from Markus Zusak: I read The Book Thief and I Am the Messenger, and needless to say I loved them both. He has written three other books, which I will surely pick up at some point, but I want more amazing Zusak, The Book Thief is quite possibly the single greatest book I've ever read, young adult or otherwise, and I need more!

2. A graphic novel adaptation and/or sequel/prequel to Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion: This is a fantastic sci-fi book for the adolescent set, full of political intrigue, the possible alternate reality of the future, and border issues as well. I enjoyed it immensely, and want more, so much more. A graphic novel would make this story accessible to even struggling readers, while a sequel or prequel would give me more of this story to sit down with.

3. A first rate school aged book about the history of southern New Mexico: OK, this one could be put under my "least likely to ever happen" list unless I wrote it myself. Come to think of it, I have always wanted to write a book, I just lack one thing, the ability to write a book. Living here in the historical south west, I'd love to have the history of this area more easily accessible to children, because, as it stands, it's low history that is loved by adult history buffs mostly.

4. A book about the American occupation in Iraq: told from the perspective of an Iraqi child, that is both critical of the Americans, sympathetic towards everyone, free from self-pity, and is as honest and open as books like The Diary of Anne Frank, Sold (by Patricia McCormick), and Maus (by Art Spiegelman). I realize that it's a stretch to compare these books to my wish, especially given the historical aspect and reflective nature of them, but that's my vision, so give me this moment.

5. A textbook that isn't ridiculously horrible and inaccessible to the majority of students: I put this one out there as a challenge to textbook writers. Because, honestly, textbooks are horrible, pretty much all of the time, without fail. The newest version of such-and-such textbook comes out, school districts spend millions on them, everyone pats themselves on the back because the books are glossy, with many wonderful pictures and text layout that are "optimal to student learning," and with teacher guides that have been completely dummy proofed (independent thought proofed) in every conceivable way. The problem? Textbooks are HORRIBLE. If someone could make a textbook that didn't act like a textbook, I would become a fan of that person or group of people. Until then, textbooks remain the snake to my mongoose (or is it the mongoose to my snake, I can't remember which).

6. Zombie literature for kids: I mean it, zombie literature for kids, it would be the most amazing point in human history if this became a reality. And no, I'm not talking about comic books in this case, because I realize those are out there, I mean real, poignant, zombie literature, in book form, for school aged readers.

Alright, so there you have it. What are your wishes and dreams as they relate to children/ya lit? Maybe if enough of us ask, someone will listen and get to work. Or maybe on of us will write something. Anything is possible. Just remember, if it's you, thank me for giving you the idea.

Graceling, by Kristin Cashore: A Young Adult Book Review

Graceling, by Kristin Cashore, is a book that says "14 years and older" on the back cover. From reading this hefty piece of young adult literature, I would have to mostly agree with this, although I would not feel any reservations to sitting this on my 5th grade bookshelf and letting some more advanced readers try it out.

What caught me about Graceling is that, while this book is a fantasy, set in the fantasy world of Kristin Cashore's imagination, it has so many levels, more levels than some adult fantasy stories. This book is almost equal parts fantasy, combat, romance, survival, and political intrigue.

Clocking in at 480 pages, I would say that it's probably a bit too long to be a read aloud, plus, its content (fantasy), doesn't seem to have universal appeal. Now, before anyone takes offense to that, I'm just saying that fantasy stories seem to really attract some readers while others won't even read five pages of it. I do recommend this for the student or adult who enjoys fantasy reads. I would place this on my bookshelf next to The Land of Elyon (fantasy for pre-teens), and The Lord of the Rings (fantasy for older teens).

For me, the best thing about this book was the concept of Grace. The two toned eyes, the differing gifts, and the interplay of the Graceling's Katsa and Po. Katsa, the main protagonist of this story, is told masterfully. I found myself very intrigued by her, continually trying to form an image of this beautiful, dangerous heroine, and found that my image of her changed throughout the story.

I cannot stress enough how good this book was. I now just need to sit back and hope that Kristin Cashore is working on a sequel.

My Children and Young Adult To Read List

On my goodreads.com account, I often run across books that sound great, and add them to my "to read" list (did that sentence make sense?). I figured that today would be a good day to just throw a few (five) of those titles out there, some great children and young adult reads that I haven't gotten to yet but want to read. I've heard this called a "book garden" before, meaning books that you have in a "to read" pile. If you know anything about any of these, then let me know if they're really worth the time and how kids are responding to them, I'd love to hear more.

1. The Dead and the Gone, by Susan Beth Pfeffer: I loved Life As We Knew It (see my review HERE), which is the basic story line that this book follows. I hope to read The Dead and the Gone first over the vacation.

2. Graceling, by Kristin Cashore: I've heard about this book through a few young adult lit blogs, and have run across some people on Goodreads that loved it, a few have even said it's their favorite of all time. From what I can gather, Graceling sounds like a fantasy mix, maybe slightly like Lois Lowry's Gossamer, with some other elements mixed in. I'm going to pick this one up at the bookstore tomorrow.

3. Surrender, by Sonya Hartnett: This book sounds like a great story all around. It's the story of a young man who has made some mistakes in his past, but has a dog named "Surrender." There seems to be some mystery, and (possibly) some redemption in Surrender. I want to check this out.

4. Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks, by Gene Luen Yang: Gene Yang is the writer of one of my favorite graphic novels, American Born Chinese (see my very short review in an article titled Teaching With Graphic Novels). It just sounds like a neat graphic novel, about a boy who gets something stuck up his nose. If it's anywhere near as good as American Born Chinese, then I'll love Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks.

5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, by Jeff Kinney: This one doesn't release until January 13th, and I'm not interested in personally as much as I am to have it for my class to read. The kids love these books (see my review of the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid HERE), and they're a nice beginning book if you're looking to get your students into graphic novels.

There are a few blogs out there that I comb through to find valuable information on new reads in children and young adult literature. A few of my favorites that you should check out include (these are also a few blogs that have discussed me in their pages recently, so they all obviously have good taste in blogs, right?):

• Ms. Yingling Reads: One librarians attempt to read all the Young Adult Literature in the world and shoot her mouth off about it.
• Charlotte's Library: Notes on buying and reading the children's and young adult books in my local public library, what I'm reading to myself and to my boys (ages 8 and 5), and other random bookish stuff.
• Jen Robinson's Book Page: Promoting the love of books by children, and the continued reading of children's books by adults.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy: Possible Young Adult Literature

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, was not written for high school students, it is an adult book. However, its content, as well as the way the story is told, is appropriate for high school and undergraduate college students alike. The Road is a post-apocalyptic story of the survival of a man and his son is told through very roughly formatted text, but in beautiful fashion. McCarthy, the author of No Country For Old Men (which is definitely NOT appropriate for school reading of any age), has struck a chord with this book among both science fiction and literary circles alike.

This book forces one to ask, can science fiction be heralded as a work of classic literature, or if this book even qualifies as science fiction. I wanted to originally classify this book as a dystopia themed one, much like 1984, A Brave New World, and such post-apocalyptic tales as The Planet of the Apes, I Am Legend, and Earth Abides, books that have all found their way into high school classrooms at one time or another. However, after reading it, I found that it fit with none of these books, although I was able to make connections that I found fit. This book defies classification in a clearly defined sub-genre, but is most definitely a work of science fiction and of the highest form of literary art, in my opinion.

This story involves no brutal murder, blood and guts, or even adult situations (other than the ongoing topic of death and suicide, which is not an uncommon theme in works of adult literature, especially such dark tales as this one). I can see high school juniors or seniors, as well as college undergraduates, delving deep into the possibilities of this book, including the origins of the apocalypse that took place, the relationship and goals of the man and boy, and the meaning of this story as a whole.

The prose of the book is especially interesting. McCarthy is known for his interesting style, and this book is no exception. The stripped down writing, with its incomplete punctuation, sometimes erratic structure, and bare bones dialogue are almost poetic at times, but on a deeper level, are a part of the story itself. When the man and boy are on the brink of despair and starvation, the grammatical structure of the story begins to thin, but when they are in higher spirits, it reads more like a novel (which isn't much). I think this would be an intriguing idea to show to students to let them think about on their own, it certainly interested me.

I am writing about this book in part because I thought it was of stunning beauty. It was a work of art, and engrossed me in every conceivable way. Its content is not inappropriate for high school students, and its vocabulary is not beyond 17 and 18 year olds. I recommend teachers take a closer look at this book, both for its value as a true masterpiece, and for its value in the classroom. Hopefully someone sees this and runs with this book. If I taught senior English/Composition, I definitely would.

I would draw possible parallels in the young adult and pre-adolescent literary worlds to this book through the following two books:

Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer - The story of a girl and her family struggling to survive after a massive meteor strikes the moon, knocking it out of its gentle balance with the earth, causing apocalyptic events (ages 10-14). See my review of Life As We Knew It.

The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau - Some sort of unnamed apocalypse occurs, and a group of people are taken to safety in The City of Ember. This story is one of survival through dark circumstances, but is told in a fashion that is appropriate for children (ages 8-12). See my review of The City of Ember.

Most Boring School Aged Books (my personal list of hatred and loathing)

In the spirit of keeping up with "what the people want," I'm going to further my posts from recent days in which I threw down on such classic books as Little House on the Prairie and To Kill A Mockingbird. Today I wanted to head off in a little bit more of a personal opinion direction, and discuss books that are boring (I don't even really want to get into the relevance or politically correctness of these books).

I'm focusing on literature, so no text books, because that literally would compose my entire list. Keep in mind, this is personal, and if you disagree, please, join in on the conversation, I'm having fun with this, and I experienced a lot of these in high school, when I was slightly less agreeable than I am today. My list consists of books from my own personal experience, meaning books that I have personally read or attempted to read but didn't finish (which was quite common of me in high school). I'm going to do a top 10 here. So here we go (I'm probably going to pay dearly for some of the books on this list, but bring it on):

THE TOP 10 MOST BORING SCHOOL AGED BOOKS, in no particular order (ages 8-18)

The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding - Yeah, the part when Piggy fell off of the cliff and his brains fell out was pretty awesome when I was 16, but this book dragged like a two-legged-dog (OK, wow, that is the worst analogy of all time). At the time, I wasn't ready to appreciate the microcosm for society at large that this book displayed, and now that I am old enough to appreciate it, I don't.

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë - I don't care what you say about this book, it was HORRIFICALLY BORING in every way that a book can be boring. Let me set the scene for you. Senior AP English, we're reading this book, and the entire class balked at it. We actually didn't finish it because the entire class refused. I have to say that is my great honor to have no finished this book. It may be whatever it is to you, but to me, *gag*.

Anything Shakespeare - I'm not talking about a book, I am literally talking about Shakespeare stuff. There were certain kids in class with me who profoundly enjoyed The Bard's work, but it put me to sleep. For some reason, it still does. My wife likes Shakespeare, but I can't stomach any of it, it's just a personal thing I guess. I would say that 3/4's of the words used in Shakespeare aren't even in the dictionary anymore, so that might have something to do with it.

Moby Dick , by Herman Melville- It's always a humorous title to say out loud for a young teenager. that light hearted, sick humor quickly fades by the end of chapter one. I've always thought that Moby Dick is considered great because it's one of those books that enlightened people are "supposed to like." Well, I'm enlightened now (in my own enlightened opinion), and I still can't get past "Call me Ishmael."

Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder - Uh oh, I'm returning to the scene of previous crimes against literary classics (offended by me, earlier this week, and again a few days ago). This was an elementary school read that I hated with my entire being. I hated it again when I first became a teacher and had to read a part of it out of the reading textbook. Eventually I got the guile to finally ditch the textbook altogether, and this lovely pile of boring set off my fight against textbooks, so I guess it's good for something.

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger - If you go over to my Goodreads page, you might see 3 stars next to this book. It wasn't the worst book ever, in fact, some of the innuendo was pretty interested and funny. But the character of Holden Caufield, as a whole, came across a little hastily put together, a walking stereotype that was a little one dimensional. In my opinion, this book is not the classic many say it is, and I re-read it just about two years ago, in one sitting, and decided that it is still boring.

Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell - I had to read this book in middle school, and it still sits on my classroom shelf. I believe in giving my students some choice, and this book has been read by a few students of mine over the years, some liking it and some not. I'm more on the side of the not. I tend to have pretty demanding tastes, and the autobiography of a horse just doesn't cut mustard with me.

The Borrowers, by Mary Norton - I read this book to my class for two years, and finally decided it was time to stop. This book is inconsistent in terms of vocabulary, comes across a little slowly, and doesn't seem to hold interest anymore down here where I live and teach. I'm just speaking from experience and all that.

R.L. Stine stuff - OK, stop, don't yell. I have pretty much every R.L. Stine book ever written on the shelf in my classroom, and they are beloved by many. I'm saying that personally, I never could stand them. I actually feel like I outgrew them when I was like 10. I would get them for birthdays and Christmas, smile, say thank you, then go trade them off at the bookstore.

Leveled Readers - I'm going generic here at the last. Most elementary teachers know what leveled readers are, it's those really short books that teach a skill in isolation. The stories are usually hastily made, and the books have no real point. I guess they work sometimes for struggling students, but honestly, they're not literature.

Another Look at the Downfall of Once Classic Book Little House on the Prairie (A Response to my own Must NOT Read List post)

In my post from Saturday, November 29th, titled Must NOT Read List For Elementary School, I discussed a few books that have lost their cultural relevance in the United States. I scratched the surface, and the ensuing discussions that took place, both within my own page and on other pages, showed that people still have very passionate opinions about these classic books. I respect those opinions, because reading preference is, after all, a matter of opinion, and was pleased to see multiple levels of discourse occurring over what I wrote (I am a teacher after all).

Another level of this critique could take me into suggestions of other books, a suggestion I received in comments, and I do plan on moving in that direction too, but I wanted to further the discussion from that post by offering a deeper criticism.

In my first year as a classroom teacher, I inherited a large book library full of class sets that belonged to the school (a library that has since been absorbed by a "book room" open to all teachers). One of the titles on this shelf was The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare. I had a sub one day when I was out sick, and upon my return the next day, he was still in the building. This substitute teacher was a member of a Native American tribe from the northern part of the country. He told me that Speare's book is pretty much blatantly racist, and just thought I should know.

I looked a little deeper into this by researching it and reading the book. I found out that this books treatment of Native Americans was in fact not appropriate. It stereotyped Native Americans, reminded everyone of hateful attitudes towards "Indians," and presented a racially superior world view (whites as superior).

Now it's one thing to say that this book reflected the ideals of the time when it was written. OK, fair enough, I couldn't really argue with that. There's one problem here. The Sign of the Beaver was written in 1984, so explain it now. It's not a historical criticism, to argue that basically means that you haven't read the book and are just arguing for arguments sake.

This same argument is equally valid for Little House on the Prairie, a book that claims that "The only good indian is a dead indian," a book that presents a story told from the perspective of power, the white group settling west.

To choose to keep this book in the classroom, you must deal with the above argument, it's right there in front of you. When confronted with the fact that The Sign of the Beaver was a blatantly racist book, I removed it, because there is no argument to keep it there. If you say you are keeping Little House around because it offers children a chance to critique racism historically, think again, especially when some of the comments I received talked about reading it to 6 and 7-year-old kids. These children don't yet have that capacity (I don't care how advanced they are, they DO NOT have that capacity yet).

It's one thing to pull out these books in an AP English class in 12th grade, or in college, and critique it, but for children, they are not going to see that far beneath the surface, even with help from the teacher/parent.

Fahrenheit 451: A Young Adult Book Review

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 stands as one of the masterpieces of the 20th century, and for good reason. This book, originally published in its complete form in 1953, can easily be compared to books like George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the works of Ayn Rand, and, for those of you in the intermediate and middle school grade levels, Lois Lowry's The Giver. This book is so widely loved that it's an often read piece in high school, college, and by adults, who see in it parallels between the politics of book burning and dominating the lives of people and the world we live in now (similar things can also be said about the other dystopic books listed here).

Now, if you're not familiar, dystopia themed literature is about a future in which the world has gone wrong. They often closely resemble, and are sometimes even mistaken for, utopia themed books. The Giver is a book that, in the beginning seems to be a perfect world, but as the curtains are pulled back, society is actually quite appalling and horrific, making it dystopic.

Guy Montag is the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451. He's a man who holds a position of respect in society, he is a fireman. He does not fight fires, he starts them, he burns books. Imagine a fireman carrying a fire hose, but the phrases are both literal, firemen who start fires with hoses that spray fire. Guy is drawn into the world of books, and begins stealing some away. His wife, in the meantime, has become a mindless watcher of TV sitting in the TV parlor watching shows all day in which she interacts with the actors and actresses in a futuristic artificial intelligence.

Early in the book, Guy runs across Clarisse, a sharp witted, free thinking teenager who often wanders around instead of going to school. When Guy asks her why she doesn't go to school, she responds by saying (I will paraphrase this quote to include some of the more poignant parts): "Social to me means talking to you about things like this... or talking about how strange the world is... But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk... we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you."

In the very same paragraph as the above listed quote, Clarisse makes a quote that can basically sum up education in this future, and, if you're cynical enough, in America. She says: "It's a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not."

This book is a timeless masterpiece that can be enjoyed by a sharp minded 15 year old, and anyone older. I recommend this book for a junior or senior level English class, and even then, only with AP students. Use it with students who will look deeper and make those parallels between the book and society, both in the 1950's and now. I also see this book as a great read in a college undergraduate English class or as part of a survey of dystopia themed or politically charged literature. It would work great alongside the other books I listed at the beginning of this article.

Must NOT Read List For Elementary School (Books That Were Once Great But Have Become Irrelevant)

Today's topic is about, as the title suggests, books that should not be read in the classroom. Now, I do have a side note on this one. I'm not just picking out horrible books, because there's many of those, too many to keep count, millions actually. This post is about books that were once great, or are still put on "must read" lists even though they're irrelevant, out of touch with today's child, or just hokie altogether at this point. So let's get to it. This could also be titled "The Great Classic Book Roast."

• Little House on the Prairie: This applies to that entire series. I realize that these books were once considered the single greatest thing ever, and many teachers still hold on to them and use them in the classroom. In fact, in the 4th grade level of the current edition of the Scott Foresman basal reader that my district uses, excerpts of Little House in the Prairie can be found. WHY IT'S TRASH: I read this book in 4th grade, and hated every second of it. That was in 1990. Add 18 years to this, and that's about how kids today for the most part feel about this book. It's from a different time, and if you're reading it for historical perspective, there are much more meaningful ways to go about that.
• Sarah, Plain and Tall: OK, this isn't really fair. Sarah, Plain and Tall and Little House on the Prairie are very similar books. This book is another outdated story that has no relevance to today's kids. WHY IT'S TRASH: See what I wrote for Little House on the Prairie, right down to the basal thing.
• To Kill A Mockingbird: Wow, I'm going to take some heat for this one, but I had to do it. The book does impart some important racial situations and big issues of Harper Lee's time. I had two copies of this book on my classroom bookshelf, and in three years it was checked out twice, neither student finished the book. I found, from talking to them, that the story actually didn't seem to make sense. WHY IT'S TRASH: Popular literary theories about reading methodology tell us that children should find cultural connections with stories for them to be meaningful. This is even more important to marginalized children (socio-economic, language, race, ethnicity, and whatever else you could add to this list). This story is a classic, and is a book that I have a lot of respect for, but it's no longer a good mainstay in the classroom, there are other books that can be read that will have more meaning in our time.
• Where the Red Fern Grows: This is another classic that put me to sleep when I was in school. It sits, to this day, untouched on my classroom shelf and in the library, where it hasn't been checked out in over 7 years (I checked). WHY IT'S TRASH: It's irrelevant, doesn't hold interest anymore, and is actually a little dated in many ways.
• Tikki Tikki Tembo: I'm going primary on this one. I actually used to read this book to pre-schoolers when that was where I taught. In those early literate stages, children enjoy rhyming books. Dr. Seuss is more appropriate than this book, which now borders on culturally inappropriate and dated. What is this 1945? WHY IT'S TRASH: All Chinese people have ridiculously long names. Yao Ming? 7 letters, end of story.

I'm going to stop this there before I start listing all of your favorite books from the past. I want to end with my theory as to why these books continue to end up on lists of teachers favorite books each year (the NEA puts out a list every year where teachers vote, and other organizations do this as well).

These books continue to stay on these lists because many teachers don't actually know of too many other books. They're teaching what they were taught, which is, if you read me and pay attention, highly inappropriate, because times are different, kids are different, and instruction should be different in order to meet those new needs in a new world. Ask teachers who do read the books that their classes read, those who have knowledge in the field, and those lists will change greatly.

**I offer a more in depth discussion of Little House on the Prairie, in response to comments from this post. Please see that post (December 3rd): Another Look at the Downfall of Once Classic Book Little House on the Prairie**

Reading An Entire Book: Implications on Language & Literacy: with ideas for improving classroom literacy practices

I was watching The Simpsons the other day, and Bart said something in response to Lisa talking about a book she had read. Bart said "you've read a WHOLE book before?" Bart is more real than some of us would believe in this respect. I've already had numerous students enter the 5th grade claiming they've never completed, completely individually, an entire book before that wasn't a leveled reader, picture book, or textbook based story.

To me this is quite alarming. I'm not going to fall back on the argument that "this would never have happened 50 years ago, before internet and TV and blah blah blah..." That argument doesn't hold, especially for me (I posted about digital literacy two days ago in an article titled iPod Literacy). This is alarming because the act of reading has been replaced by... well, I'm not sure exactly, but not another literacy activity. Reading has by-and-large not been replaced by reading things on the internet, it's been replaced by watching TV, playing video games, and texting. While I've argued in the past that these activities have some merit and can be utilized in the classroom, they become a hindrance when the student basically stops interacting with the written word outside of "T2L, BRB, ROFL." There's a great article out there from Newsweek titled The Death of English (LOL): In an experiment, the more adept children were at text messaging, the better they did at spelling and writing, which tries to strike a balance to the text messaging debate better than I can say it here, because I tend to be biased against cell phones for many reasons, most of them out of stubbornness.

What really bothers me is, I've met college students who claim that they've never read a book and wear it like a badge of honor. This behavior is bewildering to me, and I have to wonder where it stems from. Is it a backlash against the world we once knew? Is it due to a lack of attention? Or is it an outright failure of public education, with its never ending, rigid focus on standardized testing? I think the answer to all of these questions is YES.

Now, I've stated some of the problems, and have even briefly brought up a few questions for further research and discussion. I'm going to discuss ways for teachers to combat the failure to read phenomenon in the classroom (or at home if you're a parent).

• SELF CHOICE: You need to help students choose their own books. This is a process that should involve both student and teacher in order for it to be effective. You can refer to some guidelines I set out in yesterday's post titled How To Determine the Reading Level of A Book At A Glance to help you choose the right book, level wise, for that child. It's then up to the child, with your guidance, to find a book that will hold their interest, be on a topic that they enjoy reading about, and will have literary elements that have worked for that child in the past. You would be surprised how many students do not have the ability to self search for a book, they need to be taught (and since you're a teacher, this is your job).


• FREEDOM TO EXPERIMENT: Yes, I've had students who read on a first grade level want to read Harry Potter. At first, I let them make this choice, because it never works. This is where you have to suspend your teacher instinct, at least at the beginning of the year, to let students try to find it themselves. You also need to give them some freedom to abandon a few books. I have some students who, still, here at November, will read a few pages of a book, put it back, and get another one. My policy is that they should be trying the book for at least 3 chapters, then, when we return from Winter Break, they're going to choose and read without abandoning.


• CHOOSE SOMETHING FAMILIAR: If you teach like me, you do a lot of read alouds. I save some of the best books ever to read aloud. In fact, some of the books I discuss on this very website are the book that I read aloud to my class. Occasionally, a student will want to re-read the book I read aloud. Believe it or not, this is a great practice, especially for students who aren't quite ready to take some risks when self-reading. Let them do it.

Those ideas are more along the lines of helping students come into their own as readers. There are some great strategies in terms of classroom management and assignments to keep students focused, but to also be able to pull grades and have it basically fit into your instruction. I send home a calendar for the month, and students are supposed to read for a minimum of 30 minutes every evening. I usually don't send home homework outside of this, so I don't get complaints. After reading, the parent must sign that date on the calendar.

Twice per week, I have students complete a reading log assignment in which they respond to a few prompts about their book. This helps them reflect on their reading. I don't do it daily to avoid students burning out, just on Monday nights and Thursday nights.

These two activities, together, can be a valuable addition to the classroom. Some classroom practices you should include to encourage good reading habits are:

• Read aloud to your students every single day. Only read books that you are familiar with (no pulling things off the shelf you've never experienced yourself. When you're reading aloud, think aloud, ask questions, answer questions, take predictions, make it a whole group experience.
• Give students time, every day, to read silently. They enjoy this quiet time to themselves. It's your job to make sure they are reading and aren't just wasting time. If your school allows it, let students bring a pillow or bean bag and lay around while they read. It should be a comfortable experience, this reinforces the habit and also makes it enjoyable.
• Have some way for students to share their reading experience. Whether it's a Goodreads.com account for each student in your classroom, simple book reports that are shared, or a separate shelf where students can put favorite books for others to check out, let them share the valuable experiences in some way. They could also make book advertisements, make commercials for the book, or vote on their favorite books to keep those titles out there.
• Make it interesting. Fluency and comprehension checks are important, but use them sparingly. The tendency to over test, especially with chapter tests and things like that, can ruin the literary experience. Do you give yourself chapter tests when you read for pleasure at home? Then stop doing it at school (at least stop doing it so much).
• Have goals. If you have 25 students, make a goal for each to read 4 books during the semester. Put up a large bar graph in the classroom, and color in one each time a student reads a book and passes some sort of comprehension test at the end (AR, a book report, etc) to prove they read the entire thing. If your class can hit the goal, in this case, 100 books read, then have some MAJOR party or some kind of reward for them.

I hope this post can be of service to you. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to hear about.

Life As We Knew It

Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer, is a great "Armageddon-esque" story, but not really to that extent. It's the story of what happens after a massive asteroid slams into the moon, knocking it off balance, sending the earth into spiraling chaos. As dormant volcanoes erupt, the ocean currents are thrown out of whack, and the earth is sent into nuclear winter, we follow the story of Miranda and her family trying to survive that first winter in Pennsylvania.

This book is pretty good, and is currently sitting on my classroom bookshelf for my 5th graders to read if they so choose. It is a little long, and I almost felt like its format, although interesting (it was written like a diary, with daily entries), didn't read like the diary of a pre-teen. The story is good, but in my opinion isn't a very friendly book to do as a read aloud. I think this one is better served for students to choose to read it. It did get tedious, and a little monotonous, but I definitely enjoyed the book in the long run. If you need some higher quality literature for your classroom collection, or are interested in either reading ya literature or possibly spinning this into some sort of research, it's certainly not the worst book out there.

The People of Sparks (Sequel to The City of Ember)

The People of Sparks, by Jeanne DuPrau, is the 2006 sequel to the now hotly popular The City of Ember (which has been made into a movie that will come out in October). I personally sat down with The City of Ember recently and decided that it was a great books that 5th graders will enjoy (see my review of it HERE). I enjoyed The City of Ember so much that I went out and bought The People of Sparks and began reading it immediately.

Like The City of Ember, Sparks is appropriate for the same age set, and carries a 5.5 reading level or so, slightly above The City of Ember, because it is longer and deals with events of a more overtly political nature (not that Ember didn't, but it's much more in the open in this book).

The People of Sparks is a departure from Ember. Like Ember it is focused mainly on Lina and Doon, but the events also focus on the relations between the people of Ember and the people of Sparks. As their relationship grows more complex, and eventually, negative to the point of almost open war, we are shown a glimpse into the dark side of man and the triumph of humanity. Overall, I think this book sends out a very positive message to children who read it, and therefore would recommend it.

Like The City of Ember, The People of Sparks contains no profanity or extremely adult themes. The images of anger and war are age appropriate and are written very nicely. This book isn't as dynamic as Ember, but is a good sequel all in all, and I am happy to place it on my book shelf.

Persespolis: A Graphic Novel Review

Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, is one of the great graphic novels of recent years. I was drawn to it after reading Art Spiegelman's Maus, the biography of his father's experiences as a Jewish Holocaust survivor. When I picked up Persepolis, I was first captivated by the simple yet effective graphics in the book itself, as well as the topic. This series, originally published in two parts, but now available as one book, is the autobiography of Satrapi, growing up in the Islamic Republic of Iran in the '70s and '80s, and living in Europe to escape the tyranny of the extremist government.

The story itself chronicles the downward spiral of hope for Iranian citizens at this time as the fundamentalist government came into power and persecuted them. This book is a clear representation of what happens when religion is allowed to rule theocratically, and isn't just a political statement, but a personal account of what DID happen, not what CAN happen.

As far as its relevance in the classroom, this book could consider adults its main audience. BUT, I do see relevance in the high school literature/composition classroom, but nothing with student much younger than 16 or 17 years old. The book does openly talk about executions, sex, and the personal journey of a teenager. Now, I'm not one for censorship, so I personally think it's great that this book touches on these things, and think it's appropriate for the 16 and up age set, because these are issues that are alive in their minds, and the political issues are things they need to know about.

Now, I'm going to step away from the book to end this and make a personal statement of opinion. As I said in the previous paragraph, I do have major issues with censorship. I don't think it should be up to the moral majority to decide what is censored. It should be up to parents to decide what is appropriate for their children, not ALL children. Also, teachers need to be aware of age appropriateness, and not just pull a book off the shelf and have the class start reading it without either reading it or researching it themselves.

By the age of 16, students should be exposed to more of the realities of the world. If we expect teenagers to be able to vote at the age of 18, they need to understand the intricacies of the world, and the difference that exist out there. I have met some narrow minded people in my life, and most of them are sticklers on the issue of censorship (they're all for it, and seek to censor those around them). We don't live in 1925, we can't think locally, and about only ourselves anymore in this world. Persepolis is a great book, because it puts a real human face on the citizens of Iran, who have been persecuted for a long time, and demonized in the eyes of many Americans.

The City of Ember: A Good Book For School?

As far as children's literature goes, I'm learning quite a bit, and am pretty well read. I had heard of The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, but had never picked up a copy. A few weeks ago, I took my kids to see Kung Fu Panda, and saw a preview for the movie adaptation, and got all jazzed up and decided to read it and stick it on the book shelf for my students.

Sooooo, I thought The City of Ember was really good, I was pleasantly surprised. This book wasn't as well written as, say, The Giver by Lois Lowry, but followed a similar path. It's a dystopia themed future, with mystery shrouding this isolated group of people. And it's all up to kids to save the day. So yeah, I obviously compared it a lot to The Giver. I also found myself drawing comparisons to Zion, the underground city in The Matrix series.

I don't want to go into too much detail here and give the book away, but for a book that carries a reading level of 5.3 (5th grade, 3rd month), I have to say that I pretty much agree. I do want to read this book with my class (which I won't even meet until August 11th), and I want to read it before the movie opens on October 10th.

If you want to know a little more, then I'll go into a little more depth for you. This book doesn't have any bad language at all in it. The characters are very well written, so there's a lot of possibilities there. The letter that is hidden in the capsule, which is fragmented, could make for an interesting ongoing lesson you could do with your students as you read the book. The political corruption in the book will surely play a role in my classroom discussions as we tie in text to world schema (yeah, buzz words!). I also enjoy how the DuPrau doesn't explain the history and why they're living in this dark city, she lets the story explain the past. This book stands in contrast to many others, and would make for a good literature study in how the plot unfolds and the background is presented throughout the text itself.

That's just some thoughts. I do think this is a good book, I will be reading it to my class. I was also so pleased with the book that I'll be reading the other two in the series.

I Am The Messenger, by Markus Zusak

I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak, is a great book that will appeal to teenagers and adults alike. As I've begun to get more and more involved in young adult literature, I'm learning that quality young adult books are often times better than quality adult reads. That is the case with I Am the Messenger, it's a strong story with themes that apply to high school students and adults, and the story is also sophisticated enough to find readers in both age groups (although the adult age group is a little bigger and more complex than I'm letting on).

Because of this books dual identity in terms of its appeal, I want to talk about its appropriateness to both young adults and adults. First of all, I wouldn't use this book with any student younger than maybe 10th grade, there is a sexual theme that recurs, and I could almost liken some of the internal dialogue in this book to the internal dialogue in The Catcher in the Rye. Of course, J.D. Salinger's signature novel is one of the most banned books that is still widely read.

I Am the Messenger is a much deeper story in my opinion than Holden Caufield's exploits from The Catcher in the Rye. When I first read Catcher, I was surprised at how shallow Caufield (the protagonist) was for the entire story. I didn't get that impression with Ed Kennedy, the protagonist from Messenger. Students will enjoy this book because of its parallels to the realities of life and failure, they'll also enjoy the mystery aspect to the story, and the many different story lines that take place within the mind of a single character.

Now, for adults, the book I kept relating this too was Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas. The internal monologue is very similar, and the self-deprecating manner that the protagonist treats himself is extremely similar in both books. Plus, we encounter an unlikely hero in both books, so the stories strongly relate. I wouldn't say that Zusak and Koontz write in the same way, but they way they carry on their character portraits were similar in the case of these two specific characters of Odd Thomas and Ed Kennedy, without Ed Kennedy seeing dead people and all of that.

This book is highly recommended from me. Markus Zusak can practically do no wrong. His other best seller, The Book Thief (read my review of that book HERE), is one of my favorite books of all time. Check out both of these books, and have fun, because they're highly enjoyable.

The Watsons Go To Birmingham - 1963

The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis, has been growing in popularity, not to mention banned book lists, since it was first published in 1995. This book is a great Civil Rights era story. It's the story of Kenny and the Watson family, and their experience living in Flint, Michigan in 1963. They're a fairly normal family, with problems common of the times, and that even parallel our lives today in many ways. Eventually they head off to Birmingham, Alabama, to return to the home of Kenny's mother.

They are in Birmingham when the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing took place on September 15, 1963 that killed four girls and injured many others. The great thing about this book is that it does what textbooks and worksheets can't, it injects emotion, a real story into the civil rights movement, and this means so much to pre-teen and teenage students alike. Pat R. Scales, author of Teaching Banned Books: 12 Guides for Young Readers, said:

Students may learn about the Civil Rights Movement in social studies, but they experience the horror, the fear, and the devastation of this terrible time with the Watson family in The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963. Textbooks omit emotions. Novels don't. Knowing the facts is important, but making an emotional connection is the only way to truly walk in the shoes of others.

So, if you're looking for a great Civil Rights book that will leave a lasting impression on your students, this book is great. If you're interested in knowing why it has been challenged in the past and has ended up on banned book lists, it's basically because the book falls in line with a lot of pre-teen tales. The story is candid, words like 'hell' and 'ass' are said a few times, and the bombing of the church is definitely difficult to read. But shying kids away from stuff like this isn't doing them any favors, censorship in the case of this book is unnecessary and wrong, this book should be read, and I hope that if you're considering a unit on it, to consider it.

The House of the Scorpion: A Borderland Critique

I have lived in southern New Mexico my entire life. In 2000, I moved to Las Cruces to attend New Mexico State University, and have lived here ever since. That means that I am fairly aware of border politics, border culture, and some of the intricacies of living near the United States / Mexico border.

The House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer, is a great book that has so many interesting layers to it. It works as a critique of politics, cloning, caste systems, and slavery, among many others. One of the most glaring layers is its references to border politics and actions. The book goes in to pretty glaring detail to explain how the land lying between Aztlán (formerly known as Mexico in the book) and the United States became its own country, called Opium.

The way this reads out almost sounds like it could be true. The wealth and power of influential drug lords in the border region leads to them basically usurping power and causing a rift between the United States and Mexico, in the guise of 'helping' them take care of their drug problems by dealing overseas instead.

The book never directly says it, but knowing the importance of the relationship between Mexico and the United States, who are almost equally dependent on one another, helps explain Mexico collapsing and America losing its super power status in the book.

It's an interesting read with so many different views, and offers some of the greatest dystopic critique for children I've seen. This book goes up on my shelf next to the likes of 1984, A Brave New World, Anthem, and Fahrenheit 451.