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Small Story - Big Event

6/26/2016

 
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Zane and the Hurricane by Rodman Philbrick (The Blue Sky Press, 2014) Reading level 5.3

For some of us, it’s hard to believe it’s been almost 11 years since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the gulf coast, rupturing New Orleans’ fragile levee system, leaving most of the city underwater, and killing almost two thousand people.  By any measure, it was a huge event.  But within the catastrophe were thousands of small stories.  People searching for a meal, or medical care.  People waiting for transportation out of New Orleans.  People who wanted to let family members know they survived the storm.  Newberry Honor author Rodman Philbrick successfully crafts such a small, personal story in his novel Zane and the Hurricane.

Twelve-year old Zane Dupree lives in New Hampshire with his single mother and faithful dog, Bandy.  Zane’s father died in an auto accident before Zane was born, and the family has no association or knowledge of his relatives.  However, Zane’s mother has recently located Zane’s great-grandmother “Miss Trissy” who lives in New Orleans.  Reluctantly, Zane agrees to fly to New Orleans to spend some time with Miss Trissy, with Bandy along to keep him company.  Unfortunately, Zane’s trip to the Crescent City coincides with Hurricane Katrina.

Miss Trissy lives in the Lower Ninth Ward, and her culture is classic New Orleans.  (Zane is bi-racial, and has been exposed only to his mother’s European-American culture in New Hampshire.)  Within a few days, Zane has acquired an interest in his African-American/New Orleans heritage, curiosity about his father’s upbringing, and a genuine love for his great-grandmother.

And then, hurricane Katrina – reinvigorated by the warm gulf waters – takes a sharp turn north and heads straight for New Orleans.  Miss Trissy, Zane, and Bandy secure seats on a church bus for the snails-pace evacuation.  But the nervous canine hops out the bus window, and Zane follows the dog on foot down the highway.  The chase ends back at Miss Trissy’s house, where Zane and Bandy have no choice but to ride-out the storm.  After the storm, Zane and Bandy are rescued from the attic by an injured jazz musician and a young girl paddling a canoe through the tepid, foul waters of post-Katrina New Orleans.  Zane and the Hurricane tells their struggle to find food, water, and shelter while moving across the decimated city.

It’s a small story, told with grace and sensitivity.  There’s a menacing street thug, and a tension-filled run-in with a private security force, but the real antagonist is the flooded city itself.  There are episodes of great compassion and abject cruelty.  There’s clarity and confusion.  There’s hope, followed by crashing dejection.  In other words, it’s humanity on display.  Our main characters – exquisitely developed – react and grow in the impossible surroundings.

If you’re looking for a book to teach figurative language – especially simile and metaphor – this is it.  Here’s a quick example.

"We glide away from what’s left of Grammy’s house and into another world, or so it seems.  A world of rooftops poking above the flood like little black islands, and trees clawing up through the water like the gnarled hands of the drowned.  A world where the water and the sky melt together, until you can’t tell where one begins and the other ends."

I could teach that all week!  You could too.  There are dozens of such passages in the book.

Catastrophe stories are popular with tween readers, and Zane and the Hurricane certainly fits that bill.  Thoughtful readers who can empathize with the human side of tragedy will appreciate the book even more.  Buy at least a couple of copies for your library media center, and include it in your upper elementary and middle school classroom library.  And language arts teachers – you have a true gem for teaching descriptive passages and figurative language.



Just Go With It

6/21/2016

 
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Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind (The Nerdy Dozen #2) by Jeff Miller (Harper, 2015) Reading level 5.8

A few months ago I reviewed Jeff Miller’s debut novel, The Nerdy Dozen.  I enjoyed the concept: a dozen top-notch video gamers are recruited by the military for a top-secret mission.  But I was disappointed in the mission itself.  In Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind, Jeff Miller creates an exciting quest for our gamers, and focuses on a handful of main characters to the exclusion of most of the crew. 

Here’s the mission: persons unknown have stolen a top-secret, ultra-high-tech space shuttle and launched into space.  The team must blast-off into space to search for the missing shuttle.  Oh, and there’s a huge asteroid on collision course with Earth, and the purloined shuttle contains the only weapon that can obliterate it.

At the conclusion of The Nerdy Dozen, ace-gamer Neil Andertol returns home from his first mission to find an envelope from NASA on his doorstep.  In Close Encounters…, we learn that the envelope contained a video game disc.  In the game, Shuttle Fury, the player pilots a souped-up space shuttle through the solar system.

Finding the game difficult and tedious, Neil plays for only a few minutes before returning to his more familiar games.  So, when NASA comes calling, Neil is painfully unprepared for the mission.  Neil hasn’t done his homework.  He turns on the charm and tells a few lies to avoid admitting his lack of preparation.  He’s named commander of the new mission, and his crew – the Nerdy Dozen – quickly discovers his incompetence.  It’s up to Neil to learn the piloting skills, regain the confidence of his crew, and of course save the world from total destruction.

And at this point we have to suspend a lot of disbelief.  A. Lot. Of. Disbelief.  Why are the middle-schoolers piloting the space shuttle?  Because the only space shuttle left was built to be flown by chimpanzees, and the adult astronauts are too big.  How can the team fly to the moon in a matter of minutes?  Warp speed.  How about Mars?  Double-warp speed!

As you’ve probably guessed, Miller makes no attempt at even remotely touching the science of space flight.  If you’re looking for an adventure based in reality, you’re in the wrong place.  But readers who enjoy comical escapades will like the fast-paced plot and the silly jokes.  (Example:  the secret moon base is called the New District Colony – abbreviated by everyone as the New Dist Colony.  Say that out loud a few times, and you’ll get it.)

Unfortunately, the camaraderie built in the first book is missing from Close Encounters….  While reading The Nerdy Dozen, I felt like I knew each team member.  In this book, most of the interaction is carried by four or five kids – the others pop-in a line of dialog every now and then.  To be honest, there’s really no reason for all 12 kids (and a chimp) to be on a space shuttle anyway.

But maybe I’m missing the point.  Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind is most enjoyable when you’re not asking too many questions.  Readers who can ignore the coincidences, absurdity and scientific craziness will be rewarded with a fun, fast-paced read.  For that reason, I would recommend Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind to readers in grades 4 and 5.  Buy a copy for your elementary library media center, and add it to your upper-elementary classroom collection.  (Note: the third book in the series, 20,000 Nerds Under the Sea, is also available.)



Escaping Safe Haven

6/19/2016

 
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Omega City by Diana Peterfreund (Balzer and Bray, 2015) Reading level 4.8

Think about your standard tween adventure novel.  What do you need?  A mission.  Someone who needs to be saved, and a kid who saves the day.  Someone who learns, someone who grows, and someone who’s just misunderstood.  An evil genius, who may not seem so evil at the beginning of the story.  A satisfying conclusion that may be just a little different than you expected.  And a character at the end who understands that the training wheels are off, and you can’t go back to the way it was.  Think of your favorite tween adventure, and all or most of those elements are in there.

Popular young-adult author Diana Peterfreund understands the ground rules of tween adventure novels, and doesn’t miss a step in Omega City, the formulaic yet enjoyable novel that lays the groundwork for a new series.

Gillian Seagret is at the center of our story, and readers will quickly observe – she’s a girl!  (Let’s face it – most tween adventures are led by decisive, action-oriented boys.)  Gillian’s sidekick is her best friend Savannah – also a girl!  Rounding-out the crew are Gillian’s younger brother Eric, super-smart-yet-socially-awkward Howard, and Howard’s older brother Nate.  Overall, it’s a good mix.  Everyone is likeable in one way or another, and they each bring strengths to the team.

Gillian and Eric live with their father, an author whose conspiracy theories about a cold-war era NASA scientist have left him discredited by academia.  The subject of dad’s research – Dr. Alyoysius Underberg – mysteriously disappeared many years ago, taking with him any chance of verifying dad’s claims of the futuristic technologies Dr. Underberg had created.

While Eric is skeptical, Gillian still has faith in her father.  Her faith is validated when a mysterious stranger appears in her father’s life; an attractive sophisticated woman who is decidedly different from the tin-foil-helmeted groupies who regularly attend dad’s lectures.  That stranger starts nosing around in dad’s files, which prompts Gillian and Savannah to start their own quest.  Gillian’s knowledge of her father’s quirks allows her to successfully uncover clues that reveal Omega City, a secret underground post-nuclear refuge – Dr. Underberg’s greatest creation.  The group finds the immense complex in ruins, and with the femme fatale and her henchmen following close behind, their goal becomes making it to the surface with their lives.

So basically, if you put The Goonies in The City of Ember, and gave them the plot from The Poseidon Adventure, you’d have Omega City.  (If you can follow that, buy yourself an ice cream.)

It’s a good story, well-told.  Peterfreund writes well, and keeps the action moving.  Tween readers won’t lose interest.  There’s no “second-act-slump.”  But the best feature is the interaction between Gillian and her friends.  Gillian is the de facto leader – the mission is her idea.  But Gillian struggles with decision-making, especially when leading her friends into dangerous predicaments.  Savannah is smart, but she pretends to be ditzy at school.  Her intelligence shines through in each crisis.  Eric moves from sarcasm and doubt to optimism as his father’s wild ideas are validated.  Howard, the brainy space expert slowly learns social skills from his new friends.  And Nate – a few years older than the rest – finds his role as protector diminishing as the plot develops.  Omega City would be a great novel for a small group studying character development.

Omega City follows a well-worn path, but is good enough to merit a place in your school library media center and your classroom collection.  Promote the book to students who love a good action story, or those looking for strong female protagonists.  Consider the book for small group study.  Be on the look-out for the sequel Forbidden Fortress, due February, 2017.



Using What You've Got

6/8/2016

 
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Powerless (Supers of Noble Green #1) by Matthew Cody (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2009)  Reading level 5.2

What if you were a super-powered kid?  How cool would that be?  Maybe you could fly, become invisible, or control electricity with your hands.  Now imagine you’re destined to lose that ability at age 13, with no memory of ever having that super-power.  That’s the backdrop for Powerless, Mathew Cody’s debut novel.

A few months ago I reviewed Will in Scarlet, Cody’s re-imagining of the Robin Hood legend.  In that book Cody puts his twist on several well-known Robin Hood characters, weaves an intriguing plot around them, and produces a gem.  Powerless is similar in that respect.  This time, the standard super-hero mythology is put in reverse.  Our young heroes know that they will soon lose their powers, and they have absolutely no idea what to do about it.

That is, until Powerless’ main character, Daniel Corrigan, moves to town.  Befriended by a small group of Supers, Daniel finds himself in a unique position to investigate the disappearing powers.  Daniel doesn’t have a super-power himself.  Instead, he uses investigatory skills, conducts interviews, and researches the town history in his attempt to solve his friends’ quandary.  And all the while the clock is running.  The charismatic team leader turns 13 in just a few days.

The first chapter, which serves as an introduction to the story, is achingly poignant.  On the eve of his 13th birthday, a twelve-year-old goes out on one last “flight” with his super-powered friends.  He wakes-up the next morning, surprised to see dozens of drawings of himself taped on the walls of his room, the words “You Can Fly” added to each drawing.  A memory that he can’t quite identify slowly slips away.  Adults and discerning young readers will recognize the loss of superpower as the disillusionment and practicality that often accompanies the teen years.  You can’t really fly.  You can’t save the world.  You’re really nothing special.  In light of this metaphor, Daniel’s quest isn’t just about saving his friends’ powers.  It’s about saving their dreams.

Super-powered teens are fairly common in tween literature, but Powerless stands out from the crowd.  These kids aren’t running around in capes and masks.  They don’t give themselves catchy names.  They aren’t supported by a wise adult, and they don’t meet in a high-tech club house.  The kids in Powerless are just regular tweens.   Their super-powers make them different.  And like many kids that age, they try to disguise their differences and just fit in.

The second half of the book will please readers looking for action, adventure, and evil villains.  The writing is quickly-paced.  Cody creates situations and challenges that let us learn about the characters.  There’s a solid plot resolution, but room for further development on many fronts.  Indeed, Powerless is book #1 of a 3-book series.

Add Powerless to your classroom library, and complete the set for your library media center.  Recommend the book to readers looking for superhero stories, but don’t be afraid to promote it those who prefer more introspective fare.


Drop Me In The Water

6/1/2016

 
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Take Me To The River by Will Hobbs (HarperCollins, 2011) Reading level 5.1

Fourteen-year-old Dylan Shands has traveled from his North Carolina home to canoe the Rio Grande with his Uncle Alan and cousin Rio.  Uncle Alan works as a river guide along the Texas-Mexico border, and has promised the boys a week-long adventure on the river.  Unfortunately, when Dylan arrives in Texas, he learns that his uncle has left to work in Alaska for the summer.  Dylan and Rio have some tough decisions to make about continuing the trip.  They deal with the consequences of those decisions in Will Hobbs’ Take Me to the River.

As you’ve probably guessed, Dylan and Rio decide to take a multi-day river trip without an adult.  A few cringe-worth decisions later, the boys find themselves facing a hurricane and record-level rapids.  To make matters worse, a gun-toting stranger with a young hostage forces Dylan and Rio to help him escape downstream.  It will take courage, river skill, and a whole lot of luck for the boys to make it back home safely.

As teachers and librarians know, Will Hobbs is the go-to author for outdoor adventure novels.  His books are action-packed and plot driven, yet he still manages to develop characters that readers care about.  In a Will Hobbs adventure story, young people learn a lot about themselves. 

Adults will appreciate reading about the consequences of the questionable choices that Dylan and Rio make.  There are many good “stopping points” for discussions about the boys’ decisions.  For example, when the boys learn that a hurricane is approaching the area, should they continue their trip, or seek shelter from the storm?  Fortunately, Dylan and Rio acknowledge their poor decisions and learn from their mistakes.  The boys are intelligent and sincere.  Their downfall is their inexperience; they simply haven’t considered all of the possibilities. 

When adding this book to my classroom library, I would download and print some photographs of the Rio Grande and tape them inside the back cover.  Hobbs describes the scenery well, but many readers just won’t be able to envision the 80-foot canyon walls or understand the remoteness of the Texas Big Bend without seeing a picture.  This simple effort will help readers in the city or the suburbs enjoy the book.

Buy a copy of Take Me to the River for your classroom library, and add two or three copies alongside the other Will Hobbs books in your library collection.  Recommend the book as a read-aloud for tween-level classrooms, and offer it as an option for literature circles.      


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    Keith Kyker

    ...is a library media specialist, a classroom teacher, and an avid reader.  He enjoys reading books written for middle school readers, so that he can recommend books to his students, and just because they are fun to read!


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