The First Part Last

Angela Johnson's The First Part Last showed up frequently as a book related to other books that I was buying on Amazon. The cover always caught my attention, and after reading more about the book I knew that I would eventually want to read it.

I loved the form of telling the story with the book. Bobby is a teen dad, and he narrates his story alternating chapters titled then and now, giving us glimpses of his current life intermixed with his past. In the now, we are not quite sure which events led up to him having full responsibility for his daughter Feather. The then slowly leads up to the reason. Different scenarios ran through my mind as I read the book. I approached the ending I thinking that my biggest hunch came true, only to read on and see that it was not quite as it seemed.

One of my classmates in my YA Class read and reviewed the book. Last weekend at class she described how the effect Johnson's writing had on her in being able to depict the themes. She said something about being able to feel Bobby's exhaustion and how she felt tired just reading the book. I love it when authors are able to use words powerfully in order to make us feel strong emotions right along with the characters.

When it arrived in the mail, I was initially surprised that it was a shorter novel than I had expected (if I would have looked at the 144 pages listed on Amazon I would have realized that earlier). However, as I read the book, I began to really appreciate the brevity. I was thinking about how the mixture of the content, layout, and length would make the book appealing for a wide range of readers in my class. It is accessible for readers still developing their reading proficiency, it will hook reluctant readers, and the author's craft provides plenty to engage my highest level readers.

Now I am interested in getting more of Johnson's books for my classroom library. I noticed that this book is actually the second in a trilogy, and it looks like there are many other interesting books as well.

A Place for Delta

Yesterday I started reading Melissa Walker's A Place for Delta while traveling. It was fascinating to learn more about nature and Alaska through this adventurous book, illustrated by Richard Walker. I didn't want to have to put the book down for take-off and landings, but as I felt more and more nauseous I had to tuck it away for a bit. I was glad to be able to finish up the book today.

The multi-generational story follows Lisi and her two children's story of moving to Georgia into a 40 acre property with a house built in the 1800s. Even more interesting, it has been owned by a single family up until this point, and it is rumored to be haunted.

Later in the story, Lisi's daughter (Kate) and grandson (Joseph) are the focal points of the novel as they find themselves in Alaska caring for a baby polar bear. Joseph quickly establishes a friendship with a local girl, and they find themselves investigating different mysteries. While I thought the book would resolve shortly after one main mystery was solved, I was delighted to see that Walker still had much more in store for her readers.

This would be a great book to pair up with S. Terrell French's Operation Redwood. My students who read this as part of a book club selection absolutely loved this book - the adventure, the mystery, kids making a difference. A Place for Delta has all of these elements as well. However, one of their favorite characters in Operation Redwood was Danny because of his humor, but A Place for Delta does not have a counterpart to Danny.

One aspect of A Place for Delta that left me wondering how my students would respond was the narrative style. The book is told from a third person point of view, following different characters throughout the book, spending significant portions on the adult characters, their thoughts and actions. I can see a couple of scenarios - they could find it off-putting and prefer that the story stuck to the kids' perspective or they could be fascinated by the multi-generational view that the book provides.

The end of the book also has an extensive glossary and list of resources for students whose interests have been sparked by the topics in the book. There would be a lot of interesting non-fiction books to pair up with the topics addressed in the book, as well as science current events integrations.

I look forward to booktalking this book in the fall, showing students how it fits in with other books in our classroom library dealing with adventure, animals, and the environment. I also still want to read my copy of Island Sting, as this appears to be another good fit.

*Copy of book courtesy of publisist.

Laurie Halse Anderson updates

Today I was just looking at Laurie Halse Anderson's latest blog post, and I was excited to see the Forge cover, and then I kept on reading and was once again excited to see that Wintergirls is going to be released in Spanish (Frío). So much to be excited about!

Seeing the cover makes me anticipate the release date even more. I think it complements the Chains cover well (although, the Chains cover is my favorite - it would take a lot to change that). I am planning on reading Chains aloud to my classes this fall, so I am sure that they will be looking forward to Forge as well.

Crash Boom Love

I decided to follow up Street Love with another novel in verse that I bought at the same time, Juan Felipe Herrera's CrashBoomLove. Like Myers' book, it took me a while to orient myself and get a clear picture of what was going on in the book. Some sections were blurry, which it seems like it could have been the intent of the book. The main character César is a blurry as to exactly what to do in order to make the best of his life, and the front cover is fittingly a blurred image. I know that upon re-reading both Myers' and Herrera's books, I would get a whole new level of understanding after getting a general idea the first time around.

In the book César frequently thinks about his dad who has left the family for his other family in Colorado. He also resents his mom - for not speaking enough English and for not being there to help him navigate his difficult and confusing life. Stumbling into more and more trouble seems inevitable to him and he can't find a way out.

Different events in the book build up a complex set of circumstances; however, César figures out a lot throughout the book. As his life teeters on decisions leading to dangerous and unhealthy choices, he wonders if there will be hope to find his way out.

Street Love

Verse novels have been hot this year in my classroom with the girls, and as I have been searching for more to add to our collection, I have been specifically looking for some that would also be appealing to boys. When I saw Walter Dean Myers' Street Love on Amazon, I got it right away. I couldn't wait to see the combination of Myers' voice that I know has captured my students' attention in the past and the novel in verse format.

Teenagers Junice and Damien have been living different experiences. Junice's life has been full of instability, the latest challenge came when her mom was sentenced for 25 years on drug related charges. Damien, on the other hand, has a stable household, basketball talent, good grades, and is accepted to college. Their meet up when Damien is mesmerized by Junice, and their lives start to weave together. Damien's mom wants to stop it from happening though.

The book required me to pay close attention as I was reading to pick up on cues of who was talking and to get into the flow of the book. While some of the other novels in verse that I have read have been comparatively easier to read, this one was more complex on the word level. I appreciated the cadence of the poetry.

I will be glad to add this to my classroom library. It will be a good contribution to the novels in verse section, and it will also be a great complimentary text for other adaptations of Romeo and Juliet themes, such as Romiette and Julio and Perfect Chemistry.

Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie

Previously I read David Lubar's Punished, as well as a autobiographical piece about his experiences playing sports when he was younger that was included in some of my curriculum. Both included a lot of humor, as well as word play. Students responded well to both of the texts, so I was excited to read Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie.

This book was not any different. Throughout the book Scott narrates his experiences as a freshman alongside journal entries he starts writing to his future sibling when he is shocked to find out his mom is pregnant. Right before the start of the school year he refers to himself and his three best friends as The Three Musketeers, looking forward to the year. However, once reality hits and he begins experiencing what it is like to be back at the bottom of the totem pole and to drift away from all of his best friends.

While I expected the tone toward the future baby to be a little different, true to Lubar's humor, Scott addressed the baby in various ways, such as, "you microscopic intruder" (p. 31), "stomach virus" (p. 43), and "you quivering sack of viscous fluids" (p. 44). Most of his entries have humor mixed with serious advice, and you can tell that he cares about his future sibling, even though he is unsure about how the baby's arrival will change his role in the family.

As the journal illustrates, throughout the book there is a lot of humor intermixed with serious issues that come along with being a freshmen woven throughout. This would be a fun book to pair up with Carter Finally Gets It to compare and contrast Carter and Scott.

Deadline

In a little over a week I will be at the Boothbay Literacy Retreat where I will get to see Chris Crutcher speak, and I can hardly wait! I decided to choose Deadline as one of my YA Lit course selections to become familiar with another one of his novels. While I saw many similarities between another one of Crutcher's novels and his short stories that I read earlier this year, this was also unique in its own right. As I loved with his other books, it had multiple layers, a strong-willed and creative main character, and humor.

I love the front cover, both the picture and the question, "What if you only had one year to live...and you knew it?" The question instantly got me thinking about what I would do, as well as wondering what Ben, the main character would do. Right before the start of Ben Wolf's senior year his doctor calls him after his routine cross country physical. Although he wanted to meet with his parents, Ben goes alone and finds out that he has a terminal illness and most likely has a year to live at the most. Much to his doctor's chagrin, he refuses treatment and decides that he will not tell anybody what he discovered. He rationalizes that treatment will not prolong his life by much and will make the time he has less enjoyable, and he wants to live a "normal" life without everyone feeling sorry for him. However, as time goes on he questions whether this is the best way to deal with the knowledge or if he owes it to those who love him to let them know the truth.

He starts his senior year with a bang, going all out, deciding to play football instead of cross country and learning as much as he possibly can. Many people are surprised by his actions, but they do not suspect the truth. Many relationships are explored throughout the book, and I especially loved the scenes with him and his younger brother, Cody. Because Ben was so small, his mom decided to have him start school a year later to see if he would get bigger, so he is in the same grade level as Cody, who calls him little big bro. Others in the school call him Little Wolf. 

Although Ben is dealing with heavy issues throughout the whole book and I was on the verge of tears at different points along the way, there was also a lot of humor. Rather than slacking off his senior year, he decides to go all out. This is most evident in one class. Much to his U.S. government/current events teacher's dismay, this includes a lot of questioning that made me smile. I never knew what would come out of his mouth next. 

On a side note, I have mentioned before that I always love mentions of local communities. This book takes place in a small town in Idaho. They even play one of their big football games on BSU's blue turf. I think my students would also enjoy this geographic connection. We were able to go onto the football field at a college visit this spring. 

In other connections the ending scene made me think of Lisa Schroeder's (another Pacific Northwest author) Chasing Brooklyn and the relationship between Magdalena and her cousin in the movie Quinceañera. It was fun to think about which of the two connections would end up being most like what will happen after the book ended. 

Now I want to go over to Mrs. DeRaps' post to re-read her thoughts on Deadline. I saw them earlier this spring but did not want to read too much as I knew I would want to read the book eventually. I always love to see what others think about the books I have read. 

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

A while back when I heard about Stephenie Meyer's novella The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner I was intrigued. I honestly could not remember that much about Bree Tanner. While I had been planning on rereading each of the books before seeing each movie, I had my classroom library bookshelves covered up and ready for summer break without thinking to pull Eclipse off the shelf. Since I don't typically give away endings on my reviews, my memory was a little hazy.

I have mentioned numerous times before that I love multiple perspectives. I always enjoy getting different pieces to the full picture and different biases. I still wish that Meyer would complete Midnight Sun for the same reason.

This novella was a nice treat. I decided to read it on-line, as Meyer decided to provide it on-line for free as a gift to her fans for one month (June 7th-July 5th). In the introduction Meyer mentioned that as she got to the ending of this novella, which was pre-determined because of the ending to Eclipse, she wished it could have ended differently and presented the question that she wondered what her readers would feel.

I definitely wished for a different ending as well. By that point, I was attached to Bree as a character, the young vampire who had been tricked time and again by Riley, who was working with Victoria. In fact, I wished for a different ending for three of the newborns as I was approaching the last portion of the book. Giving away a bit of the ending, I was pleased to see that for one there was hope. I would love for Meyer to write more about his story, and for those readers who did wish for a different ending for Bree, I am sure they would feel the same because Bree was also wishing for a happy ending for the lucky survivor. She would like the idea of things working out for him. It would be interesting to see the possibilities.

A side note on the on-line reading of the book - I loved it. Before I never liked reading e-books, but this was visually different than any other I had read; although, it reminded me of the iPad demonstration. It visually looked more like a real book. If I clicked the advance buttons, the pages turned too fast for comfort, but once I figured out the way to drag the pages to turn them, it felt like a regular book. Of course at times I wished that the full screen view would actually put the book on the full screen or to have a one-page view that would turn sideways (again making me think to the way an iPad would have automatically reoriented to the desired formatting for best ease of use.

For those who buy a copy of the book in the US from the first printing, $1.00 for each sale will go toward the American Red Cross. Eventually I am sure that I will be buying a copy of the book for my classroom library, but it was very gracious of Meyer to offer the book for free for a month. Now I am all geared up for the Eclipse movie.

Carter Finally Gets It

Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford follows Carter through his freshman year of high school, giving us a full picture of his life, as well as glimpses into his friends'. Told from Carter's first person voice, the book is hilarious. Trying to make it his year to get the girls' attention, he thinks he has it all figured out, if only he could stop stuttering and focus. When his sister gives him some tips, it seems like everything is going to fall into place, until he makes a big mess of things. Though he has ADD, his mom says she will not medicate him because being a dreamer is not a bad thing. From classes to sports, Carter is often spacing off.

Though I almost never post before completing the whole book, I couldn't help but comment early on with this one as I couldn't stop laughing with a particular scene. As I continued reading, I continued to laugh and laugh and laugh some more. However, I was also surprised at how it could transition from silly to serious so fast. For example in the scene after I posted there was a chapter titled "Kindergarten" that grabbed my attention as a teacher.

Growing up I had three sisters and no brothers, and none of my best friends had brothers, so other than hanging out with some of my male friends for sports and other get togethers, the minds of boys this age are still pretty unknown to me. It was fun(ny) to have insights into their potential thoughts and logic, as well as what they say/do versus what they feel through Carter's story. I enjoyed seeing all of Carter's blunders throughout the book, as well as the eventual sense of growth, while still remaining Carter.

To conclude, here is an excerpt of the book with a video that I had seen months ago and forgotten about until I saw it again on the author's site. This will give you a taste of the humor in the book. Enjoy!

Must take a break!

Whew! I am trying to catch my breath from laughing so much I was crying. I often read next to my daughter as she falls asleep, but tonight that is not working at all. Every two seconds she has to look at me and say "what?" Or "Stop, you're hurting my ears" (not really, she just likes to add some humor to the moment). Right now as I have finally calmed down and am typing away on my MacBook she said, "Your book was hilarious!" My husband has already come out of the computer room down the hall TWICE to see what is so funny. All I can say is - Carter should have known better than to mix scarfing down Taco Bell food before his first date to the movies. I'm not event that far into Carter Finally Gets It, but it is full of laughs on every page. It just keeps on getting progressively worse, as far as me not being able to control myself.

When I opened up my blog to do this post and saw the serious cover from Inexcusable, I thought, What extreme opposites. Now a reminder of that book's content was enough to calm me down!

I'm sure I will be finishing up and reviewing Carter Finally Gets It by tomorrow. Now the big question for right now is: Do I take the risk and pick Carter back up or should I start reading Sense and Sensibility until my daughter falls asleep?

Inexcusable

Inexcusable is a title that I have thought about ever since I heard about it a few years back at a Boys and Books Conference. In the book Keir finds himself in a situation where the girl he loves is accusing him of raping her, but he cannot believe that he would have done that to her. How could he have? He's a "good guy", he reasons. The novels gives scenes from the present, him and Gigi in a room arguing about whether or not he raped her, and events from the past. Keir shows us events from his past trying to show his character and prove why he couldn't possibly have done this.

On the front cover there is a quote from Laurie Halse Anderson saying, "This raw and powerful book will hammer its way into your heart and haunt you." What an accurate quote! Because the presenter at the Boys and Books conference had mentioned the premise of the book, I knew it involved rape, and the back cover says, "But what has happened is, indeed, something inexcusable," so I knew that Kier really did rape her from the get go. However, the book was suspenseful, unveiling different aspects to Kier's character and what really happened. Lynch artfully planted in details here and there to constantly make the reader question what to think given the latest information, leading up to a gripping conclusion.

This book will definitely leave me thinking. It is an excellent example of the narrator's limitations, and upon arriving at the end of the book I thought about how there is so much more to analyze based on the way Kier represents himself in the first part of the book in contrast to what others says about him and some vital information that is brought to the forefront toward the end of the book. Nonetheless, there is much left unsaid, making the reader wonder about the other pieces. It was a great balance, and enough to make for an active reading experience.

Growing Up in Slavery

I read Growing Up in Slavery: Stories of Young Slaves as Told By Themselves edited by Yuval Taylor as a non-fiction companion to my historical fiction selection, Copper Sun, for my YA Literature class. At the start of the text Taylor gives background information and context for the compilation, including details about trends in slave narratives. I appreciated this introduction as it made understanding the primary documents better. The ten people featured in the book all wrote complete books themselves, and their selections here are excerpts from those larger works. Yuval provides additional support by giving an introduction before and concluding thoughts after each narrative. He also puts words in brackets to let the reader know what some colloquial terms right before meant. This allowed for a smooth flow while letting the reader know what some unfamiliar terms meant.

The narratives represent both genders, as well as people who lived at different time periods, and they appear in the book in chronological publishing order. The birth years of the contributors range from 1745-1848, showing a scope of slavery in the United States from different time periods. The first account describes being captured in Africa and the voyage across the sea, while others detail what it was like being born in to slavery and the moments when they realized that they and their families were slaves. Accounts span from abuse to kindness to challenges to trickery.

I appreciate that the narratives can be read as a whole book or as stand alone chapters. It was easy to see connections between historical fiction books from the time periods and these accounts, so it will be a good addition to my classroom library. In addition Taylor did a good job of warning what was to come in the narratives to allow the reader to decide if they wanted to read that section or not. For example, in the introduction to Harriet Jacobs' narrative he said, "Below are several excerpts dealing with Jacob's early life. Although there is nothing explicitly sexual in them, readers who wish to avoid discussions of sexual manipulations might want to skip this narrative" (p. 119). As this is marketed as a young adult selection, I appreciate those comments allowing young readers to be aware of content before reading.

All of the selections were sharing moments in their lives at 19 years or younger, although the conclusions give us information about the rest of their life. As reading I often found myself forgetting this and imagining in my head the actions being carried out by adults, at least in their twenties. Then the text would remind me that they were often eight or twelve or thirteen during the experiences. It is so difficult to fathom.

I am glad that my YA class prompted me to seek out this book. I love historical fiction, but I had not really ever built up my classroom library to pair up historical fiction with non-fiction. I often thought of topics being studied in social studies as the non-fiction portion, but it will be good to have additional resources in my classroom library. While I do have some non-fiction, it is a good reminder to start incorporating more into my library.

American Born Chinese

I recently posted that American Born Chinese was one of the required readings for my YA Lit Class. Because I had heard the name often and love books that deal with cultural identity, I was excited to read it. Yet, I had somehow missed that it was a graphic novel, until I read Mrs. DeRaps comment to my post. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. Graphic novels do not really grab my attention. While I enjoy books that have some pictures interspersed, I prefer either verse or prose (in the traditional paragraph sense) but am not a fan of reading text in bubbles. Yet, I had never read a full graphic novel before, and many of my students do enjoy graphic novels. I thought if nothing else, it would be great to add another to our classroom library, and I wanted to start reading the book with an open mind waiting to see if the genre would hook me.

In his article "Ice Cream/I Scream for YA Books" which appeared in the latest edition (May 2010) of NCTE's Voices from the Middle, Don Gallo said, "And I read very few graphic novels, though I admire the quality of the artwork in most of them" (12). After reading American Born Chinese, I thought this was a quote that suits me well. While I was not turned on to graphic novels by reading this book, there was a lot that I could appreciate about it.

The novel contains three plot lines that converge in ways that I had not anticipated. While I knew that there had to be some connection between the three, I was caught off guard by the way it happened, which I always enjoy with a book. It is fun to be surprised! The novel starts off with the Monkey King, who is offended that he cannot enter a dinner party because he is not wearing any shoes and he is a monkey. Then it moves on to Jin Wang who is trying to cope with being different from his classmates, before introducing us to Danny the all-American boy who dreads his cousin Chin-Kee's annual visits.

The book switches between the three points of view, giving a picture symbol before each switch to guide the reader in knowing which plot will continue upon turning the page. I often found myself laughing, regardless of the plot I was currently reading.

While reading I was a novice, getting to know the conventions of graphic novels, reading both to figure out the plot and to pay attention to the craft of the genre.

This novel fits in well with other texts that address identity, and it would be interesting to read with others, such as Mexican Whiteboy, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, First Crossing, Born Confused, Does My Head Look Big in This?, and Ten Things I Hate About Me.

Copper Sun

For my YA class one of our self-selected books had to be a historical fiction novel. I love historical fiction, and I started to think about which one I should choose. Then a quote from one of my students who is a Draper fanatic that I interviewed for the same class came to mind. When asked if he had books in mind that he wants to read, he replied, "Yeah, Copper Sun, the book you never got." Remembering that made my decision easy. I have also loved every one of Draper's books that I have read, so I was excited to get another one to pass on to the classroom library. While I was at it, I also ordered her Fire From the Rock and Romiette and Julio (I had already read the second but did not have a copy for the classroom library).

This weekend I had a chance to read Copper Sun and was so happy that I thought of my student when deciding on my historical fiction book. It tells the story of Amari from right before her village was attacked, resulting in her whole family being killed and her being carried away on a slave ship. This attack scene reminded me of the true story of Mende Nazer in her novel, Slave: My True Story, a memoir that haunted me because until I read it I had not realized that slavery was still happening. As I continued reading, I realized that while Nazer was captured during an Arab raid, rather by colonists who took her to the Carolinas, there were many similarities to their plights.

Once Amari arrived to the United States, the book took a shift and the narrator followed a second character, Polly, a white indentured servant. Polly and Amari end up living in a cabin together, and Polly is in charge of making Amari act civilized, although she yearns to be working inside the family's house. However, it does not take long for Polly to start surprising herself with her thoughts and feelings toward Amari and the other slaves. Amari has to endure a lot while she is enslaved, but a change in events provides an opportunity for her to escape with Polly and a 4 year old boy. Rather than going north, Amari makes the decision that they should go south to a place called Fort Mose, which was under the control of the Spanish at the time, based on what the oldest slave on the plantation told her.

The story had many twists and turns, and alternates between following from Polly's and Amari's perspectives. Above all, I appreciated that Draper shows a balanced view of slavery. While showing its cruelty, she also shows acts of kindness in the midst of all the hardship. Among the slaves, she shows a wide array of effects of their conditions.

While reading I also could not help but think of the famous quote from Emiliano Zapata, "Prefiero morir de pie que vivir de rodillas" (It's better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees!). There was even a line where Amari says, "Seem to me it be better to die for freedom than live as a slave" (p. 297).

With historical fiction I always love to read author's notes and background information. Draper did a deep level of research and provides a lot of links and books for readers to explore ideas presented in the book. I think that shows the former English teacher in her, captivating her audiences attention, and then giving them resources to delve deeper into the topic. I am excited for all of the rich opportunities to weave this novel and its themes into class themes and discussions. Of course, I also can't wait to read Fire From the Rock.

First Crossing

My students are fascinated with immigration topics, so when I first saw the book, First Crossing: Stories About Teen Immigrants, edited by Donald R. Gallo, I knew my students would enjoy it. I also loved the cover and thought it would catch my students' interests. When I bought the book I thought it was non-fiction but as I started to read realized it was a collection of fictional short stories representing a wide array of immigrant experiences. I was also thrilled to see a couple of authors that I recognized, such as Pam Muñoz Ryan and David Lubar.

The more I read the book, the more I loved it. While many of my students typically read most about Mexican immigration with books such as those by Francisco Jiménez, I am excited for them to see the big picture that this book provides, representing immigrants from different countries at different phases in the process. I think they will be fascinated by the experiences.

Another reason this book held my interest was because it was always fun to see what the tone of the next story would be. Most of the stories had a more serious tone, albeit to different degrees. When I got to David Lubar's I wondered what it would be like. As I have noticed in his other writing, his short story had a humorous twist; it was absolutely brilliant. Because a new student said that he was from an area known as Transylvania his classmates jump to the conclusion that he is a vampire, leading to funny twists and turns to the plot. Especially with vampire books popping up all over, this would be a great short story to discuss in relation to the vampire hysteria.

Other short stories dealt with issues such as adoption, crossing the border illegally, being shunned because of connections to a company taking over a principal business in the area, and athletics. While writing the last topic of athletics I had to pause for a bit and think about whether the athletics story was from this book or if I was thinking of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. When I realized that it was indeed from this compilation, I thought about how that could be another pairing up/theme from the book - athletics and multiculturalism. It would be interesting to compare Junior's experience to the football team in this book.

This book has a lot of possibilities as a stand alone, as well as with a plethora of options to pair it up with other books and to discuss the larger themes.

Just Released

I just went to Amazon to see if Gillian Summers had any new books out from the Faire Folk Saga and noticed that they just released book one in The Scions of Shadow Trilogy, Shadows of the Redwood. I look forward to reading it and seeing the continuation of Keelie's life. The cover is kind of creepy though!

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a title that has been rattling around in my head for a few years. I went to a Boys and Books conference with colleagues from my previous school, and this was a featured book. However, what always stuck out was a colleague sitting next to me saying that she saw the author Sherman Alexie speak, and she was not impressed. Without remembering her exact words, I know she said he was very crude. This was not necessarily the reason that I hadn't picked the book up since first hearing about it, but it definitely always popped into my head whenever I heard his name or the book mentioned. 


I was excited when I saw it was one of the required readings for my YA literature class because then I would have a reason to finally read it and decide for myself what I think. I was not that far in when I chuckled to myself and thought, I can see why he might be crude as a speaker. Yet, for me it was not an off-putting crude - it was hilarious. I was frequently laughing out loud and having to share excerpts with my teaching partner, my husband, and over the phone with my sister in Massachusetts. 


Set on a Washington reservation, Junior the main character makes the decision early on in the book to go to a school off the reservation, and he immediately receives a lot of flack for it. Yet, he sticks with his decision, knowing he has to go forward with his plan since everyone has already heard of his intention. Instead he ends up going through the year with a foot in both worlds. There was plenty of reflecting as he navigated through feelings and observations of lifestyles and relationships. 


Narrative mixed with illustrations made for an enjoyable read. It was fun to see how Junior was capturing the events of this significant and life-changing period in his life. Despite the huge percentage of humor, there were also some very deep and serious themes, which surprised me at first. There was a good balance between light and heavy. Just when I was on the verge of crying at certain scenes, a humorous one liner would be thrown in, serving as comic relief. 


When we go back to school in the fall, I look forward to book talking this to my 8th graders. I have a hunch that my students who enjoy the format of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books will devour this book. I love that there are so many layers leading to a wealth of of discussion prompts.


Before my next class meeting I need to do an alternate book report for the text. I am still thinking about what I will end up doing... As another side note, I had never made the connection until tonight that Alexie also wrote the Smoke Signals screen play. I watched it while I was in college at a special event, and noticing that he wrote it makes me want to view it again.