Masterminds by Gordon Korman

Imagine, for the first thirteen years of your life you’ve lived in the small town of Serenity, New Mexico.  The town has been voted #1 for Quality of Life for fourteen years in a row.  Honesty and integrity are the highest values in town. There are only a total of thirty kids in town. Everyone learns the usual subjects in school, as well courses like Contentment and Mediation.  The main sport is water polo. Homes are spacious and have swimming pools. The town has no crime, no unemployment; all parents have good jobs with many working in the only industry in town, the plastics factory.  Sounds like a perfect life?  Maybe. At least that’s what Eli, Amber, Tori, Hector and Malik used to think. Then Eli tries to bike outside the city limits and becomes terribly sick.  His best friend mysterious leaves town.  But worst of all, the adults in town start acting weird.  Even his own father seems to be hiding something.  Eli fears the worst, could his father actually be lying to him?

Masterminds in the first novel in a new series by author Gordon Korman.  It has all the elements of a blockbuster novel for middle grade readers!  The town of Serenity at first seems like a utopian society, something along the lines of the town in The Giver.  But Masterminds takes place in the present, not the future.  So while at times the genre may seem like science fiction, it has an eerie quality of possibly being realistic fiction. Could this story actually happen?  Do scientists have all the technology they need?  The questions the story poses will make for some interesting conversations.

The story quickly becomes so shocking and unexpected that readers will find it difficult to put the book down. This will be a must read series for many, including me!

A Handful of Stars by Cynthia Lord

Lily has her hands full this summer, helping her grandparents run the family store and taking care of her beloved dog Lucky who is slowly becoming more and more blind.  But Lily has a plan.  There’s an operation that just might save Lucky’s sight, the only problem is it costs a lot of money.  Lily, with the help of Pépère (her grandfather), is painting and selling bee houses to help raise the money.  Lily has plenty of time to work on the bee houses since her best friend Hannah has become boy crazy. Then one day Lucky gets loose and runs through the nearby blueberry fields.  It’s here that Lily meets Salma, a migrant worker in town with her family to help with the blueberry harvest. Lily has seen migrant workers before at the store, but has never known one personally.  Could the girls become friends?  Or are their differences too great?

I’ve read many books by Cynthia Lord including both Rules and Half a Chance.  While I enjoyed both those books, this is my favorite!  Lily and Salma are engaging characters. I liked how both girls helped each other, but also how the character of Hannah (the “boy crazy” best friend) evolved in the story.  I learned a lot about blueberries and the blueberry business in Maine, something I knew little about before reading this book.  Now when I see blueberries in the store, I have a new appreciation for where they came from and how they got to the store.  I also connected to the story of Lucky the dog.  I have always had pets and I understand how they become a part of the family.  I felt Lily’s desperation to help Lucky and enjoyed the final solution!

Rediscovering Favorites....

Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man  

by Wendelin Van Draanen

Every summer I usually get so caught up with discovering and reading new middle grade fiction in preparation for September’s Mock Newbery Club launch, that I have little time to read anything else.  This summer I’m trying to be different.  Sure, I’m still reading every wonderful new book I can get my hands on, but since my recent foray into the Series of Unfortunate Events novels, I’m taking another look at some of the “golden oldies” that I may have missed out on when I as busty raising my own three boys.  As I wrote about earlier, I remember my children being excited every time a new Series of Unfortunate Events book was released. But I never had a chance to read any of the books, there were not too many free moments between taking care of the boys, going back to school, studying, and working various part time jobs.  Reading anything for fun was a luxury.  What I did make time for was reading out loud to the boys.  This is something I will forever be grateful that I did, as I do believe it helped to foster their love of reading and helped them to become the successful young men they are today.

The Sammy Keyes series is another group of books that I remember seeing in the library when the boys were little.  I think one or more of the boys may have even read a few of the books.  I’m embarrassed now to admit that another reason I may not have picked up the books back then was because of the covers. I don’t like scary books (can’t sleep at night if I read them), so seeing skeletons and mummies on the front cover of a book just might have scared me off.  Happily, I rediscovered Sammy Keyes about a year ago when I was searching for engaging mysteries for the sixth graders I teach. After reading the first book in the series, Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief, I immediately fell under Sammy’s spell.

Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man is the second book in the series.  While you do not need to have read the first book to read this one, the main characters are all there with a few interesting additions such as the Bush Man, Skeleton Man and a new friend for Sammy, Dot.  It doesn’t take long for Sammy to become embroiled in another mystery when she and her friends discover that the neighborhood recluse has been robbed on Halloween.  After calling the police for help, Officer Borsch warned Sammy to “stay out of it”, but in true Sammy-style she just can’t help getting involved. Meanwhile, Sammy’s nemesis, Heather, has a whole new devious plan to take down Sammy and make her the laughingstock of the school.  Heather just might get away with it if Sammy can’t prove to others what Heather’s up to.

Dear Hank Williams by Kimberly Willis Holt

     WARNING:  Do not start reading this book and think you can predict the ending. I guarantee you will be wrong!  When I first began reading this book I thought, “Oh, what a cute story.  I like the letter-writing format.”  I felt pretty confident I knew the “happy” ending part, after all, I’ve read a lot of books, right?  I was totally unprepared for what happened.  I am not ashamed to admit I did not see it coming and I did go back and reread most of the book to see if I missed anything. This is one of those books that will grab your heart and not let go.  It delivers a powerful message: Life includes both beginnings and endings, but through it all, it’s family and friends that see us through.

I did not want to say good-bye to Tate, Aunt Patty Cake, Uncle Jolly and Frog.  They'll be with me for a long, long time.

       Three features drew me to this book from the start. First, as a newly published (2015) middle grade fiction novel, it may be a contender for the Newbery Award.  Therefore it’s a book that we’ll be including in our Mock Newbery Book Club this fall.  Second, the genre is historical fiction.   I like historical fiction because it usually shares some new side of history that the author has discovered during her research.  Historical fiction helps make history fascinating and attainable for so many readers.  Finally, I was intrigued by the format of this book.  The entire book is written as a series of letters from a young girl, Tate P. Ellerbee, to a newly rising country singer, Hank Williams.  Through Tate’s letters we learn about her life in the small town Rippling Creek, Louisiana in 1948.  We learn not only about Tate and her family, but also about the people of the town and events that threaten to devastate, yet may bring people closer in the end.

The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket

The Baudelaire orphans have finally begun to feel the first glimmers of hope (and dare I say happiness?) since their parents’ untimely death in that horrible fire.  Mr. Poe has taken them to live with their Uncle Monty, known to others as Dr. Montgomery, an esteemed scientist.  Uncle Monty studies and collects reptiles, especially snakes.  He even has a special room in house, The Reptile Room, in which he cares for all of his “pets”.

Despite being extremely busy with his research and planning an excursion to Peru, Uncle Monty welcomes the orphans with open arms and quickly makes them feel at home.  The orphans join Uncle Monty in preparing for the trip to Peru, each with their own special jobs to do:  Violet designing snake traps, Klaus reading up on Peru, and Sunny is busy biting a rope into shorter lengths. Uncle Monty also begins to teach the children all about the reptiles and snakes that are more like his family than the deadly animals others see them as.  Life seems to be settling into a nice, comfortable routine for the Baudelaire orphans that is until Uncle Monty’s new assistant Stefano arrives.  He seems strangely familiar to the orphans….

The Reptile Room is the second book in A Series of Unfortunate Events.  As with volume one, the action is fast paced and the book difficult to put down.  I continue to be hooked on the series and look forward to more adventures with the Baudelaires this summer!

My Letter to Lemony Snicket...

June 11, 2015

Dear Mr. Lemony Snicket,

I regret to inform you that I recently had the misfortune of reading The Bad Beginning.  In fact, to compound this misery, seventy-six of my sixth grade students joined me in this extreme streak of bad luck.  For the past two weeks we have been distressing daily over the injustices suffered by the Baudelaire orphans.  Many of us have lost sleep in order to learn if the children survived yet another round of evil.  As distressing as the loss of their parents was, reading about the horrendous Count Olaf was almost more than we could bear. Personally I found myself regularly urging the children to run, run as fast as they could to find the police.  I am sure many people thought I had lost my marbles if they observed me yelling at the book.  I did not have the heart to explain my agony and spoil their day by sharing the misery of the Baudelaire orphans.

 I am also curious if there may be more to Mr. Poe than meets the eye.  His miserable cough does have the effect of making one feel sorry for him.  However, I fear that Mr. Poe is hiding a mysterious past. Is it possible his cough is actually a nervous reaction that occurs only when he fears other are close to discovering his secret?  It does seem as if the great misfortune affecting the Baudelaire orphans is the complete lack of stable, reliable adults in their lives, starting with the loss of their parents. (And I am not at all convinced their parents are dead.  I fear Count Olaf may be holding them prisoner on a remote and dreary island. Maybe someone needs to investigate further?)

Unfortunately, tomorrow is our last day of school.  I feel I must share with you the sad news that many of my students, myself included, will continue to read about the Baudelaire orphans over the summer. While that is certainly a gloomy way to spend one’s summer, we feel we need to continue on this journey with the orphans.  We will regularly be venturing into our public libraries in order to search for the rest of the volumes detailing the sad misfortunes of the orphans.

Sadly,

An Unfortunate Reader

The Spy Catchers of Maple Hill by Megan Frazer Blakemore

So often when I think of historical fiction I think of the Civil War, World War II, and the Great Depression.  And while historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, I am always on the lookout for books that highlight lesser-known, yet equally fascinating time periods of the past. The Spy Catchers of Maple Hill by Megan Frazer Blakemore does just that. The novel captures the Cold War between the United States and Russia, which fueled the “McCarthy Era”, a time between the late 1940s and early 1950s when Senator Joe McCarthy made it his mission to hunt down “spies” based largely on unsubstantial rumors and innuendo.  Unfortunately these investigations spread fear and distrust, turning neighbor against neighbor, leaving many to wonder what they could believe in and whom they could trust.

“Hazel Kaplansky, star student, holder of knowledge, solver of mysteries, and future double agent” lives in the quaint town of Maple Hill, Vermont in 1953.  It’s a quiet little town, but Hazel is determined to keep her family safe in case of an enemy attack.  She starts by preparing a fallout shelter (in the cemetery her family runs), and then discovers “evidence” that leads her to believe spies have infiltrated her small town.  When she reads that McCarthy investigators have arrived to interview workers at the factory in her town, she is even more convinced.  But whom can she trust to help her?  Her best friend recently moved.  The new boy in town, Samuel Butler, might be a possibility, but he has some serious secrets of his own.

Hazel learns important lessons, both through her investigations, the spy investigations at the plant, and her friendship with Samuel:

“Sometimes we want to believe in something so badly, we see what we want to see instead of what’s there.  Then again, maybe if we believe in something enough, maybe it is real.”

And while these lessons may have opened her eyes to new realities, it is clear that Hazel will continue on, solving mysteries in Maple Hill and beyond.

Mayse share her views on Rules by Cynthia Lord

Now it's Jordan's turn to interview Mayse about Rules!

Mock Newbery Book Chat by Maddy and Ella

Ella interviews Maddy about:

Gabriel Finley and the Raven's Riddle by George Hagen

Ella and Brooklyn's Book Chat

Ella and Brooklyn chat about Trading Faces by Julia DeVillers and Jennifer Roy.

Kesha and Ella's Book Chat: Once Upon a Curse

Ella interview's Kesha about her book, Once Upon a Curse by E.D. Baker.

Mock Newbery Book Chat: Nightingale's Nest

Ella and Savanna have a very entertaining book chat for Nightingale's Nest by Nikki Loftin!

Haleigh + Maggie Book Chat: The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket

Mr. Wayne's Masterpiece by Patricia Polacco

Mr. Wayne’s Masterpiece by Patricia Polacco speaks to the hearts of so many students that love to read and write but have an absolute fear of speaking in front of people, even their peers.  Presented in picture book format, in true Polacco style, this book is the inspiring story of how the author herself conquered her fear of public speaking and discovered her own true voice.  Many readers, both young and old, will relate to the fear the main character feels as she attempts to take on the lead role in her school’s play.  The advice that her teacher, Mr. Wayne, offers her helps her to find the courage within herself to continue on. He reminds her to unlock her knees, forget the audience and…

Relax.  Move around the stage……. Patricia let the play take you.

Such simple directions, but directions that can help so many conquer their fears and find their own true voices!

This is a book that I will be adding to my cache of mentor texts.  It’s the perfect book to share with students as they prepare to present in class.  Many students will connect with Patricia in the story.  The advice of Mr. Wayne will resonate for them as they gain the courage to conquer their own fear of public speaking.

Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald

Theodora Tenpenny is only thirteen years old, but since the untimely death of her grandfather she now has the responsibility of running the household, taking care of the chickens, tending the garden, dealing with an unruly neighbor, and taking care of her reclusive mother.  All this on a budget of less than $400, which is dwindling fast.  Theo has no idea what she’s going to do to save her family, that is until a freak accident reveals a hidden treasure.  Could it be a lost masterpiece?  Is this the “treasure” that her grandfather spoke of to her with his last dying breath?  Theo sets off on a mission to find out; only what she eventfully uncovers is so much more than she could have ever imagined.

This book started out as a mystery. What exactly is the treasure that Theo found?  Is it worth anything?  Can Theo use it to help save her home and family?  But then the story takes incredible twists and turns. All of a sudden I found myself plunged into the world of art history, World War II, the tragedy of the holocaust, and the fight for survival.  I wanted to write more in my review, but I do not want to ruin the suspense for those who read the book, and this is definitely a book that needs to be read!  I know I’ve written this before, but the sign of a good book is one that the reader feels compelled to discuss afterwards.  Under the Egg is just such a book.  Not only is this a book that begs to be discussed, but also readers, including myself, will not soon forget this story.