Book Review: Newbery 2012 Honors Winner A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd

I finally got to read this book, which I had requested from the library about a month ago, but the copies were all booked up until now.  And I can definitely get behind the Newbery Committee for honoring this book.  It was the book that my son's Mock Newbery Book Club chose as their nominee for the Newbery Winner, and I could see that as well.  It really is an extraordinary book.

It is a very unique take on an unfortunately all-too-common problem.  The protagonist is a young adolescent boy whose single mother is dealing with some kind of illness (I assumed it was cancer).  A monster appears to him at night to tell him stories, in exchange for which the boy is to tell him the truth.  However, as the book proceeds, the whole monster thing remains mysterious.  Is it a dream?  Is it the boy's imagination?  Is it his fears made manifest?  Is it real?  It captures that great quality of confusion that you have right when you wake from an intense dream and can't remember where you are and aren't sure what is real and what isn't.

In the meantime, the boy must deal with the challenges of his daytime life.  Those include a father who has remarried and moved abroad with his new family, school bullies, a perceived betrayal by a friend, and handling the overly-solicitious pity of his teachers.  Ness' portrayal of a young teen in these circumstances is very authentic.

The stories that the monster tells are very thought provoking.  You think they are taking you one place, but you end up in another.  The whole thing is quite unpredictable, which I love in a book.  So as you go along, you are wondering, Is this monster the boy's worst nightmare, or could it be his salvation?

You'll have to answer that question for yourself when you read it.

The excellent text is accompanied by some wonderful illustrations by Jim Kay.  They are more evocative and atmospheric than explaining what is going on, which is perfect for the tone of the book.

All in all, this is just a wonderful read.  It deals with some tough subjects, so it may not be appropriate for sensitive readers at the younger age range of the Newbery book audience.  It is an emotional book, so be prepared for that.  It may be a tough journey, but it's worth it.

Summer Reading Lists for Middle Schoolers

Summer is a great time to catch up on some of that good literature that we just never seem to get around to during the regular academic year.  So here are some links to books recommended to middle school, mostly by some different school systems:

The Kinkaid School Middle School Summer Reading Lists 2011

Houston Area Independent Schools Library Network Recommended Reading Lists 2011

2011 Parkway Summer Reading List for Students Entering Grades 6-9

I'm sure that there are others, but here are some to get you started.

Even if we don't read any of these books, I like to get an idea of what different school are advising for their middle school students.  Another way I use these lists is to pick up suggestions of historical fiction for the time period we will be studying in the coming academic year (in our case, 20th century history).  I like to have my son read at least one historical fiction of the time period, and this is a good way to find one that some other educators have found to be appropriate.

Appreciate Your Local Libraries During National Library Week

I don't know about you, but especially as a homeschooler, I would be lost without my libraries.  One of the local librarians looked up my account last year, and found I had checked out more than 4,000 books in the past 10 years--that's more than one book a day for every day for a decade!  But that is just part of it.  My son participates in three different book clubs sponsored by the libraries.  We go to lots of talks, exhibits, and special programs put on by our libraries.  We use the library computers to check our email when we're out, or sometimes hang out there for a half hour or so when we have time to kill between activities.  And with BOTH of our local Borders closing (WAAAAA!), the library is becoming even more important as a place to hold our homeschooling and other community-based meetings.

So I don't want to let National Library Week (April 10-16) go by without letting our library system know how much we appreciate them.  Librarians are the cutting edge of the information age, and constantly need to update their skills to include new media sources.  Plus, like most government workers in these times of budget cutting, they are constantly being asked to serve more with few resources--less money, less staff, etc.

Today (April 12) is the day, National Library Workers Day, during National Library Week that is dedicated to recognize the people behind the books at our libraries.  The American Library Association has set up an easy way for you to show your appreciation for your local librarians.  They are creating a Galaxy of Stars--librarians who have been nominated by their local community for the outstanding service they provide.  All you have to do is to submit a short form online to recognize your favorite librarian(s).

So I urge everyone to take 5 minutes to create a special recognition for your library.  I was horrified to check the North Carolina listing to see that not one librarian in the entire state had been nominated!  So we've added our favorites (which isn't shown, because it is only updated once a week), and hope that you will join us.

My son and I also got up early this morning and baked a fresh batch of our specialty--vegan (but they taste like regular) coconut chocolate chip cookies.  He is now downstairs making a Thank You card for our local library while I write this post.  We're going to drop off the cookies and the card this morning before we head out for our day of activity--history coop, science coop, errands, etc.

It doesn't have to be today, but I hope everyone takes an opportunity this week to show their librarians some love!

My 2011 Newbery Award Winners

Last night my son's mock Newbery Book Club made their selections for what book they thought should win the 2011 Newbery Award.  I didn't want to influence his decision, so I've been keeping my opinions to myself.  However, since the actual awards will be announced Monday morning, I thought I would share my choices for this prestigious award for the best American book for middle school children published in 2010.

There are so many good books that it is hard to chose, but I finally came up with the following decision:

1.  Countdown by Deborah Wiles
This book gets my nod for the best book of the year because it does such a wonderful job of not only helping young readers experience a particular moment in American history (the Cuban Missile Crisis), but it explores a number of other societal issues (the aftermath of war, civil rights, individuality versus conformity) as well as the typical questions worrying the average middle schooler (Does he/she like me?  Is he/she really my best friend?  Can I fit in with the popular crowd?).  The characters are well drawn and interesting, the author does a great job of juggling and eventually tying together the multiple plot threads, and the conclusions of the different threads are satisfying and not predictable.  I also loved the pictures and quotes scattered through the book that also try to give the reader a better picture of life in the 1960's.  This book has stuck with me, and gets my vote for top book of the year.  (Click here to read my original review of the book.)

Then, in no particular order, my choices for Newbery Honor awards are:

• The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger (Click here to read my original review of the book)
• One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (Click here to read my original review of the book)
• The Cardturner by Louis Sachar (Click here to read my original review of the book)
• They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti  (Click here to read my original review of the book)

You can see the reasons I liked these books in my original reviews, so I won't repeat them here.  Most of these are on many of the short lists of Mock Newbery clubs and others who are trying to predict the Newbery winner.  The one that isn't usually mentioned is The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger.  I chose it over two other books that most people see as top Newbery contenders--Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine (see my review here) and  Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper (see my review here).  Both of those are also great books; Mockingbird won the National Book Club best children's book award for 2010, and Out of My Mind was the favorite of both of the two area library Mock Newbery clubs.  However, I felt Mockingbird was really a teen read, but is a superior book to Out of My Mind.  But Origami Yoda contains a similar message, but delivers it in a lighter, humorous, much more accessible way.  Especially if you are trying to reach boys who aren't great readers...I just don't see them picking up books about dealing with the grief of a school shooting or trying to get into the head of a girl with Asperger's or quadriplegia.  And the concept is so original and appealing--I mean, who doesn't like Yoda?  And who ever imagined a talking origami puppet?  I think middle school students can really appeal to the situation of the kids in the book, and even the casual reader will be drawn in by the style and humor and stick around to the end for a great lesson.  Origami Yoda isn't the lengthy, serious tome that apparently is generally preferred by the Newbery Committee, but I think it is a terrific little book and deserves some recognition.  The other thing that sticks out is that I seem to have a thing going with the 1960's, since three of my five books deal with that time period.

Other than Origami Yoda, my top picks and my son's don't overlap (OY was one of his top five, but you can see his top three by clicking here to see his blog post).  He had a tougher job than I did, because he read three times as many Newbery possibilities as I did.  I have to say that I am really proud of him, because he read 42 potential Newbery books in his 8 months in the Newbery Club (which works out to about 1 1/4 Newbery book every week).

Now we just have to wait until Monday, when the official winners will be announced.

A Literary Halloween

In our house, Halloween is all about the costume.  Ever since my son's first Halloween, when we bought him a little outfit from a local Indian store, made him a turban out of gauze stuck together with hot glue with a big fake jewel in the center, and put him in the baby backpack on the back of my husband, who was dressed in gray sweats and a spray-painted-grey Freddy Kruger mask (I think) with a gray tube hot-glued on to make the trunk of the elephant that was carrying our minature majaraja, we have always made a big deal out of our home-made costumes.

This year, my son picked a character from his favorite book from the summer reading program I described in a previous post.  First, I'll give you the passage that introduces his costume character:

He was the largest man Milo had ever seen, with a great stomach, large piercing eyes, a gray beard that reached to his waist, and a silver signet ring on the little finger of his left hand.  He also wore a small crown and a robe with the letters of the alphabet beautifully embroidered all over it.

That description comes from the classic 1961 book, The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster.  My son loves that book, because it has a lot of puns and turns of phrases, and reminds him a bit of another of his favorites, Alice in Wonderland (he went as The Mad Hatter several years ago before Johnny Depp made the Mad Hatter cool again).

The costume, as usual, took more time that I had expected, due in part to my son's exacting demands for accuracy (I, for example, just planned to write letters on his robe with a Sharpie, but that was rejected out of hand, since the text said the letters were EMBROIDERED).  But, in the end, I think it looked pretty good.

Here is the end result:

I hope everyone else's Halloween was as fun and as creative as ours was!

Book Club: Reading Children's Literature Through the Decades

This summer, I organized a summer book club for our homeschool group in honor of the 50th Anniversary of our local library.  The idea was that we would spend three weeks at a time reading children's books from each of the five decades that the library has been open--that is, three weeks on books from the 1960's, three on the 1970's, etc. up to the decade of 2000-the present.  We had meetings and also ran a private wiki where students could post their reviews or comments on the books they read.  When the three weeks were up, students nominated and voted for their favorite books in different categories, such as best picture book, best reading book, best series, etc.

For the culmination of the project, we had two tangible products.  First, we ran a book drive to get people to donate new children's books to the library (which, like most public institutions, has had some severe budget cuts in recent years).  Secondly, we created a banner where students drew their versions of the books voted in as the favorites in each decade that could hang in the library as part of the anniversary celebration.

We delivered the books and the banners to the library at the end of September.  Here is a picture of some of the readers, banner artists, and book donors as we prepared to turn our work over to the library staff:

Here is a close-up of some of the panels:

And here is the final project hanging over the circulation desk at the library:

Though it was a good bit of work, and none of us read half as many books as we intended to, those who participated all said this book club was so much fun!  It was really great to introduce our children to our favorite books from our childhood, and to have a reason to go back and read some of those great books from earlier times that we've never gotten around to reading.  Plus, it was very interesting to look into the trends in children books through the years and to notice the similarities within a single decade and the differences between the decades.  We're thinking of doing it again in a couple of years, just to get in some more of those great books that we never quite made it around to this past summer.

Anyway, I recommend it as a focus for a reading program.  Having a library to celebrate the years of great children's books is just the icing on the cake!