Diary of a Wimpy Kid #3 is Here!

You asked for it and you got it - three copies of #3 of the Wimpy Kids books. However, here are three more of the new arrivals:

• Deep Down Popular by Phoebe Stone - Sixth grader Conrad Parker is popular; Jessie Ferguson isn't. Jessie has loved Conrad for as long as she can remember, just like all of the other girls. Conrad really hasn't paid any notice to Jessie until his leg is hurt and his popularity suffers. The two of them start spending time together, first for a school assignment, and then just because.
  
• Hate that Cat by Sharon Creech - Jack (from Love that Dog) continues writing poetry from what he is learning in school. Written in verse, this quick read will clearly explain alliteration, onomatopoeia, and hopefully push you to further explore the poetry of T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, or Nikki Grimes.
• Runner by Carl Deuker - This book is edgier than the two mentioned previously. Chance is a senior, his dad is an unemployed alcoholic, his mom is gone, and his home is an old sailboat. The job he has does not pay much and when the opportunity to substancially increase his pay is presented, he takes it. But, could there be something shady about running, picking up the hidden packages, and delivering them?
  

New Non-Fiction

Here are new nonfiction series available:

• Essential Science series - All About Gases; Keeping Warm; Light & Seeing; Solids & Liquids; Forces & Friction; Changing Sounds; Circuits & Conductors; Earth, Moon & Sun
• Fundamental Physics series - Light and Color; Solar System and Beyond; Sound and Vibration; Forces and Motion; Electricity and Magnetism; Energy and Matter
• Can you Feel the Force? Putting the Fizz back into Physics
  
• UXL Space Exploration Reference Library - includes almanac, biographies and primary sources
• Discovering Space series - Far Planets; Comets and Asteroids; Sun; Moon; Near Planets
• Earth and Space series - Space Objects; Jupiter; Neptune, and Other Outer Planets; Mercury, Mars, and Other Inner Planets; Beyond the Solar System; Earth and Its Moon
• Humans in Space series - Race into Space; Return to the Moon; Exploring Planet Mars; Flight into Orbit
• Issues that Concern You series - Student Drug Testing; Drunk Driving; Obesity; Gun Violence; Medical Marijuana
• Incarceration Issues series -Alternatives to Prison; History of Incarceration; Incarceration Around the World; Inequities of the Justice System; Political Prisoners; Prison Conditions; Prisoner Rehabilitation; Prisoners on Death Row; Social, Monetary and Moral Cost of Prisons; Women in Prisons; Youth in Prisons
• Black History series - Slave Rebellions; From Ragtime to Hip-Hop: A Century of Black American Music; Separate but Equal: Desegrgation of America’s Schools
• A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future by Daniel H. Pink
• Pay it Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
• The Football Game I’ll Never Forget: 100 NFL Stars’ Stories
• The Complete Book of Soccer and David Beckham’s Soccer Skills

Student Review

Here is Em W.'s thirty second Movie Maker production to promote The Book Thief.

Interesting Reads

Check out the NEW books on the library tables, both fiction and non-fiction. Here are three for you to consider:

• The Seance by Iain Lawrence (author of The Convicts, Cannibals, and Castaways, among others) This novel takes place in the Roaring Twenties, an interesting era. Scooter King’s mother conducts seances and he is her trusted assistant working behind the scenes to ensure that his mother’s contact with the spirit world is successful. Considering all of the fraud behind those that conduct seances, Harry Houdini is in town to expose the phonies. Harry Houdini will also be performing his magical act of escaping the Burmese Torture Tank. However, before Scooter even has the opportunity to see the act, he discovers a dead body in the water tank. No one is persumed innocent, no one is entirely honest, and Scooter needs to act quickly or he may be the next dead body.
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (author of Coraline) - OK, this one is strange, but oh so good. The story starts with the murder of a family - mother, father, daughter. The murderer is looking for the toddler son, except the son has wandered off to the graveyard. The spirits in the graveyard agree to take care of the boy and name him “Nobody”, with ghostly parents, Mr. and Mrs. Owens, and a guardian who belongs to neither the living or spirit world. This book is filled with exciting adventure, dangerous situations, and even fantastically humorous moments.

NEWS! The Graveyard Book has been awarded the Newbery Medal.

• Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve - This is the story of Camelot told by Gwyna, who is rescued by Myrddin (usually known as Merlin the Magician). Myrddin uses Gwyna’s excellent swimming skills to have her present to Arthur the sword from the Lady in the Lake. Myrddin then spins his tales about Arthur’s greatness to all. Gwyna is transformed into a boy warrior, Myrddin’s servant, and she is present as she witnesses what really occured in the time of Arthur. Intrigue. Murder. Deceit.

8th Grade Only - Law and Disorder Literature Circles

8th Grade Only - Stirring Up Justice Literature Circles

Some to Consider

If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period by Gennifer Choldenko (author of Al Capone Does My Shirts)

• Kristen in in 7th grade and everything she know is changing - drastically. Her parents aren’t getting along and Kristen and her friends aren’t getting along. When school starts friendships are terribly strained. A new student, Walk, is in 7th grade and his goal is to survive this private, very expensive school his mother has sent him to. Told in alternating chapters by Kristen and Walk, experience their frustrations with friends, family, race, weight, and school.

Life as We Knew It by Susan Pfeffer

• Miranda is a junior in high school and is given assignment after assignment focusing on the moon and the warnings that a meteor is heading directly toward it. After witnessing the collision of the meteor, life changes rapidly for the entire world. This book is her journal entries of how her family and she strive to survive in terrible times.
• This book inspires me to investigate meteors, the moon, survival, tsumanis, earthquakes, volcanoes, flu epidemics, West Nile Virus….need I say any more about “terrible times”?

Try the guys version - The Dead and The Gone - told from the point of view of a young man in New York City with an entirely different experience of the same catastrophic event.

Side Effects by Amy Goldman Koss

• Noticing a swollen lymph node one morning, Izzy tells her mom and goes off to school. She is called out of class to go to the doctor and her life changes in an few short hours. The doctor tells her she has cancer, she is sent to the hospital, and quickly admitted. Izzy tells her story of dealing with cancer treatment in an authentic voice filled with humor and pain.

Professional Resources

Teachers:

For your summer perusal, consider the following:

• For the Love Of Books: A Guide to Help Teachers Connect Middle Grade Readers with Literature by Jane Vossler.

Young adolescent novels are organized by theme complete with taching ideas. Themes include novels about family relations, survival, other cultures, and speaking out.

• The World’s Best Thin Books: What to Read When you Book Report is Due Tomorrow by Joni Richards Bodart.

This publication includes descriptions or over 90 titles less than 200 pages. Also included are inclusion of curricular areas and readablility indexes.

• Reading Reasons: Motivational Mini-Lessons for Middle and High School by Kelly Gallagher.

You can hear the complaints now, “Why should I read?” Use this book that contains forty mini-lessons to answer the real life applications of why they should read.

• Adolescents in the Search for Meaning: Tapping the Powerful Resource of Story by Mary L. Warner.

The books presents the results of “a survey of more than 1,400 teens” as well as thoughts from YA authors. Over 120 meanigful novels recommended by teens and authors arranged by chapters on such topics as real-life experiences, facing life and death, discrimination, allegory, and parables.

• Reading Doesn’t Matter Anymore: Shattering the Myths of Literacy by David Booth.

Twelve steps to assist both parents and teachers with helping children read all genres and formats. These new formats include the internet, graphic novels, and manuals.

• Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing, and Research in Grades 3-8 by Stephanie Harvey.

This book shows “how students can read expository text, engage in research, and write authentic nonfiction that is captivating, visual, and full of voice.” Projects described lead students through the proper research process that helps students become independent thinkers and creative problem solvers.

• Getting it Right: Fresh Approaches to Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Correctness by Michael W. Smith and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm.

Teaching grammar the old-fashioned way just doesn’t work. This book offers a new perspective on teaching grammar and usage.

• Eyewitness to the Past: Strategies for Teaching American History in Grade 5-12by Joan Brodsky Schur.

History comes alive for students when using primary documents to imagine the past. Included are interactive strategies to help students complete written and oral projects such as staging congressional hearings, scrapbooks, newspapers, or debates.

• Managing the Diverse Classroom: How to Build on Students’ Cultural Strengths by Carrie Rothstein-Fisch and Elise Trumbull.

A simple framework is presented to help teachers understand cultural differences of the classrooms. Strategies include communication with families, homework attendance, and assessment.

• Radical Reads: 101 YA Novels on the Edge by Joni Richards Bodart.

The books included in the guide are “engaging, tough, and well-written” with high interest to teens looking for those stories with which they can identify. Titles are arranged by alphabetical order and include subject areas, characters, major themes and ideas, strengths, and reviews.

• Bringing the Outside in: Visual Ways to Engage Reluctant Readers by Sara B. Kajder.

Using those skills students already possess outside of school - texting, blogging, gaming - guidance is offered on how to help kids connect their skills with electronic medium and the curriculum. Help your students redefine literate for today’s world.

Girlz Read!

Hello. Just to let you know of a few more new books we received this week of particular interest to girls -

• Babysitting Basics - whole series of books on how to be the best babysitter ever. You can learn how to have fun, earn some bucks, establish rules, and keep the kids safe while in your care.
• People in the News - of great interest - Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. Enough said.
• Edward Bloor’s Taken - the year is 2035 and kidnapping is a major industry. Children are taken from homes, cash settlements are made quickly with the kidnappers, and children are usually returned home. Charity knows what is expected of her in the event she is kidnapped - Do not panic. Do not try to escape. - except this kidnapping is different. Nothing occurs as it is supposed to and the hours are rapidly diminishing for her release. What do the kidnappers really want?
• Justina Chen Headley’s Girl Overboard - Syrah loves to snowboard and feels at peace on the mountain. It would seem that her life would be perfect as she is the daughter of a billionare and has all the material possessions anyone could ever want. Things just aren’t perfect since her half-siblings can’t stand her, her friendships are being ruined, and her boyfriend apparently is only interested in her because of her father. When Syrah is injured and needs to have rehab, she makes a new friend who helps her find and accept herself. After reading this, you might want to give back to the community or try something new.

GREAT WEBSITE - ReaderGirlz

http://www.readergirlz.com/issue.html

Here you will find suggestions of great books to read, a discussion blog, author chats, a “while you read playlist”, contests, ways and reasons to celebrate being a girl as well as ways to inspire other girls to read and contribute! This is an award winning site!

Jordan Sonnenblick's Books

Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie. Notes from the Midnight Driver. Zen and the Art of Faking It.

I am going to go out on a limb here and just say it: I love Jordan’s books — each and every one of them for basically the same reasons — the characters and the humor. I love Drums for Steven, Notes for crotchety old Sol, and Zen for completely unique San. Each story’s plot involves serious issues which could be overwhelming or depressing, but are neither since Jordan amuses while delivering the message.

Check out Jordan's website!

Some New Titles

Check out some new non-fiction books.

• Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail. (510 McK)
  • Love the title! Written by Danica McKellar of TV shows The Wonder Years and The West Wing, she is also a noted mathematician. So much so, that there is a “groundbreaking mathematical physics theorem” which even includes her name. Chapters include the following: “What Every Savvy Shopper Should Know” - decimals, “Does She Ever Get Off the Phone?” - ratios, and my personal favorite, “You Can Never Have Too Many Shoes” - lowest common multiple.
• What Color is Your Parachute? For Teens. (331.7 Bol)
  • This book might help you decide what you would like to do with your life. Unless you are independently wealthy, chances are you are going to have to work for a living. This is the book for you if you’d like to find out about yourself and the working world.
• Like a Pro: 101 Simple Way to Do Really Important Stuff. (646.7 Bec)
  • This is the book you can use to amaze your friends, astonish your teachers, and wow your family. This book includes advice on how to boost your brain power, make the perfect snowman, make recycled paper, and take fantastic photos among lots of other things.

Hello World!

Welcome to Kisses or Disses. On this blogsite you will find new books available in the library and summaries of books I’ve read that you may want to read. Please feel free to leave comments. Remember that your comments are on the school webpage too.

Students have asked me what my favorite book is. I guess my all time favorite book - just because I love the message, the art, and the memories associated with the book, is The Little Engine that Could. I love the message of perseverance and persistence.

I think for middle school students it is easiest to list authors. Don’t miss Lois Lowry, Laurie Halse Anderson, Sonya Sones, David Lubar, Robert Cormier, Gordon Korman, Chris Crutcher, Walter Dean Myers, Sarah Dessen, and Sharon Creech to name a few.

So, welcome to Kisses or Disses and continue reading because “A day without reading is like a day without sunshine.” (That’s my quote.)

Mrs. Arnold