STARFISH

Author Lisa Fipps posted on Twitter the other day a picture of a jar with slips of paper in it.  "Every time someone says something good about STARFISH, I print it off and place it in the jar," she tweeted.  Perhaps this blog post will warrant a print out? 

There are so many things I love about this book in spite of the fact that I had a really hard time reading the bits about Ellie's brother and her mom. But that's what makes the book good, right?  When I fall hard (or don't fall, in this case) for my characters I love it. So many strong feelings one way or the other. Just ask my friend, Alicia. Ellie's mom does everything to get her to lose weight from posting things on the fridge to wanting her, at 12, to get bariatric surgery. And her brother is one of her worst bullies.  It's not that they were unbelievable, just hard for my heart to believe, you know? But, enough about them--Who do I love? Ellie, of course. Her dad. Ahhh...Her old BFF and her new BFF. Yes, the old adage, "make new friends but keep the old" totally fit here, drama free and it worked. Her Doc got a big heart in my notes. I even like her sister, who is trying.

Speaking of hearts, I💜 Julie Murphy and KA Holt and I feel like if you "shipped" (do they still use that term these days?) those two together, you would get Lisa Fipps.  Her verse is so en pointe, like Holt's. And she's got all the fabulous feels of all the Murphy novels I love. Plus all three write in Texas. Period. End of sentence.

Back to mom...there are good mom memories. "I guess I cling to those moments/like a drowning girl to a life preserver/whenever Mom's words/gut me like a fish." Wow. I just wish Ellie didn't have to endure it for so long. Eventually, with the help of Doc she stands up for herself beginning with tossing the family scale. "Untrue, negative thought:/The higher my weight,/the lower my value./True, positive thought:/A scale does not/determine my worth." All I wanted to do was yell, "You got this, Ellie!"

I highlighted a lot more quotes from the book. Trust me they are good.  Take the time you would have read them here to preorder STARFISH now.  I say it's a strong Newbery 2022 contender. Now, the big question: Will my words leap into your jar, Lisa? 😉 🤞

 

BenBee and the Teacher Griefer

Dear Chronicle,

Please, PLEASE, PLZ, move the pub release date of BenBee and Teacher Griefer up to July or August. EVERY teacher, librarian, administrator, social worker, school psychologist, parent, and middle grade learner needs this book and it would be so great for them to read before the new school year begins.

Sigh.  It is so good.  I rarely walk away from reading the last line of a book to immediately opening up my computer to reflect.  And to be completely honest, on my way, I stopped at the trash can, tossed in my used tissues, grabbed another one and then opened up the computer.

Four divergent kids.
One divergent summer school teacher "She teaches differently/She like, listens to us."
Trying to get them to pass the FART (Florida Rigorous Academic Assessment Test)
Mixed up in the Sandbox in this fantastic
Divergent GENRE of
Verse, prose, graphic novel, video game chats of the "Divergent Dingleberries"
Sprinkled with some references that maybe only adults will get (Ms. J's first avatar will have you singing a popular song from the 80s. And author, "Tennessee Williamson").

Ms. J picks up that Ben B would excel if he was able to type:

"A 504, huh?/Typing every day?/It does sound like jeans/it sounds like a comfortable fit/sized perfectly just for me."

But his dad disagrees and does not like labeling his son "special" with accommodations:

"Am I not special?/Is special bad?/Do I not want to be/special then./I don't understand." 

I told you--this book is for EVERYONE!

Ben Y stays after with Ms. J. It's been a year since she lost her brother:

"Pain/Sadness/It drips out of me/impossible to contain,/like trying to put a raw egg/back in its shell,/a shattered mess,/impossibly crushed,/broken."

I have been a fan of KA Holt since Rhyme Schemer.  She just gets better and better. Put this book on your Fall purchase order, unless dear, Chronicle, moves up the pub date 😉.

Everyone's friend, Jordan J (no relation) who I was most curious about because at the #middlegrademagic2020 event last month when Holt wondered, "What is Jordan doing during quarantine?" Now I'm curious.  Is he playing a lot of Sandbox? How are they all doing?  Talking on the phone? Staying away from chat infractions?

Javier moved from out of state and will not read aloud. "...im never gonna read out loud zero percent chance of that" With a ring of fire, that just might change...

And probably one of the best lines in the book:

I know I have jumped around a lot, but this book is important for ALL.  I cannot wait to read it with my students and get it in the hands of so many adults.

Please, plz, PLEASE Chronicle, if you can, the sooner we can get this out, the better.
THANK YOU!
Sincerely,
A troublemaking librarian 😈

 

PS: Thank you Netgalley for the digital arc!

 

 

REBOUND

It's what we've all been waiting for! The prequel to The Crossover! Some spoiler alerts--Beware (especially, if you haven't read The Crossover)! No matter what, you will want to get your hands on this book ASAP--Comes out April 2!

To prep for the REBOUND ride:

Turn up your Michael Jackson (PYT, Man in the Mirror), LL Cool J, Miles Davis, Luther Vandross and of course, Horace Silver on your record player,
Search your local convenient store for a pack of Now and Laters (it wasn't too hard),
Grab yourself some KFC (or better yet, Grandma's fried chicken),
Slip into your Jordache,
Lace up your skates,
Indulge in a winning Krispy Kreme (and chocolate milk if your stomach can handle it),
Take a sip of sweet tea or grape soda,
Practice your free throws,
Root for the Washington Bullets (they don't exist anymore but pretend you are when you cheer for the Wizards)
And put aside a good few hours to read this champion of a book.

Jordan and Josh Bell of The Crossover fame are back but this time as their ancestors.  Yessir. We find out who each one was named after (Jordan, his great uncle and Josh, his grandfather) and even some other relations who I will opt not to mention at this time.  The visual learner in me had to sketch a family tree so I could get the whole Bell family straight.

Here is the story of Charlie "Chuck" Bell, Josh and JB's dad, as he is coming of age in 1988. Before.  Before basketball was his life. Before marriage. Before kids. Before it all.

March 9, 1988 Charlie's dad dies and he cannot shake the grief.  He had yet to learn to "own the sadness...[and not] let it own [him]." That summer, Mom decides to send him to stay with his grandparents in D.C. (pair this with Jason Reynolds's As Brave As You). At first this seems like an awful idea but when his basketball star cousin, Roxie, pulls him into a game, he hardly turns back. Basketball becomes his thing again. Then just as life is looking up, his game is on, he's gotta go back home.  With an ending that had my mascara running as I pulled tissue after tissue from the box, and had the need to get "all hugged up" REBOUND is a high ranking winner on the hardwood.

P.S. It's hard to believe that Kwame's still got game. I'm not sure how he does it with everything else going on but lucky for all of us and our students, he scored another one with REBOUND.  Book birthday is April 2. We are on vacation then so will be celebrating in Castleton a week later with all the aforementioned foods, basketball decorations and more.

PPS. There are even some comics in it, too!

PPSS. Oh, how I LOVE the orange cover!  You know there's a REBOUND bus, right?

The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary School

Today was book group number three of my summer five.  I don't know how the next two can top this one.  Pinch me!  We met at the Castleton Public Library and skyped with Laura Shovan, the author! How lucky were we that she was actually available at the exact moment we were meeting and not only that, had a significant amount of time to spend with us.  Thank you! What a treat for my small but powerful group of fourth, fifth and sixth graders (plus a mom and a seventh grade sister!).

Writing our Skype questions

As soon as I started reading this book I was reminded of another fifth grade year long memoir, Rob Buyea's Because of Mr. Terupt.  Like Mr. Terupt, this book's narrators are all of the students in the class.  But unlike Terupt, all their voices are in verse.  More and more books are being written in verse these days and you know what? That's awesome!  Just in the past week I've read two--this one and Free Verse by Sarah Dooley--and I love it.  Let's get everyone hooked on poetry!  Isn't that so, Kwame?

 

With a backdrop of folk songs, the 18 diverse kids in Ms. Hill's fifth grade class wonder if there are "some things worth holding onto."  Unfortunately, their school isn't one of them.  Come June these kids will say goodbye to the walls that held their memories where they were taught how to read, write and do arithmetic to say hello to a shopping mall.  Yes, that hurts.  But it will not come without a fight with a side order of every form of poetry you can imagine.

It's summer and we were at the public library so we talked to Laura via the iPad mini.
It was mini, alright! Can you spy Laura?

Today when we got together to talk about the book, we started out by sharing what we were looking forward to in the coming school year.  The fourth graders are excited about having "three teachers" and "doing science with Mr. C" and one of the fifth graders said that he is looking forward to "a big field trip" at the end of the year.

Thank you, Laura!

We also discussed our favorite characters.  "I like Rennie because she is saving the school for her sister" said a fourth grader with a younger sister.  Another girl likes Sydney "because she likes sports and I like sports." Other favorite characters were Mark, Edgar and Katie.  I don't know who my favorite is--so many of them have qualities and characteristics that I admire and love.  Is it Rachel because she has Jewpanese roots like my own children?  Or Tyler because he is from Texas and you know how much I love Texas.  Or Newt because he grows from writing haikus to way more.  Or Jason because I grew from thinking he was kind of "meh" to really liking him in the end and I loved his concrete self portrait poem. Or? Or? Or? I could go on and on about all 18 of them.

We also got out sticky notes and followed Jason's instructions on how to make a Mr. Stick Guy flip book (p. 76).  That was fun!

I asked the kids to give me a one sentence review and here is what they came up with:

"I liked the poems" [YES!]

"I like the book because it had a realistic ending."

"I liked the poem, 'Time Capsule Rap'."

"I liked the book because the class was very different." That says a lot because our classes are NOT very different in Castleton.  I'm glad I can expose my students to different cultures and people through literature.

Along the same lines, "I like it because it had Spanish."

And of course, the simple, "It was funny." "It was interesting."  Well, it is summer, after all, and I'm just happy they read and chose to spend an hour with me on a beautiful August afternoon to talk about a book! Lucky me!

Check out Laura in Zack's hands!

House Arrest by K.A. Holt

Do you know my crazy, magical story about Karianne Holt and how I discovered her writing?  It was about a year ago when I was chatting with Kwame Alexander through my test Skype a day or two before our Skype with my students.  Kwame and I chatted for over five minutes and during that time he recommended I read Holt's Rhyme Schemer.  I remember scribbling it down on some random piece of scrap paper on my desk.  Hours later I reserved a copy from the public library.  But I didn't have to read the library copy.  Mysteriously in the mail only a few days later came a copy of the book!  To this day, I have no idea how it came to me, if it was coincidence or purpose. Whatever it was, I have been a KA Holt fan since.

Then I was lucky enough to get a copy of House Arrest , a novel in verse, and am thankful I took this past holiday to enjoy every morsel of it.  I finished it while we were driving home from Vermont yesterday and was glad the tissue box was nearby.

I just wanted to hug (even though he wouldn't want me to) Timothy every minute of the book.  I wanted Mom to get a break and have a moment to herself and of course, I just wanted to Levi to be able to breathe easily, say "Brother", sing and dance.

After Timothy steals a wallet so he can buy his baby brother, Levi, his expensive medicine, he is caught and gets put on "house arrest" for a year.  During this year his probation officer, James, and his psychologist, Mrs. B, require him to write in a journal.  House Arrest is his journal.  Written in verse, you want to make sure you not only have tissues by your side, but a chunk of hours because you won't want to be interrupted in your time together with Timothy.

If you are anything like me, you will cheer for Timothy as he opens up to James, expresses his feelings to Mrs. B, starts crushing on his best friend's sister, perseveres in writing to a doctor in Ohio, and gets closer and closer to the end of his house arrest.  The last few weeks just got my heart racing so fast (it's still racing thinking about it) and my eyes welled up.  As much as I want to talk about the ending, I won't because you should enjoy this gem of a book on your own with no spoilers from me. Then, once you do, please get in touch with me so we can talk about it together.