Reel Reading for Real Readers: Summer Lovin' Book Picks

 Reel Reading for Real Readers will be taking it's own summer vacation over at threeteacherstalk.com, but we'll keep the summer reading fun rolling here :-).

And speaking of summer fun...I am in the mood for all things summer:  sun, road trips, extended lazy-afternoon book reading sessions, and a little romance :-).  One book in particular has done this for me:  Gayle Forman's Just One Day.

A breathtaking journey toward self-discovery and true love, from the author of If I Stay
When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.
Just One Day is the first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willem’s story—Just One Year—is coming soon! (Goodreads.com)

When I truly love a book, I put off the inevitable end.  True to form, I am holding steady in a landing pattern fifty pages until the end, stealing myself to end my journey Forman's latest teenage Odyssey.

And if you are looking for a summer romance series to lose yourself in, check out Jenny Han's The Summer I Turned Pretty and it's trilogy.

It's Monday! What are you reading? 4/29/13

Join the "It's Monday! What are you reading?" meme hosted by threeteacherstalk.com!  Share your reading to-do list and pick up some great recommendations from other readers.









Here's my (shamefully overdue) reading report for the week:

Books I've read:

Two stellar YA picks: Ask the Passengers by A.S. King and

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys mesmerized me.  Both, stories of young women seeking to break out of "the chains" that their community, their family, an society as a whole places on them.  What I loved about reading these two back-to-back is how relevant their message was.  One set in 1920s New Orleans and the other in contemporary, rural Pennsylvania--both are remarkable stories of young women striving to come into their own selves.  

Couple of my favorite moments:

“I am equal to a baby and to a hundred year old lady. I am equal to an airline pilot and a car mechanic. I am equal to you. You are equal to me. It's that universal.

Except that it's not.” 

“Sometimes we set off down a road thinkin' we're goin' one place and we end up another. But that's okay. The important thing is to start.” 

And on my quest to re-vision, re-design, and renovate my school library, the following two titles provide me with some excellent thinking material regarding the role of the 21st century school library: 

Books I'm reading:

This is hard for me.  The Yellow Birds is your quintessential war-novel. Following the friendship of two  privates catapulted into the height of the Iraqi conflict, the narration and characterization of this novel leave nothing to the imagination when it comes to the gruesome realities of war, including how de-humanizing it is for those in the middle.  I can only stomach about 20 pages at a time, but I feel like I need to understand more about war and this generation's experience in particular.  

Books to read:

Here's the biggest one for this next week....The Great Gatsby! 

Sure, I've read it countless times as a student and teacher, but it's been at least a decade since I read it for pleasure, and I am pleased as punch about next week's opening!

Here's the recent tv-spot for your viewing and auditory pleasure to help get you in the Gatsby-mood. 

It's Monday! What are you reading? 4/8/13

Join the weekly reading report meme hosted over at www.teachmentortexts.com!

Catching up today for the last couple of missed Mondays. 

Before I start my reading report, I wan to talk for a minute about reading slumps.  It's spring.  (Teachers and school librarians silently nodding their heads in agreement).  Anything and everything in the curriculum that hasn't been reached is now being funneled into studetns' brains, including research.  Students are resisting at all costs said information that is now streaming at a furious rate into their minds, which are most definitely more focused on prom, summer, and each other. 

That being said, I seem to experience a slump this time of year in my reading life.  There is more (pressing)work to do at school than hours and manpower available to do it, and family life is super-charged with nice weather for outings and holidays.  Donalyn Miller bared her reading soul this weekend over at Nerdy Book Club.   She shares, "I know that I will fall back in love with reading again. We are just taking a break. I have wandered into the reading doldrums before and I always find my way through them." 

Donalyn shares some wonderful advice in her post on working your way out of the "reading doldrums."  And, I'm going to take some of her advice this week.

Books I Read:

Looking back over these titles, I'm realizing that although there are only a few, they were all great in their own right.  I devoured Drama one morning sitting at the circulation desk.  My poor students patiently waited in line while I sped through the last half, dying to see how the young budding romances played out.  This book is pre-cious!  Love and Other Perishable Items continued my love affair with Australian YA authors.  The narrators were so honest and achingly real.  Kudos to Laura Buzo on this one!  And finally, When You Were Here.  I think I have a reading hangover with this work.  Check out last week's review. You know when you read a book that you love so much that you are afraid to read something else because you know you'll be disappointed that you don't love it as much as the last one?  That's me right now. 

So, I'm going to take Donalyn's advice to 1) re-read some favorites and 2) try something I normally wouldn't pick up.

Books to Read:

Some old favorites...

Hmm....I'm sensing a theme here.  It's been a long time since I've relived Gemma Doyle's adventures, and I could use a little Kartik time.  How GREAT!  I've felt a little sorrowful that the English III teams are diving into Gatsby, and I'm left out. Plus, I'm planning a HUGE Gatsby event leading up to the movie release, so I must find my inspiration. . 

Something I wouldn't ordinarily pick up....
I need some help here.  What should I read that might surprise me?  Nonfiction is notoriously my gap.  Also, boy books.  I struggle to keep up with my boy readers outside of realistic fiction.

Reel Reading for Real Readers: October Mourning

Visit Three Teachers Talk for more book trailers for teens every Thursday and join in the meme!

It's April and the display ideas, special events and activities, and poetry slams are blowing up the school library blogosphere.  We love National Poetry Month.





Today's book trailer features a novel told through verse, October Mourning, that relates the events of October 6th, 1998 when gay teenager, Mathew Shephard, was lured from a bar, savagely beaten, tied to a fence post, and left to die.  Leslea Newman employs multiple points of view and verse to create a poignant homage and raise awareness of the tragedy.

Sometimes, poetry is the only means to express what our hearts are feeling.  Sometimes, poetry can turn the darkest, ugliest, most tragic moments into opportunities for personal and spiritual growth.

Book Review: When You Were Here by Daisy Whitney

"When someone you love has died, there is a certain grace period during which you can get away with murder.  Not literal murder, but pretty much anything else."

I've never lost someone close to me to cancer.  Most of my loved ones who have passed have been from the older generation (great aunts, grandparents, etc.).  In this respect, I count myself very lucky.

The aching reality is that so many of our teens are living with cancer, living with a parent who has cancer, or living with the loss of someone close to them to cancer.  In 2012, John Green's The Fault in Our Stars beautifully portrays two teens whose friendship-turned-romance strives to overcome the daily battle of cancer remission and regression.  Augustus and Hazel bring lighthearted quip and literary banter into a very serious and sad scenario:  two teens living with cancer and falling in love.

But, this review isn't about The Fault in Our Stars.  Daisy Whitney (The Mockingbirds) has crafted her own lovely story of Danny, a California teen who has lost his dad to a tragic accident and his mother to cancer.  This is not just another "cancer book." 

 When You Were Here (Little Brown, June 2013) is a travelogue that takes its reader on a physical journey to Japan where we become part of Danny's emotional and spiritual journey of healing.

The book came to me after Whitney posted on her Facebook wall that she had ARCs of her soon-to-be-released new novel.  It arrived a few weeks later with a hand-written note from Daisy and an address for an Enlish teacher in Oregon who I was to send the book on to when I was finished. 

When we first meet Danny, he is a surly, destructive, impulsive teenager immediately following his high school graduation where he gave the (shocking) valedictorian address.  He slams into cars parked on his street, destroys rare hand-crafted guitars, throws raucous parties, and closes himself to those who try to reach out to him.  Holland, Danny's ex-girlfriend who dumped him several months earlier while away at college, enters the scene with a gentle understanding, lingering patiently in the background, taking his verbal blows in stride and re-appearing just as Danny seems to be about ready to let her go.

Danny's journey begins when a letter arrives from Japan offering condolences and seeking guidance in removing and disposing of Danny's mother's medications from their Tokyo apartment. A seed is planted, and he embarks on aquest to unravel the mystery of his mother's rapid decline and confront the man who was her last hope and healer.

I thoroughly enjoyed how Tokyo and its diverse neighborhoods and occupants portrayed the dynamic intersection of Western high-tech influences (i.e., robot-manned ice cream stands) and ancient Eastern philosophy and spiritualism (a temple made famous for its healing tea).  Quirky Kana embodies this with her Harajuku-style and Buddhist spiritualism.  Kana becomes Dana's spiritual guide and companion.

This story is about death and love, true, but for me it is about the intersection of the two--healing.  How do we heal the rift in our hearts, souls, and minds when we lose a loved one either to death or parting?  How can two people help to facilitate that healing process when loss can become a major barrier between them?

I'm having a hard time letting go of Danny.  Since I finished it, there have been several moments each day when I want to reach for When You Were Here to pass it on to a colleague or student who I know needs it.  Those are the special books; the ones that will always be in circulation; the ones students come back and whisper to me how much it meant to them--and this one will definitely secure a place on that list.

Reel Reading for Real Readers: The New Demon Hunter on the Block

It's Thursday, which means it's time for some YA movie trailers!  Jump on over to Three Teachers Talk for more exciting book trailers!

Fans of the Alex Van Helsing series by Jason Henderson and Chronicles of Vladimir Tod by Heather Brewer can really sink their teeth into Chronicles of Nick by Sherrilyn Kenyon. 

At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. . .until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.

But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he's next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn't hard enough. . .now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that? (Goodreads.com)

 

Tech Tuesday RETURNS: Writing the Web One Image at a Time

As we continue to make the evolution from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, I am astounded by the number of excellent creativity tools available for learners.  Web 2.0, which ushered the era of content-creation, social media, and production (Google, YouTube, etc.) , following the dot-com crash in 2001, brought with it tremendous tools for learning.  Now we're beginning to see the impact Web 3.0, which empowers users to re-create, mix, transform, and produce new forms of information (Mozilla, Tagxedo, etc.).

Students now have the ability not to just be consumers of the web, but to be producers.  There are numerous sites and applications that invite students to collect web parts, information, graphics, and media and mix them together to create a new interpretation of that topic or idea (Glogster, Videolicious, etc.)

Today I'd like to share a site that is rather new to me but that is simple to use and grasp for students and teachers:  Thinglink.com

A Thinglink is a visual representation of a topic that embeds pictures, graphics, sound, text, and links.  A creator chooses an image as the background and then can link in web content, providing a digitally engaging and unique experience. 

It's quick and easy to register and create an account with the opportunity to link your Facebook or Twitter account for set up.  Then, you begin by importing a picture from your hardrive, choosing from your Facebook albums, browsing Flickr's public photo gallery, or providing a web address for photo.

You are able to share your creation through Google+, Edmodo, Facebook, Twitter, and many other social platforms or by the link, like here (Thinglink for the book Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein).

Thinglink is also available as a gadget for blog services.  Check out the gadget on my blog on the upper-left hand corner!