Mid Week Book Talk | 04

It's a little hard for me to choose which book to talk about this week. But I think we'll have to go with my most recent finish, Stand-Off by Andrew Smith.

This weekend is the WAR for Literacy conference in town and Smith is our keynote speaker this year. The WAR conference is designed to be a free conference for teens that explores Writing And Reading (WAR). There are sessions on favorite books, writing poetry, screenplays, using social media, etc. The last two years the keynote speakers were Chris Crutcher (Crazy Horse Electric Game) in 2016 and Ellen Hopkins (Crank) in 2017.

This year we have Andrew Smith, author of award winning Winger and its sequel, Stand-Off.

Stand-Off by Andrew Smith

Stand-Off follows Ryan Dean West, a 15 year old senior at Pine Mountain, during his final year of high school. After a junior year full of pain, frustration, love, and heartbreak, Ryan Dean struggles with anxiety and fear of what may come. Coach M moves him up to the stand-off position on their rugby team and makes him team captain, but that responsibility might prove to be too much for young, Ryan Dean. To top it all off, he is assigned to live on the Freshman floor of the dorm with a 12 year old! Even with all of these challenges, Ryan Dean still has his girlfriend, Annie Altman, by his side.

After reading Winger last year, I had high hopes for Stand-Off. I was hoping to read more about his anxiety and how he copes with it. I also wanted to read more about their rugby team and Ryan Dean's final year of high school. And I think that was the biggest let-down. The novel takes place over the course of a few short weeks at school. Smith only covers one of the rugby matches in the season, which leads me to believe that the book couldn't have covered more than the first six weeks of school, tops.

My Goodreads review was this:
A nice story about Ryan Dean and his time at Pine Mountain. I definitely preferred Winger, but Stand-off was a nice tribute to Ryan Dean growing up and dealing with his anxiety following Joey's death. Unfortunately, in all 401 pages, only the last 2 talk about the end of his senior year and what his future might hold. Stand-off was severely lacking in rugby stories, unlike Winger, and it almost made Ryan Dean seem more like a little kid than the first go-around.

All-in-all, read Winger and make sure to read Stand-Off because it wraps up Ryan Dean's story, a little too nicely.

Happy Wednesday!

*Post does contain affiliate links, which means I may be compensated from any purchases you make, but at no extra cost to you*

Mid Week Book Talks | 03

The last two book talks I've done have been about more YA pieces that I've been reading to stay "with it" when it comes to my students. The one for today (and probably the next one) will be geared a little more toward adult/advanced reading. **This is not to say teens shouldn't read the book. We've had teens who've loved them!**

This week's book is A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. (pronounced oo-vah)
*click on image to visit Amazon for purchasing options*

my goodreads review here

Overall:
I absolutely loved this book. It's one of those books that I wish I could experience again for the first time. 

The good:

Backman is fantastic about his character development. Ove reminds me of my grandpa. He wants everyone to think he's a grump, but in reality he's a softie who needs to take care of those around him.

The bad:
Nothing...I really loved this book.

The ugly:
I almost cried. And I'm not a crier...so there's that.

If you're looking for a feel-good book that also might make you cry, pick this up. It will make you want to pick up Backman's other books. Honest. Aaannnddd...I'll review another of his books here soon. They're just. that. good.

*contains affiliate links

Happy Wednesday!

 

Mid Week Book Talks | 02

I'm coming at you this week with another Book Talk. For whatever reason, I've been flying through books. A little background before I dive into this week's book.

In years prior, I've set goals for myself to read two books a month. 24 books. That's not unmanageable. Yeah, right. So, this year I set my goal even lower. 12 books. 1 per month. I expect my students to read at least 1 every six weeks, so 1 every four weeks should work.

And then book recommendations started flying my direction.
And then we started focusing on reading in class.
And then I remembered advice from my Education classes--MODEL READING.
And then I started reading while my students were reading.
And then I finished a book.
And then another.

And before I knew it, I was 12 books into the year and going strong.

So, here's a short book talk on book number 20.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling (with John Tiffany & Jack Thorne)

Written in a screenplay format, this story was an astoundingly quick read. I picked it up because I love the original series.

 

 photo from goodreads

buy book here 

While I'm a big HP fan, I was not a fan of the most recent installment. For nostalgia's sake, I loved seeing Harry, Hermione, and Ron back together after all this time. But, the story was greatly lacking. 

We see Albus on his first trip to Hogwarts and he becomes friends with Scorpius, the only son of Draco Malfoy. Albus gets sorted into Slytherin and from there the story derails for me.

Yes, there was the adventure and the mischief that a true HP installment should have. But where all of the other novels really dug into characters, development, their adventures, and lessons, this merely scratched the surface of Albus and Scorpius'  friendship and trials. It really fell flat.

I'm hopefully optimistic that had I watched the play instead of reading it, I would've been transported back to that magical world.

Even with that hope, I still only consider this a 2 or 3 star book as it was a huge letdown. 

What did you think? Yay? Nay? Or somewhere in between?

Happy Wednesday!

Mid Week Book Talks | 01

I think I'm going to start a new series. It won't be a weekly thing, but when it happens it's always going to be on a Wednesday. How's that for a refreshing idea? L to the O to the L.

Many of you probably already know this, but I teach English to rambunctious high schoolers. And what many of you probably don't know, is that this year is different for me because my class and curriculum heavily focus on literacy. While I know that technological literacy is important, it's not included in the literacy in my classroom.

We focus on reading books.

We focus on reading quotes.

We focus on reading.

 This year has been HUGE for reading growth for all of us, myself included. (more on that another time)

Instead of giving you the saga of a background, I'll be giving you a book talk similar to the book talks we have in class. The only difference? You have to read it instead of listening to it. Sorry, I'm not up for doing a vlog series...yet.

Stitches by David Small

I'm not a big fan of graphic novels, but this one stuck out to me.  It was the summary in conjunction with the cover that drew me in.

photo from Goodreads
Buy the book here

David is a young boy of a dad who is a radiologist who gives him "treatments" for his asthma issues and an angry mother. At age eleven it's discovered that he has a growth on his neck and he needs surgery to remove it. Following the second (surprise) surgery, David discovers that he is unable to talk; half of his vocal cords were removed in the surgery. 

David was a quiet boy before the surgery and afterward, he's silent.

The book leads up to the surgeries and illustrate the struggles he had with family and how he dealt with his anger afterward.

It's a darkly told version of a sad story. If you're looking for something out of your comfort zone and a quick read, this is a great one to try. Give yourself 2 hours and if nothing else, you'll have another book notch in your belt.

Let me know if you read it and what you think of it! I even give it 4 out of 5 stars!