Number the Stars (Lois Lowry)

This book has reminded me how glad I am that I blog. I came across some posts from when I had previously read this book. I have actually read this book a few times. I read it first in 2008. I had forgotten that Jill wrote to Lois Lowry and even got a reply! What a great lady Lois Lowry is.

This time around I've read it a couple times. I read it through once just simply reading. Then I read it again to make questions for each chapter for my students. I still need to do it one more time to get a good list of vocabulary words. The re-reading has caused me to have an even greater appreciation for this great book.

We are discussing the book in book club next week. I will add more to this post then!

Re-read January 10, 2017
This book is a great read for reminding yourself of the greatness of people in difficult times.

My Think-A-Ma-Jink

Great story for those hard to please kids that are all too often bored. Imagination!

Goodreads says:

It’s Jack’s sixth birthday, and he’s bored. Bored! Model airplanes, stuffed dinosaurs, not even a talking robot can free him of his festering funk. Then, a mysterious box arrives. Within is a think-a-ma-jink, a bizarre contraption that bends the very laws of time and space, with which no idea is too fantastic to be realized. A wild new universe of possibilities beckons. Cotton-candy-breathing dragons! Caramel rivers! Space-traveling hot-air balloons! But as he and his sister Marie engage in a boisterous, shape-shifting struggle, the future of the think-a-ma-jink hangs in the balance. Is Jack doomed to boredom . . . or is he on the verge of an amazing discovery?

IMWAYR

I got Number the Stars on audio book. Well worth re-reading!


Need to finish Shiloh for Grade 3 book club this month.




The Better Than Before group I'm on on Facebook is giving Finish by John Acuff. I thought I'd give it a try.




My book club is reading Once We Were Brothers this month. The meeting is next week so I'd better get at it!

Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling)

So this is where all those tales came from that I have heard. I remember hearing many of these stories, but they were lost to me. So glad to have found them again. The words are beautiful - poetic and magical. I found myself wanting to write down phrases and lines from the book. I loved that it is a man and his daughter in many of the stories.

I especially liked one person's review on Goodreads:

...my personal favorite was about Elephant's Child. Sometimes 'satiable curiosity doesn't kill you; it gets you a very practical appendage with which you can spank your bossy Relatives and hove them into a wasp's nest. And let's face it, O Best Beloved, we've all had that impulse.

Goodreads says:

Twelve stories about animals, insects, and other subjects include How the Camel Got His Hump. The Butterfly That Stamped, and How the Alphabet Was Made..

Stone Fox (John Reynolds Gardiner)

A few ELL students I have known have read this book as a novel study. I can see why. It's pretty short so it's a quick read but the story is great. It would make a great read-aloud. The story is similar to Iron Will. Willy saves Grandpa's farm, and Searchlight gives his life. Heartbreaking story!

Goodreads says:

John Reynolds Gardiner's classic action-packed adventure story about a thrilling dogsled race has captivated readers for more than thirty years.

Based on a Rocky Mountain legend, Stone Fox tells the story of Little Willy, who lives with his grandfather in Wyoming. When Grandfather falls ill, he is no longer able to work the farm, which is in danger of foreclosure. Little Willy is determined to win the National Dogsled Race—the prize money would save the farm and his grandfather. But he isn't the only one who desperately wants to win. Willy and his brave dog Searchlight must face off against experienced racers, including a Native American man named Stone Fox, who has never lost a race.

Exciting and heartwarming, this novel has sold millions of copies and was named a New York Times Outstanding Children's Book.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Frank Baum)

I recently saw a stage production of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I had wanted to read the book ahead of time so that I could see the differences between the original story and the stage production. Although I didn't find the book in time, I'm still glad I read it.

A lot of the book is pretty much the same as the stage production, until you get to the end. The end of the book goes on much longer after Lion and Tinman and Scarecrow receive what they're seeking. The wizard gives them a much bigger run around in the book and there seems to be a lot more violence, which is often the irony in fairy tales written for children - except for that lady who wanted to take Toto. I don't remember her in the book at all. The other thing is in the book it wasn't a dream, like the movie or the play...thank goodness! I think that is a pansy way of making sense of a story. I liked that about the book! Also, Dorothy wears silver shoes in the book, not red. There seem to be a lot more witches in the book. I couldn't keep them straight. Every point on the compass has a witch, it seems. I also couldn't keep track of all the places in Oz in the book. Mifkets? Merryland? The Land of Ev? They were also things I couldn't really keep in my head.

I'm glad I read the book.

Good reads says:

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.‘“Come along, Toto,” she said. “We will go to the Emerald City and ask the Great Oz how to get back to Kansas again.”’Swept away from her home in Kansas by a tornado, Dorothy and her dog Toto find themselves stranded in the fantastical Land of Oz. As instructed by the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins, Dorothy sets off on the yellow brick road to try and find her way to the Emerald City and the Wizard of Oz, who can help her get home.With her companions the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, Dorothy experiences an adventure full of friendship, magic and danger. A much-loved children’s classic, The Wizard of Oz continues to delight readers young and old with its enchanting tale of witches, flying monkeys and silver shoes.

Eggs (Jerry Spinelli)

The first Jerry Spinelli book I read was StarGirl. I've been a fan ever since. Well, truthfully, I wasn't a fan of Loser. And....actually, that's all I've read until Eggs. But I loved StarGirl so much as well as Eggs, that I will say I'm a big fan.

If you've ever lost someone you felt like you just couldn't live without, or if you've ever felt like you just didn't fit in your family, or if you've said, "If I just do X then Y will happen", or if you've ever had a quirky friendship, or if you've ever loved someone who you just have to watch them work through issues, or if you've ever felt like you just didn't get what you needed from your family, then you'll get this book. The theme that is big in Roald Dahl books of missing adults exists here, but it is handled way differently.

“Of course, all of their words for a thousand years could not fill the hole left by his mother, but they could raise a loving fence around it so he didn't keep falling in.”

David and Primrose meet during an Easter Egg hunt. I thought that was an odd reason to call the book Eggs because nothing much happened with eggs after that. Maybe they were actually eggs - sensitive yet also very tough?

There were a lot of things all through the story that I questioned, and then soon found the answers to. Like, why does David think it's so important to keep all the rules? Where did Primrose's father go? What is with the waving man? Is there any symbolism to the little turtle David carries around?


Here are some answers I have:
1. His mother died after falling on a slippery spot where no one had warned anyone. He figures if they had kept the rules he wouldn't have lost his mother and if he just keeps all the rules now maybe he'll get her back.
2. The picture Primrose carries actually isn't her father. It's Clark Gable. We find out later that she knows it isn't her father - but for some reason she continues to carry the picture and tell people he is her father. Does she think wishing it was so will make it be?
3. The waving man? I don't know. The only thing I can guess is that he waves at people because they wave back at him (is that why Primrose carries the picture of the man who isn't her father?)
5. The turtle...stick your head out?? I don't know.


Goodreads says:

Nine-year-old David has recently lost his mother to a freak accident, his salesman father is constantly on the road, and he is letting his anger out on his grandmother. Sarcastic and bossy 13-year-old Primrose lives with her childlike, fortuneteller mother, and a framed picture is the only evidence of the father she never knew. Despite their differences, David and Primrose forge a tight yet tumultuous friendship, eventually helping each other deal with what is missing in their lives. This powerful, quirky novel about two very complicated, damaged children has much to say about friendship, loss, and recovery.