Ada's Violin (Susan Hood)

 

This would be a great story to read during our Hearing and Sound unit when we make instruments. It is about children in Uruguay, but it would be interesting to read when we learn about the children in Peru that live in ghettos as well. It's a great perspective on great things that can be accomplished even though people live in difficult situations. The info at the back talks about some of the challenges they've had to being able to share their music (people who live in slums don't even always have ID papers that allow them to travel). Amazing story!

The video below is super inspiring too!

Goodreads says:

From award-winning author Susan Hood and illustrator Sally Wern Comport comes the extraordinary true tale of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay, an orchestra made up of children playing instruments built from recycled trash.

Ada Ríos grew up in Cateura, a small town in Paraguay built on a landfill. She dreamed of playing the violin, but with little money for anything but the bare essentials, it was never an option...until a music teacher named Favio Chávez arrived. He wanted to give the children of Cateura something special, so he made them instruments out of materials found in the trash. It was a crazy idea, but one that would leave Ada—and her town—forever changed. Now, the Recycled Orchestra plays venues around the world, spreading their message of hope and innovation.

Keeping the City Going (Brian Floca)

 

This is going to be a great book to read this year with my class. Brian Floca always creates beauty and he did it again with this book. I loved his references to the people cheering for front line workers every evening (I had forgot!) and how it felt as we all looked out and saw just a few people while we stayed inside. He even mentions the toilet paper issues (not that there were issues....only with people thinking there'd be issues and buying it all up!) I will never forget going to the grocery store and seeing row upon row of empty shelves. It was bizarre and kind of scary if I thought about it for too long. 

Goodreads says:

Brian Floca gives a thank you to the essential workers who keep their cities going during COVID-19 quarantine.

We are here at home now, watching the world through our windows. Outside we see the city we know, but not as we’ve seen it before. The once hustling and bustling streets are empty. Well, almost empty. Around the city there are still people, some, out and about. These are the people keeping us safe. Keeping us healthy. Keeping our mail and our food delivered. Keeping our grocery stores stocked. Keeping the whole city going.

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands (Chris Bohjalian)

 I didn't love this and as a result, didn't finish it. While I was interested in the dystopian type story with the nuclear disaster, I really felt gross about her stories of being homeless. I didn't feel good reading this book and that's not what I'm really looking for in a book. 

However, this was a book club pick and I did appreciate the discussion and am glad for book club because it forces me to read things I would not otherwise. I felt like they made some good points that I could consider to face these types of stories....namely empathy. 

The title of the book was a very powerful image. It came from the school shooting in CT. I found a fantastic article that spoke of this:

Adults hid themselves and the children in closets, in cupboards, under desks, behind file cabinets. When it was over, police had to lead the surviving children past the carnage that was their now lifeless classmates and teachers. They told the children, “Close your eyes. Hold hands” as they ushered them to safety.

That’s a powerful image.

Goodreads says:

A heartbreaking, wildly inventive, and moving novel narrated by a teenage runaway, from the best-selling author of Midwives and The Sandcastle Girls.

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is the story of Emily Shepard, a homeless teen living in an igloo made of ice and trash bags filled with frozen leaves. Half a year earlier, a nuclear plant in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom had experienced a cataclysmic meltdown, and both of Emily's parents were killed. Devastatingly, her father was in charge of the plant, and the meltdown may have been his fault. Was he drunk when it happened? Thousands of people are forced to flee their homes in the Kingdom; rivers and forests are destroyed; and Emily feels certain that, as the daughter of the most hated man in America, she is in danger. So instead of following the social workers and her classmates after the meltdown, Emily takes off on her own for Burlington, where she survives by stealing, sleeping on the floor of a drug dealer's apartment, and inventing a new identity for herself - an identity inspired by her favorite poet, Emily Dickinson. When Emily befriends a young homeless boy named Cameron, she protects him with a ferocity she didn't know she had. But she still can't outrun her past, can't escape her grief, can't hide forever - and so she comes up with the only plan that she can.

A story of loss, adventure, and the search for friendship in the wake of catastrophe, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is one of Chris Bohjalian's finest novels to date - breathtaking, wise, and utterly transporting.

Rescue (Jennifer Nielsen)

 

I've read most of Jennifer Nielsen's books as they have come out and have really enjoyed them. I didn't love this one as much. It was too much like a "Catch Me If You Can" movie. There were spies during the war and crazy things did happen - I just couldn't get to the point of feeling like this one was authentic. The fact that Meg was only 12 years old and was able to fool so many people, crack codes, use explosives, cause avalanches, know the terrain to Switzerland....it was just too much.

May2025: We read this book for grade 3 book club this month. Students really loved it. We played a Quizlet Live game and they really knew their stuff! One student said, "I just have one question that my mom and Siri both didn't know the answer to....what is a holocaust?" I wondered if her mom really didn't know. She is someone who is new to Canada so maybe in the country they came from they don't know about the Jewish Holocaust? Or maybe her mom just didn't want to get into it. This book does a great job of telling the story of WWII without getting into the awfulness of the Holocaust.

Goodreads says: 

From New York Times bestselling author Jennifer A. Nielsen comes a thrilling World War II story of espionage and intrigue, as one girl races to save her father and aid the French resistance.

Six hundred and fifty-seven days ago, Meg Kenyon's father left their home in France to fight for the Allies in World War II, and that was the last time Meg saw him. Recently, she heard he was being held prisoner by the Nazis, a terrible sentence from which Meg fears he'll never return. All she has left of him are the codes he placed in a jar for her to decipher, an affectionate game the two of them shared. But the codes are running low, and soon there'll be nothing left of Papa for Meg to hold on to at all.

Suddenly, an impossible chance to save her father falls into Meg's lap. After following a trail of blood in the snow, Meggie finds an injured British spy hiding in her grandmother's barn. Captain Stewart tells her that a family of German refugees must be guided across Nazi-occupied France to neutral Spain, whereupon one of them has promised to free Meg's father. Captain Stewart was meant to take that family on their journey, but too injured to complete the task himself, he offers it to Meg, along with a final code from Papa to help complete the mission -- perhaps the most important, and most difficult, riddle she's received yet.

As the Nazis flood Meg's village in fierce pursuit, she accepts the duty and begins the trek across France. Leading strangers through treacherous territory, Meg faces danger and uncertainty at every turn, all the while struggling to crack her father's code. The message, as she unravels it, reveals secrets costly enough to risk the mission and even her own life. Can Meg solve the puzzle, rescue the family, and save her father?

No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness (Michelle Segar)

 

This is a great book! Years ago I decided to start a walking streak after reading a number of books on aging. I realized how important daily exercise is and the key for me to doing it every day was to quit trying to exercise to lose weight. That changed everything. My best attempts at being active daily have been when I figured out a way to walk to work.

This book is a keeper....one to review again and again. It could be used for all sorts of goals, to be honest!

Goodreads syas:

We start out with the best intentions. We're going to exercise more and get in shape! Then five days a week at the gym turns into two... then becomes none. We hit the snooze button and skip the morning run.

We really do want to be healthy and fit, but we're over whelmed and overextended—and exercise feels like another chore to complete. Is it any wonder we don't stick with it? Behavior expert Michelle Segar has devoted her career to the science of motivation. In No Sweat, she reveals that while "better health" or "weight loss" sound like strong incentives, human beings are hardwired to choose immediate gratification over delayed benefits. In other words, we're not going to exercise unless it makes us happy right now.

So what's the solution? To achieve lasting fitness, we have to change our minds—before we can change our bodies. In No Sweat, Segar shows us how. Translating twenty years of research on exercise and motivation into a simple four-point program,she helps readers broaden their definition of exercise, find pleasure in physical activity, and discover realistic ways to fit it into their lives. Activities we enjoy, we repeat--making this evidence-based system more sustainable in the long run than a regimen of intense workouts. Even if we don't sweat, we really benefit.

The success of the clients Segar has coached testifies to the power of her program. Their stories punctuate the book, entertaining and emboldening readers to break the cycle of exercise failure once and for all. Complete with worksheets, tips, and techniques, getting in shape has never been so easy—or so much fun.

The King of Jam Sandwiches (Eric Walters)

 

This is a great story! I love stories of people who figure out how to not just survive, but succeed in life despite everything being against them. The author (who is Canadian!) says this was a very personal story and that he also grew up in poverty. I was left wondering how much of it was directly from his life and how much he made up and who is the girl?! Is she a real person? It sounds like she is, from the afterward.

In some ways, we're all the underdog and this story inspires me to think I can do anything! 

I recently heard it won a 2021 Govenor General's Award for Young People's Literature.

Goodreads says:

★ "Tug at the heartstrings and tickle the funny bone...This warm tale is definitely one for the keeper shelves. Highly recommended."--School Library Journal, starred review

Thirteen-year-old Robbie leads a double life. It's just Robbie and his dad, but no one knows that his dad isn't like most parents. Sometimes he wakes Robbie up in the middle of the night to talk about dying. Sometimes he just leaves without telling Robbie where he's going. Once when Robbie was younger, he was gone for more than a week. Robbie was terrified of being left alone but even more scared of telling anyone in case he was put into foster care. No one can know. Until one day when Robbie has to show the tough new girl, Harmony, around school. Their first meeting ends horribly and she punches Robbie in the face. But eventually they come to realize that they have a lot more in common than they thought. Can Robbie's new friend be trusted to keep his secret?   

Hey, Little Ant (Phillip and Hannah Hoose)

 

Whenever we do our animal life cycles unit, kids are grossed out by insects. My goal always is to get them to realize that insects are really cool! This book will fit perfectly in our unit. The best page is the one where you turn the book and the ant is looking WAAAAY up at the boy.

Goodreads says:

What would you do if the ant you were about to step on looked up and started talking? Would you stop and listen? What if your friends saw you hesitate? That’s what happens in this funny, thought-provoking book. Originally a song by a father-daughter team, this conversation between two creatures, large and small, is bound to inspire important discussions. It might even answer that classic childhood question: To squish or not to squish?