The Book of Negroes (Lawrence Hill)

This is one amazing book. I actually bought it as a discard a few years ago at the library, but never got around to reading it. Everyone I knew that had read it only had good things to say. This month, happily, it was the book for my adult book club.

It is the story of a woman named Aminata Diallo, a black woman torn from her family as an 11 year old and sold as a slave. Her story is unimaginable. Sometimes, while I was reading, I found myself all tensed up, like when I watch UFC with my husband. The things she went through are astounding. The author tells the story quite matter of factory. There is no long drawn out description of abuse, or loss, or more. It simply happens, Aminata tells how it was, and it just continues on. It is astounding the things that humans will do to one another. All through it all, all she can think of is freedom and she never loses sight of that her entire life.

Aminata's resilience is interesting. The way she is able to avoid rape, becomes favoured by her owners, and cheats death again and again is almost unbelievable.

All in all, it is a great read. The story is gripping and humbling. Definitely worth reading.

Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld

I love this book!!

Who would have ever thought punctuation could make such a great story?

The story is about an exclamation mark who does everything he can to fit in amongst the periods. He simply doesn't.

Then along comes a question mark....question after question after question, until the exclamation mark finally says, "Be quiet!"

The question mark is shocked and asks, "How did you do that?"

That is the beginning of self-discovery. Beautiful story!

What I'm Reading

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I'm deep into The Book of Negroes. It's a real time sucker and I have lots of other books I want to read over the break, but this one has me right now!

What I'm Reading

It's Monday! I'm having a bit of book fog.... not wanting to go on to another story after reading Silverwing...but I must. I need to get deep into The Book of Negroes this week!




Did you know the author had to change the title of this book when it was published in the US? Down there it is called something else (can't remember what it is right now!)











I'm still reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane to my class. I'm really enjoying reading it aloud to them. Such a great book! It's one where they beg for just one more chapter. Love it!

Silverwing by Kenneth Oppel

I broke one of my rules with this book. I never recommend a book to my Gr. 3 Book Club if I haven't read it. Silverwing has so many accolades I took a chance. The gamble paid off! This book really surprised me. It is about a bat. Who likes bats? They're not exactly fodder for a warm fuzzy story! Give me a dog, a pig, or a horse. A bat really seems odd. This story works though. It is great! The story is of a little bat named Shade. He is a bit of an underdog: runt of the litter and all. Not only that, he isn't like all the other bats. He questions and he wants to do things that everyone just accepts as not do-able. Most of all he wants to see the sun. Only there is a law that bats must be inside once dusk hits. He breaks the law and the owls seek revenge. They are intent on justice being served and they burn down the habitat all his colony lives in. The bats all end up having to migrate to a new habitat and along the way Shade gets lost and becomes separated from the colony. The book is his adventures returning to them. I was surprised at what a page turner it was. Every chapter was a good cliff hanger. I think I'm going to have to read the other books in the series over Spring Break!

What I'm Reading

It's Monday! I have borrowed the pic from TeachMentorTexts. The bloggers I follow are so faithful about writing what they're reading on Monday. it reminds me to post about that as well.

Here's what I'm reading this week:

I plan to finish up Silverwing, and perhaps start on Sunwing.


I also must get deeper into The Book of Negroes.


In class, we're reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. I love that book!



After reading Number the Stars recently, I found Beyond Courage and have started in on it. Such interesting stories:




Spring Break is only two weeks away and I have my book lists planned. So looking forward to it!

I noticed that Mr. Sharp includes the number of miles he has run. That is a great idea! I will do that with walking.

Goal this week: 30 km (six days)
So far this month: 21 km
2013: 113 km
Total: 529 km

George's Marvelous Medicine (Roald Dahl)

The love for Roald Dahl seems to not have any end in our classroom. Recently a student handed me George's Marvelous Medicine and said, "Mrs. Ackroyd, you need to read this to our class. It's so funny!"

So, read it, we did!

And it is funny. It is right up a kid's alley. The story is about George, a boy who has a cranky old Grandmother. She's always barking at him to get her medicine, get her some toast, and for heaven's sake, stop growing!

George, like kids love to do, decides to make a special potion. He uses stuff from the bathroom, stuff from the kitchen, stuff from the garage, and stuff from the barn!! Then he feeds it to his grandmother (well, after she insists he shouldn't be so selfish with whatever it is that he's cooking). What's a kid to do?!

The result is hilarious.

This book is a quick read, has lots of great pictures, and will provide loads of laughs.

 



New Author

This morning, in my classroom, I found this in our library corner. Apparently a new author has placed one of his new works amongst the books.

I love that!

What I'm Reading

It's report card season so, sadly, I'm not doing as much reading these days. And just to make it more painful, people are really in the mode of giving me books to read. These are the ones I received last week, along with a, "You've got to read this!"

I've got to get these report cards finished - and then I'm going to sit and read and read and read just to recuperate!

 

I am fitting a bit of reading in though. Our Grade 3 book club is reading Silverwing. I broke one of my rules and recommended the book without reading it first. It seemed pretty safe though - and as I have started into it, I'm hooked. Great book!

 



In class we are reading George's Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl. My class is crazy about Roald Dahl!



My adult book club is reading The Book of Negroes. I really need to get started on it if I'm going to finish it in March. It's a big one! I bought my copy from the shelf at the library for $1. It got rained on and is rather weathered. I love it even more because of that! I keep carrying it around but haven't started into it yet. This week I will!