Mascot (Antony John)

 

There is so much in this story (see the tags!) Noah is devious and cynical, and rightly so, after being dealt the terrible blow of being a paraplegic after an accident  where his dad died. It's a great story on the physical and emotional work it takes to overcome a tragedy. The characters are very realistic and quite likable, even when they're being rotten teenagers. 

Our book club had a great discussion about mascots, how they originated and the symbolism of mascots. We also talked about the dilemma of cell phones and distracted driving. Lots to discuss in this book!

Goodreads says:

Noah Savino has been stuck in a wheelchair for months. He hates the way people treat him like he’s helpless now. He’s sick of going to physical therapy, where he isn’t making any progress. He’s tired of not having control over his own body. And he misses playing baseball—but not as much as he misses his dad, who died in the car accident that paralyzed Noah.

Noah is scared he’ll never feel like his old self again. He doesn’t want people to think of him as different for the rest of his life. With the help of family and friends, he’ll have to throw off the mask he’s been hiding behind and face the fears that have kept him on the sidelines if he ever wants to move forward.

Why Humans Build Up (Gregor Craigie)

 

This book is written by a Canadian author and a host of CBC in Victoria. The book starts off with a story of the Calgary Tower - a tower we can rarely find anything written about!  I love how it is organized: by all the reasons towers are built: security, spirituality, ingenuity, utility, rivalry, beauty, industry, observatories, luxury, efficiency, and sustainability. It is perfect for our structure unit. Very kid friendly!

(Introduced to us through the CPL summer reading online event June 2023)

Goodreads says:

Why did they build it so high?

People have been constructing tall buildings for thousands of years, for many different reasons. Castle walls kept people safe. Utility towers transmit TV and cell-phone signals. Observatories give people a bird’s-eye view of the world. Beautiful buildings stand out in the crowd. Skyscrapers provide housing for a lot of people. There are some good reasons for building up, and a few bad ones as well.

With a growing global population, we will need more and more space to live, learn and work in. But what does that mean for the health of the planet? Can we do it sustainably? Tall buildings may be part of the answer. From the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Leaning Tower of Pisa to the Burj Khalifa and the Shanghai Tower, Why Humans Build Up asks why and how we build higher and higher, and what that means for the planet.

How Do You Spell Unfair? (Carole Boston Weatherford)

 

This story will be a great one to accompany our study of the story of Jackie Robinson. It's always shocking to read about the racism of the past. May it always stay in the past!

Goodreads says:

Family Picture Book Read-Aloud Afternoon: A Nine-Book Pile!

An interesting tidbit from history of the first Black American to make it to the final round of the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. in 1936 despite segregation and blatant racism.

I'm grateful for the introduction to MacNolia Cox, but the prose is a bit too flat for a picture book, reading more like a book report than a story. I also found it odd that everyone in the book got full names except for MacNolia's mother and teacher: Alberta Key and Cornelia Greve, respectively. And I would have liked to know more about the other Black girl, Elizabeth Kenney, who was in the contest with MacNolia and fared quite well also.

Reader, Come Home (Maryanne Wolf)

The author seems to say that digital reading is kind of like fast food. 

She starts off with a chapter on how the brain learns to read....and it was tough for me to slog through that. Truthfully, most of it was tough to slog through. I read it out of principle....I can handle tough text! However, I found her to be very wordy. Long sentences. Obscure words. It really wasn't easy reading....does she do that to make her point? I don't know. I think she could have said what she said in half the words though. 

She says that we are losing our ability to read deeply, to ponder on great words and thoughts and to build on them. Social Media has done this to adults so what is it doing to children? She says that we are reading just as much as we ever did, maybe even more, but we are skimming and missing the meat. People are less empathetic. They're easily led down conspiracy theory holes. They aren't thinking. I'm not a huge fan of e-books myself - but I don't agree that by themselves, reading is doomed. She doesn't offer much for a solution, especially with children. I guess I'm going back to Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer and Beers and Probst's Notice and Note for those kinds of tips. 

Goodreads says:

The author of the acclaimed Proust and the Squid follows up with a lively, ambitious, and deeply informative book that considers the future of the reading brain and our capacity for critical thinking, empathy, and reflection as we become increasingly dependent on digital technologies.


A decade ago, Maryanne Wolf’s Proust and the Squid revealed what we know about how the brain learns to read and how reading changes the way we think and feel. Since then, the ways we process written language have changed dramatically with many concerned about both their own changes and that of children. New research on the reading brain chronicles these changes in the brains of children and adults as they learn to read while immersed in a digitally dominated medium.

Drawing deeply on this research, this book comprises a series of letters Wolf writes to us—her beloved readers—to describe her concerns and her hopes about what is happening to the reading brain as it unavoidably changes to adapt to digital mediums. Wolf raises difficult questions, including:


Will children learn to incorporate the full range of "deep reading" processes that are at the core of the expert reading brain?
Will the mix of a seemingly infinite set of distractions for children’s attention and their quick access to immediate, voluminous information alter their ability to think for themselves?
With information at their fingertips, will the next generation learn to build their own storehouse of knowledge, which could impede the ability to make analogies and draw inferences from what they know?
Will all these influences, in turn, change the formation in children and the use in adults of "slower" cognitive processes like critical thinking, personal reflection, imagination, and empathy that comprise deep reading and that influence both how we think and how we live our lives?
Will the chain of digital influences ultimately influence the use of the critical analytical and empathic capacities necessary for a democratic society?
How can we preserve deep reading processes in future iterations of the reading brain?
Who are the "good readers" of every epoch?
Concerns about attention span, critical reasoning, and over-reliance on technology are never just about children—Wolf herself has found that, though she is a reading expert, her ability to read deeply has been impacted as she has become, inevitably, increasingly dependent on screens.

Wolf draws on neuroscience, literature, education, technology, and philosophy and blends historical, literary, and scientific facts with down-to-earth examples and warm anecdotes to illuminate complex ideas that culminate in a proposal for a biliterate reading brain. Provocative and intriguing, Reader, Come Home is a roadmap that provides a cautionary but hopeful perspective on the impact of technology on our brains and our most essential intellectual capacities—and what this could mean for our future.

The Secret Pocket (Peggy Janicki)

 

The author is Dene, from BC.

My favorite part: Now, as a great-grandmother, I look back at the time and see what sweet little geniuses we were. In the full face of genocide and cruelty, we secured our families' path for generations to come. We sewed our survival into every stitch. We come from a strong line of artists and geniuses, so we stitch with easy skill. 

...We were geniuses. We are geniuses. We will always be geniuses.

Goodreads says:
 “Captures the sympathy of readers and holds their attention...An age-appropriate telling by an Indigenous creative team of a tragic historical period.”― School Library Journal , starred review The true story of how Indigenous girls at a residential school sewed secret pockets into their dresses to hide food and survive. Mary was four years old when she was first taken away to the Lejac Indian Residential School. It was far away from her home and family. Always hungry and cold, there was little comfort for young Mary. Speaking Dakelh was forbidden and the nuns and priest were always watching, ready to punish. Mary and the other girls had a genius drawing on the knowledge from their mothers, aunts and grandmothers who were all master sewers, the girls would sew hidden pockets in their clothes to hide food. They secretly gathered materials and sewed at nighttime, then used their pockets to hide apples, carrots and pieces of bread to share with the younger girls. Based on the author's mother's experience at residential school, The Secret Pocket is a story of survival and resilience in the face of genocide and cruelty. But it's also a celebration of quiet resistance to the injustice of residential schools and how the sewing skills passed down through generations of Indigenous women gave these girls a future, stitch by stitch.

The Lying Game (Ruth Ware)

 

I really enjoyed this book. I'm going to keep this author in mind for when I need a book to sink into and basically get lost in. 

Characters:
Isa (rhymes with nicer) Wilde
Freys (Isa's child)
Owen (Isa's husband)
Fatima Quereshy) - doctor
Ali and Nadia (Farima's children)
Samir (Fatima's husband)
Kate Atagon - sent the text "I need you" and everyone immediately came. Has a white German Shepherd named Shadow
Thea - works at a casino
Luc - Katie's step-brother, from France
Mark Wren - sargeant
Mary Wren (Mark's mother)
Teachers: Miss Rourke, Miss Farqueharson, Miss Weatherby, Ambrose Atagon (Kate's father and the art teacher)
Other students: Connie, Letitia, Helen

p. 17...the tally sheet Kate kept above her bed, covered with cryptic marks for her elaborate scoring system. This much for a new victim. That much for a complete belief. the extras awarded for elaborate detail or managing to rehook someone who had almost called your bluff. I haven't thought of it for so many years, but in a way, I've been playing it all this time 

P. 46 Lie to everyone else - yes. But to each other - never. 

Rule #1 Tell a lie

Rule #2 Stick to your story

Rule #3 Don't get caught

Rule #4 Never lie to each other

Rule #5 Know when to stop lying

Goodreads says:

From the instant New York Times bestselling author of blockbuster thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10 comes Ruth Ware’s chilling new novel.

On a cool June morning, a woman is walking her dog in the idyllic coastal village of Salten along a tidal estuary known as the Reach. Before she can stop him, the dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick, but to her horror, turns out to be something much more sinister...

The next morning, three women in and around London—Fatima, Thea, and Isabel—receive the text they had always hoped would NEVER come, from the fourth in their formerly inseparable clique, Kate, that says only, “I need you.”

The four girls were best friends at Salten, a second rate boarding school set near the cliffs of the English Channel. Each different in their own way, the four became inseparable and were notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies at every turn to both fellow boarders and faculty, with varying states of serious and flippant nature that were disturbing enough to ensure that everyone steered clear of them. The myriad and complicated rules of the game are strict: no lying to each other—ever. Bail on the lie when it becomes clear it is about to be found out. But their little game had consequences, and the girls were all expelled in their final year of school under mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the school’s eccentric art teacher, Ambrose (who also happens to be Kate’s father).