The Wrong Way Home (Kate O'Shaughnessy)

 

It's so weird how themes show up in my reading. I got this book out of the library at the beginning of summer. I think it was because it was a Newberry Honor Award winner. I didn't read it right away, let it auto-renew. The last book I read was Cultish - and then I picked this one up....about a young girl who has escaped from a cult. 

I thought it was well written. I loved the metaphors: They go to a place called the Lighthouse Motel - a lighthouse, a place that helps guide ships away from the dangerous shore. She's being guided along but doesn't necessarily buy into her mom's decisions - instead, wants to return to the cult. The whole story is a race between her figuring out how to get in touch with the cult leader to try to return and realizing the truth of the situation. 

She does come to a slow realization of important things she has missed out on while being away from society for six years. She is really behind in school, doesn't know some of the foundational concepts that are regularly talked about, doesn't know about modern medicine, has never been around anyone different than herself (her mom's godmother is gay and has lost her wife and the librarian she meets in gender neutral). Some of the reviews I read were upset that there were gay and gender neutral characters in the book. I thought the author did a pretty good job of including some of the things she would have never been exposed to. 

I really enjoyed this read. I think it would be more appropriate for middle school. Cults are a big topic for anyone younger. I think it would be interesting to see what kids think of the mother not being totally upfront with her daughter about all the issues around why they left.

Notes:

p. 11: Standard cult leader talk (discipline then love bomb): You have so much potential, Fern. Do you know that? It's deep inside, but it's there. You walk through the world so small, shoulders rounded, eyes down. That's why I was hard on your before. With your sweater. Because you're like me. I can see it. Inside you're strong. Destined for greatness. You have a quiet strength, a quiet power. We just need to break the shell. 

p. 82 Just like most kids, Fern isn't fazed at all that Birdie and Babs are a gay couple: She and her wife, Birdie, were my godparents." Mom pauses for a moment. "Well, are my godparents. At least Babs still is. Birdie passed away a while ago."

"Oh," I say. I try to take in all this new information. "What's a godparent?"

p. 193 Fern is confused by the librarian's appearance:
But now that I'm standing closer, I'm not actually sure if Wren is a she or a he. I mean to ask for some book suggestions, but instead a different question slips out.

"Sorry, are you a girl or a boy?"

The librarian - Wren - raises an eyebrow. The left one. The one with two silver hoops threaded through it. "And how, pray tell, is that any of your business?"

The librarian is angry. Or annoyed. It must have been a rude question. On the Ranch, there are more women than men, and all the women keep their hair long and the men grow out their beards, so it's easy to tell everyone apart, even when they wear the same kind of clothes. That's the way Dr. Ben likes it. The rules are so different out here.
"I'm sorry. I'm ignorant," I say, using Havana's word. "It means I don't know a lot of things."
The librarian's face softens. "Hey, it's okay. Neither do a lot of people."
And then Wren goes on to explain they go by "they", not "he" or "she". That is a gender-neutral pronoun because they identify as gender-fluid. "There are two boxes society tries to put you in when it comes to gender, and I don't fit in either one. A lot of people don't."
I'm surprised we haven't heard more about this on the Ranch. Dr. Ben is always telling us we should write our own rules, especially when it comes to thinks society tells us.
"I didn't know you could do that," I say. "It makes a lot of sense. Thank you for explaining it to me."
That seems to be the right thing to say, because now Wren is grinning at me. "It's funny. Kids seem to grasp this concept a lot faster than adults....."

Later in the book Birdie and Wren are mentioned again to say that they're dating.

p. 220 Metaphor of home:  Fern and Eddie are trying to prove that the ghost, The Spirit of the Sea, doesn't exist. One night they see it though.  Fern is quite convinced by what she sees that maybe the ghost IS real, however, Eddie, who has more experience in the world, rejects that this could be real. She hypothesizes that it is someone playing a trick:

Looking with my naked eye from down here, on the beach, all I can see if that bobbing, wavering light. It flickers in and out. I imagine hundreds of years of sailors, lost at sea. I think of Birdie. And I like the idea that there will always be someone - a ghost of someone = beckoning them home no matter how far they've drifted.

p. 223 I know Eddie and I are trying to prove the opposite- that the Spirit of the Sea is a big fake, an imposter.

But I'm exactly like those people the article is talking about. All I want is to find my way back to the people I love.

I wish there was a light for me in the darkness. Held up by someone who wanted to help me. A light to guide me home.

Goodreads says:

Twelve-year-old Fern believes she's living a noble life--but what if everything she's been told is a lie?

Fern’s lived at the Ranch, an off-the-grid, sustainable community in upstate New York, since she was six. The work is hard, but Fern admires the Ranch's leader, Dr. Ben. So when Fern’s mother sneaks them away in the middle of the night and says Dr. Ben is dangerous, Fern doesn't believe it. She wants desperately to go back, but her mom just keeps driving.

Suddenly Fern is thrust into the treacherous, toxic, outside world. At first she thinks only about how to get home. She has a plan, but it will take time. As that time goes by, though, Fern realizes there are things she will miss from this place—the library, a friend from school, the ocean—and there are things she learned at the Ranch that are just...not true.

Now Fern will have to decide. How much is she willing to give up to return to the Ranch? Should she trust Dr. Ben’s vision for her life? Or listen to the growing feeling that she can live by her own rules?

The Outsmarters (Deborah Ellis)

 

Originally, I was thinking this book is not the same as Deborah Ellis' other books. Most of her books are about kids in difficult political situations. Thinking about it a little more, maybe this one is about that. Krate is a girl who has had to grow up quickly. She is being raised by her grandmother because her mother is an addict. Her grandmother teaches her that we can't outclass others, nor can we out spend them....so we will have to outsmart them. Krate realizes she's going to have to figure out the system (ie get her GED) and look after herself. Even her name was symbolic of accepting her situation. She was always called Kate - but then she found her birth certificate and realized her mother, high on something, wrote down Krate...and even though her grandmother wants to forbid it, she starts to go by that name. 

Gran owns a junkyard and makes Kate do chores and pay for anything she gets. She is relentless on her boundaries with Kate....for a good reason. She knows how important boundaries are because of her drug addicted daughter, Kate's mother. Kate decides to open a philosophy booth (made me think of Lucy from Charlie Brown) to earn money. I loved all the references to great authors, wise leaders and well respected people.

The whole idea of the value of things - and how they take people's junk and make something useful of it was a fascinating topic. A librarian friend also recommended some other books along the same theme:
The One Thing You Save 
Just One Gift
 - both by Linda Sue Parks
The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place (EL Konisburg)
Also the website: The Burning House

I'm not sure what grade I'd recommend this book for. I don't think it would suit elementary with it's heavy topics nor would I recommend it as a read aloud. However, if there were a kid with addiction in their family or other similar issues, they might really relate to this book. Not sure. There are some tough topics.

Kate, I mean Krate, discovering she is going to have to go do some kind deeds for her grumpy neighbor and her grumpy grandmother's direction: "Once upon a time," Gran says, "when I was a child, I thought as a child, I spake as a child, I was nice like a child. But now I'm a hard-hearted old broad. I've put away childish things."
I'm not sure what the Bible verse really says, but whatever. My bleak days just got bleaker.

p.74"Yes, well, Doris and I grew up together. Best of friends. When we were your age, we had such adventures, riding our bikes all over town. Then we got older."
"No more adventures?"
"We changed," Jean says. "We became boring. We became timid. What are we do afraid of?"
"Is that your question?" I ask. I'm actually curious.
"No," says Jean. I know what we're afraid of. We're afraid of looking foolish. We're afraid of admitting that we've wasted time on things that aren't important and that we don't even truly enjoy.  They are such small things, not even real things. There are many people in this world who really do have things to be afraid of."

Section quote p. 149: If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face - forever. - George Orwell (gulp!) 

Goodreads says:

Kate opens a Philosophy Booth ("Get answers to life's big and little questions -- $2 a question") and ends up asking some tough questions of her own. Suspended from school and prone to rages, twelve-year-old Kate finds her own way to get on with her life, despite the messed-up adults around her. Her gran, for one, is stubborn and aloof -- not unlike Kate herself, who has no friends, and who's been expelled for "behavioral issues," like the meltdowns she has had ever since her mom dumped her with her grandmother three years ago. Kate dreams that one day her mother will return for her. When that happens, they'll need money, so Kate sets out to make some. Gran nixes her idea to sell psychiatric advice like Lucy in Peanuts ("You're not a psychiatrist. You'll get sued."), so Kate decides to open a philosophy booth to provide answers to life's big and small questions. She soon learns that adults have plenty of problems and secrets of their own, including Gran. When she finds that her grandmother has been lying to her about her mother, the two have a huge fight, and Gran says she can't wait for Kate to finish high school so she'll be rid of her at last. Kate decides to take matters into her own hands and discovers that to get what she wants, she may have to reach out to some unexpected people, and find a way to lay down her own anger.

Sideways Stories From Wayside School (Louis Sacher)

 

I picked this as a book for our Grade Three book club. My thinking was that it is the beginning of a series and if the super fast readers finish it they could continue on to the other books in the series. It's an older book (published in 1978) and there are a lot of things you just wouldn't see in books these days. The word stupid is used a lot, as well as fat and more. A lot of it is in the name of humor. It will be interesting to see if my students think it was funny or if they felt as uncomfortable with it as I did.

Goodreads says:

There was a terrible mistake - Wayside School was built with one classroom on top of another, thirty stories high (The builder said he was sorry.) Maybe that's why all kinds of funny things happened at Wayside-especially on the thirteenth floor.

Outsmart Your Brain (Daniel T Willingham, PhD)

 

I got this book from the library after following the author on TikTok. I didn't read all of it - but I did read the instructor tips.  His TikTok account is a brilliant way to share good tips from the book as well a the other things he knows about the science of learning. 

The thing about this book is that it is full of great tips - but I don't know if people who struggle in school read these kinds of books. The "for the instructor" of each section was really good too. My wish is for everyone to enjoy and do well in school and his book is a great tool for making that happen.

In the chapter, "How to Read Difficult Books" he made me feel good about my habit of note taking when I read non-fiction books. Most, I get from the library so I can't highlight them. Instead I write notes and he says that is a great learning strategy. Yay! He says taking notes keeps you mentally on task and the notes will help refresh your memory later. He also suggests posting a question when you begin a section of a book...and then when you finish that section, go back and see if your question was satisfactorily answered and whether or not you caught the gist of the section.

Goodreads says:

In this revolutionary, comprehensive, and accessible guide on how the brain learns, discover how to study more efficiently and effectively, shrug away exam stress, and most of all, enjoy learning.

When we study, we tend to focus on the tasks we can most easily control—such as highlighting and rereading—but these practices only give the illusion of mastery. As Dan Willingham, professor of psychology and bestselling author, explains, familiarity is not the same as comprehension.

Perfect for teachers and students of all ages, Outsmart Your Brain provides real-world practices and the latest research on how to train your brain for better learning. Each chapter provides clear and specific strategies while also explaining why traditional study processes do not work. Grounded in scientifically backed practical advice, this is the ultimate guide to improving grades and better understanding the power of our own brains.

This Is a School (John Schu)

 

This would be a fun book to give the grade four students when they graduate and have each of their teachers write in their book....like people do for The Places You'll Go.

Goodreads says:

A moving celebration of school and all it may signify: work and play, creativity and trust, and a supportive community that extends beyond walls.

A school isn’t just a building; it is all the people who work and learn together. It is a place for discovery and asking questions. A place for sharing, for helping, and for community. It is a place of hope and healing, even when that community can’t be together in the same room. John Schu, a librarian and former ambassador of school libraries for Scholastic, crafts a loving letter to schools and the people that make up the communities within in a picture book debut beautifully illustrated by Veronica Miller Jamison.

Reclaiming Our Students (Hannah Beach and Tamara Neufeld Strijack)

 I needed this book. This year, more than ever, I was coming home physically exhausted from problems at school. The authors say: What has changed is the culture in which children are being raised, a culture in which children no longer automatically seek the wisdom and leadership of the adults in their life. This cultural shift has disconnected children from the adults who care for them and it has taken away the cultural context that supports children in naturally being open to the guidance of adults. (p. 18)

As I read, I thought of many things I could have been doing differently this year. My plan is to start right away....and continue next year.

Goodreads says:

Children are more anxious, aggressive, and shut down than ever.

Faced with this epidemic of emotional health crises and behavioural problems, teachers are asking themselves what went wrong. Why have we lost our students? More importantly: How can we get them back? Hannah Beach, a celebrated educator and specialist in the field of emotional health, and Tamara Neufeld Strijack, clinical counsellor and academic dean of the acclaimed Neufeld Institute, provide a thoughtful guide to restoring the student-teacher relationship and creating the conditions for change. Reclaiming Our Students empowers teachers with relationship-based strategies to restore their leadership role and build emotional safety in the classroom.

You’ll learn:
• How to build, feed, and protect the student-teacher relationship
• Why children are anxious or bossy, aggressive or checked out, and what you can do to address these behavioural issues at their root
• How you can help students and classes shift their identity as the “problem student” or “bad class”
• Experiential activities for students of all ages that preserve and restore emotional health and well-being

Plus, you’ll find special considerations and information for parents, principals, counsellors, and home educators for building safety and support in the learning environment.

Combining Hannah’s groundbreaking experiential approach to creating emotional health and community in the classroom with the Neufeld Institute’s insightful approach to building relationships and making sense of children, Reclaiming Our Students is required reading for teachers who not only want to understand and overcome daily challenges, but also re-connect to their calling as educators.

Look Both Ways (Jason Reynolds)

 

I read this book for my Children's Literature book club. I don't read short stories very often. This one seemed to be full of great fodder for discussion. It's one of those books that makes me wish I taught older kids. When I was reading it, I told a lot of people about it and it was fascinating that they had never heard of it as it has won a number of awards. They were all very curious about the stories though. There are lots of surprises in the stories which can serve to remind you to be more compassionate towards kids and the challenges they face. Challenges ran the gamut: cancer, bullying, phobias, tragedies like your mother being hit by a bus, your sister dying, and more. My favourite one was where the kids were making money to buy ice-cream. My brother just died of cancer and that one got me right in the gut.

Every chapter mentions a bus falling from the sky. The symbolism of that was brought out in the very last story with all the things a bus is. 

I think I'd enjoy more by this author.


Goodreads says:

From National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds comes a novel told in ten blocks, showing all the different directions a walk home can take.

This story was going to begin like all the best stories. With a school bus falling from the sky. But no one saw it happen. They were all too busy—

Talking about boogers.
Stealing pocket change.
Skateboarding.
Wiping out.
Braving up.
Executing complicated handshakes.
Planning an escape.
Making jokes.
Lotioning up.
Finding comfort.
But mostly, too busy walking home.

Jason Reynolds conjures ten tales (one per block) about what happens after the dismissal bell rings, and brilliantly weaves them into one wickedly funny, piercingly poignant look at the detours we face on the walk home, and in life. 

3rd Grade Angels

 

We read this aloud last year in my classroom but I just realized I did not blog about it. It was the first read aloud for this year and was a big hit. The kids seem to connect well to it, it has a good message and just the right amount of funny stuff to keep everyone hooked. 

Turns out Jerry Spinelli actually wrote 4th Grade Rats first and later wrote this as a prequel.

Goodreads says:

The long-awaited prequel to the bestseller FOURTH GRADE RATS

George, aka "Suds," has just entered third grade, and he's heard the rhyme about "first grade babies/second grade cats/third grade angels/fourth grade rats," but what does this mean for his school year? It means that his teacher, Mrs. Simms, will hold a competition every month to see which student deserves to be awarded "the halo" - which student is best-behaved, kindest to others, and, in short, perfect. Suds is determined to be the first to earn the halo, but he's finding the challenge of always being good to be more stressful than he had anticipated. Does he have to be good even outside of school? (Does he have to be nice to his annoying little sister?) And if Mrs. Simms doesn't actually see him doing a good deed, does it even count?

A warm, funny return to elementary school from master storyteller Spinelli.

Little Fox and the Wild Imagination (Jorma Taccone and Dan Santat)

 

Pure Dan Santat craziness. Love it!

Super cute representation of the value of imagination. 
My favorite part is where they have to read all the books (5000!) before bed. 

Goodreads says:

BEWARE!

This is a tale of great caution, terror, and destruction . . .

of bath time, and bedtime, and the battle in between.

This is the story of Little Fox and one VERY BIG imagination.

Debut author Jorma Taccone, member of the hit comedy trio The Lonely Island, has paired up with New York Times–bestselling, Caldecott Medal–winning illustrator Dan Santat to create Little Fox and the Wild Imagination, a picture book about time, space, and even giant-robot-squids.

Little Bat In Night School (Brian Lies)

 Great book for September! I need to look into more books this author has written....lots of interesting books that I've never seen before!

This would be  good pair with lots of our favorite bat stories: Stellaluna, Bat Count, etc.

Goodreads says:

Little Bat is excited about his first night in school! Readers will love to see him spread his wings in this sweet, inspiring picture book from New York Times best-selling and Caldecott Honor–winning Brian Lies. Perfect for fans of We Don't Eat Our Classmates and The King of Kindergarten.

Little Bat can't wait for his first night of school. He is excited about everything: his new school supplies, learning amazing things, and making new friends.  
 
But when he finally arrives, his world turns upside down.

Any little bat who's tried something new or gone somewhere they've never been before knows that first times can be scary. With the help of Little Bat and his adorable classmates, readers will see that spreading your wings is easy when you listen, act with kindness, and take a chance on new friends.

With his signature, gorgeous artwork, New York Times bestseller and Caldecott Honor winner Brian Lies brings his expressive bats back for the youngest readers.  

Hank Zipzer: Niagara Falls, Or Does It? (Henry Winkler)

 

Henry Winkler is an old friend of mine. Well, not really, but it feels like he is! I love his approach in this book. We were reading it as a read aloud amidst the time we do our structure projects so my students really got a kick out of Hanks. I also felt like it really reaches out and grabs kids because so many kids feel like school isn't easy for them, like it isn't easy for Hank. There were lots of laughs when we read this aloud. We actually ended up moving to at home learning part way through and one of the concerns my students had was how we would finish the book. Of course, we did. There's always time for a great read-aloud like this! As we were reading it, the Hank Zipzer books started being taken off the shelf by quite a few kids. Although I think it's good to read the first one first, you don't have to read the books in order and they're all hilarious. We found lots of interesting connections to Third Grade Angels and Frindle while reading this one.

Goodreads says:

Inspired by the true life experiences of Henry Winkler, whose undiagnosed dyslexia made him a classic childhood underachiever, the Hank Zipzer series is about the high-spirited and funny adventures of a boy with learning differences.

It's science project time in Ms. Adolf's class. This is good news and bad news for Hank-he loves science, but he hates the report part. So Hank turns to TV to take his mind off things. But when the program directory scrolls by too quickly for Hank to know what's on, he decides to take apart the cable box to try to slow down the crawl. Great! Now Hank has found the perfect science project! But what he wasn't counting on was his sister's pet iguana laying eighteen eggs in the disassembled cable box. How is Hank going to get out of this one?

Martians Don't Take Temperatures (Dady and Jones)

 

Great series with patterns in each book. Super for early chapter book readers.

In this one the school gets a new nurse who has some odd mannerisms. Is she an alien? Is she a nurse? The Bailey School Kids are on it!

Goodreads says:

The Bailey School kids are suspicious of the new school nurse whose bright green bandages seem to have an instant curing effect. She arrived in a sudden dust storm looking kind of green--could she be a Martian?

New Kid (Jerry Craft)

First graphic novel of the summer! I definitely need to work on my graphic novel reading skills. I tend to read just the words rather than absorb the pictures and fly through these kinds of books. It took me about an hour to read this book. I definitely could have spent more time looking at the illustrations as much of the story is in its "non-verbal communication". 

This is a good quality story. Being the new kid is not easy. Jordan Banks is the new kid AND he's a minority in his fancy new school. The story is really well-told and addresses many important issues. Jordan isn't the only one struggling with figuring himself out and with fitting in. It starts on the very first day of school and ends on the last day. An overarching theme could be how important it is to get to know people rather than make assumptions about them.

Jordan Banks is in 7th grade, so this book might be for kids a little older than my students - but I think they would read it and enjoy it and get a lot out of it.

Goodreads says:

A graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real.

Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.

As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds—and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?

Big Little Lies (Liane Moriarty)

This book kept me up way too late. Usually I don't like to read books about domestic violence and infidelity, but I loved this book. In some ways it seemed shallow and yet it seemed entirely realistic. The way everyone kept their secrets is what people really do. As a teacher who watches families who become friends through school, the banter between people in the story made me laugh. Each of the characters in this book represented people I know. It was very relatable. The story was well written and light-hearted while being very serious. I didn't figure out who died until way after most readers probably do. LOL


Goodreads says:

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and his yogi new wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarten class as Madeline’s youngest (how is this possible?). And to top it all off, Madeline’s teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline’s ex-husband over her. (How. Is. This. Possible?).

Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn’t be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.

New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all.

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive. 

We Don't Eat Our Classmates (Ryan T Higgins)

*Contrasts and contradictions: We don’t expect a dinosaur to be in school! We also don’t expect a teacher to let her stay when she has a problem with EATING classmates!!
*What might the author be trying to teach us?

•  everyone has their own challenges
• We need to watch for people who are left out and help them
• Dinosaur learned what it was like when he got bit (empathy)
• Everyone has expectations about school. What are some things we expect about school? What if someone expects something totally different than you?
• We should never never ever eat our classmates! LOL

Goodreads says:

Penelope the dinosaur starts school, but it’s hard to make friends when her classmates are so delicious!

It’s the first day of school for Penelope Rex, and she can’t wait to meet her classmates. But it’s hard to make human friends when they’re so darn delicious! That is, until Penelope gets a taste of her own medicine and finds she may not be at the top of the food chain after all. . . . Readers will gobble up this hilarious new story from award-winning author-illustrator Ryan T. Higgins.
--books.disney.com 

Two Dogs in a Trench Coat Start a Club by Accident (Julie Falatko)

One of my students gave me this book to read. He said, "This is really good. You have to read it."

I can see why he thought it was really good. It's silly and fun. Ever wondered what your dog is thinking? This book will give you insight into that! These dogs love their owners, meat, cheese and running in circles. Seems legit!

Goodreads says:

Sassy and Waldo love school! Everything smells like meat and dirty socks! And they love being able to help Stewart.

When Stewart has to stay late after school for a Junior Office Supply Enthusiasts meeting, Sassy and Waldo are left alone to raid the cafeteria's refrigerator. As Sassy and Waldo's after school antics escalate, hilarity ensues as the two dogs start a club...by accident. 

Goldi Socks and the Three Libearians

Super cute. The story is based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears only the bears are librarians and Goldilocks goes into their house, which looks like a book. She talks about the five finger rule for finding a book that is just right.

Goodreads says:

Avid reader Goldie Socks wanders into a house made of books, and she must find just the right book and right reading spot.

Educated (Tara Westover)

I read this book slowly. Sometimes I wanted to soak it up. Sometimes I could only take so much.

Part of what really drew me in was the dysfunctional traits I saw in families I know. Tara's family honors their father and even though he is clearly out of line, mentally ill and puts family members' lives in danger, the unwavering dedication to following him was an extreme example of things I've seen. Tara doesn't follow quite so easily and struggles for years as she goes in and out of feeling comfortable with that expectation. It made me uncomfortable that they were members of the church. However, she is careful to add that this isn`t a story about the church. It`s a story about family and mental illness and dysfunctional relationships. They took what the church teaches to an unhealthy extreme. I felt shame that it could be rooted in something I love but turn into something so terrible. Now she is no longer active in the church. I`m not surprised. It`s pretty impossible to grow up with abuse and have a good relationship with religion and God. Her abuse was too connected and excused by religious teachings and breaking free of that was really the only way to get healthy.

People in the family have a series of terrible accidents that are treated by oils and tinctures. Those were parts I could hardly stand.

Tara has a brother that is abusive and mentally ill. I don't know why the family defended him and let the needs of almost every one else in the family go unmet. I wanted to punch him in the face. The guy needs help and my guess is he'll end up in jail one day. I was angry at her mother for not standing up for her children. All through the book the family is preparing for the Day of Abomination. I felt like the mother was an abomination. She stood by her mentally ill husband even though there are windows of time where she admits he is fallible. She even stands by him when he for some absurd reason, refuses to admit (first I wrote see....but you can't tell me he couldn't see it) the abuse his son, Shawn dealt. Why do some parents do that? It is incomprehensible to me - but then again, it is something I`ve seen to a lesser extreme. Still, it makes me reel.

I loved that Tara is saved by education. Even though she never went to school, she learns to learn and goes to BYU to learn. She had to learn how to take tests, the importance of text books, and she had her mind opened to many things that we take for granted. She was saved by finally becoming educated, along with two of her brothers. It was truly a miracle.

p. 180 I did not think of my brother as that person; I doubt I will ever think of him that way. But something had shifted nonetheless. I had started on a path of awareness, had perceived something elemental about my brother, my father, myself. I had discerned the ways in which we had been sculpted by a tradition given to us by others, a tradition of which we were either willfully or accidentally ignorant. I had begun to understand that we had lent our voices to a discourse whose whole purpose was to dehumanize and brutalize others - because nurturing that discourse was easier, because retaining power always feels like the way forward.
     I could not have articulated this, not as I sweated through those searing afternoons in the forklift. I did not have the language I have now. But I understood this one fact: that a thousand times I had been called Nigger, and laughed and now I could not laugh. The word and the way Shawn said it hadn`t changed; only my ears were different. They no longer heard the jingle of a joke in it. What they heard was a signal, a call through time, which was answered with a mounting conviction: that never again would I allow myself to be made a food soldier in a conflict I did not understand.

Throughout the story, when she is away at BYU and then Cambridge, she doesn`t tell people much about her family. She hides their truths. Her mother abandons and allows her to be in danger when working with her dad and abused by her brother. Instead of feeling rage, Tara feels shame. However, along the way something clicks that causes a change:

p. 273 I told them I`d been poor. I told them I`d been ignorant, and in telling them this I felt not he slightest prick of shame. Only then did I understand where the shame had come from: it wasn`t that I hadn`t studied in a marble conservatory, or that my father wasn`t a diplomat. It wasn`t that Dad was half out of his mind, or that Mother followed him. It had  come from having a father who shoved me toward the chomping blades of the Shear, instead of pulling me away from them. It had come from those moments on the floor, from knowing that Mother was in the next room, closing her eyes and ears to me, choosing, for that moment, not to be my mother at all.

Her brother, Tyler, finally gets it and stands up. In the end, although he recognizes the abuse, he doesn`t distance himself totally from the family. What he said to Tara though was so true:

p. 316 Our parents are held down by chains of abuse, manipulation, and control....They see change as dangerous and will exile anyone who asks for it. This is a perverted idea of family loyalty...they claim faith, but this is not what the gospel teaches. Keep safe. We love you.

Tara has to become a new person to survive. She has to separate herself from her parents and now has no relationship with them. So many times when she`d go back to her family I wanted to scream, `Don`t go!` The compelling ties to family make living a healthy life really difficult for her. I get that. I feel for her. Finally, in the end, she decided she could not live a healthy life with them in it.

p. 328 If there was a single moment when he breach between us, which had been cracking and splintering for two decides, was at least too vast to be bridged, I believe it was that winter night, when I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, while, without m knowing it, my father grasped the phone in his knotted hands and dialed my brothe, Diego, the knife. What followed was very dramatic. But the real drama had already played out in the bathroom.
     It had played out when, for reasons I don`t understand, I was unable to climb through the mirror and send out my sixteen-year-old self in my place.
     Until that moment she had always been there. No matter how much I appeared to have changed - how illustrious my education, ow altered my appearance - I was still her. At best I was two people, a fractured mind. She was inside, and emerged whenever I crossed the threshold of my father`s house.
     That night I called on her and she didn`t answer. She left me. She stayed in the mirror. The decisions I made after that momet were not the ones she would have made. They were the choices of a changed person, a new self.
     You could call this selfhood many things. Transformation. Metamorphosis. Falsity. Betrayal.
     I can it an education.

I found myself googling information about this family after I finished the book. Are they real? Do they really run a health business? Where are her parents now? It looks like they're still denying everything.They also run a huge business.


Goodreads says:

An unforgettable memoir in the tradition of The Glass Castle about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.

Dog Days of School (Kelly DiPucchio)

Freaky Friday returns, kid-lit style! This one will get a laugh for sure. Charlie doesn't like school - but in the end, decides it's not so bad.

Goodreads says:

Charlie thinks his dog, Norman, has got it good: he gets to spend his days lounging on the couch or playing fetch, and he never has to do any homework. But when Charlie makes a wish to be a dog instead of a boy, things get a little topsy-turvy!

New York Times best-selling author Kelly DiPucchio's signature humor and Brian Biggs's bold, playful illustrations come together in a hilarious tale that proves that the grass always does look greener on the other side (even if that side involves drinking from the toilet!).

The Best School Year Ever - The Herdman's #2 (Barbara Robinson)

I came across this book by chance. I read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and loved it. I have always wanted to do it for grade 3 book club, but I figured the slang on the real Christmas story might not fly very well with everyone in school. This one has the same hilarity and would totally work for grade 3 book club! It even has a bit of character attached to the story with the teacher's year long assignment to make a list of positive traits about everyone in the class.

This book reminded me of sitting around listening to my aunt and uncle and their kids talk about funny stories in their insurance adjusting business.....matter of fact stories with hilarity attached.

Goodreads says:

The Worst Kids in the History of the World!

When anything goes wrong at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School, from the hexing of Bus Six to the mysterious disappearance of the kindergarten gerbil, it's sure to have a Herdman behind it. The Herdmans are more than famous -- they're outlaws. They smoke cigars, lie, and set fire to things, and that's only when they bother to come to school!

Then a school project forces the students to think of compliments for all their classmates -- including the Herdmans. Is it possible that behind their outrageous pranks there may be something good about this crazy clan after all?