Ivy and Bean Take Care of the Babysitter

I love Ivy and Bean books (guided reading level M-N) because they're finally something different than Junie B. Jones - and they're good for a similar low-level reader. The plot formula seems to be the same in each book: Bean gets into a lot of things she shouldn't; somewhere along the way she drags Ivy into the mix; in the end she makes her big sister mad and then maybe will get in a bit of trouble with her mother.
I used to worry about books with characters that set less than stellar examples of behavior for kids (okay, so I still worry about it sometimes) - but what I once read was that it's good for kids to read books where the characters are kids doing bad things, because then the readers get to live out the trouble-making vicariously and not actually do the bad things themselves. So here's crossing my fingers that none of my students start climbing into locked crawl spaces or ruining their neighbors' yards with massive amounts of mud anytime soon...

Heartbeat by Sharon Creech

I'm not sure why I never took much notice of Heartbeat when it was in my library last year - maybe because most of my students had overlooked it; or because I hadn't read Love That Dog or Walk Two Moons; or because even though I noticed the cover, I wasn't immediately drawn into the book by the yellow apple. A rushed grab-anything-off-the-shelf-you-haven't-read-yet on the last day of summer school, however, led me to finally read Heartbeat on the flight to my vacation. And how glad I am that I did! The story of a young girl who loves to run, her friend Max who shares a love of the sport, and her small family - pregnant mom, dad, and elderly grandpa - is sweetly simple yet intellectually interesting at the same time. I loved the narrator's strong voice and sense of self as she attempts to make sense of those around her. I will definitely book talk it this fall - since it's written in poetry it may be a hard sell for some kids at first - but ultimately would be a pretty simple read for many junior high students (guided reading level W: great for 6th/7th; a good push for 5th).

No Talking & The Landry News by Andrew Clements

No Talking:
I really enjoyed this new Clements book. As is typical of his stories, it matches kid vs. school-adult in a large battle of wills. This time, the main character begins a contest at his school to see if all the 5th graders can stop talking for two days. Each chapter follows a different character’s involvement, from the students (it’s a boy-girl contest) to the teachers to the principal. It doesn’t exactly leave the reader with many enduring thoughts, but is enjoyable while reading. I think most kids would at least consider what daily life would be like if they completely stopped talking - and a few intrigued readers would probably attempt to do so (although maybe only for a few minutes, at best)!

The Landry News:
Again, a really typical Clements book - quick & enjoyable! I think my only complaint is that the main conflict isn’t a very believable one - it was a bit hard to see more than just one side of the story. But, I liked the main characters (a girl who writes her own newspapers and the burned-out teacher who finally begins teaching again to help her) and the plot moved along quickly. The best part, I thought, was that the formatting of the chapters, pictures, font, etc. is newspaper-like. Clements also works in some decent insight about kids of recent divorce, so perhaps a particularly good recommendation for a student who has divorced parents.

Room One by Andrew Clements

I have to admit I wasn’t so impressed with this one. Room One is a mystery, so I thought it might be a typical Clements plus a little suspense - but it wasn’t that mysterious at all, and the plot seemed a little thin. I wasn’t that drawn in (although I did read it in a day, so I was interested enough to keep reading) and got a bit bored with the main character. I think I’ll recommend it for kids who keep trying to pick from the very few “cheezy” books I have in my classroom library, and hope it helps push them towards better books.

Hatchet by Gary Paulson

I started Hatchet as my read- aloud in my 6th grade class- room, and I’m not sure if I’ll repeat it again next year. I love this book and I clearly see the value in teaching with it, but I find that the writing style (while brilliant!) doesn’t lend itself to being read aloud as much as read independently. The constant stream of Brian’s thoughts, often so repeatitive in nature, isn’t as comfortable to read out loud. I find myself wondering as I’m reading - would my eyes just skim over these sentences rather than focusing on each word when I have to read it out loud? Do the moments that feel awkward to me as the reader sound awkward to my students as listeners? I knew I would love the rhythm of the writing, and I do - but there’s something too dense about the description to keep the attention and focus of all my students. Perhaps next year I will try a different survival book (A Week in the Woods? I would love to have a Clements read-aloud) for read-aloud and highlight Hatchet in mini-lessons and push it as an independent reading choice.

Plenty of my students are whipping through the rest of the Brian series as I’m reading Hatchet, so that’s definitely a bonus. I should poll those who read Hatchet independently versus those whose only experience is the read-aloud to compare its likeability in both groups.

A Week in the Woods by Andrew Clements

I finished reading A Week in the Woods while on an overnight camping trip with 60 of our sixth graders, and I’m glad I’ll be able use it in a book talk next week. My students were adorable as they talked about Brian from Hatchet throughout our trip, so I know the interest level will be high in another outdoors story. A Week in the Woods is really a cross between a typical Clements school story and a survival story; the main character becomes very interested in camping and the outdoors early on but doesn’t actually get lost until the last few chapters of the book. As is common with a Clements novel the main character (Mark, the only child of a famous Hollywood couple who moves to a small town mid-way through his 5th grade year) clashes with a teacher (the science teacher who is running the camping trip) but in the end they come to understand, and even like, each other.

I keep trying to decide if A Week in the Woods or Hatchet should be the survival read-aloud next year, but I can’t make up my mind. I’ll have to see what my students think after they read A Week in the Woods.