Whooo Hooo!!! Another Friday, another blog!

Welcome to June.  Only a few more weeks left.  Whoo hoo!

I once again traipsed off to the library to find a book this week and got two good recommendations so I’m set for the rest of the year. Upon reading it I already found myself making lots of connections so I thought I’d challenge myself and finish some reading response connections.

First, Everyone MUST write a brief summary of their book.

Then, you will have a few options this week:

1.  You will have the choice of writing about a connection (that has to be REALLY detailed – at least 8 – 10 sentences)

2.  writing about 2 connections (that have 3-5 sentences EACH)

3.  finish 3 reading response sentence starters (each answer consists of 2-3 sentences).

(Please note that if you do the math–and you know how much I like math 🙂  –each option will be about the same length, it just depends on how whether you want to write a lot about one topic or little bits about a few topics).  Looking forward to seeing some great efforts!!

This week I read “mockingbird” by Kathryn Erskine.  (and nope, that’s not a mispelling, the title is purposely writtten in lower case odd eh?)

It’s a about an eleven year old girl Caitlin who has Asperger’s and whose brother has just died in a school shooting.  Asperger’s is a disease similar in some ways to autism but it totally varies from person to person.  Basically, Caitlin knows that her brother is gone and is able to communicate with people but sees most things in black and white rather than understanding all the details of life.

1.  I learned the most about Caitlin from her words.  The author uses this very effectively and reveals parts of what Caitlin is thinking (and showing that by writing all the conversations in italics).  This really helps us see things from Caitlin’s point of view.  For example when told she has to go out with the K-grade 2 kids for recess along with the regular recess time for grades 4-6, she says, “Two recesses? I don’t even  like one recess.”

2. I was embarrassed at first for Caitlin when she acted odd when there were lots of people at her house after her brother Devon’s funeral.  I guess she didn’t know any better and she wasn’t embarrassed so I probably shouldn’t be either–good lesson to learn.  Here is one example of what she did: she put her head under her Dad’s sweater and puts her head on his chest as he’s busy talking to people and is able to feel his chest rising up and down and smell his Gillette antiperspirant.   He let her stay there and pats her head through the sweater.  I was impressed that her dad just let her be herself and that he wasn’t embarrased.  And knew that by allowing Caitlin to do this, she’d feel safe and loved.

3.  I learned a lot about what living with Asperger’s can feel like for a person.  I’d heard of it before but haven’t experienced it personally.  I can now see how she has a difficult time with change which makes life super difficult since I think life changes all the time.  She wants Devon to come back, can’t understand why her dad is so sad and can’t do things the way he normally did (like ordering pizza on Thursday, just because that’s what they always did) and how when things feel like they’re out of control she ends up having a TRM (a Tantrum Rage Meltdown).  I have seen various children have those occasically over the course of my life but never really understood why they happened.  This makes much more sense and as with most things in my life, when I understand what’s going on, I feel more comfortable with a situation.

So there you have it, three finished sentence starters.  Have fun making your choice about what you’re going to write about and I can’t wait to read them.

Love Miss Esselink

So many choices…..

It’s all about you this week.  You will have the ultimate power–choice!  I have given you some different options of how you want to complete your blog–(thankfully I didn’t give you as many as were in food picture below.  You’d spend all your time reading the choices and have no time to type.)  Whew.  Only 3 choice today.  So make your choice and type away.  The rest is up to you!

 

 

 

Your choices are:

• a connection
• list 2 themes, pick a picture to represent each theme.—Write a short blurb explaining why the picture represents the theme
• choose 3 sentence starters & answer them 

As usual, tell me the name of your book and the author.  Then, give me a short summary of what the book is about and then make your choice of how you want to respond. So,  how will you complete your blog today?

Here’s my shot at it:

I’ve been reading “Schooled” by Gordon Korman this week.  He is one of my favourite authors and when someone pointed out this book to me I was super excited.   It starts out with the main character Cap (short for Capricorn) being arrested and then unarrested.  It turns out that he lives on a farming commune (is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, work, and income). –Thanks to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commune for the definition.

This story is about how Cap is forced to live with a foster family after his grandmother Rain, falls and breaks her hip.  The worst part about living off the commune is that he now has to go to school rather than be homeschooled by Rain. Could you imagaine if you’ve never heard a school bell or were forced to go to another class just because the time was up even if you weren’t finished or didn’t need to lock up your belongings in a locker because everyone shared everything anyway? Also, Cap is nominated for 8th grade president simply because he’s the weirdest kid there.  (It was a mean trick played on the nerdiest/weirdest kid every year just so the rest of the students could make fun of him/her),  I’m not going to ruin the rest of the  book but if you want to find out what happens next, I’d definitely recommend reading this book!

My choice is to write about a connection I have.  I could honestly not imagine what it would be like to have to leave the only home I’d ever known and go somewhere else.  This must be what it’s like for Cap.  He has only ever lived on the commune with his grandmother and now he’s forced into a world that’s totally different.  Here’s an example from the book of how Cap describes it, “I don’t like it out there.  It’s too crowded. People dress funny; they talk too fast; and they are interested in things! Cell phones and iPods and Game Boys and Starbucks.  What’s a starbuck?”  My closest connection to how I felt like this is when I moved to Quebec where half the time people were speaking French much faster than I could understand.  Even though technically it was still in Canada things were soooo different.  The traffic was HORRIBLE, (it took me over an hour to drive to work every day even though it should have only taken 15 minutes if it wasn’t rush hour). The signs were all in French and some of them I knew but some of them were things I had never seen before-for example, “Circulation fluide”.  I guess it means that things were going smoothly, but I’ve never seen a sign like that in English.  I also had to get used to French customs, the two kisses on the cheek when greeting someone.  (Sometimes I forget I’m back in Alberta where we don’t do that and almost go to do it to but then realize I’d get made fun of).  And you all by now have probably heard me ask you something in French, I can’t help it–the French just comes out first.  🙂  So while it was a bit confusing for me at first, I would say as time went on, I got used to things.  I can only hope the same for Cap!

As always, I look forward to learning a little more about you and what you’ve been reading lately.  Hope that you all have a wonderful long weekend — if it doesn’t rain too much and I’ll see you next week.

Love Miss Esselink

To Blog –that is the answer!

And I’ve got the answer!  It’s time to blog. 🙂 Hopefully you’ve been reading a book or two since the last time we’ve met.  I’ve selected some sentence starters for you to respond to as you think about YOUR book. Tell me what book you are reading, give me a short summary and then scan the list below and choose 3 of these to answer. Please write at least 3 sentences for each one. (That makes at least a minimum of 9 sentences–that’s a paragraph!)  If you are having trouble figuring out what questions to answer, here`s a suggestion:  use a random number generator :

Set your maximum at 14, then click on generate at least 3 times and you`ve got some random questions to answer!

 1. I was surprised when… because…

2. I was confused about… because…

3. I learned the most about the main character (choose one) from: -dialogue -events -other characters -his/her thoughts. Explain your answer

4. This book reminds me of _____________(another book/movie) because…

5. I learned… (something about life or how people get along)

6. Something I learned about how to write is… l learned this from…

7. I didn’t like… because…

8. The setting makes me feel… because…

9. I now understand…

10. If I were __________(character), I would… because…

11. A question I have is… A possible answer is…

12. My favorite section of the book is… because…

13. A question I have for the author is…

14. I would/would not recommend this book because…

 Note: I will mark you for how you explain your answers, so be sure to give examples and details. There is no wrong answer here, but you need to take time to EXPLAIN yourself Can’t wait to read your blog!!

The book I’m reading is called Undergrounders by David Skuy.  It’s about a boy who has lived on the streets since his mom died.  It’s a totally different life! Jonathan is able to “rent” space in an underground abandoned building every night for 50 cents.  He doesn’t go to school anymore and usually he hawks (aka begs) for money during the day to pay his rent and for any food that he might eat that day.  But one day he manages to sneak into the hockey store to get warm and he helps himself to some hockey equipment.  Things sure do get interesting from there!

3.  I learned the most about the main character from his thoughts.  He is continually revealing details about his life in his thoughts.  The author does a good job of this though because it`s only a tiny bit of information rather than over-explaining.  For example, after seeing some guys play hockey, Jonathan thinks to himself, “Weird how I hated hockey now“.  Which obviously suggests at one point that he didn`t hate hockey.  I find that I try to do that when I`m speaking as well. I reveal little bits of information in order to capture people`s attention and continue on with the converstation.  8. The setting makes me feel sorry for Jonathan.  I could not image living underground and wandering around the streets the rest of the time.  I think that it would be very cold and lonely.  I don`t know how he manages to handle being alone and not taking to people all the time in case they turn him into social services.  When I lost my voice and couldn`t talk for 5 days this winter, I was so frustrated.  I clearly need to be around people 🙂 –but perhaps Jonathan doesn`t have that same need.  10.  If I were Jonathan, I don`t think I would survive living basically on my own underground.  I think that I would try to go to Social Services and find someone to help.  I don`t know if it makes a difference in our genders–perhaps he has a problem asking others for help.  I sure don`t ! (For example, think of all the times I`ve had people drive that silly computer cart for me).  Or it`s because of bad run-ins with the law in his past and he doesn`t really trust people.  I`m pretty trusting but I do realize not everyone is. 

And that`s it.  Looking forward to reading your blogs. Have a great weekend.
Love Miss Esselink

A thousand words? Really?

Hello blogging buddies!

We’re keeping things exciting here–wouldn’t want you to slip into a rut when responding to your reading 🙂  Your task is somewhat different this week.

Doesn’t this just say it all?  How does this picture make you feel? Peaceful? Content? Happy? Itchy ?(for all of you allergic to cats)  Now I could have written many words describing how it might be to be peaceful or content but doesn’t this picture really just say it all.  I can remember snuggling up like this with my little sister when she was much younger.  Brings back happy memories 🙂

I would like you to do three things today:

1. Write a short blurb (at least 2 or 3 sentences) summarizing what your book is about.

2. List two big ideas (themes if you will) that are in your book.  What did the story, the characters, the outcome teach you about life?

3. Find a cool picture for each idea that represents it and write a few sentences to explain why you chose the picture. Be creative in this part! Don’t just find a picture of something that happened in the book, but pick something unique to you and then explain why you chose it.

I’ve given you an example or you can look at Mrs. H’s example.  Don’t forget to publish by the end of class. Also, as a hint, save the pictures to your hard drive before inserting in the post–that way I will be able to see all of the them .  Have fun!

1.  This week I read Deathwatch by Robb White.  It’s a book that I found fascinating although totally not something I could see myself doing.  Ben is a university student who leads people into the desert mountains to hunt wild game such as big horn sheep.  But this time it  was no ordinary trip as soon Ben found himself being hunted by someone!  He is stuck in the desert trying to survive against the elements and Madec, the man he was to lead on the hunt.  After escaping from Madec in the hot, dry, desert without any clothes, shoes or water, Ben not only finds ways to survive the hunt; he also finds ways to survive the harsh desert elements.  I’m not going to give anything away but it’s a fun read.

2.  My big ideas are DETERMINATION and COURAGE

3. Determination.  Ben is determined to make it out of the desert alive and uses every survival skill he knows to do so.  He even resorts to making shoes out of plant leaves and finding water in a puddle.  I’m going to use a picture that is actually from my own life.  These were stairs in Peace River that I climbed up and down 3 times one morning while substitute teaching.  Notice that you can’t even really see the top in this picture.  I hate climbing stairs!  But I was determined that if the students I was teaching could do it, so could I.  (and I did but I’m definitely glad to not have to do it again).

Courage.  My second picture is a something that I would only dream of doing but it seems like it would be fun.  And it for sure would take courage as I don’t think the penguin really stands a chance against the polar bear (obviously this picture has been “photo-shopped” but it’s funny none the less).  In the story, Ben ends up trying to do the right thing which always takes courage, especially when it seems that no one is on your side.  After managing to survive the desert and Madec, he has a heck of a time explaining his story to those back home.  Just like the penguin, he is playing with danger as he explains himself.

Hope you have fun finding pictures.  I know I did.  Have a great day and a great weekend

Love Miss E.

You are the Main Character!

Hello everyone in blogging land!

Welcome back to yet another week of blogging.  This week is going to be a bit different as it will help place yourself in the role of the main character.  This will be good practice for your children’s book -no matter if you’re an author, editor or illustrator.  This coming week will be full one of writing so let’s get those creative juices flowing now!

Today’s exercise should help you to refine your writing ideas. Before you begin your assignment, please tell me which book you’ve read this week – its title and its author.  (That’s it–I don’t even need a summary this week!)

Here’s your assignment: Pretend to be the main character in your book (give me your name – the name of the main character in your book). Answer the following 7 questions in the role of that character: (don’t worry-some of them may only be a sentence long)

1. What was your problem or conflict?

2. How did I immediately act or react when I realized I had a problem or conflict?

3. What did I think about before I decided what to do about the problem?

4. What actions did I consider?

5. What choice did I make?

6. What choice do I wish I had made?

7. What was the consequence of my choice?

I read the book “The Last Battle” by CS Lewis.  There do happen to be  a lot of characters to choose from so I’ll choose to act as King Tirian, the king of Narnia when this book takes place.

1. The problem is that evil things are starting to happen in Narnia.  Aslan has not been seen for many years and a imposter pretends to be Aslan but does evil things (clearly not how Aslan normally acts). Then begins the battle to overthrow the evil in Narnia.

2. At first I believed the story that Aslan had returned and was quite excited, but then something seemed off to me and I realized that the person pretending to be Aslan was actually doing things that Aslan wouldn’t –like killing creatures and chopping down talking trees. I immediately grabbed my sword so that I could take care of those harming my friends and my citizens.

3.  I thought about investigating if it might be true or not, as unlikely as it seemed.  But when I saw two Calormenes beating a talking horse, my rage and indignation came over me and I gave no thought to it and rushed forward and killed them.

4.  This was the start of my actions in which I tried to defeat the evil that had taken over the land of Narnia.

5. I did feel bad about killing the two men so I went back and surrendered and agreed to be tried by Aslan.

6.  However, this only got me beat up and tied to a tree as I soon discovered that this was not the real Aslan at all and I began to wish that I had not tried to do the right thing in surrendering.

7.  It was only when I was defenceless that I was able to call on the real Aslan to come and save Narnia.  I didn’t even wish for myself to be saved, I just wanted what was best for my country. It was only then that I called for the helpers from the other world (the children) to come and help save us. And shortly after that they arrived!  Together we worked to expose the fake Aslan and bring justice back to Narnia.

Remember that a story always focuses on how individuals deal with conflict. Hopefully by completing this assignment you’ll be better able to identify conflict and/or problems in your book and explore your own conflicts. This in turn should help you with identifying connections you have to your book.

As always, you have the rest of the period to finish your assignment. Remember to click on “publish” when you’re done ..

Then just relax and enjoy the weekend!

Love, Miss Esselink

Sender unknown

Hello everyone! We’re going to try something different this week. This week, I want you to give me the name and author of your book and then just a short blurb (2-3 sentences) about it.
THEN…. Instead of a connection, I want you to pick 3 out of the following 7 questions to respond to.

1. Which characters in your novel do you like OR dislike? Why?

2. Which character would you most like to have as your friend? Why?

3. If the main character were in our class, how would he or she fit in?

4. How does the setting of your novel compare to our community?

5. What are two of your criteria for a good book? How does the novel that you’re reading rate using your criteria?

6. What is your favourite line in the novel? Why?

7. Write about something that author did that you might try in your writing.

Got it?
Here goes my response:

The book I am reading is called Sender Unknown by Sallie Lowenstein. It is about a guy named Mark that has just bought his first house. He appears to be super smart and because of his job as a “fix-it guy”, he is very rich. The odd thing is that every day in the mail, hundreds of catalogs show up and he can’t seem to cancel the subscriptions. This is going to be interesting!

1. I dislike Elliot who is hired to be Mark’s personal organizer. He is a bit arrogant and seems to think that his way is always right.  I know this because he forces Mark to go shopping for furniture for his new house (even though Mark is content without furniture).  Then he is appalled when Mark takes him to this dumpy little furniture store.  Elliot seems like the kind of guy to whom brand names matter and under no circumstances would he ever be found in the wrong part of town.  The good thing is that Mark is able to stand up to him and is able to show Elliot that he doesn’t always need to be so serious but can have fun too. I agree with that way of thinking!

4.  The setting of the novel does remind me  of any ordinary community.  There are houses and cars and trees.  But very quickly you realize that things are not what they seem.   Grade one students are doing video-editing projects and many things are computerized.  Also, Mark goes to a bookstore to buy a copy of Mother Goose nursery rhymes and the cost is $150 and the book is torn and falling apart.  The owner tells him that “they are not publishing the book anymore, not even as an interactive.” Interactive? What is that? I’m guessing that this book must take place in the future –funny how I didn’t even suspect it until chapter 3.  It’s going to be cool to see how similar their community is to our world.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

6.  My favourite line in the novel is when Mark says that he need to take a shower to wash off the “perfection of success”.  I like this because it seems like a perfect way of  expressing Mark’s frustration with his life.  I wonder if he is really happy with all of his success.  I don’t think that success makes us happy although sometimes, it sure seems like it might make our lives easier if we won a million dollars or a new car.  I also think he must find it hard living up to the expectations of others and how they think he should be and I too agree with that.  Living up to what other people want us to be can frustrating and then disappointing them can be even more painful.  I hope that Mark is strong enough to just be himself.  I think he’ll be happiest then.

Now it’s your turn.  Tell me the name of your book, the author and a short blurb.  Then pick any three out of the 7 questions and answer them. Got it? Now get to it! Remember that this is due by the end of the class.

Looking forward to reading your blogs this weekend,

Love Miss Esselink

Beauty is not what it seems

Hello fellow bloggers! I am so excited to share with you this week! I wandered into the library asking for something to read and was told, Here, read this.  And so I did.  It was an excellent book.

The story is told from the point of view of a 15 or 16 year old girl named Terra Cooper, who as she says is beautiful

if you saw her from the back, tall, skinny gorgeous hair but from the front you notice she has a large port wine birthmark on her cheek.

If you’ve never seen one  those before, the picture below is from a girl who also has one

(http://www.loveyourmark.com/lindsey.html)

Terra covers her mark up with a tonne of make-up in order to hide from the world.  She has tried

many surgeries but none of them seemed to have worked and then her dad puts his foot down and says he isn’t going to pay for any more surgeries.  Throughout the story Terra has to contend with her disfunctional family.  She is trying to find true beauty but takes an interesting  journey to get there that eventually leads her all the way to China.  She meets some good people, including a friend named Jacob, along the way, and hurts some people,namely her boyfriend Erik– (she’s not perfect—which I really liked about her), but in the end discovers more about who she really is and how she too has made some wrong  judgements about who people are.  I’ll  admit it, I cried near the end because I was so amazed at how both she and her mother had changed during the story.

For your connection today, I would like you to pick between the following options

1.  Write about the part that shocked you the most about the story.  Why did it shock you and can you make a connection to your own life?

2.  Write about which character you would like to have as a friend and why.

I was totally shocked at the way that her father was so negative in the book.  And when he told her that she could not go to the art school that she managed to get into but was only going to pay for her to go the college he graduated from, my mouth literally dropped open.  I mean, I have disagreements with my parents but I could not believe how MEAN he was.  As the book went on, it explained that he had a lot of disappointment in his life and it seems as if he took it out on others but it made me very grateful for loving parents and friends.What I did like was that he changed near the end of book (a teeny tiny bit) when the mom finally stood up to him.  And it made me realize that sometimes small actions can have big results.  Like smiling at another person, or being kind to a sibling –I know, that’s a hard one for me too.

2.  I would love to have Jacob for a friend.  He accepts Terra for who she is and is encouraging about her art abilities.  He is kind and just wants to hang out with her and get to know her better. He also is not afraid to say what he’s thinking and makes her feel safe.  I like friends like that 🙂 I have had many friends over my lifetime (mostly, because I’ve been many places) b

ut it is great to have that one friend that really “gets you”.  I also appreciated how he saw her scar.  Near the end of the book he says, I don’t even see your scar anymore and that makes me sad.  I think he says this because all of our scars whether physical or emotional make up who we are and we need to realize that rather than simply ignoring them because they give our actions meaning.  For example, I have a friend who doesn’t like germs and isn’t really a hugg-y person.  However, once when I was having a bad day, she reached out and hugged me and it was great! It really meant something —and it helped me to know she cared.

So, how about you? Tell me about your book and then pick either option 1 or 2 for your connection.  Can’t wait to read them!

Miss Esselink

Home Invasion and Lies

Welcome back to another week of blogging everyone!

I was looking for something to read this week and remembered that I had taken Zach’s Lie by Roland Smith out of the library.  It starts off with the whole family on a plane talking about how they had to change names.  The main character is a boy named Jack Osborne who is now called Zach.  Then the story starts to come out.  Chapter 2 starts off with a bang, “Men broke into our house last night.  I’m racking my brain wondering if there was anything I could have done to stop them.” The whole family was taped up with duct tape and the mom was required to say, “They’ll kill us if you talk” when the dad called.  Wow! Never has that happen to me–so I kept on reading.  Basically, there is some mix up between the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency in the USA) and Jack’s dad.  Jack and his family have no idea how their dad could be mixed up with drugs but that’s the way thing seem to be.  To keep everyone safe, Jack, his mom and his sister Joanne (now called Wanda), are moved into protective custody with a couple whom they are to call Auntie Doris and Uncle Don.  The family is required to change their appearance–dye their hair, and eye colour.

Which brings me to my connection this week.  Even though the whole family doesn’t wear glasses, they were all required to wear contacts.  Jack wasn’t used to having “foreign objects near his face and blinked everytime the contact came in a for a landing.” (Ooo a  metaphor — I’ll give a prize on Monday to the first person that tells me what two things are being compared).  I have worn glasses since grade 2 and my eyes have an astigmatism which used to mean I couldn’t wear contacts.  But, when they came out with new contacts,

I was soooo excited to try them.  They were difficult to put in (at first) so I can totally sympathize with Jack.  It took me a long time before I wouldn’t blink every time.  And unfortunately, even though I really wanted them to work, I just couldn’t see as well with them so I went back to glasses. I guess sometimes things aren’t always as we expect them to be. Which coincidently does seem to be a theme in this story.  I’m looking forward to reading more about Jack and seeing how it all turns out in the end.

I’m also looking forward to reading your blogs and having you tell me more about you through your connections.

I’d recommend using sentence starters–especially #’s 1, 4, 10 and perhaps even 16.  Remember to give examples or quotes from what you have read to support what you are saying. You should also give examples from your own life.

Happy Blogging Everyone!

Miss Esselink

Elsewhere

Welcome back to blogging everyone! I’m so looking forward to reading your blogs.  Don’t forget to include a connection (use a couple of the sentence starters to help if you need them).  So this week, I would like you to tell me the name of the book you’re reading at home, and what point of view it is from. Then go ahead and write your blog.

The book I’ve been reading this week is called Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin.  I knew from the back of the book that the main character dies but it was totally shocking to read the introduction from the point of view of her dog.  We find out is that Lizzie has died and her dog Lucy is missing her as are her parents and brother. Then the story switches over to Liz’s point of view so I am thinking that this is book is written in third person omniscient since the narrator seems to know what all the characters are thinking and doing.

Anyway, back to the story:  Liz finds herself on a boat with a girl named Thandi.  Neither of them can remember how they got there, and Liz is unsure why her head is shaved with only a few tufts coming out of it.  Thandi has a hole in the back of her neck that she doesn’t know how it got there either.   I haven’t got much further than that but am looking forward to finding out what happened to these girls. Have you figured out what happened to Liz? I’m suspecting she died of some type of cancer.  And this brings me to my connection.

About 4 years ago, my dad was diagnosed with bladder cancer.  He had surgery to remove the cancer cells, and then months of treatment and has recovered.  He had a scare again just last year but it turned out to be nothing.  But everytime he isn’t feeling well, or when the doctors want to run tests, all of us in my family get a little worried.  I hate the helpless feeling of not being able to do anything to stop this disease.  I wonder if Liz’s family felt the same way.  Liz seemed proud of her tufts of hair and I think that is because she was proud that she was beating the cancer–perhaps she was in remission and I know how great it is to say that my dad has beat cancer (for now at least).  I guess the other thing you might want to know about this situation is how I can be so positive about it now–the only thing I can tell you is that I always had faith in God that He had the situation under control.  And we as a family just keep trusting Him that it’s going to turn out alright.

So how about you? What are you reading this week? Don’t forget to include the point of view. Remember that you can choose to do the book you’re reading or “Slave Dancer”. Hoping to see some really great connections.

Happy blogging!

Miss Esselink

The Angel Experiment

The book I am reading this week is The Angel Experiment which is the first book in the  Maximum Ride series by James Patterson.  It is about a group of 6 kids –Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman and Angel  — who have been experimented on and are now only 98% human.  The other 2% is the result of the experiments at “The School” (the science lab) and now they all have various special powers like the ability to fly because of their wings or the ability to hear thoughts (that one scares me the most!).  They managed to escape the school and live together like a family but the story really begins when the “Erasers” (bad guys from the School) take Angel away and bring her back to the School. 

One interesting thing about the story is that I didn’t realize that Max was a girl until chapter 3.  This reminds me of situations that happened when I took my younger sister to hockey.    For 10 years she played on a team that was technically co-ed, but she was often the only girl there.  She’s very good at hockey and it was always funny to hear people in the stands when they found out that #6 was a girl.  As the older sister, I often had to make sure she had a change room and she often came dressed to the game so it wasn’t an issue.  I wonder if Max had to put up with issues like that simply because of her name.   

Your turn. Tell me a little about your book. Write about a connection you have to a character or a situation. As a last resort .. use the reading response sentence starters. If you need more guidance, go back through my (or Mrs. H’s blog) and read some of our entries. Remember not to put things like “thanks for reading my blog”, “hope you liked my blog” at the end. Just end it. I look forward to reading what you have to say, and learning more about you.

Have a terrific weekend, Miss Esselink

Hello world!

Well, this is first attempt at sharing my thoughts with the world!  I am super excited.  My hope is to read a young adult novel a week and share my response with you.  Happy reading everyone.