Flying Lessons & Other Stories Edited by Ellen Oh

• Genre: Short Stories 
• Grade Level: 5th - 8th
• Reading Level: 5.0
• Length: 240 pages 
• Publisher: Crown Books  (January 3, 2017)
• My Rating: 3 out of 4
• Division 2

This is a collection of short stories that have been collected by Ellen Oh who is the cofounder of We Need Diverse Books.  There are ten stories written by a variety of authors.  Most of the stories are geared more for the middle school age student. Topics include basketball, bigfoot, pirates, crushes, friendship, and family.

My favorites:

The Difficult Path by Grace Lin:  Lingsi is sold to a family because her own family cannot afford her. Her mother asks that the Li family educate her when she turns 6 years old. As Lingsi grows up it seems she may have to wed the despised son, but on a trip to the city she and other servants are captured by pirates where Lingsi finds a better life for herself.

Seventy-Six Dollars and Forty-Nine Cents by Kwame Alexander:  Written in free verse, Monk is crushing on a girl in his school and after hitting his head is able to read minds. He uses this skill to get a date with her.

Sometimes a Dream Needs a Push by Walter Dean Myers:  Chris is in a wheelchair after a car accident. His dreams of playing basketball are revived when he joins a wheelchair team. His father who was a professional basketball player is able to coach his team.

Some of the stories in this book did not capture me like my favorites.  It is a nice selection and might make some good read alouds as well.  I was hoping that the grade level would be more upper elementary but I do think most of the stories were aimed at the middle school group.

Iditarod Background for March is Reading Month

March is reading month at Sunset Terrace. Our theme this week is Tongue Twisters and Fox in Socks.  I found a great video so I didn't have to read the tongue twisters 26 times!

We are also doing the Iditaread-A-Thon.  So here are some videos for background knowledge about the Iditarod.

Smithsonian - How a Diphtheria Outbreak Spawned the Iditarod

Jeff King four-time musher winner

Weather and Iditarod

Soar by Joan Bauer

• Genre: Sports Fiction 
• Grade Level: 4th - 6th
• Reading Level: 3.6
• Length: 304 pages (6 hours)
• Publisher: Viking  (January 5, 2016)
• My Rating: 5 out of 4
• Division 1 or Crossover

I loved this book!  It had so much humor, compassion, passion, and hope.  It is about a 12 year old boy named Jeremiah who was abandoned as a baby but adopted by the single man who found him in the break room at work.  Jeremiah gets sick and ends up having to have a heart transplant. He can no longer play baseball, the game he loves. Walt, his father, who is a computer expert and consultant have to move to Ohio. While they are there, Jeremiah discovers a town that loves baseball too. But then a tragedy happens and it looks like no one will play the game anymore.  Jeremiah decides to volunteer as a coach for the middle school team and he coaches the underdogs into believing in the game again. 

This book is so funny at times. I just wanted to stop and write down the great one liners as well as the inspirational sayings sprinkled through out the book.  Sometimes you just have to stop and think about what is written before you continue reading.  The book is easy to read and I could hardly put it down.  A lot of lessons are learned in this novel. This is the kind of positive message book that we need more of. I highly recommend it. Boys should love it as well as girls.  I also think it would be a great classroom read aloud. 

Scar Island by Dan Gemeinhart

• Genre: Adventure Fiction 
• Grade Level: 5th - 8th
• Reading Level: 4.1
• Length: 256 pages (8 hours)
• Publisher: Scholastic  (January 3, 2017)
• My Rating: 4 out of 4
• Division 2

My sister and I are doing something we call the 2017 club.  We are going to try and read at least two books each month that have a 2017 copyright.  I am going to try and choose my books from Junior Library Guild lists, Amazon monthly picks or from mock Newbery lists.  My hope is to have read at least one of the Newbery books when they are announced next winter.  It will also allow me to add some great books to the Maud Hart Lovelace consideration list.

Scar Island sounded a little gruesome to me when I read some of the early reviews.  However, Amazon had picked it for a January Best Book and I picked it up from our public library.  It turned out to be a great book full of adventure and great characters.  Jonathan Grisby arrives at the Slabhenge Reformatory School for Trouble Boys by boat on a stormy and rainy evening. It is located on a small island in an ancient lighthouse and fortress. Rats, crumbling walls, stench and deplorable conditions along with verbal and physical abuse are the prison conditions he encounters. 16 boys and 8 pirate like wardens live at the school. However, a freak lightning strike kills all of the adults and the boys are left alone. They decide not get help but enjoy time without any adults.  Of course, someone has to become the leader and it seems that life might not be much better under peer control. 

Jonathan has lots of guilt upon his heart as he deals with the reason he  ended up at the island but redemption and transformation through the extreme difficulties he faces on the island are the result. The ending of this book brought lessons and a feeling that despite difficulties in life, there is hope. 

I highly recommend this book. I think boys will like it a lot. 

Gertie's Leap to Greatness by Kate Beasley

• Genre: Realistic Fiction 
• Grade Level: 3rd - 5th
• Reading Level: 4.7
• Length: 249 pages (6 hours)
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux (October 4, 2016)
• My Rating: 4 out of 4

Gertie is entering 5th grade and has decided that she is going to have the best back to school speech. Her ultimate goal is to become the very best 5th grader in her school.  Why? Because she finds out that her mother, who has left her father and her, is now moving away. Gertie wants to show her mother that she is really leaving a great kid behind.  Of course, the new girl seems to always find a way to over achieve  and beat Gertie.  Gertie has lots of spunk and is not afraid to try again to make her dream come true. 

There are a lot of great illustrations throughout this book.  Despite the fact that Gertie is in 5th grade, she is an innocent child with lots of personality and character.  She reminds me of Junie B., Ramona Quimby, or Clementine. This is a great read aloud and perfect for a  better younger reader to read independently.   

MN Star of the North 2017 BookTrailers

Here are some of the video links I used to review the 9 out of the 10 Star of the North Books.  

I couldn't find anything for Rhoda's Rock Hunt.  But I did include a short video about balancing rock cairns. We fell in love with Emily Arrow who sings Water is Water.  Check out her other book songs!

Rhoda's Rock Hunt  

The Bear Ate Your Sandwich  

Emmanuel's Dream  

Water is Water  

Red   

In a Village By the Sea  

Night Animals   

Wolfie The Bunny

Ballet Cat    

Sidewalk Flowers  

Cloud and Wallfish by Anne Nesbet

• Genre: Historical Fiction (1989 - East Berlin)
• Grade Level: 5th - 8th
• Reading Level: 5.8
• Length: 400 pages (12 hours)
• Publisher: Candlewick (September 2, 2016)
• My Rating: 4 out of 4

It is 1989 in Virginia and 5th grader Noah Keller is picked up after school by his parents and told that they are leaving immediately for East Berlin.  They tell Noah he has a new name which is Jonah, a new birthday, and give him a photo album which consists of his new made up past.  His parents even throw away his new backpack with his old name written on it.  The parents act very strange and I begin to be sure that they are really spies headed to East Berlin, behind Iron Curtain. Noah's (Jonah) mother is going to be studying the special education system in East Berlin and her focus is speech disorders. Noah has a stutter which is the reason for her interest. (Noah (Jonah) mentions it many times but you never see much dialogue in a stutter format.)

Noah meets a girl in the park and together they make up code names for each other. Claudia becomes Cloud because it sound similar and Jonah's name becomes Wallfish because whale sounds like wallfish in German.  Their friendship is forbidden along with most things. Noah isn't even allowed to attend school at first.  Lots of suspicion, mystery and spying are a part of the plot. There are many fact files at the end of chapters that help readers to understand different aspects of life in East Germany during this time.  

This book is intriguing and I was fascinated by the parents and how cool and collected they were during their stay. They seemed like the ultimate spies. Yet, you never really find out how involved they were since the story was Noah's story.  I have not read much about everyday life in East Berlin during this time and yet I know the phrase "behind the Iron Curtain" came with fear and curiosity when I was young. 

I recommend this book for middle school and even adults.  Very interesting story!

The Great Good Summer by Liz Garton Scanlon

• Genre: Realistic Contemporary
• Grade Level: 3rd - 6th 
• Reading Level: 5.3
• Length: 240 pages (7 hours)
• Publisher: Beach Lane Books (May 5, 2015)
• My Rating: 3 out of 4

Ivy is spending her summer before 7th grade babysitting two preschoolers and trying to make sense of her  world.  Her mother has left her father and her and run off with a preacher named Hallelujah Dave and his traveling ministry to Florida. She was depressed and sad and needed to figure out her life again.  She left her phone at home and has only sent a few postcards home.  

Ivy spends her days at a park with the kids she babysits and they watch people fly their remote control planes. Paul one of the boys she sees everyday who also happens to be a classmate. He is a science lover and  talks to Ivy about being sad that the NASA space shuttle program is being discontinued. Together, Ivy and Paul discuss life and faith as they struggle with their own beliefs and Christian upbringing. Ivy and Paul decide to pool their money and sneak away on a bus to Florida from Texas to find Ivy's mother. They also plan to go to Kennedy Space Center to see the space shuttle.  Of course, running away comes with lots of complications, but they eventually have a good conclusion despite the bumps along the way. 

This was a nice book.  I was reading a paperback copy with terrible paper and a lighter print which annoyed me.  But the story was unique and quirky. The story line of the mother running away was a bit strange but yet it let the author address questions of faith that both main characters had.  Faith is not a topic addressed in many of the books I have read lately and yet it is something that middle-schoolers do begin to think about and struggle with.  It is not a preachy story but just lets the characters explore their questions with the reader. 

The story might have been a little slow....I ended up quitting halfway and not picking it up for a few days....so it wasn't a stay up all night and read kind of book. But overall I give it a good rating.