Emily Gravett

I just returned from NCTE's Annual Convention were I had the opportunity to meet several children's authors and illustrators. One of those talented individuals was Emily Gravett. Emily shared about her writing and drawing experiences at the Children's Literaure Assembly's session titled Notable Children's Books in the English Language Arts.

I am a huge fan of Emily's work. I love the way she thinks out of the box and creates radical change picturebooks. I was first introduced to Emily's work a little over a year ago via Wolves. Since then I have loved all of her other books.

During the CLA session at NCTE, Emily shared two books that will be coming to the US in the future: An Odd Egg (a very fun book about a duck that finds a beautiful egg) and Dogs ( a book of opposites). She also read her newest published book, Spells....I think I may have a new favorite!

Visit her site: http://www.emilygravett.com/

In the very near future I will post about my new friend Jerry Pallotta (thanks Deb!).

Happy Reading,
Dr. Quinn

An Author from Down Under

One of my students is currently doing her student teaching in a 5th grade class in Australia. I recently asked her for some book ideas from down under. Here was her response...

...there is an author named Morris Gleitzman. My class was checking out his website the other day. His books are kind of morbidly funny.. crazy sense of humor and the kids love it. There are some chapter examples on his website. One of the books is about a frog and his family who keep getting squashed by cars on the freeway and his life long ambition for friendship between frogs an humans... as he drags the dried up bodies of his squashed relatives off the freeway... you get the idea. Here's the website. http://www.morrisgleitzman.com/ where you can get more information and several audio samples from several of his books

Also, the authors Jackie French and Emily Rhoda are very popular...

Thanks for sharing with us Amy.

Happy Reading,

Dr. Quinn

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

I have recently had several students ask me about Jeff Kinney's book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Sadly, I could only give them second-hand information about the book because I had not read it. I had heard many good reports about the book with one such report from my son (4th grader at the time). With all this in mind, I thought it was time to read the book.

Let me say that I am glad I read it. I though it was very creative, funny, and real. There were several times I actually laughed out loud while I read. I also found this book to be an extremely fast read...even for me!

I can see why so many students like this text. Kinney provides so many opportunities for the reader to connect with the protagonist. I must admit that I too had many connections...ranging from my junior high experiences (long ago) to my current role as a parent of middle school/elementary children. My next step is to talk to my children and ask them about their personal connections to the book. This could be an interesting conversation.

I am often asked if this book is considered a graphic novel. I would say technically no, but there are some elements (similar to Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpaints Series) that might make students ask the question. Personally, I would consider it more of a radical change text or an illustrated novel than a graphic novel.

Most of you are probably aware of the sequel, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules and the newest addition Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw (coming out in January '09). Also be sure to checkout the website for the online journal...very cool! http://www.funbrain.com/journal/Journal.html

By the way, now I know why my son wants to study robotics for his independent learning project.

Rating:

Happy Reading,

Dr. Quinn

The Tale of Despereaux: The Graphic Novel

Are you kidding me, I felt like I was reading a Disney animated book! I must admit this has been the worst book so far on my blog.

I was so excited to see this book in the bookstore last night along with several YA books all of which I purchased. So today between typical Saturday house/yard work and the Ohio State/Penn State football game, I thought I would read. Wow, I think I may have enjoyed the yard work in 43 degree weather more than I enjoyed this book. Before I purchased the book I should have taken more notice at the cover which reads...adapted from the major motion picture...notice it does not say it has been adapted from the book.

Personally, I do not even want to waste my time writing a review for this text, so it will be super quick! Cheesy illustrations (too movie Disney-like), cheesy link to the book written by Kate DiCamillo, and too much missing...not to mention some wacky additions. One positive about the book...at least I can use this text as a negative example in my children's literature class.

I can't imagine how cheesy the movie will be. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it.

Rating:

Happy Reading,

Dr. Quinn

Cut

It has been awhile since I last posted a book of my own. My most recent read was Cut by Patricia McCormick. The book is about a topic for which I have very little knowledge. However, I have wanted to read it for quite awhile since it is a popular YA book, and because I wondered if it might give me some insights to teen cutting.

After reading this book I was not disappointed. I do feel that I have a little better understanding (however I know that this is only one story/example). I can understand why YA readers might connect with the book. Although the protagonist, Callie...aka S.T. for Silent Treatment, self inflicts her wounds there are many other characters in the book with other problems that teenagers also deal with. Ultimately readers might connect with the same underpinning problem that Callie had...putting blame on herself for her family's problems.

I really liked the writing style used by McCormick, a first-person voice directed to the protagonist's therapist. I liked the ending and the initial healing between Callie and her father. I liked Callie's self-realization that she does need help, and that she actually wants to get better.

I'm already giving too much away so I better stop.

Rating:

Happy Reading,

Dr. Quinn

The Dumb Bunnies

Believe it or not I had not read my first Dumb Bunnies book until last spring. At that time I purchased two titles from Scholastic: The Dumb Bunnies & Make Way for Dumb Bunnies. Of course they were dumb, but I loved the humor in the both the text and the illustrations. OK so would I really use these in an elementary classroom? This was a question asked by several of my undergrads. Well those of you that know me know that I probably would...of course I've been known to use a lot of controversial literature in the past and the present. Personally I think these books would be a fun way to teach intertextual connections (text-to-text).

FYI, my two boys are big Dav Pilkey fans. They both love the Captain Underpants Series. My youngest is currently a third grader and a struggling reader. Last week I gave him my two Dumb Bunnies books to read. He absolutely loved them. His responses would have provided rich data for anyone studying children's responses to picture books (Larry Sipe...you would have loved it). Here were some of his responses: laughter, giggles, smiles, head nods, and quotes like "What the heck? Oh my gosh! You've got to be kidding me! They are so dumb!" Any book that encourages and engages my struggling reader can't be that bad. These books put a smile on my son's face which then put a smile on my face! Thanks Dav.

I haven't done a rating for some time so here I go:

I know that some of you may lose a little respect for me for this rating, but the books fit my sense of humor.

Happy Reading,

Dr. Quinn

The Olympics

Sorry that I haven't posted in quite a while, but I have been concentrating on recreating several syllabi for this fall. OK, that is true, but I am also spending a lot of time watching the Olympics.

The Olympics have always been important to me (mainly the T&F events), but this year, it seems as thought I watch everything I can. To tell the truth, I will be glad when it is finally over so I can get back to more reading. Of course as soon as the Olympics are over I will start watching football (The Ohio State Buckeyes & the Indianapolis Colts). The bottom-line is that at times I lack self-control to turn off the TV and pick up a book. Sorry, but that is just the way I roll.

I have a plan to integrate my students' responses to their children's literature readings to this blog, so hopefully that will give us more books to explore. Classes start in about a week, so we'll see if this pans out or not.

Happy Reading,

Dr. Quinn

YA List from a Friend

I have recently been emailing back and forth with a colleague and new friend from Minnesota, Charlotte Sullivan. In our last few emails Charlotte has given me some YA recommendations. With her permission, I have taken the words right from our email to share with all of you. Because these are Charlotte's annotations and because I have not read any of these book, I will not be rating them. Also please note that Charlotte's original intention was for my eyes.

From Charlotte...

I highly recommend Neal Schusterman's Dark Side of Nowhere. Sci Fi for kids who don't like sci fi. Strong first person voice, examples of leadership, excellent suspense and plot arc. For middle school...but also high school. There's also a great audio recording.

Also love Anne Ursu's Shadow Thieves, the first in a wacky Chronus Chronicles trilogy about contemporary kids and three main Greek gods. (You may not know that one of the doors to the underworld is in our very own Mall of America, here in MN. ;-) . Strong voices, imitates Greek epic story structure, good humor. Protagonists are two cousins, one white/ one black--one from US/ one from England. The second book is out. Haven't read it yet. I'd say, intermediate and up.

Also, you've probably heard of Lightning Thief. Another blend of today and Greek mythology. Main character has ADD.

Although City of Ember, I feel is a so-so book craft-wise, I loved challenging students to think about possibilities in the classroom. We looked at parallels to Plato's cave, and at Crown (a Christian college), the concept of having limited knowledge of the spiritual realm, or of life beyond what we know.

You might check out Pete Hautman. He won the National Book Award for Godless, about a teen who creates his own religion...but I actually like his other books. Especially Sweetblood (teen w/ diabetes, interest in vampires...but the story is real-world), Invisible, etc. These are all teen reads. Stunning, concise, first person, short chapters. He's a true artist. But he's lately done a new Bloodwater mystery series with is partner and author Mary Logue. Fun... more intermediate level.

Susan Fletcher's Shadow Spinner, is a retelling of Scheherazade story from the POV of a young, handicapped girl who happens to be a spunky storyteller herself. Intermediate. Great action, great story.

One last title. I really enjoyed Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy. Humor, fantasy, adventure, intriguing explorations of social power structures, resistance to oppression, etc. I see some post-9/11 overtones, though, I believe Stroud is from UK. Some conservative readers may object to the djinn and spirit world represented. I loved it. Also a great audio version of this.

Thank you Charlotte for sharing these titles and for permission to post them to my blog.

Happy Reading,
Dr. Quinn

Stargirl & Love, Stargirl

I finally finished Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. It took me almost six months because I kept putting it down and picking other books up. For those of you that have read previous posts, you know that I set a goal to finish it before reading anything else. So I spent part of a beach day completing the book. By the way, I promise not to post anymore pictures of me reading at the beach. The picture posted here is at East Beach in Santa Barbara, CA. FYI, Santa Barbara is fantastic...great weather, great food, very clean, and more. I would give it a 5-star rating!

Back to the books. I am not going to review the two Spinelli books, but I'll make a few comments and rate them both.

Stargirl
I loved it. I loved the writing style, the message, the characters, the storyline, and the potential for for classroom discussion. I am a huge fan. One of my all-time favorite books

Rating:

Love, Stargirl
I enjoyed this book, but I was not nearly as engaged in this sequel as I was the first book...maybe that is why it took me six months to complete it. I know that many of my students like this book just as much as Stargirl, but I just struggled with it a bit. Although I struggled, it was still creative. In the first book, the text is written from Leo's point of view (Leo is Stargirl's boyfriend). In Love, Stargirl, the book is one long letter written to Leo from Stargirl. I'll leave it at that so I don't spoil too much.

Rating:


Happy Reading,
Dr. Quinn

Rules

I just returned from Santa Barbara, CA, where my wife and I spent our 20th anniversary. While on the trip I read two books: Love, Stargirl and Rules. I was planning to do two posts this afternoon (Saturday), however, my body seems to still be on Pacific time so I thought I would go ahead and post Rules tonight or this morning or whatever you want to call it (1:30 AM). BTW, the time stamp seems to be off by three hours.

First off let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed Rules by Cynthia Lord. I loved the honesty of the protagonist, Catherine. Catherine is a twelve year old girl with an eight year old brother, David, who is autistic. Although she loves her brother he often embarrasses her by doing things such as: pulling down his pants, dropping toys in the fish tank, opening cupboard doors at other people’s homes, etc.

Each chapter is titled with some sort of rule. Usually these rules are meant for David, but they often mean just as much to Catherine as they do for David. Sometimes to smooth out awkward situations or just their way of showing their love for each other, Catherine and David will recite lines from Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad Together. These little snippets along with the ongoing list of rules that Catherine creates throughout the book are a favorite of mine.

Another storyline is the relationship that Catherine generates with a Jason, a boy in a wheelchair. Jason has difficulty communicating verbally so he uses a book full of words and words with pictures to communicate. As the story develops Catherine adds words for David’s communication book. Words such as: awesome!, whatever!, That stinks the big one!!!, and more.

Sorry if this review is a little random, just too much travel today.

Rating:

Happy Reading, Dr. Quinn

Ratings, Readings, & Travels

Ratings:

After getting all excited about rating the books posted, I have mellowed a bit. Originally I had hoped to come up with a system that considered items such as level of engagement, level of recommendation and other areas; however, I think I simply want to use a one-to-five star rating system. As an educator I know the importance of descriptors, but right now my descriptors are kind of simplistic and probably even cheesy.

Loved it / Highly recommend

Liked it a lot / Strongly recommend

Enjoyed it / Recommend

Did not like it / Do not recommend

I can't believe I wasted my time / Stay away from this one

I will go back and add my personal rating to books from previous posts. Who knows if this system will stay or if I will change it in the future. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if I make some changes in the future.

Readings:

I have already made some reading changes. I am embarrassed to say that I started Love Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli in January and then I put it down for no real reason. While picking up a pile of books near my bed, I saw Spinelli's novel. Now, I am the type of person that loves a sense of accomplishment and does not like to leave things hanging. With this in mind, I decided that I need to complete this book before going to something else. So Love Stargirl will be my next read, and I think a will write it up with Stargirl as well. From there I have a few options (actually I have about six books in the same pile as Love Stargirl that I would like to get too). Remember, I am a slow reader so I truly don't expect to get all of these completed before next semester starts.

Travels:

Within the past three weeks I have been to a remote island in Canada (to work...not for pleasure), Seaside, FL (one of my favorite vacation places), and in a few days I leave for Santa Barbara, CA (20 year anniversary trip). Now many people might consider these great opportunities to read, but I like to mix reading with other ways to spend my time. For example, while on the beach, one day I read Twisted, by Anderson. The next two days on the beach, I listened to the radio and talked with family. Of course the plane ride to California would be conducive to some quality reading, but I'll probably opt for the in-flight movie even if I have already seen it. Sometimes my ADD keeps me from relaxing and focusing on a book. Sorry if that disappoints you, but that's just the way I roll.

Happy Reading,

Dr. Quinn

Redwall: The Graphic Novel

Over the past six months I have gained interest in graphic novels. My library has grown from zero to approximately 20 graphic novels, and some day I hope to review or share several of my favorite graphic novels on this blog site.

The latest addition to my collection is Brian Jacques Redwall: The Graphic Novel, illustrated by Bret Blevins. I was very excited to pick up this book for several reasons: 1) I loved the original text (although I haven't visited it for years), 2) I was eager to see Blevins' interpretation of the story as well as his character illustrations, 3) I like graphic novels for elementary students, & 4) it is another graphic novel for my collection.

After reading this graphic novel I felt happily satisfied. Originally, I hoped for colorful illustrations, but I quickly became a fan of the black and white style. I loved the illustrations of Cluny and his army, and I liked how the layout was similar to the Japanese Manga style (maybe that is why it is in b/w). Overall I though this was a good interpretation of Jacques original tale. Of course certain text and details are going to be left out, but I still thought that Blevins' interpretation was smooth. Therefore, I once again enjoyed the story of Redwall.

Rating:

Happy Reading,
Dr. Quinn

Rating System

After finishing Story of a Girl, I was thinking about various ways to share my personal ratings of the various books that I share. I am sure that the few of you that actually read this post notice how it has changed already. Earlier this week I wrote that I would not give summaries for each book; however, I feel that many will want a quick summary or some type of evaluation to help them decide if they want to read/explore books from this site. So I am in the initial stage of brainstorming a simple but flexible rating system (all based on my opinion) for the various genre of books that I share. Right now I am not sure but I know there will be be several categories (e.g., to recommend or not, engagement, & creativity). I hope to get this figured out before my next post. If any of you have any suggestions, feel free to share them in the comment section.

Currently I have my students rate books: excellent, above average, average, or poor. To be consistent with them, I will probably do something similar, but with a little more to it. Don't be surprised if I change this system as I continue to post.

Happy Reading,
Dr. Quinn

Story of a Girl

Today’s read was Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr. My first comment is…perfect title. After discussing this book with my wife we agreed that this book was plain and simply a story of a sixteen year old girl.

The YA novel takes place on the coast of northern California, Zarr immediately starts the book with a flashback as the protagonist, Deanna, has an unwanted encounter with her “boyfriend” and her father. Then the novel moves to the present. From this point on Deanna tells us what is happening in her life: how she handles her dysfunctional family; how she discovers true friends; and how she deals with her past and the way it impacts her present. Like Twisted (yesterday's post), the protagonist has a difficult relationship with his/her father.

I enjoyed the book because it was not too deep. There was no hidden agenda. Zarr did a good job of sharing Deanna’s life with the readers. I really liked the ending or lack of ending. Deanna’s life goes on so Zarr simply ties up some loose ends, but was creative enough to let the reader think about Deanna’s future.


Rating

Happy Reading,
Dr. Quinn

Twisted

One of the few YA books on my summer reading list with a male protagonist is Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson. Like many of her books this is a quick read and a good one. I feel that many YA readers will be able to connect with the protagonist, Tyler, in some way. He comes from a dysfunctional family…the father is self-centered, the mother somewhat lacks a backbone, and together they argue all the time. Sadly many YA readers probably live too close to this.

I enjoyed how Tyler developed throughout the book. Learning how to handle his new physique, his new female interest, his new and old trials and tribulations Tyler rides an emotional roller coaster. Support from his sister, his best friend, and his own maturity all help him get through his twisted life.

I was surprised how Anderson ended the book…it worked, but I was surprised.

Rating

Happy Reading,
Dr. Quinn