Module 8 : The Maze Runner

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SUMMARY

Book one in a trilogy, The Maze Runner is very popular amongst young readers today. The main character Thomas mysteriously arrives at a place called the "Glade" and inside the Glade are robotic creatures called Grievers, and he has no memory recollection other than his name. Around the outside of the Glade there is a maze with walls so tall no one can see out of it. Although Thomas befriends some of the others in the Glade, he still feels as though he has been there before. His connections run so deep that his friend Teresa is able to speak to him telepathically. The same night she speaks telepathically to him, and they find out that the Maze's doors would stay open and the Grievers will take only one person that night. It is their job to figure out how to get through the Maze by solving a code word.

APA REFERENCE
Dashner, J. (2009). The maze runner. New York: Delacorte Press.


IMPRESSIONS

I am not a fan of post-apocalyptic or dystopian novels. These sort of dark and violent books are very hard for me to read, however I do feel The Maze Runner was well-written, and very descriptive. I found myself wanted to get out of the Glade as quickly as I entered it. I do not think I will continue reading the trilogy.

PROFESSIONAL REVIEW
[Review of the book The Maze Runner by James Dashner]. Kirkus review retrieved on October 19, 2014 from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/james-dashner/the-maze-runner/.

Boys come to the Glade via an empty freight elevator with no memory of how they got there or of their prior lives. This disorientation is made more frightening when they realize that to survive they must lock themselves in every night to avoid the horrors of the Grievers, beings that are part machine, part animal—and altogether deadly. The boys in the Glade send out Runners each day to find a way out through the Maze that surrounds their one patch of safety, with no success. Life goes on until one day the elevator delivers a girl. She brings a message: She is the last child to be sent, and there will be no more deliveries of food or supplies. Now the Glade is cut off, and as the Grievers gather for an all-out attack it’s clear that it’s now or never—the Maze must be solved. Dashner knows how to spin a tale and make the unbelievable realistic. Hard to put down, this is clearly just a first installment, and it will leave readers dying to find out what comes next. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

LIBRARY USES

There could be a group discussion on comparing and contrasting The Maze Runner and Hunger Games. There could also be a discussion on the slang and language used in the The Maze Runner and how it would feel to be thrown in a new community where you spoke the language, but there were certain words that everyone knew the definition except you.

Module 7 : Out of My Mind

 

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SUMMARY
This is a story about a strong and intelligent young lady who has cerebral palsy, yet no one knows just how bright she is until she receives a machine that allows her to communicate like she has never done before. She excels in life to the best of her abilities, she makes friends, and eventually gets to be on a scholastic team. She has the opportunities to travel with her teammates, until an unfortunate event happens.


APA REFERENCE
Draper, S. (2010). Out of my mind. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

IMPRESSIONS
Out of My Mind is well written, and full of emotions. The reader is placed in the mind of a young girl with cerebral palsy, and is taken on an emotional journey through her daily struggles at home, and at school. The reader is allowed to feel the pains and joys of her life, and Melody becomes a part of the reader by the end of the story.


PROFESSIONAL REVIEW
[Review of the book Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper]. Kirkus review retrieved on October 14, 2014 from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sharon-m-draper/out-of-my-mind/.

Melody, diagnosed with cerebral palsy, cannot walk or talk. Despite her parents’ best efforts, the outside world has defined her by her condition. Melody’s life changes when inclusion classrooms are introduced in her school, and she interacts with children other than those in her special-needs unit. To these children, Melody is “other,” and they are mostly uncomfortable with her sounds and jerky movements. Normal problems of school friendships are magnified. Preparation for a trivia competition and acquisition of a computer that lets her communicate her thoughts reveal Melody’s intelligence to the world. Melody is an entirely complete character, who gives a compelling view from inside her mind. Draper never shies away from the difficulties Melody and her family face. Descriptions of both Melody’s challenges—“Going to the bathroom at school just plain sucks”—and the insensitivities of some are unflinching and realistic. Realistically, Melody’s resilient spirit cannot keep her from experiencing heartbreak and disappointment even after she has demonstrated her intellect. This book is rich in detail of both the essential normalcy and the difficulties of a young person with cerebral palsy.

LIBRARY USES
Since this book is too long for a read aloud in the library, a good use would be to ask the ELA teachers to read this book in class and then upon completion come to the library have a class discussion about tolerance and understanding their fellow students that may deal with the same difficulties day in and day out.

Module 6 : The Day the Crayons Quit

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SUMMARY

In The Day the Crayons Quit a box of crayons each write letters to Dalton about why they are overused, overworked, and under-appreciated. This is a fun-loving story about how kids always use the same colors to color things. For example, fire trucks are always red, the ocean and sky are always blue, etc. At the end of the story, Dalton colors a picture using colors that are not "the norm" and he gets an "A" for creativity.

APA REFERENCE
Daywalt, D., & Jeffers, O. (n.d.). The day the crayons quit.

IMPRESSIONS

This is a quick and easy read, with a thrifty perspective from the crayons point-of-view. This book has the opportunity for many lessons to be derived and taught after reading it. The illustrations appear to be done by a small child, very amateur-like, however the details are so lovely the reader has so much to look at while reading about each individual color.

PROFESSIONAL REVIEW

Duncan wants to draw, but instead of crayons, he finds a stack of letters listing the crayons’ demands in this humorous tale.

Red is overworked, laboring even on holidays. Gray is exhausted from coloring expansive spaces (elephants, rhinos and whales). Black wants to be considered a color-in color, and Peach? He’s naked without his wrapper! This anthropomorphized lot amicably requests workplace changes in hand-lettered writing, explaining their work stoppage to a surprised Duncan. Some are tired, others underutilized, while a few want official titles. With a little creativity and a lot of color, Duncan saves the day. Jeffers delivers energetic and playful illustrations, done in pencil, paint and crayon. The drawings are loose and lively, and with few lines, he makes his characters effectively emote. Clever spreads, such as Duncan’s “white cat in the snow” perfectly capture the crayons’ conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale’s overall believability.

LIBRARY USES

A good library use would be a read-aloud, and then have the children work in groups, choose color without looking, and then write a letter from Dalton, back to the crayons. Once the students have completed their letter, then can illustrate their paper. The completed letters can be hung in the library for everyone to see.

Module 5 : The Blacker the Berry

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SUMMARY

This is a poetry book about African Americans and how their skin color makes them beautiful no matter what. The illustrations are happy and melodic with the verses of the poems. This books is about embracing individuality, and that we are people, and we are more than just our skin color. The children's skin is compared to different foods and drinks and beautifully described and enveloped in many senses.

APA REFERENCE
Thomas, J., & Cooper, F. (2008). The blacker the berry: Poems. New York: HarperCollins.

IMPRESSIONS

I am generally not drawn to poems, but this books was well-written and beautifully illustrated. I enjoyed reading this book and will use it in library lessons in the future. I appreciated the comparison of skin tone to different foods. The author beautifully described the tones, and it was a very enjoyable book.

PROFESSIONAL REVIEW
[Review of the book The Blacker the Berry by Joyce Carol Thomas]. Kirkus review retrieved on 09/30/14 from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/joyce-carol-thomas/the-blacker-the-berry/.

“What shade is human?” Thomas’s evocative, colorful poetry seeks to answer that question with this celebration of the diversity of African-American children across the spectrum. From “Raspberry Black” to “Golden Goodness,” Cooper’s soft and realistic illustrations almost leap from the page, incorporating natural images from the text in their depiction of a gallery of beautiful, self-confident children. Difficult intraracial social issues related to skin color are handled with truth and respect. For instance, in the poem “Snowberries,” a fair-skinned child speaks back to those who would question her identity: “The words cut deep down / Beyond the bone / Beneath my snowy skin / Deep down where no one can see / I bleed the ‘one drop of blood’ / That makes Black me.” On the page opposite, an auburn-haired girl smiles at the reader, eyes twinkling. An essential picture book that helps young children understand and appreciate differences in skin color. As the epigraph states so truthfully, “Colors, without black, / couldn’t sparkle quite so bright.” (Picture book/poetry. 5-10)

LIBRARY USES

This book would be a great read during Black History Month or at any time throughout the school year to teach about acceptance, and that we are all the same and beautiful even though our skin tones my be different. 

Module 5 : Chatto's Kitchen

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SUMMARY

Chato's Kitchen is about two cats who decide to have mice over for dinner, and the mice willingly accept their invite not knowing they are the dinner feast. When their dog friend Chorizo comes over, the tides change and all the likely enemies enjoyed a Mexican dinner together.

APA REFERENCE
Soto, G., & Guevara, S. (1995). Chato's kitchen. New York: Putnam's.


IMPRESSIONS

This book was entertaining, but the illustrations were far better than the storyline. If this book is being read aloud, the pictures must be shown in order to get the full idea on what the author was trying to convey. All in all, it was a fun and entertaining read.

PROFESSIONAL REVIEW
[Review of the book Chato's Kitchen by Gary Soto]. Kirkus Review retrieved on 10/01/14 from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/gary-soto/chatos-kitchen/.

Chato and Novio Boy, low-riding East Los Angeles homeboys of the feline variety, have dinner guests. The invitees, a family of five fat mice who just moved in next door, haven't an inkling that they are the intended main course. But when the mice bring along their friend Chorizo (a worldly mutt in a slouch beret) to share the grub, he thwarts the cats' connivings. This unlikely three- species chow-down is a sweet salute to Spanish cooking, with fajitas, frijoles, and quesadillas sharing center stage. Soto delivers a spare, clever text; the words skip like stones across water--``His tail began to swing to the rhythm. He felt the twinge of mambo in his hips.'' Guevara's swarming, luxuriant illustrations give the atmosphere palpability, with brushstrokes so fresh readers will want to stick their fingers in the paint to feel its texture. Menace hangs in the air; the artist mixes the sinisterness of R. Crumb with moments of Edvard Munch terror, yet it seems likely from the outset that the mice are more than capable of looking after themselves. Incidental touches--little devils and angels darting about, a bird wedding glimpsed through a window--are there for the sharp-eyed. Smart, with a nice edge. Soto's inspired finger-snapping prose has found an equally imaginative comrade in Guevara's colorful urban paintings. (Picture book. 4-8)

LIBRARY USES

Chato's Kitchen can be used to help aid in the understanding of dialect. It can also be paired with any Skippy Jon Jones too. Dialect and inflection is difficult for some students to understand, and reading this book aloud will be a humorous way for students to hear dialect.

Module 4 : The Twenty-One Balloons

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SUMMARY

This Newbery Award winning book begins as a retired school teacher, Professor Sherman builds a hot air balloon house which fails, and he lands on a fantasy island. Once he spends a year alone in his travels, the people of his country want to know what he saw during that time.

Once his hot air balloon house fails, he lands on an island is full of diamonds, wealth, and the people on the island are quite the inventors. They live in a mostly worry free world, other than a big volcano that may erupt at any given time. However, they are fully prepared to make a mass exit in the even that happens. 

The volcano of the Krakatoa Island erupts, and Professor Sherman along with the other islanders climb aboard their invention which is a platform that is held afloat by twenty one balloons. This invention gets him back home safely, to which he is able to finally describe his adventures. 

APA REFERENCE
Bois, W. (1947). The twenty-one balloons,. New York: Viking Press.

IMPRESSIONS

This books was a fun and imaginative read, full of inventions, diamonds, and beaches. To a small extent, it resembles the Disney movie "Up". Some of the chapters were lengthy, and had some irrelevant information, but being the book was published in 1947, author William Pene Du Bois was ahead of his time.

PROFESSIONAL REVIEW
[Review of the book The Twenty One Balloons by William Pene Du Bois]. Kirkus Review retrieved on November 1, 2014 from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/william-pene-dubois-4/the-twenty-one-balloons-2/.

Fanciful adventures of Professor Sherman, who wanted to retire for a year's vacation in a balloon. He broke the 8-Days Around the World record; he landed in a volcanic heaving island of the Pacific; he saw solid diamond mines, the incredible islanders and their incredible way of life, and with the help of a volcanic eruption, he managed the rest of the trip and came home to San Francisco's Explorers' Club to recount his adventures. His Odyssey is a blend of Gulliver and the Oz books -- straight adventure fantasy, flimsy fun. Mr. duBois has done his own beguiling pictures.

LIBRARY USES
This books has had a cover upgrade, and a library lesson could be to compare the original cover with the new cover and explain how publishers are making covers more detailed to entice readers and to shed some insight on what the book is about. The new cover is easier for the reader to infer what the book is about. 

Module 4 : The Giver

 

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SUMMARY

Newbery Award winning author Lois Lowry writes a futuristic novel about a world where there are no feelings, everyone is equal, and lives day to day with no worries. That is until Jonas turns 12 and receives the job as "The Giver" with all the other children in his community that turn 12 and receive their new duties as well. The responsibilities of being "The Giver" bears too much weight for Jonas to carry, and he takes it upon himself to get out of the community and saves Gabriel, a young child that is staying with his family unit that is due to be released the next day.

APA REFERENCE
Lowry, L. (1993). The giver. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.


IMPRESSIONS

This book does a great job creating the sense of numbness within the characters. It isn't until about half way through the book that Jonas starts to question The Giver and his realities. Like Jonas, the reader then gains a sense of frustration and begins to fight for the others in the community to be allowed to feel, see color, and all the other things that being human allows us to do. The ending was a bit confusing and frustrating. It leaves the reader unsure if there is a sequel, and unclear as to what happens to Jonas and Gabriel at the end.

PROFESSIONAL REVIEW
[Review of the book The Giver by Lois Lowry]. Kirkus Reveiw retrieved on November 14, 2014 from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/lois-lowry/the-giver/.

In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility. As Jonas approaches the "Ceremony of Twelve," he wonders what his adult "Assignment" will be. Father, a "Nurturer," cares for "newchildren"; Mother works in the "Department of Justice"; but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling. In the event, he is named "Receiver," to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories--painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder; the Elder ("The Giver") now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. The process is deeply disturbing; for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as "release" is revealed to be murder. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to "Elsewhere," a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a newchild he has come to love. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing. Wrought with admirable skill--the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel. (Fiction. 12-16)

LIBRARY USES
This book could be used as a book talk in how a story can seen as utopian and dystopian at the same time. There could be lengthy discussions on how perception and reality fit into our lives, an "outside looking in approach".