The Tiger Rising

This book is the reason I will never read The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, or any other book about captive animals, for that matter! Of course I was crying by the end of The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo, and I'm weeping now just thinking about all the horrid things humans do to large, majestic animals like whales, elephants, bears and big cats.

So what brought me to this book, you ask? My teaching partner and I gave a copy to each of our students at the end of the school year. I chose it because of its accessible Lexile level (520) and it was a dollar selection from Scholastic. Also, it is written by the beloved author of Because of Winn-Dixie (and other popular books) which my students love. (And which, by the way, also made me cry, especially the movie!)

The Tiger Rising is a short book that I completed in a few hours. I empathized with the emotionally damaged characters and wanted to know how the story resolved itself, even though I knew it would tug at my heartstrings. One can only hope that it stirred some feelings or stimulated some deep thinking in the eleven year olds I sent it home with for summer reading.

Woods Runner

I'm glad I finally found the time to read Gary Paulsen's Woods Runner. It is a contemporary companion to The Fighting Ground by Avi for students who are interested in Revolutionary War historical fiction. Last school year, I had a resurgence of interest  in Paulsen's book Hatchet by both boys and girls. Hopefully I can entice some fans of the Hatchet series to give Woods Runner a try.

Like The Fighting Ground, Woods Runner centers on a boy coming of age as the American Revolution begins. It explores the themes of commitment to family, freedom, loyalty, and loss of innocence. Another similarity between the two books is the no-holds-barred portrayal of the horrors of war. The time period and events are not romanticized, but rather the realities and hardships are candidly depicted from the perspective of a thoughtful and hard-working boy.

"Thirteen-year-old Samuel lives with his parents on the edge of the wilderness in the British colony of Pennsylvania, a long way from the civilization of any town."

The setting itself plays an important role in the story as Samuel fights for survival against enemy soldiers, Native Americans, and nature itself in the threatening woods. There are examples of figurative language such as "a man who moved like smoke, his rifle a part of his arm," as well as historical references to Hessians, the Brown Bess, and British prison ships. Paulsen also incorporates bits of nonfiction into the book; the chapters are separated by short passages that clarify some of the historical details. The purpose of these segments is to highlight the context of the Revolutionary War as well as to provide information about a way of life that contrasts sharply with that of today's readers.

The Almost Moon

I found this in my door one day last month. My friend Lisa, renowned for her attempts to broaden my horizons with highbrow reading and movie recommendations, dropped it off. This book is unlike most of her usual suggestions, but the first line did grab my attention. "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily." Alice Sebold is the author of The Lovely Bones which I enjoyed for its unusual point of view and character development. And so, I began reading The Almost Moon in a quest to discover what quirkiness lay within its plot.

The quirk factor was almost too much for me when, after killing her mother, the main character proceeds to engage in something even more taboo, but I forged on in order to learn the fate of the poor, twisted souls in this unconventional story. Since I can't give away the ending, I guess I'll share some peculiar tidbits I garnered from this book. 

First, I learned about the Melungeon people from Tennessee. I had never heard of these interracial groups who inhabited the southeastern United States and seemingly comprised European, African, and Native American ethnicities. At one point in the story, the main character reminisces about trying to convince her young daughters that their family descended from the Melungeons. Quirky.

In another creepy subplot, the main character recalls the history of the town her father came from. It had been closed down and the residents “relocated” in order for a dam to redirect the waters of the Delaware River through it. Despite the engineers best calculations, the flooding had failed, leaving the town a muddy wreck of ruined buildings, which the character visits as a teenager with her long-suffering father. Eerie, but as far as I can tell, not a true story. My Google search for the town of Lambeth, a forty minute drive from Phoenixville, PA, came up short. Double quirk.

My favorite line in the book is when the main character's grown daughter describes the murdered mother's knitting, "Why is it that everything she knits resembles vomit?" The narrator expands on the memory, "The girls were just entering adulthood, and that year, my mother had outdone herself, knitting a full-length sweater coat for each of them. She used a variety of yarns in a striated design, and sure enough, though it was meant to be autumnal in effect, the result seemed more intestinal." Funny. Reminded me of the mothball-scented, scratchy, wool sweaters my aunt used to give me and my cousins every Christmas. I am a knitter and with so many beautiful yarn colors to choose from, I often wonder why old people are attracted to vomit-colored options.

Clearly, The Almost Moon characters are complicated and flawed, and they wrestle with issues of mental illness. They are self-absorbed, odd, and tormented. I can relate. So I didn't mind spending a short period of time inhabiting their off-kilter world of matricide, suicide and self-indulgence.

The Reason I Jump

It is fascinating to read about how the autistic mind works. First hand accounts, fictionalized or not, offer glimpses into the inner thoughts and struggles of those on the autism spectrum. Having read Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, I was intrigued when I heard about The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida.


Here are a couple of Higasuida's quotes from the book that resonated with me, having worked with students with autism.

"Playing with familiar items is comforting because we already know what to do with them."

"We are misunderstood and we'd give anything if only we could be understood properly."

Higashida explains that his motivation for continuing the difficult work of learning to communicate in writing on a computer keyboard was a result of his realization that, "to live my life as a human being, nothing is more important than being able to express myself. . ." I tell my students all the time that this is why they need to learn to become effective communicators, to express themselves verbally and in writing. What they have to say is important!

There are so many mysteries about the syndrome itself and the causes of autism, hopefully books such as Higashida's, chronicling his own personal experiences, will offer insight that might bring comfort to those whose lives have been touched by autism. 

The following information is from Goodreads.com

Naoki Higashida (東田 直樹 Higashida Naoki) is the Japanese author of The Reason I Jump: One Boy's Voice from the Silence of Autism. He was born in 1992 and diagnosed with autism when he was five. He was 13 years old when he wrote the book which was published in English in 2013. Reviews have been mixed, both celebrating the accomplishment of a mentally and emotionally challenged young author and expressing discomfort with the involvement of Higashida's communications facilitator (his mother) and English language translators (Keiko Yoshida and her husband David Mitchell).
Source: Wikipedia.

Canada

I started reading Canada by Richard Ford at the end of last summer and got halfway through. I picked it up again during Christmas break and forced myself to finish it. In an act of mercy, I put this book out of its misery ;)

Canada is a plodding book with way too much attention given to mundane events. The premise is intriguing, and the characters are unusual. But, for the love of God, the pace is slow! In late 1950's Montana, the parents of 15-year-old twins Dell and Berner are arrested for robbing a bank, throwing this strange little family off its already sad and dysfunctional trajectory. Berner runs away to California and Dell reluctantly begins an adventure in Canada. And that's it.