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.