Out of the Dust

"Named him Franklin after the president..."

Out of the Dust

By: Karen Hesse

Copyright 1997

Scholastic Press

Middle School

Historical Fiction

227 Pages

Billy-Jo is an 11 year old girl who plays the piano amazingly and it is one of the things that she lives for.  She lives durring the time of the Dust Bowl.  Her family's farm is not doing to well and some horrible things happen thoughout time.  One night when he mom was cooking there was a bucket of karosine by the stove that she mistook for water.  She used that and caught on fire and Billy-Jo went to throw that bucket out and her mother was coming back twords her and her mother burst into flames.  Billy-Jo tried to pat her mother out and burnt her hands terribly.  Her mother died giving birth to the baby and the baby died too.  Everyone would blaim Billy-Jo for what happened.  The piano became a distant thing to her, she stoped playing it and just didnt know what to do anymore.  There was one point when she just tried to run away from home.  She returned to her father and their relationship started to grow better.  There was even another woman in her fathers life.  It took her a while to get used to her but soon excepted her.  As time went on, things started to get better, the dust started to stop, crops started to grow, and life started to become.  This book is her jurnal through this time. 

I would recomend this book to anyone.  It is such a good insight to what life was like durrning this time period, it was hard and just through Billy-Jo's words you can feel for her and the people.

I dont think that there is anything wrong with this book, what was said is life.

Back in 7th grade when I read this book for the first time I didn't like it.  Reading it now I dont know why I didnt like it, I really enjoyed it and think it is a very good story.

A Single Shard

"All that was left of the two vases was just a single shard"

A Single Shard

By: Linda Sue Park

Copyright 2001

Yearling Book

Historical Fiction

Middle School

148 Pages

An orohined boy, named Tree-Ear who lives under a brigd with his friend Crain-man, sneaks into a potters house to look at what he has made and ends up braking some pots and has to work for Potter Min to repay him for what he did.  That is how his jurney begins.  He is orriganlly just supposed to work for nine days and then be done but once his days were up he still showed up to work, so Min let him work for him.  Mins wife was kind and caring and fed him and even gave him extra food to take back to Crain-man when the day was done.  Tree-Ear finds out that Min wont ever teach him the art of pottery because it is past down from father to son and not to an orphin boy.  So with this said Tree-Ear did not give up.  He kept working.  Soon after the embassary came to visit to comission a potter to make pottery for them Tree-Ear would be on a jurney of his life.  After working long and hard on the two vases Min sent him on the long trip to take them to the emassary.  Before he left Tree-Ear gave Crain-man a little clay monkey he had made (this is immportent). So as he was taveling he got robed.  The robbers thought that he had rice in his pack and he did not.  They were not happy that it was not rice and they started beating him and they stole his money as well.  They took just about everything and right before they left one of the robbers took the vases and threw them off the cliff.  Tree-Ear went to go find them and only found tiny shards.  Looking hard he came across on shard that was bigger then the rest butit was still small.  This single shard showed all the qualities of how skilled Min was and what the emassary was looking for.  So he continued his jurney with the single shard and more determined then before.  When he reached his destination the guards did not trust him and would not let him in.  Tree-Ear remained determind and was soon let in and he refused to see no one but embassary Kim.  When he was finally shown to him he showed him the single shard and was told that Potter Min would get the commission.  They sent him home by sea and he brought the news back to Potter Min and Min's wife.  He brought such good and joyful news to them to get not good news for himself.  Crain-man was dead.  Potter Min put him right to work though.  Told him about the little clay monkey and how amazingly good work it was.  Min's wife told Tree-Ear that he would be staying with them (in a way adopting him) and gave him a new name.  No longer was he an orphin and also Min had told him that he needed to get to work beacause he couldnt help make pots without a wheel of his own. 

I would recomned this book to anyone

I dont think that there was anything wrong with this book.

I really enjoyed this book.  It was cute and such a good story.

Lincoln: A Photobiography

"If I go down in history for anything, it will be for this."

Lincoln: A Photobiography
By:Russell Freedman
Copyright 1987
Clarion Books
Non-Fiction Biography
Middle School Age
150 Pages

An interesting and well done biography of Abraham Lincoln with lots of pictures.  There is nothing in this book that does not have proof that something did or did not happen.  There are many interesting facts about Lincoln that most people do not know.  This is getting into his life, not just the frount that everyone saw him as.  There is more to a person then being the President of the U.S. and this book show that.  Lincoln was human, he has strengths and he had weaknesses, he had joys and sorrows, he even had self esteem issuses.  This was a great man who had hopes and dreams and great ambitions.  He went to school off and on and probly all together only got about a year of schooling, but you would never know that by hearing him speak or seeing all the great he did.  He was a funny man too, or well, he would tell jokes and anticdotes and no matter how many times he told the joke we would laugh just the same as if it was the first time tellingor hearing the joke.  He was human, a worker, a man, a husband, and a father all before he was the president.  He loved his family and his two boys who he believed could do no wrong.  He was anti-slavery and he had to be president through that had time of the nation splitting and trying to bring the nation back together and get through a war.  He had many firsts for the contry, and it was not easy.  You can see it in how he aged over his term as president.  So many people died, and he had to deal with the people and just so much pain, because as the president, everything is your fault.  This was at the time the most blodiest thing that ever happened, americans killing american and so many people who didnt truly understand what war really was.  The story that we all know, when Lincoln was killed, murdered while watching a play with his wife and his body guards not doing their job, they were down stairs watching the play.  Many morned the death of our president in many ways, even going out and watching the train pass by and also celibrated his life and all the good he did.  Abraham Lincoln did lots in his life, and was human.

I would recomend this book to anyone, teachers to use when teaching about Lincoln.  It is interesting and there was so much that I had no idea about.

I dont think that there was anything wrong with this book.

I enjoyed this story.  It was interesting and I learned a lot.

Love You Forever

"I'll love you forver, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be."

Love You Forever
By: Robert Munsch
Copyright 1987
Firefly Books
Picture Book
Young Readers
28 Pages

One of the cutest stories that a mother can read to a child (sorry I guess I am a bit bais).  It is a story about a mother watching her son grow up.  From a baby to a grown up man everynight she will crawl into his room and make sure that he is REALLY asleep and then she would rock him back and forth and sing to him "I'll love you forver, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be."  From baby to tadler to boy to teenager she does it everynight.  Even as an adult and he moves out some nights she will drive across town just to hold her son and sing to him.  One day she grew old and her son came to visit her.  When he got there she tried to sing him the song but only got half way through, she couldnt sing to him because she was too old and sick.  Her son held her and sang "I'll love you forver, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my mommy you'll be."  When the son left his mothers house he went home and thought for a long time.  Late that night he went ino his daughters bedroom and sang to her.
"I'll love you forver, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be."

I would recomend this book to anyone.  To mothers to hold their kids and read to them.  I say mothers mainly because this book is about a mother and her child, but yes, fathers need to read to their kids too, it ends with the the father singing so I guess it is ok.  But I do believe strongly that this book is one to be read to parent to child.

I dont think anything was wrong with this book.  But on a lihter note me and my friends were talking and one brought up why their was no dad it was only a mom and with the son it was only him and child and no wife.  We laughed for a little bit about it.

I love this book.  I cry ever time I read it or it is read to me.  It is one of my favorite books that I grew up on and was read all the time to me by my mommy who cried when she read it.

Wayside School is Falling Down

"Would you rather be traped and safe or free?"

Wayside School is Falling Down

By Louis Sachar
Copyright 1989
Harper Trophy
Novel- Fiction
Younger Elementary
152 Pages


A book full of crazy stories about the students in Ms Jewls class.  They are a class not like any other, in a school that is not like any other.  Their class is on the 30th story on a building with only 29 floors (there is not 19th story, it doesnt exsist).  Each chapter in the book tells a little story about one of the students and they do connect through out the book too.  They are just silly random funny stories.  One is about a student tired of being in class and wanting to be free, so he wonders down into the basment (no one goes there) and he runs into some people and he ends up signing a peice of paper that lets him be free.  Throughout the rest of the book no one understood why he could do whatever he wanted.  One student gets stuck on the 19 floor for three chapters and they were all chapter 19.  These students act unlike any other, and even the Ms Jewls is on the crazy side of things, she doesnt even know one of her students real names.  The book has pigtales saving a boys life, food that makes you kiss someone, a boys who is nicer the nice and a girl who is meaner then mean, and students being students.  Don't worry though, the school doesnt really fall down in the end, but it does however become a school for cows.

I would recomend this book for any young student.

I dont think anything is wrong with this book.  It is just a fun silly book full of fun silly stories.

I love this book.  I read this one and the first one about a million times back in elementary school.  It brings back memories.

Love That Dog

"I don't want to
because boys
don't write poetry.

Girls do."

Love That Dog
By: Sharon Creech
Copyright 2001
Joanna Coter Books.  Harper Trophy
Novel - Poetry
Younger Readers
86 Pages

A cute little novel about a boy who doesnt think he can write poety and really doesnt want to either.  Jack is writing to his teacher about how he cant write poetry and it is not for him.  You only get to read his side of the conversation but you can tell that his teacher is telling him that the things that he is writing are good and asking him if she can put them up on the class poetry board.  Jack starts to gain an oppinon on the poetry they are talking about in class and starts to discover from his teacher that the things he writes are a form of poetry.  He starts to LOVE poetry and is not ashamed of it.  He even writes a letter to Walter Dean Myers to come to the school and talk to his class.  He ends up comming and Jack is so full of excitment.  So the book you get to see the way Jack thinks about poetry and the way that he writes change.  It is a fun and exciting side to read, and infer what the teacher is saying.  Jack goes from thinking that poetry is for girls to loving poetry and wanting to do it.

I would recomend this book.  It is pretty cute and importent to know that when you think something is dumb, you can learn to love it if you try or even just gain an opinion at it.  Also you may think you are bad at something but you are actully good, you just didnt know it because you never tried.

I dont think that anything is wrong with this story, though it could be nice to know more of what the teacher was saying.

I enjoyed the story.  It was cute, and shows other forms of poetry.  They dont have to ryme, but a lot fo the time poems are feelings writen down.  I love poetry, it is one of my favorite parts of L.A.

The Boxcar Children

"I'll show you my cart made out of wheels and my pink cup" (Benny)

The Boxcar Children
By: Gertrude Chandler Warner
Copyright 1942, 1950, 1969, 1977
Albert Whitman & Company
Non fiction
2nd or 3rd grade
154 Pages

Four children (Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny) are running away from a gradfather that they have never met.  Their parents are dead, and they are supposed to go live with him.  They come across a box car in the middle of a forest clearing when they are running away from a baker and his wife because they were wanting to keep the three older kids and send the youngest to an orphanige.  The children weren't going to let that happen to them so they ran from them.  They started turrning the boxcar into their new home.  They even found a dog and named him Watch.  The children would go to the dump and search for dishes so they could use them to eat and drink out of.  Henry would go into the close town and work for a doctor and would get paid then go buy food for them to eat that night.  They had a pretty nice set up there for them.  The doctor relizes who the kids are, their grandfather had been searching for them and offering a $5,000 reward for his grandchildren.  Henry even meets him at one point when he wins a race and neither of them knew who the other was.  Well Violet gets sick and since they can't go to the hospital Henry gets the doctor to help.  He takes care of violet and also lets the childrens grandfather know about the children.  He stays with the doctor as the kids also stay with him while violet is getting better.  The kids get to know him and do not hate him.  The doctor soon lets Henry know who this man is, it is their grandfather.  They don't hate this man, the love him.  They all go to live with him and love it so much.  Soon, though, they get home sick for their boxcar.  Their grandfather moves the boxcar to his house, and the children are so happy.  They live happily ever after.

I think I would recomend this book to those kids who are just starting on reading chapter books.  It is an easy read and it reads kind of how a kid thinks, I got really confused sometimes because of it.

I dont think there really was anything wrong with this book. 

I am sad because I didn't really like this book, I just could not get into it.  Everytime I thought a good plot was going on it changed subject and was now somewhere totally different.  I got lost, reading a childrens book. 

Where The Wild Things Are

"Oh please don't go - we'll eat you up - we love you so!"

Where The Wild Things Are
By: Maurice Sendak
Copyright 1963
Harper & Row, Publishers
Picture Book
Any Age
37 Pages

Max, a boy full of energy and always creating mischief of one kind or another, one night wore his wolf suit to bed.  After chasing the dog around, his mother called him "WILD THING!"  "I'LL EAT YOU UP!" Was his responce to that and he was sent to his room without dinner.  That night something AMAZING happened, Maxes room started growing into a forest.  Trees were growing, grass started growing, soon he had no walls and roof but he was in the wide open world.  He found an ocean and a small boat that had Max writen on it, so he got in it and traveled.  He was sailing for what seemed like a long time, on to the where the wild things are.  When Max arived to this place the wilds things where there. "They roadred their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeht and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws."  Max, afraid of nothing, said  "BE STILL" and they all stoped.  He had tamed them with a "magic trick".  Max looked them in their eyes and didnt blink, it frightened them, and Max was named "the most wild thing of all", the king of all the wild things.  Being wild things Max cried to them "LET THE WILD RUMPUS START!"  The rumpus did start.  They danced through the night, played through the day, and partied.  Max grew tired and and commanded them to stop and he sent them to bed without their supper.  Max grew lonly and wanted to be back home, where he was loved best of all.  He started to smell something, it smelt good, it came from far across the world and he started to follow it.  He gave up being king of the wild things and left.  As he sailed away the wild things called to him "Oh please don't go - we'll eat you up - we love you so!"  But Max would not and he sailed away.  He traveled and ended back up into he very own room, where he had supper waiting for him ... and it was still hot.

I would recomend this book to any child and parent, I mean, it is still one of my favorite books at 20 years old.  I read it to the child I nannyed for this last fall and she loved this book.  She started to memorize it and she would tell me if I started changing words.  I would say stuff on the pages that didnt have words and when i skipped over saying them and just turned the page she would say "NO" and go back and "read" the pages to me.  She was 4, so, this book I think is good for all ages.

I dont think that there is anything wrong with this book.  The wild things could be too scary for some kids, but I have read this book to many childern and I havent met anyone who doesnt like it.

I love this book.  It is one that I grew up on and that my children and students will grow up on and have there to read. 

A Year Down Yonder

"There wasn't much more than a nickel in her purse, and a sandwich for the train in mine"

A Year Down Yonder
By: Richard Peck
Copyright 2000
Puffin Books
Fiction
4th or 5th grade
130 Pages

Mary Alice has been sent down to live with her grandma while things are not going well with her family.  Because of the war going on they along with everyone else in the US have lost just about everything.  So her parents send her down south to live with grandma for about a year while the family can get their feet planted back on the ground.  This Chicago girl is far from home trying to adjust to how Grandma Dowdel does everything.  For one, her cat can't even stay in the house, so the city cat over time tansfroms into a contry cat, even has a little kitten of her own durring the book.  The things that Mary Alice learns from her grandma are lessons she will never forget.  After a long time of just wanting to go home and back to how things used to be she finds good friends, love, and a side of Grandma that she never knew.  When the time came to going home, she wanted to stay, She wanted to take care of Grandma, she wanted to make sure she was alright.  It goes to show, never judge a book by its cover, because no matter how mean someone is on the outside, there could be so much niceness hidden inside.  Grandma was not all that bad: she cheated people out of money so someone else could be able to get by for the next year.  She took in a boarder, but charged him a lot, she later introduced him to the woman he married (because she was better then the other that had her eye on him).  She even saved the cat and kitten when the tornado hit, those cats that shed, she brought into her house and protected them.  Mary Alice would never forget that year, and would get married in her grandma's house to her soldier, who she wrote, who she met durring her time at Grandma's house. 

I would recomend this book, well I dont really want to, I did not really like it.  It was interesting and funny, so maybe it would be good for older elementary school kids.

I got kind of lost durring the book, more so near the end when it seemed to be jummping around without much reason and connection to things.

I liked the message the story had, but I did not really enjoy the book, it never hoocked me in and it was one of those that I really had to sit down and force myself to read.  Is it bad that I feel bad for thinking that?

The Story of Ruby Bridges

"Please God, try to forgive those people. Because even if they say those bad things, they don't know what they're doing. So you could forgive them, just like you did those folks a long time ago when they said terrible things about you."

The Story of Ruby Bridges
By: Robert Coles
Copyright 1995
Scholastic Press
Non Fiction Picture Book
Middle Elementary School
25 Pages

The story of a young girl who had an unbelevibul amount of courage.  A child who taught many so much and changed the life and history for everyone.  The story of one little African Amarican girl who went to school, for the first time. 
A child of a poor family, bairly making it by and then her father loses his job and they are forced to move.  Both parents did their best working to take care of their family, they wanted the best for them.  They wanted to be near God's spirit and feel him from the very start, so they went to church every sunday.  Durring this time in New Orleans in 1957 they were segrigating the blacks and whites, they had to go to different schools and could not recive the same education, and this was aginst the law.  In 1960, a judge ordered some girls to go to two different white schools, and little six-year-old Ruby Bridges was one of them, but the only black child sent to that school.  Her parents were proud that she had been chosen, and they prayed, they prayed long and hard for their daughter to stand tall with her head up high.  They knew what this would mean for their people , all the american people.  The first day Ruby was to go to school angry protesters stood outside of Franyz Elementary School in protest.  They did not want a black child going to this white school.  These people yelled names at Ruby and the city and state police did nothing for the child.  Ruby was escorted by federal marshals that the persident ordered and they carried gun with them.  Week after week, month after month, this was Ruby's school day.  The marshels protected her from the crowd who always tried to get at her, Ruby would run through them just to get to the school and away from the mob.  People would not send their children to school, so everyday it was just Ruby going to school and her teacher who saw no difference in the type of student that Ruby was compared to the others.  She noticed that Ruby was not scared, but she enjoyed her time at school, learning to read  and write in an empty classroom.  Her teacher did not understand how Ruby did it, she was all alone in everything and still so relaxed. Mrs. Henry (her teacher) thought Ruby would have to brakedown eventually.  One morning as she watched Ruby walk thought the mob of protesters she saw Ruby stop in frount of them and talk to them.  She watched as the marshels tried to get her to move into the school, as the mob looked like they were ready to kill this child.  Ruby stoped talking and turned and walked into the school.  When she entered into her classroom her teacher asked what had she talked to them about.  Ruby did not talk to the people, she had forgot to pray until right in the middle of the mob, every day she prayed, prayed for those people who hated her.  She said this prayer twice a day, once before she went to school and once after school.  "Please God, try to forgive those people.  Because even if they say those bad things, they don't know what they're doing.  So you could forgive them, just like you did those folks a long time ago when they said terrible things about you."
It took two years until the first two students went back to the school, two boys joined Ruby.  The mob was not happy about this, but soon more students started going back to school.  They had knew they had been cheeting their kids out of an education.  This lead to the desegrigration of the schools.  All because of the courage of Ruby Bridges. 

I would recomend this book to have at home and be read to kids, to have at school and read to the class.  This is such a great story for children to learn young about how things used to be, and to understand some black history. 

I can't really say there is anything wrong with this book since, well, it is true.  What is wrong is the world.  This book should be read.  This is history, and should be taught. 

I loved this book.  I even cried.  I hate the fact that things like this happened, even to a child.  How people could be so racasist that day after day, week after week, month after month stand out inforunt of this school and not even send their children to school FOR TWO YEARS!  I think we could all be a little more like Ruby, she kind of makes you feel like you can do anything. 

The Giver

"I counld't quite get hte word for the whole feeling of it, the feeling that was so strong in the room" "Love" The Giver Told him ... "Love" It was a word that was a concept that was new to him.

The Giver
By: Lois Lowry
Copyright 1993
Dell Laurel-Leaf
Fiction
Middle School Age
179 Pages

Jonas lives in a "world" to him that is perfectly normal.  Everything there is how it has always been, his comunity has rules and is run in a very orderly fashion.  To some the way things are done here may seem werid, but to them, it is all they know.  They have pills to take away pain and to take away what they call sterrings.  They have releses to those when they are old, children who do not meet standerds and cannot be assigned to a family unit, and sometimes when people do things that are not allowed in the comunity.  He is an Eleven and will soon be a Twelve, and that is the big group to go into.  Each family unit is put together by the elders and everyone once their birth year groups become Twelves get assigned to what they will do until they enter The House of the Old.  Jonas was aprehensive about the cerimony in December.  Strange things that already started happening to him that he had no idea what was going on.  Things would change for breif seconds but then go back to normal, he could not explain this.  At the cerimony of Twelve, Jonas was skipped over from being assinged, everyone noticed.  At the end the head elder went back to him and Jonas was not assingned something, he was chosen to be the Reciver of Memory.  This is when the life that Jonas once knew, would never be the same.  He was the Reciver of Memory, things he never knew that were he was started to learn.  So many things that there had once been that they had never known of.  All these things were taken away for Sameness.  Sunny days, hills, snow, oceans, color, Jonas now knew of these things as the once reciver, now The Giver, transfered the memories he once had been given to him.  Not all these things were good, Jonas also had to recive memories about war, death and it pained him.  He was told at the start that this would not be easy and he alone had to bear this, he could not share anything with anyone.  He didn't understand why everyone could know these things.  Jonas also learned that the people didnt understand things, lies that had been told to everyone.  A release was not a sending out of the comunity into Elsewhere, they were killed, injected and then the bodies thrown away, Jonas saw his father release a new born baby, just because it was the smaller of a set of twins, and in the comunity you cannot have that. 
The Giver had once tried to train another reciver, and well she ended up not being able to take those memories.  She asked to be released, she injected herself, once she had died those memories returned to the people, it was not a good thing, the people didn't know what to do, things that they had never experinced before, Feelings they don't have.
Jonas couldn't take this, no one knew what it was like to feel, to see color, pain, emotions, his world that he knew was lifeless and no one thought for themselfs and just was.  The Giver and him came up with a plan.  Jonas would leave and The Giver would stay behind so as the memories returned to the people he could be there to help them.  Jonas wasnt to happy with this plan but he went along with it.  Things, however didn't go as planed.  His father had been taking care of a child so they would not have to release him and so the child was staying with Jonas' family unit.  Gab (the child) had the same pale eyes as Jonas and also The Giver.  Well without relizing it Jonas had before had transfered memories to Gab a few times and he would sleep soundly.  Well one night Gab did not stay at the house unit with the family and he did not sleep soundly, Gab was to be released.  So Jonas left, and took Gab with him.  He road his bike far and just kept going.  Soon things around him started to change, things were not not the same as they were back in his comunity.  He just kept going and going.  Snow started too, cold and hungry, starving, Jonas did not know if he could keep going, Gab too was suffering.  He would think of those warm memories he had recived and transfer them to Gab to keep them warm.  Soon Jonas was sure he knew where he was.  At the top of a hill he even thought that he could hear beyond, he didn't know what it was, but he was sure that it was what The Giver had once said, music.

I would recomend this book to anyone.  Well middle school age at least.  There are things in the story that I think if younger then that, they would not understand.

So to me I really don't understand why this book has been chanlleged and wanted to be banded and on the censor list we got in class.  Well yes, there is a part of the book they talk about sturring, sexal feelings, and also killing people by injection, but it is a book, and it is life.  If you are not ok with that then this book would not be for you but it is such an amazing book.

I love this book!!  I have since I read it in seventh grade.  If you really pay attention to it, it reminds me of how life would be if Satan's plan had been chosen.  No choices, we would just be, everything black and white, and rules strongly enforced.  The people weren't living, they just were and that was it.  It really makes me appriate the life I have, and how to know how importent knowledge is.  To learn and grow and teach from your heart and your experinces.  Life is not black and white, it is full of colors and choices, pain, emotions and feelings.  I love this book and there is so much to be learned from it, as long as you read it with an open mind and read inbetween the lines.