Children of the River (Laurel-Leaf Contemporary Fiction) Review

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(More customer reviews)Not every person in the world can say that they have gone through the crisis of moving to a new country, leaving behind their family, and trying to keep a baby no older then a few days old alive. Sundara is one who can. Children of the River is a story that looks into the lives of Cambodians trying to stay alive while a group of Communists invade and try to communize the country of Cambodia.
The setting takes place mostly in Willamette Grove, Oregon but starts out in Cambodia during the attack of the Khmer Rouge (the group of communists). The main character, Sundara, who is only thirteen at the time of the attacks, is forced to leave her family and go to America with her aunt and uncle. In America, Sundara learns and tries to adapt to the customs of the Americans but has a hard time fitting in. After being in America for a while, Sundara meets an American football player who she comes to like. She knows though that she cannot be seen with him or be with him because of the Cambodian tradition, which do not allow any relationships between any non Khmer boy and that all marriages are arranged. But, she slowly begins to give way to the customs and she finds herself and Jonathan (the white American football player) in love. Fighting traditions and family, Sundara struggles to choose between Jonathan and her Cambodian ways.
After reading this book I could not help but notice one extremely well inscribed theme: "Never judge a person by looking at them." I have never read a book that has ever used this theme so profoundly. In most ways it jumped out at me, which made me realize how the society in America is centered on this one idiom. This book challenges its readers to "see not only with their eyes but in other ways as well." An extremely well written book by Linda Crew could only deserve my utmost recommendations for a young adult audience, mainly to open their eyes to the world that we live in outside of their city and country boundaries.


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Absolutely Normal Chaos (rpkg) Review

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(More customer reviews)I remember when I got this book in my Easter basket two years ago. I picked it up, and didn't stop reading until I was finished. Since then I've read it about 65 times, and I still read it almost every day. "Absolutely Normal Chaos" led me to read "The Odyssey," which is another one of my favourites, and I've also taken up Mary Lou's expressions such as Omnipotent, cabbageheaded and all that other sum and substance. It is also my inspiration for journaling. I recommend "Absolutely Normal" to absolutely everyone I meet. And they all tell me I'm exactly like Mary Lou... har har har. Anyway, I guess I should go ahead and review the book.
Absolutely Normal Chaos is about a 13-year-old girl named Mary Lou Finney who is assigned by her English teacher, Mrs. Zollar, to keep a journal over the summer. Mary Lou has no idea what a journal really is, so she decides to just write away and hope she's doing it right. Over the summer, Mary Lou's cousin, Carl Ray, comes to stay with her family. She also becomes involved with Alex Cheevey, a boy from school. What happens next is an odyssey in itself, and I don't want to give away the ending to this wonderful book.
For my final sentence, two words: READ IT!

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In the Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading, and Learning Review

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(More customer reviews)Atwell introduces her teaching experiences with chapters about how teach writing and reading to the fragile adolescent age groups. In the following chapters she describes, in detail, her procedure of the "writing and reading workshop" for teaching in her classroom. She goes into great detail about how she prepares herself before the students ever come to class, what she does in the first week of school and how she introduces the workshop technique to her students, her use of minilessons, how she responds to students' writing and how she values and evaluates the students' writing. This book is very thorough in its descriptions of how to teach the workshop style of reading and writing. Atwell walks the reader through every step to make this technique successful. She gives many examples of dialogue she, as a teacher, has had with students showing the reader how she handled particular situations that had come up. It leaves no question unanswered. I believe this book is very helpful to teachers who wish to teach this method. Atwell captures her audience by using real stories and references to experts in this field who have studied this technique for years. Although this is a very involved technique and some beginners may feel overwhelmed by the detail, I highly recommend it.

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When first published in 1987, this seminal work was widely hailed for its honest examination of how teachers teach, how students learn, and the gap that lies in between. In depicting her own classroom struggles, Nancie Atwell shook our orthodox assumptions about skill-and-drill-based curriculums and became a pioneer of responsive teaching. Now, in the long awaited second edition, Atwell reflects on the next ten years of her experience, rethinks and clarifies old methods, and demonstrates new, more effective approaches.
The second edition still urges educators to "come out from behind their own big desks" to turn classrooms into workshops where students and teachers create curriculums together. But it also advocates a more activist role for teachers. Atwell writes, "I'm no longer willing to withhold suggestions and directions from my kids when I can help them solve a problem, do something they've never done before, produce stunning writing, and ultimately become more independent of me."
More than 70 percent of the material is new, with six brand-new chapters on genres, evaluation, and the teacher as writer. There are also lists of several hundred minilessons, and scripts and examples for teaching them; new expectations and rules for writing and reading workshops; ideas for teaching conventions; new systems for record keeping; lists of essential books for students and teachers; and forms for keeping track of individual spelling, skills, proofreading, homework, writing, and reading.
The second edition of In the Middle is written in the same engaging style as its predecessor. It reads like a story - one that readers will be pleased to learn has no end. As Atwell muses, "I know my students and I will continue to learn and be changed. I am resigned - happily - to be always beginning for the rest of my life as a teacher."

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower Review

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(More customer reviews)I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky, in April of my sophomore year at college. A friend lent it to me and I had read it within twelve hours. This book reaches inside of you and pulls everything to the surface. It is a beautiful and painful story about a 15 year old boy, Charlie, moving through his freshmen year of highschool. It is written in letter form to an unknown friend. Charlie is always completely honest, whether he is describing his first "beer" party where he witnessed a girl being raped by her boyfriend, or explaining masturbation and his excitement for this newfound "activity." Charlie is a wallflower who observes people and feels very deeply for the experiences occuring around him. His favorite Aunt Helen died in a car accident when he was six, and he holds himself accountable, and his best friend committed suicide a year before he began the letters. His English teacher realizes Charlie's potential and brilliance and asks him to try and participate, which Charlie agrees to do. He becomes friends with two seniors Patrick and Samantha and begins to experience dances, parties, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, pot, love, bad trips and sexuality. We feel exhilerated when Charlie describes his happy moments, and we are swallowed in pain when Charlie is overwhelmed by his depression. Charlie's realizations are eye opening for us, and we are so captivated and immersed in his life that his life and stories become a very real experience. This book is about moments, and being as much alive within each moment as possible. It is about looking around us at the world and the people and appreciating that we don't know what their lives are like, and the pain and happiness that they experience day to day, so we shouldn't judge them but accept them and appreciate them. A favorite section of this book, for me, was when Charlie describes the movie It's A Wonderful Life, and how he wished the movie had been about one of the less heroic characters so the audience could have seen the meaning that this person's life held. That moment is just one example of Charlie's amazing intuition. This book should not be limited to a certain "category" of people. I truly believe that it would be understood, appreciated, and loved by everyone aged 12 (+ or - a few) and up regardless of gender, race, sexuality, etc. This book changes you, if only for a moment, but you are not the same upon completion, and you become more appreciative of life then ever.

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