Let the Battle Begin!

I have about 30 kids signed up for Battle of the Books this year, and they are all busily working their way through the 20 titles on the Battle list.  So far, my favorites would be Restart  by Gordon Korman and Front Desk by Kelly Yang.  They both feature strong main characters and strong narrative voices.  In Restart, a popular school athlete suffers from amnesia due to head trauma, and discovers, as he struggles to re-learn his life, that he may have been popular, but he as definitely not well-liked or kind.  In fact, he was a bully.  The conflict between who he was and who he is becoming makes a really good read.  In Front Desk,  the main character is the daughter of immigrants, struggling to find a safe place to rebuild their lives.  How she helps her family make a place for themselves in an often hostile world is the basis of this novel.  Both provide plenty of opportunities for readers to deal with complex issues through entertaining stories.

It's That Time Again

Where has the time gone?  A new Battle of the Books season is approaching, and the first snow has fallen.  Since I last posted, I earned some grant money to start a makerspace next to the LMC and started flexible scheduling with half of my teachers.  We are always busy here!  I just finished Front Desk  by Kelly Yang and re-read Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin.  While both stories include Asian culture, they are vastly different in tone and style.  Yang focuses on the more modern issues of leaving your homeland and learning to live in a new culture -- the United States.  Ling steeps her story in ancient tales and wisdom.  Both are wonderful to read and deserve their spot on this year's Battle of the Books list.