Dealing with change

Earlier this week, my school website changed my role from teaching 6th grade in Green Hall to 7th grade in Red Hall. As I have said before, it isn’t a bad change, but any change can be tricky to navigate. The familiar is always more comfortable.

This Duck and That Duck navigate changes of their own in Ellen Yeomans’ The Other Ducks.

Publisher’s Summary: This Duck and That Duck were the best of friends. They did everything together but sometimes two ducks just isn’t enough.

When This Duck declares that he wishes there were Other Ducks around so they could waddle in a line (a very ducky thing to do), That Duck is quite confused.

That is until This Duck and That Duck go swimming, look down, and finally meet The Other Ducks.

Unfortunately, The Other Ducks never seem to come out of the water! Oh how This Duck and That Duck wish The Other Ducks would waddle outside the big puddle with them. But it’s getting colder and their feathers are starting to itch for warmer weather.

Will these best friends ever find their companions?

This is sort of a slapstick buddy book. But That Duck, with the encouragement of This Duck, faces some fears and grows as a person, or rather, as a duck. Even if the humor isn’t your cup a tea, persevere to the end – it will melt your heart.

This was a sweet and funny book that got me thinking about Farfallina & Marcel by Holly Keller, which is a less humorous but equally sweet.

Using your noggin

As I opened WordPress this morning to write this post, everything has changed. The WordPress template for creating posts has been revamped. I hate when this happens. I hated moving to the new Microsoft Office suite. We switched from First Class to Outlook for e-mail at work. And now this. Nothing is intuitive. I have to look for all the tabs and features I like instead of having them close to hand. ARGH!!! Where are the SAVE and spellcheck buttons? This is frustrating. 

But, I got used to the new Word program and Outlook, so will adapt to this change. Though I will grumble about it for a while. It’s a free program, so I shouldn’t complain, right?! What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. 

Imagine how much I’d grumble if I woke up one morning to find my head attached to a new body. 

That’s what happens in Noggin, except Travis new this change was coming and I didn’t. 

Travis was terminally ill, but had his head frozen, then reattached to a donor body 5 years later. When he wakes up he is still 16, but everyone else is 5 years older. The book is about how he adapts to his new situation. I wasn’t really expecting to enjoy this books as much as I did. Travis wants everything to be the way it was, but that can’t really happen and he has got to figure it out. There are a few surprises and I didn’t like all of Travis’ decisions, but they were realistic. 

If you are looking for something a little different, but with a good story line, pick up Noggin.