What a week! Booktalks 2/19-23

Today is the only “normal” day this week.

No school Monday because of Washington’s birthday (aka President’s Day)

Tuesday, we arrived at school at our normal time but dismissed at noon. No book talk.

Wednesday was a snow day.

Thursday we had a 2-hour delay. The roads were clear, once I got off my street AND, I had time for a book talk. I shared Like Water on Stone a novel in verse by Dana Walrath.

Publisher’s Summary:  It is 1914, and the Ottoman Empire is crumbling into violence.

Beyond Anatolia, in the Armenian Highlands, Shahen Donabedian dreams of going to New York. Sosi, his twin sister, never wants to leave her home, especially now that she is in love. At first, only Papa, who counts Turks and Kurds among his closest friends, stands in Shahen’s way. But when the Ottoman pashas set in motion their plans to eliminate all Armenians, neither twin has a choice.
After a horrifying attack leaves them orphaned, they flee into the mountains, carrying their little sister, Mariam. But the children are not alone. An eagle watches over them as they run at night and hide each day, making their way across mountain ridges and rivers red with blood.

Today, Friday,  I will book talk a new book to my classroom library, One Amazing Elephant by Linda Oatman High.

Publisher’s Summary:  A poignant middle grade animal story from talented author Linda Oatman High that will appeal to fans of Katherine Applegate’s The One and Only Ivan. In this heartwarming novel, a girl and an elephant face the same devastating loss—and slowly realize that they share the same powerful love.

Twelve-year-old Lily Pruitt loves her grandparents, but she doesn’t love the circus—and the circus is their life. She’s perfectly happy to stay with her father, away from her neglectful mother and her grandfather’s beloved elephant, Queenie Grace.

Then Grandpa Bill dies, and both Lily and Queenie Grace are devastated. When Lily travels to Florida for the funeral, she keeps her distance from the elephant. But the two are mourning the same man—and form a bond born of loss. And when Queenie Grace faces danger, Lily must come up with a plan to help save her friend.

 

 

Poetry & History

I have always enjoyed novels in verse and I think, if I ever write a work of fiction, that might be the form it takes. I have fantasies about books I’d like to write, and I am a better nonfiction writer so I think this might be a good form for me to attempt fiction. I don’t say that because I think it is easy. In fact, I think it is quite hard to capture the details of the story you want to tell and capture the voice of the person telling that story.

School Library Journal has a great article about novels in verse from November 2013 that you can read Here.

I read two really great novels in verse this week. The first was  A Time to Dance  by Padma Venkatraman.

Veda, a classical dance prodigy in India, lives and breathes the ancient bharatanatyam dance form. When an accident leaves her a below-knee amputee, her dreams are shattered. Adjusting to a prosthetic leg is painful and humbling, but Veda refuses to let her disability rob her of her dreams, and she starts all over again, taking beginner classes with the youngest dancers from a young man named Govinda. He approaches dance as a spiritual pursuit, and as their relationship deepens, Veda reconnects with the world around her, and begins to discover who she is and what dance truly means to her.

This book reminded me a lot of  The Running Dream  by Wendelin van Drannen, in which a runner becomes a below the knee amputee and who, with the help of a special prosthetic, returns to running. I liked the Indian setting and I think verse worked really well for A Time to Dance  because of the music and rhythm of dance. This was a really interesting and enjoyable read.

Like Water on Stone,  by Dana Walrath, tells the story of a family’s experience during the Armenian genocide.

As the Ottoman empire crumbles,  Shahen Donabedian dreams of going to New York. Sosi, his twin sister,hopes to stay and marry a boy she has fallen in love with. Their father  counts Turks and Kurds among his closest friends, but this is not enough to save the family when the Ottoman empire set in motion their plans to eliminate all Armenians. After a horrifying attack leaves them orphaned, they flee into the mountains, carrying their little sister, Mariam. But the children are watched over by an eagle  as they run at night and hide each day, making their way across mountain ridges and rivers in their search for safety.

A verse novel really let each of the characters’ voices come through clearly. It also let the author convey the horror of the massacre without begin graphic.