Good at reading -- not blogging.

Really like this book and would recommend it to most anyone.

I Will Always Write Back by Caitlin Alfirenka and Martin Ganda

The subtitle "How One Letter Changed Two Lives" says it all and more. What started as a pen pal program in seventh grade English turned into much more for Caitlin. Caitlin chose Zimbabwe, a country starting with "Z" even though she knew nothing about it or had any idea what life was like in Zimbabwe. She was born and lived in Hatfield, Pa, a suburb of Philadelphia.

Martin received her letter. In a class of 50 students, only 10 would receive a letter. Martin was in Group One, one of the lucky ones. Martin's mother made sure that Martin had the best teacher in first grade, where he finished top of his class. In third grade, he dropped to number two and his mother told him he must always be number one. School was his only way. Martin's family was poor like many others, not as poor as his mother's family. She had to drop out of school after fifth grade because they could not pay the fees and go to work for room and board because they could not even afford to feed her. Martin was lucky, his parents could pay the school fees.

Their first letters were very general, however Martin included a promise to continue writing and hoped she would do the same. Martin assumed Caitlin was white and Caitlin assumed Martin was black. Other than that each was pretty naive about the other's life.

Caitlin sent a school photo with her next letter and asked Martin to send her one. Martin had no idea how he would send her a picture. They were very expensive. His mother has a picture taken two years before when Martin had won an award. He was in his school uniform. He sent this - the family's only picture- to Caitlin. She figured he as wealthy since the only people she knew who wore uniforms went to private schools or Catholic school. His comments about "developing country" and "high density suburb" didn't really click. She sent him a one dollar bill because he asked her. Martin's mother was amazed. She must be very wealthy. The one dollar was worth 24 Zimbabwe dollars and soon bought two weeks of groceries for the family.

They exchanged six or eight letters a year.   It wasn't until Spring of her eighth grade year that Caitlin started to put the clues together.  Martin wrote her a short letter on the back of an ice cream wrapper, the only paper he had.  He told how he had been expelled from school for not paying fees and was working to help feed his family.  She sent $20 babysitting money thinking it would help buy groceries or stamps. Little did she know it was more than enough to pay the school fees and buy groceries. 

Caitlin sent $40 in the next letter.  Her generosity spread to her family and their generosity kept Martin in school and lifted a family out of extreme poverty.  

A list of books I have read this year that I didn't blog about

1. Code Black: A Donovan Nash Thriller by Philip Donlay
2. Pandora's Clock by John J nance
3. Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein
4. Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics by Chris Grabenstein
5. The Private Patient (Adam Dalgliesh Mystery) by P. D. James
6. Murder in the CIA by Margaret Truman
7. Learning to Swim by Sara J Henry
8. Ghostboy, Chameleon & the Duke of Graffiti
9. Knights of the Square Table  by Teri Kanefield
10. The only Witness by Pamela Beason
11. The Virginia Mysteries Collection: Books 1-3 by Steven K. Smith
12. The Finisher 
13. The Keeper
14. The Murder Room by P. D. James
15. All the Butterflies in the World by Rodney Jones
16. Vivian Apple at the End of the World by Katie Coyle
17. Vivian Apple Needs a Miracle by Katie Coyle
18. Original Sin by P. D. James
19. Podkayne of Mars by Robert A.  Heinlein
20. The Mirror by Marlys Milihiser
21. Serafina and  the Black Clock by Robert Beatty
22. The Whispering Town by Jennifer Elvgren
23. I Will Always Write Back by Martin Ganda
24. Catch a Falling Star
25. Batboy
26. The Great Gatsby
27. Nephele Ship
28. Halloween Party
29. Murder in Christmas River
30. Whispering Town
31. The Selection
32. The Elite
33. The One
34. The Crown
35. The Heir
36. The Rebel Wing Trilogy
37. Rebel Wing by Tracy Banghart
38. Storm Fall by Tracy Banghart
39. Torn Sky by Tracy Banghart
40. Haunted Museum: Titanic Locket
41. Catch a Falling Star
42. Possibility of Now
43. Serafina and the Black Clock
44. Nothing to Tell
45. Play Ball
46. The Edge of Lost
47. Saucy and Bubba
48. Devices and Desires
49. The Sun, the Moon and maybe the Trains
50. The Other Side of the Bridge
51. Whispering Town
52. The Last Librarian
53. The Lost Treerunner

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Able to read some new books. (Have to stay ahead of my MS/HS readers some how.)  .

Catch a Falling Star by Kim Culbertson

Summer comes to small town, Little, California.  Summer Moon is working in the family cafe and things are quiet, just the way she likes.  Then, something happens to Little, California and its residents.  Little become the set for Adam Jakes' new movie.  Jakes needs to revamp his "public image." This movie and a "girl next door" girlfriend will do the trick.  Summer Moon is perfect.  She ignores him while every other girl in town is vying for his attention.  The studio offers her a big paycheck to be his "girlfriend for the summer."  Summer doesn't like the idea but her family REALLY needs the money, so she agrees.

Life for Summer just got more complicated. She usually spends her free time with Chloe and Chloe's boyfriend, Drake Masuda (alias Alien Drake).  Evenings on the roof looking at stars.  Summer also discovers there is more to Adam Jakes than his public image would want one to believe.   She isn't sure how she feels about this new Adam. Throw in her brother, John, who has his own set of problems and what might have been a summer love story become a whole lot more.

The Hero Two Doors Down by Sharon Robinson

What do you do if your hero move in just two doors down the street?  That is what happened to Steven Satlow.  Growing up in Brooklyn, Steven and his father share a LOVE of baseball especially the Brooklyn Dodgers.  It is 1948 and Jackie Robinson is Steven's newest hero after an outstanding rookie season with the Dodgers.  

Steven lives in an all Jewish neighborhood and has just learned that an African American family is moving to the neighborhood.  A fact that some neighbors are not happy about.  This African American family is not just any family, but Jackie Robinson and family.  Steven's hero will be just two doors down.  Steven first become acquainted with Mrs. Robinson and their two young children while Jackie is away at spring training.  When Jackie comes back to Brooklyn to play ball a unique friendship grows between the young Steven and Jackie Robinson.

The book, written by Sharon Robinson, is based on the real life events of the Satlow and Robinson families, who remained friends even after the Robinson family moved away after two years. The book has baseball as its background, but also looks at how the two families dealt with the racial turmoil of the era.  Two very different families saw found their similarities out weighted the differences and the differences were something to be celebrated.

Books 5, 6, 7

Rather an eclectic selection for this post.  We had a snow day on Groundhog's Day so I caught up on some things, like reading. 

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick  Have had this book on my shelf for awhile and finally read it, almost in one sitting. After reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret and reading a few review of this book I just had to get it.  It was wonderful.  I find Selznick's storytelling through the combination of text and image fascinating. In Hugo Cabret he tells one story, however in Wonderstruck, he tells two stories beginning 50 years apart.  Ben's story, in text, begins in 1977 and Rose's story, in images, begins fifty years earlier.  The stories alternate and then begin to intertwine.  

Selznick's book includes things that pique interest in a variety of topics: Deaf Sign Language, Museum Dioramas, The American Museum of Natural History and just museums in general, and Cabinets of Wonder, to name a few.  The author's notes at the end of the books give insight to the things that inspired and influenced him while writing the book.

Also check out these two sites: 

http://www.wonderstruckthebook.com/ 

http://www.wonderstruckthebook.com/essays.htm

Strike Three You're Dead by Josh Berk  A combination of sports and mystery.  Lenny Norbeck is a HUGE Phillies fan.  Lenny, with the help of his two best friends - Mike and Other Mike - enters the "Armchair Announcer" contest.  The winner gets the opportunity to announce one inning of a Phillies home game.  

Lenny wins, but before his chance to announce arrives, the pitcher falls dead on the mound.  Lenny can't believe it.  He had just met R.J Weathers, a 19 year old, just beginning his career.  Lenny, Mike, Other Mike don't think it was "natural causes" that killed Weathers and the mystery begins.  Along the way to solving the mystery of Weathers' death, they uncover several more secrets about ball players and the team.  

I read this so I could recommend it to some of my reluctant boy readers.

Devil's Food Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke
A quick read mystery-recipe book.  Like Goldie Schultz, the caterer, Hannah Swensen, the baker, cooks up delicious desserts while solving mysteries.  This time it is the death of Matthew Walters,  a visiting  minister. Walters is filling in for the Reverend Knudson who has gone on his honeymoon.  While looking into Walter's background Hannah discovers that he really isn't dead, or rather the dead man isn't really Reverend Matthew Walters.  
Two boyfriends and cat with quite a personality, all liven up Hannah's life as well.

Picture Books:
Sammy and the Robots
Leo the Lightning Bug
There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly 
After reading the book, the preschoolers helped retell the story with a set of animals and an old lady with a very big mouth.
A Chair for My Mother

October Sky

October Sky is a wonderful autobiography by Homer Hickam.  Homer is growing up in a small coal mining town in West Virginia. His live is changed when he and his mother watch the Russian Sputnik satellite pass overhead in 1957.  He decides he will make and launch a rocket of his own.  Werhner von Braun is his hero.

The high school freshman is joined by others and they form the Big Creek Missile Agency. Their early experiments create problems, like blowing up his mother's garden fence.  They convince the mine machinist to help, and  eventually gain the support of the entire town.

The book follows the group through their remaining high school years, concluding shortly after graduation.  Along the way the boys and the town deal with the realities of life.  Father and son relationships, sibling rivalry, mine disasters and strikes.

It is a great read;  reminding one to hold on to their dreams and shot for the stars.

Choosing books for read aloud

Have you seen the World Read Aloud Day website (http://www.litworld.org/wrad/).  I visited there a couple weeks ago and found their Classroom kit. It has a page of 7 Strengths Countdown.  I have been using it to select books for my PK-2 reading time for the last few weeks. I always have students answer a question or make a comment about the book before they go to check out book. (It is also a way to keep from having the whole class hit the shelves at the same time.)

Here are the topics and the books I chose to read.

      Curiosity:
Press Here (Tullet)
Tillie and the wall (Lionni)
Curious George at the airport (Rey) 
How could you not have at least one of these! I first read about Curious George in my second or third grade reader.

Friendship: 
Dear Little fish (Dahan)
Wallace's List (Bottner)
Laura's Star (Baumgart)
Little Gorilla (Bornstein)
I skipped Frog and Toad, but those books are great, too.

Kindness: 
Knuffle Bunny too (Willems)
Rechenka's Eggs (Polacco)
Horton hears a who (Seuss).

I have been trying to read some different books not just my old favorites and this has been a way to branch out.

New Year, time to restart my blog.  

I joined #SixtyBooks in 2016  -  The goal is to read 60 books this year.  My daughter, Jennifer says that the picture books I read for story time don't count.  You can join by going to this website  - http://sixtybooks.com/sixtybooks-in-2016/

I read a trilogy to begin this adventure.  It is The Irish Heart Series by Juliet Gauvin.  The first book, The Irish Cottage: Finding Elizabeth.  Devastated after the death of her great-aunt Mags, who raised her, Elizabeth Lara leaves her life as a top San Francisco divorce attorney and goes to a cottage in Ireland. Through letters left to her by her aunt she discovers the truth about her parents that had been kept from her for thirty-five years.  Through the letter, Connor Bannon (the owner of the cottage) and the towns people of Dingle, Ireland, Elizabeth begins to rediscover herself.

Book 2 The London Flat: Second Chances.  Elizabeth meets old friends she hasn't had contact with since her college days.  Connor Bannon has followed her to London.  Will the romance with Connor continue or will it be a friend from the past?  She also has a quest, to find Mags' lover, Matthieu, and share the letter Mags left for him.  

Book 3 The Paris Apartment: Fated Journey completes the trilogy.  Many "journeys" including Elizabeth's journey to find herself come to completion in Paris.  There are even a few surprises in the final book that were only hinted at in the first two.

Three down.  Reading October Sky and Strike Three You're Dead.

Picture books read this week:

Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
SkippyJon Jones, Snow What by Judith Schachner
Don’t let the pigeon stay up late by Mo Willems
Shiver me letters: a pirate ABC by June Sobel