Anyway, feel free to dig through my Delicious links for YA Lit and Content Lit – all kinds of good stuff there. All you need is a little/lot of time to peruse! Enjoy……..

Perfect

Natasha Friend

Scholastic

September 2006

Contemporary Realistic Fiction

6-12

Kate Olson

Friend, N. (2004) Perfect. New York: Scholastic.

Background note about the author/selection (Script for introduction to booktalk):

Many teenagers deal with the issues that Isabelle struggles with in Perfect – body image, eating disorders, friendships, and grief. While there is no perfect solution for teenagers dealing with these issues, there is one thing that can truly help – talking to a trusted adult. That is brought up in Perfect and I would encourage anyone listening to or reading this booktalk to seek out a trusted adult if you are in a time of distress. The author of Perfect seems to truly grasp the intricacies of distress in teenagers, most likely because of her time as a camp counselor and teacher. Of course, at one time in her life, she was a teenager too! This insight cannot be undervalued, by all means. Natasha Friend writes on her website about the angst she suffered as a teenager and lets it all come out in her books – Perfect, Lush, and Bounce.

Booktalk Script:

Isabelle thought things were bad enough when her dad died unexpectedly, but oh no. Things turned from bad to horrid when her younger sister discovered her throwing up one day, and then, horror of horrors, told their MOTHER! Isabelle barely had time to think before she found herself in an eating disorders therapy group. Now, Isabelle isn’t a girl who thought very highly of herself, and envied the “perfect” girls at school. You know the ones I’m talking about, right? The ones with perfect hair, perfect skin, and of course, the perfect clothes. Are these creatures even REAL? How can they be? Anyway, Isabelle totally looked up to these girls in her middle school and desperately wanted to be one. This is part of why she turned to bulimia, which means eating a ton of food and making oneself throw up, in the first place. She thought she had to be skinny to be perfect. However, when Isabelle was at group counseling, one of those “perfect” girls ended up being in the SAME group. Is it possible that a perfect girl could have problems too? In the book Perfect, Isabelle discovers that there are different kinds of friends, different ways of handling grief, and most importantly, that being perfect does NOT include being skinny. Find out how she deals with her friendship with Ashley – does she have the strength to heal herself without losing a new friend?

For more information/curriculum suggestions:

There are many more great books written about the topic of eating disorders. Books I would have on hand to suggest and briefly introduce would be:

Sarah Dessen’s Just Listen, in which a girl witnesses her sister dealing with anorexia and feels extreme pain about her family’s inability to help. This correlates with Isabelle’s younger sister’s feelings and experiences in Perfect.

Lori Gottlieb’s Stick Figure, a memoir about a girl who uses anorexia to try to control her otherwise uncontrollable existence, and then is able to bring herself back from her foray into starvation. Stick Figure can provide a real life example of a young girl in the throes of an eating disorder.

Jodi Picoult’s Handle with Care, in which a girl turns to bulimia during a period of extreme familial stress. While her sister receives the bulk of the family’s attention due to her horrible disease, Amelia binges and purges in an attempt to keep a grasp on reality and her own existence.

In the back of Scholastic’s edition of Perfect, there is a list titled “10 Steps to a Positive Body Image” along with a description of eating disorders and how to get help. In addition to the book talk script provided above, I would read this section of the book and have a small handout for every student with tips on how to get help if they need it.

Title:  The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Middle School
Author:  David Borgenicht, Ben H. Winters, Robin Epstein
Publisher:  Chronicle Books
Copyright date:  2009
Age/grade recommended:  6^th – 8^th grades

I bought this book to have in my middle school classroom and as I read it for my young adult lit class, I realized how perfect it would be for a guidance friendship unit or for a morning meeting kind of environment. Of course, what kid DOESN’T need a handbook for surviving middle school, but I think it would be most useful in a discussion-based setting. This would be especially useful for students with low social awareness and social skills. As a special education teacher, bells went off in my head and I was thinking – Asperger’s! Social skills class!

Publisher’s site for the book

Title:  Math Dictionary for Kids
Author:  Theresa R. Fitzgerald
Publisher:  Prufrock Press
Copyright date:  2006

The Math Dictionary for Kids is a great resource for students. It states on the cover that it is for grades 4-9, but I use it quite a bit even in adulthood! Not only does it have definitions and examples, but it has step-by-step instructions for doing many different types of math problems. I would love to see students get this book upon entering 6^th grade to have as a required resource for use during middle school. It would promote the use of resources rather than simply memorizing math facts and steps, which is an area most of my special education students need work on.

The publisher has a great description of the book if you would like to read more about it.

Anna Godbersen has created a very enticing and addicting “teen” series – The Luxe. The books are set  in turn-of-the-century Manhattan in the center of high society. The series starts out with the book The Luxe, which begins the drama-filled saga of the Holland sisters and friends, along with the sisters’ lovers. Diana and Elizabeth Holland are at the peak of society, enjoying all of the luxuries that accompany this place of stature. However, in addition to luxuries come social responsibilities and formalities. These responsibilities land the sisters and their friends in countless sticky situations, leaving the reader turning pages at a frantic rate, trying to figure out how the young ladies will possibly manage to slide out unscathed. The series continues with the books Rumors, Envy, and Splendor.

The Luxe is included in my list of favorites because of how drawn into the book I was from the very beginning. This continues in the rest of the series. One of my top considerations is readability and the enjoyment factor of the young adults reading the book – The Luxe maxes out my criteria in this area, at least for older teenage girls. I can see otherwise-reluctant readers truly enjoying the Luxe series as pure escapism. In my mind, any reading is good reading!

The historical value of the entire series cannot be overlooked. The Luxe does discuss a historical figure, Admiral Dewey – a hero in the Spanish-American War in the Battle of Manila Bay – a great deal. The entire series is a fascinating window into the life in turn-of-the-century New York City, even reaching into the boomtowns of the western part of the country as several characters attempt to make their fortune in the oil fields of California.

You can find out more about the series at its official website.

Title:  Slumgirl Dreaming: Rubina’s Journey to the Stars
Author:  Ali, Rubina
Publisher:  Delacorte Press
Copyright date:  2009
Age/grade recommended:  4^th – 12^th grades

I was fascinated by the movie Slumdog Millionaire and when I saw this book on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, I absolutely had to buy it. This is the account of the making of Slumdog Millionaire from the perspective of the child actress, Rubina Ali, who played the youngest version of the lead actress in the film. The book contains an amazing/horrifying account of life in the slums of Mumbai in a very easy-to-read format. Middle school students especially would get engrossed in this book as they attempt to relate their own life to the foreign world of Rubina.  There is also a selection of photos in the book which would really help students understand just what life is like for 9-year-old Rubina.

If you are not familiar with the story behind Slumdog Millionaire, you can find out everything you’d ever want to know about the movie at the official movie site. I actually hadn’t known that the movie was based on a book titled Q & A by Vikas Swarup.I look forward to now going back and reading Q & A in a very round-about way of getting the original story!

Title:  Someone Named Eva
Author:  Joan Wolf
Publisher:  Scholastic
Copyright date:  2007
Age/grade recommended:  4^th – 12^th grades

Someone Named Eva is a book about the Holocaust. It is set in Lidice, Czechoslovakia in 1942 and describes, from the point of view of a young girl, the horrific destruction of Lidice. Milada (later renamed Eva) describes the experience of being separated from her family and taken to a Lebensborn center to be “Germanized” – she was assessed and found to be Aryan enough to be passed off as German and adopted by a German family. This story follows Milada/Eva from the time of her capture through the end of the war.

In addition to the story, the author provides a lengthy description of the destruction of Lidice by Hitler and a great deal about the Lebensborn centers. This book would be a great addition to any unit on European history and the Holocaust. You can learn more about Lidice at www.lidice-memorial.cz. The author’s website and book discussion can be found at http://www.jmwolf.com/someonenamedeva.html

Marcelo is a teenager with an Asperger-like condition that kept him in a bit of a different world than others his age. As his senior year of high school approaches, his dad drops the bombshell that he wants Marcelo to work at his law firm for the summer rather than at Marcelo’s school stables. He believes Marcelo needs to learn to function in the real world, much to Marcelo’s discomfort and dismay. The plot twists and turns with heartbreaking honesty, touching areas of romance and morality.

As a special education teacher, this book strikes me as perfect young adult reading in so many ways. There is the obvious correlation to social skills and fitting in, as well as the need for transition to the “real world”, regardless of how reluctant some may be to do so. Students of all abilities would be better off after reading this book and having a thoughtful discussion about the important themes within.

Additional resources (including a Scholastic video book talk) I have for this book can be found at my delicious links.

Title:  Catching Fire
Author:  Suzanne Collins
Publisher:  Scholastic Press
Copyright date:  2009
Age/grade recommended:  6^th – 12^th grades

The fact that I don’t ever read fantasy or science fiction novels only held me back for a minute when I heard my middle school librarian describe Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. Determined to catch up with what the kids were reading, I dug right into The Hunger Games and after the first few pages, I was on Amazon ordering Catching Fire and praying it would arrive in time for me to start it right away after finishing the first book in the trilogy.

Suzanne Collins has designed this trilogy based upon a storyline set in a very futuristic/sci-fi rendering of the United States. The storyline is very fast-paced and immediately draws you in to the horrific practice of forcing child citizens to be placed into a game in which they must fight to the death. Catching Fire picks up where The Hunger Games leaves off, therefore I highly recommend reading The Hunger Games first. It could be possible to reading the 2^nd book first, Collins does attempt to bring the new reader into the storyline, but it is a much more engaging book if read in the intended trilogy-sequence. I can’t wait for the next book to come out!

I’m itching to have a group of students reading at a level high enough to be able to use this book as a novel unit in reading class. The students would be extremely interested, especially with all of the publicity about the series at this time. Scholastic has an entire site dedicated to these books and Teenreads.com also has some good information for teachers and students.

Even if you’re apprehensive about this genre, it’s worth breaking through that to read these books!

The Bar Code Rebellion is the sequel to Suzanne Weyn’s The Bar Code Tattoo. These books are written in a futuristic society – the United States in 2025. It’s an incredibly realistic rendition of the US in 15 years, although of course the author takes liberties with politics, slang language, and fashion as it is impossible to predict these things. The story in both books is based around a girl named Kayla and her decision to not get the bar code tattoo that is first suggested for every citizen and then mandated. This bar code tattoo is promoted by the government as convenient and revolutionary while Kayla and her circle of friends are convinced it is only mandated for sinister reasons.

The political connections regarding conspiracy theories and rights of citizens, along with the science implications regarding nanotechnology are at the top of my list of reasons for including The Bar Code Rebellion on my list of favorites. Young adults are drawn into the storyline while at the same time being introduced to very mature and thought-provoking topics.

Suzanne Weyn’s website is here: http://www.suzanneweynbooks.com/

More information on nanotechnology can be found on the government site for the promotion of the national nanotechnology initiative: http://www.nano.gov/