Grass Dancer

Alright, I really try to give the author the benefit of the doubt and I really try to believe that some student will like the book, even if I don't and I need to keep an open mind. However, with this book, I really am having a hard time trying to wrap my mind around a student actually enjoying this book. It was definitely hard for me to follow afterwhile which is odd for me because I can read four different books at once and keep them all straight. Right away in the beginning the way the characters would just shift with nothing more than an extra space inbetween them, I was confused. It happened so quickly and sometimes the segments were so brief that I didn't even get a chance to realize that someone new was thinking. Also, I felt like some of the character's choices were unbelieveable. Right away on page 39 when Pumpkin slips off  her clothes at random when she is with Harley, I was really turned off from the book at this point because it just seemed so uncharacter-like. I don't know how I feel about this book. I know that I most likely would not use it as a class book and rather would just give it to an individual to read who I felt was advanced enough to keep the stories straight.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

This book was very satisfying and I could definitely see how students would be able to enjoy this book. I felt that it was a very easy read and very engaging. Many students have the confusion of knowing what their identity is, that's half the battle of middle school so to have the main character be Junior on the rez and Arnold in Reardan gives students a physical showing of feeling like two different people. I thought the cartoon drawings were an amazing thing for kids to see. Junior saw cartoon drawing as an outlet for his problems, a way for him to understand life and I thought that this is an excellent thing to show students who may have trouble understanding what they are thinking and feeling. It may inspire some students to find their creative side and start sorting out life. On the contrary, I do feel that some of the book seemed a little skewed or maybe I am just uneducated. I really have never met someone who had water on their brain as a baby, therefor I have no idea how it truly affects people, however from what Junior said in the beginning of the book, it seemed unrealistic that he would be that crazy intelligent. I guess we all have our miracle stories in our lives and this is just his. Overall I would be very willing to give this book to a student who is a reluctant reader because I feel that its quick pace would engage them to start reading other novels as well.

Refresh, Refresh/ Something like Normal

First I would like to comment on the story Refresh, Refresh. I had to write a rationale on this book, which I thought wouldn't be that challenging, however it proved me wrong. Writing a rationale on a graphic novel that I truly didn't grasp is harder than I thought it would be. Refresh, Refresh was hard for me to "read" because I have never picked up a graphic novel in my life. I have concluded that I am much better at imagining things from words rather than imagining words from pictures. The story was okay, but I felt like it was very unpowerful in the form of a graphic novel. I just found out today that the graphic novel actually comes from a short story, which I presume would be a good story and much more impactful than the graphic novel.

Now, on to Something Like Normal. Holy guacamole did I love this book. It was such a breath of fresh air. I have never read a book that has touched me in a place I've never felt before. At first when I heard the preview of the book I was intrigued because my best friend came back from Kuwait last  year and she always tells me how her boyfriend says to her "you're not you anymore" and "when are you going to go back to the way you used to be". I never really noticed a difference in her, nor could I understand what she was going through. This book just opened up a whole new world of understanding for me. I think this would be an excellent book for students to read because although it may not be 100% relatable, there are things that "haunt" us the way Charlie's death haunts Travis. I think this book was a very rewarding read and I might even consider it to be the first book I will ever re-read. I'm very glad that I have purchased all of my books and can put this one on my classroom bookshelf some day.

A Hope in the Unseen

I read a great deal of young adult literature, but unfortunately I have a tendency to read the same style of YA lit. so I am quite sheltered when it comes to different YA topics and novel styles. The book, A Hope in the Unseen, was something that I had to go out on a limb to read. I felt that the book was very slow moving and some times the choices Cedric made felt questionable. I feel that this book was a challenge for me to read because it was so distantly unrelatable. Although most stories I read are not at all like my life, they usually have an appealing factor about them. However, this book was something I just don't enjoy thinking about. It breaks my heart knowing that students have to go through such hardships. School should be a place of security, you should have friends to see and be excited to learn something. I know that having that attitude about school isn't always the case, but it definitely shouldn't be a place of fear because you are excelling. This book was also difficult for me to annotate. It's not that I couldn't find things to say or write about, but the fact that it was a slow read to begin with, it was even more challenging to read when I had to keep stopping and writing things down. The writing style felt unrealistic at times as well. For example on page 15 the author writes, "Oh yes, that's a good one, Cedric agree, and nods". I understand that this is a third person story, but the writing seemed a little cheesy here and there. I really don't know if I would use this book in a classroom though. I guess it would all depend on where I was teaching.