Miss Spitfire (book review)

*Post by Pam Bullock at McAdory High School

I thoroughly enjoyed this historical fiction book. Obviously it is based on a true story, but Miss Spitfire is actually Anne Sullivan not Helen Keller. The story inspired me to learn more about Miss Sullivan. It begins when Anne, desperate for work, arrives in Alabama from Massachusetts to a seemingly impossible task - to teach Helen to communicate. Sarah Miller's debut novel is a wonderful tribute to Anne Sullivan's determination to "tame" Helen, whose frustration at trying to communicate has made her as wild as an animal. No one has been able to be persistent and patient enough to help Helen until Anne arrived. I highly recommend this novel and it is a quick read. Great for Upper Elementary and Middle.

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (James Patterson)

Rafe Khatchadorian is every 6^th grade boy. He’s nervous about all the new challenges and rules that come with middle school territory. He’s excited about having a little more freedom than elementary structure afforded. Mostly, he feels overwhelmed that there is entirely too much to take in at once, and what to do with it all.

And then, of course, there's Jeanne Galletta. 

The thing about Rafe is that he is also anything but typical. Along with his very, um, special friend Leo, Rafe constructs an elaborate plan to survive his 6^th grade year by defying what is intended to be the safety net of middle school society: the student code of conduct. His adventures might help Rafe make it through the worst year of his life…but they might keep him there as well.

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life as a title is a work of genius. Everybody is either headed to middle school or has been through it and very likely remembers 6^th-8^th grades as some of the worst years of their life. I would agree. Largely due to changing bodies and brain chemistry, middle school continues to be a very hard time for teenagers.

For those parents, teachers, and librarians curious about how well this book might meet the needs of their kids, know that it is very nicely done. There are a few twists classic of a James Patterson work, and the addition of humor-laden, skilled illustrations adds a quirky yet highly entertaining layer. The short, brief, action-packed chapters sprinkled with bits of slapstick humor will be appealing for reluctant readers (ahem: BOYS). 

Moon over Manifest (by Clare Vanderpool)

It is 1936 and Abilene is 12 years old when her daddy sends her to Manifest (supposedly just for a little while, though a little while soon turns into a long while). She has spent her whole life drifting from one town and job to another with Gideon (her father). Abilene knows all about being the new kid. She copes with this by determining that there are "universals" everywhere a person goes. Rich snobs, tricksters, odd balls, etc. are some of the labels she hastily applies to the people of Manifest.

It is only after discovering a box of trinkets and, along with the help of a few friends she quickly learns she has misjudged, Abilene uncovers the pieces to the mystery of Manifest...and her father as well.

*Moon over Manifest is the 2011 Newbery Award winner. 

The Big6 In Middle School: Teaching Information and Communications Technology Skills by Barbara A. Jansen

Spring is in the air which can only mean one thing in most of Alabama's public school libraries! Research. Paper. Season. It's an exciting time in the middle and high school library, but an anxiety-ridden time for those doing the research and writing papers.

Throughout the year I reach for The Big6 In Middle School: Teaching Information and Communications Technology Skills by Barbara A. Jansen to assist students and teachers with projects and research. But in the spring it is always within grasp. (The Big6 is a model of information problem-solving developed by co-authors Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz, The Big6 in Middle School, xi).

This book features many types of research organizers for students and is chock-ful of information essential for school librarians.

One of my favorite tools is the Big6 Assignment Organizer for Grades 7-9. It is found on page 181 of the reference book. The first question asks the student to answer, "What am I supposed to do?" It seems a simple question, but students get stumped and they have to go back to their teacher if they can't answer it. The sheet continues with Information Seeking Strategies, Location and Access, Use of Information, Synthesis, Evaluation, and due dates. It is a tidy little organizer that keeps research on track for students. Many other presentation guidelines and planners are featured in the book that are extremely useful as well. I wish I could copy it here, but the cover of the book will have to do.

Here are some other useful tidbits in the book:

• Correlation Chart Between Big6 Skills and State Curriculum Standards or Tested Skills
• Checklists for Writing Assignments for Different Grade Levels
• Lesson Plan Examples
• Note-Taking Methods
• How To's of a Class Project Wiki
• Many Different Charts and Graphs

The book, published by Linworth, is available from different jobbers, Amazon, and your favorite online ordering spot. If you order now, you'll have everything you need to ease the stress of busy researchers.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Ever heard of HeLa cells? Want to recommend a book to discuss medical ethics in a high school English, Social Studies, or Science class? Here's a great one to start with - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (how did I miss it?). I pulled the review from Titlewave:

Library Journal (December 1, 2009)

This distinctive work skillfully puts a human face on the bioethical questions surrounding the HeLa cell line. Henrietta Lacks, an African American mother of five, was undergoing treatment for cancer at Johns Hopkins University in 1951 when tissue samples were removed without her knowledge or permission and used to create HeLa, the first "immortal" cell line. HeLa has been sold around the world and used in countless medical research applications, including the development of the polio vaccine. Science writer Skloot, who worked on this book for ten years, entwines Lacks's biography, the development of the HeLa cell line, and her own story of building a relationship with Lacks's children. Full of dialog and vivid detail, this reads like a novel, but the science behind the story is also deftly handled. Verdict While there are other titles on this controversy (e.g., Michael Gold's A Conspiracy of Cells: One Woman's Immortal Legacy-and the Medical Scandal It Caused), this is the most compelling account for general readers, especially those interested in questions of medical research ethics. Highly recommended. [See Skloot's essay, p. 126; Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/09.]-Carla Lee, Univ. of Virginia Lib., Charlottesville Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

The Young Reader's Edition is slated to be out this month. When I first read a review of this book, I thought it was such an abomination. I can only imagine discussing the subject with teens and how deeply offended they would be for the family of Henrietta Lacks. It would, in fact, make a great book club book and perhaps a service project for raising money for the Henrietta Lacks Foundation. The Foundation raises money for college tuition and various needs of her descendants. If this story couldn't spark a book club to life, I truly don't know what could.

What other books have begun as adult books and a young adult version has been published?

Book Review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Jeff Kinney)

My students are obsessed with the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. At no less than 5 requests every single day, these items are hot commodities in my school library. At the end of the year I was finally able to wrangle the first installment to see for myself just what all the fuss is about.

The very first observation I had about this book was that Greg Heffley is a little jerk. He's narcissistic, rude to his parents, completely self-absorbed, and the most inconsiderate, selfish "friend" any kid could ever have. But, you know what? A lot of upper elementary/middle school boys are just like Greg Heffley. I suppose at the end of the say, it's all a part of their emotional development and that they are who they are at this stage for a reason. Still. He might be funny, but he's still a little tool.

And he is most definitely funny. Greg Heffley makes some pretty witty observations about the social order in schools that I think most educators and maybe even parents miss out on. There is a tinge of a "bully or be bullied" theme which I definitely believe is part of the under-the-table social interactions between students. Another observation I have is that the books are 5th grade level readers, which I think is overestimating a bit. These books are not exactly solid 5th grade level material. There are illustrative comics interspersed throughout, which make it even more popular with kids. These kiddos do love their graphic novels (sigh)...

Overall, it's a good set to have in the school library. As for me, I'm done with you, Greg Heffley. But I like that my kids like you, so maybe you were worth my time after all.

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot)

Ever heard of something called HeLa cells? Yeah, umm, me either...not until a few months ago, anyway.


HeLa is a building block of cell science and a cornerstone of modern medical research. Among numerous other very interesting uses, HeLa cells were used in the first space missions to test the effects of space on human cells, they were used in nuclear experiments, and they were (and still are) used to develop important vaccines, chemotherapies, and radiation treatments that have and continue to save millions of human lives. HeLa is widely known in the medical science community as one of the most important tools in the development of modern medicine. The purchase and sale of HeLa cells for the purpose of medical research over time likely numbers somewhere in the billions.


This book goes into painstaking detail about the relevance of HeLa cells in the existence of mankind, but its primary purpose is to shed some light on how HeLa came to be...which went a little something like this:


Once upon a time there was a woman, a wife and mother to several children. She suffered several medical ailments on and off in her life, but one day she became very ill and was diagnosed with cervical cancer. The doctor treated her with radiation, but the cancer spread and in her very early thirties this young woman died. After her death, cells were removed from her body and used in an experiment of cell division. Unlike any other cell in that experiment, this woman's cells kept dividing. And kept dividing. And kept dividing. And even unto this very day, they are still continuing to divide. Because of this unique type of cell division and multiplication, the woman's cells were extremely valuable for a multitude of research purposes. The woman's name was Henrietta Lacks. Likely because it was the 1950's and even more likely because Henrietta Lacks was a black woman, her family was never informed of the cultivation of her cells for research and certainly not informed of their value. Today, Henrietta's family is trapped between an expired statute of limitations on the several infringements committed toward them and an understandable inability to trust anyone in the legal or medical communities after a lifetime of  betrayals they have experienced. They have lived 60 years of intense frustration, and no one in the Lacks family has lived happily ever after. 

What a sad, sad story. Henrietta Lacks left a legacy that has transformed medical science, yet her own children stated at one point that they were so poor that they couldn't even afford health insurance.

Somehow the author of this book won the trust of the Lacks family and was therefore able to put together this very comprehensive tale of Henrietta's life and background, her medical treatments, and the process of the discovery and subsequent uses of HeLa cells. It is incredibly thorough and in the author's own words was extensively fact-checked.

The thoughts that continued to run through my mind while trudging through the bits of cellular science history were that the real untold story here is that this family has been exploited in ways unimaginable. Their disadvantages due to poverty and race (at that time) made them easy prey for the people who they should have been able to trust: the doctors. What has been done to the Lacks family is positively inexcusable, and why no reparations have been made to Henrietta's descendants is beyond me.

In addition to her cells' contributions to science, the controversy surrounding Henrietta's family's experience has led to a revolution in the way patients are required to be informed and to give consent for their treatments or for bits removed from their bodies. What you and I take for granted in that stack of release, privacy, and consent forms we fill out at the doc's office or for pre-operative processing, Henrietta was never given the opportunity to consider. You can thank Henrietta Lacks for her seemingly ceaseless contributions to science, but you can also thank her for your right today as a patient to be informed and to give consent to procedures that involve your body and what is removed from it. And we can all thank Rebecca Skloot for telling Henrietta's story.

*The author used a portion of her earnings from sale of her book to establish the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, which is a foundation that provides scholarships and grants for descendants of Henrietta Lacks as well as descendants of other research subjects (ex: the Tuskegee experiments). Learn more about that here: http://www.henriettalacksfoundation.org/

For more about the author and Henrietta's story, go to http://rebeccaskloot.com/.

Book Review: Horseradish (Lemony Snicket)

Lemony Snicket (which I think is a pseudonym for Daniel Handler, and a writer who I find fabulously entertaining) is best known for his authorship of the Series of Unfortunate Events. I have a few books left to complete the series, but I know enough about them to know that A) Lemony Snicket is hilarious, and B) this series in particular is most delicious when consumed audibly.

Horseradish is a collection of maxims that are categorized by applicable areas of life (as Lemony Snicket sees them), including Home, Family, Literature, A Life of Mystery, the Mystery of Life, and An Overall Feeling of Doom that One Cannot Ever Escape No Matter What One Does, etc. There are some adages that are of a more serious nature, and others which seem serious but end silly. And then there are those that start silly and end serious. Something for everyone, you see.

Just a few of my favorites:

"No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read."

"A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late to read them."

"A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded."

"Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby - awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess."

"Just about everything in this world is easier said than done, with the exception of "systematically assisting Sisyphus's stealthy, cyst-susceptible sister," which is easier done than said."

Easily consumed in one sitting, Horseradish is sarcasm at its best.

Book Review: Sarah's Key (Tatiana de Rosnay)

*Today's post is written by Christina Sutton, the school librarian at Clay Elementary. 

Sarah's Key is a wonderful realistic picture of Paris during 1942 - and the "roundup" of Jewish people.  (The Paris police were actually the ones that did the "roundup" which adds to this terrible part of history.)  A lot of us may know about the Holocaust in general, but not necessarily the role that Paris and other places may have played in this part of history that changed our world forever.

Here is the School Journal write up that I found on Titlewave - it's a great summary.

 Library Journal (May 15, 2007)

Pivotal to this novel is the key in ten-year-old Sarah's pocket. It opens the cupboard in which she has hidden her younger brother from the French police, who are rounding up Jews in Paris. It is July 16, 1942, and Sarah, along with her parents and hundreds more people, are brought to the stadium Vélodrome d'Hiver, where they spend several days without food or water before being sent to French camps en route to Auschwitz. Arriving at the camp Beaune-la-Rolande, Sarah is separated from her parents and manages to escape. Nearby farmers not only protect but eventually adopt her. In alternating chapters, we read of American-born journalist Julia Jarmond, who's working on a magazine story about the "Vel'd'Hiv" roundup on its 60th anniversary. Because the grandparents of Julia's husband moved into the apartment once owned by Sarah's family, we learn what Sarah discovers when she finally returns ten years later with the key-knowledge so traumatic that it changes Julia's life forever. This debut by French-born de Rosnay has been translated into 15 languages and will surely be an international best seller. Masterly and compelling, it is not something that readers will quickly forget. Highly recommended.-Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Literature Mapping

"I like this book. What else do you have like this?"

"This series was great, but I have finished reading all the books in it. What else do you have like that?"

"Who is someone who writes kind of like this author?"

Literature mapping.

It's a fancy way of dressing up we do on a daily basis, which is matching books to readers. As librarians, most of us rely on our own knowledge of literature to guide students toward (or away from, as the case may be) books and series of books that they might enjoy. As awesome as our brains are :) we should also take full advantage of these digital literature mapping tools. Besides, we might learn a thing or two about similarities and differences between authors and book styles!

1. Gnooks is a pretty simple website where all you (or teachers...or the students themselves!) do is type an author's name into the "Map of Literature" box, and suddenly your screen will fill with a swirling circle of other authors as they relate to the individual you have searched. The names in close proximity to your person (whose name will show in the center) are the writers whose styles most closely resemble the author desired. (*Side note: I had no idea that Maya Angelou and Mark Twain had such similar writing styles! But now that I think about it...)
**Great for middle and high school levels, but easily used in upper elementary. This would be a very cool computer lab activity!

2.  Scholastic Book Wizard is a tool that permits readers to search the "Book Alike" box by adjusting to the child's current reading level (or shifting along the continuum for a harder or easier book, as it applies) and typing in the title of the book he or she enjoyed. Boom! There is a list of current, popular titles that match student's interest. (*Scholastic Book Wizard has a widget tool you can embed onto your library OPAC site or your school's website. Look for it on the homepage...and view it on the sidebar here to see how the widget works.)
**Great for elementary level.

What other tools do you use to help students grow to enjoy literature?

Book Review: Blood on the Tracks (Cecelia Holland)

In 1877, the United States was just recovering from the Civil War. The railroad industry was booming, which meant the men who owned the railroads were fantastically rich. And greedy. In a meeting the men decided they weren't as rich as they wanted to be, so they agreed to kick it up a notch by cutting the railroad workers' wages by 10% and increase their workloads. The result was overwhelmingly catastrophic.

The workers began a strike, which snowballed into an all-out war between the remaining local militia and a mob of railroad workers driven crazy by anger. The railroad business owners completely underestimated the mob, and in the span of one night (July 20, 1877), the entire town of Pittsburgh was thrown into complete chaos. Innocent people were shot and killed by stray bullets, buildings were set on fire, and firefighters were held at gunpoint to prevent them from putting the fires out. After the massacre, the number of people who died resulting from wounds inflicted during the chaos is still unknown to this day. That which was documented is completely harrowing. One 4 year old girl was shot in the knee and her leg had to be sawed off. Another Irish immigrant who had only been in the country for a few days was killed without ever even realizing what the fight was even about. Because of the damage inflicted to the cities and to the railroad businesses, the "bosses" learned a lesson that has impacted the way workers have been treated ever since. The workers learned the very same lesson. There is great power, and great responsibility, in mass revolt.

Maybe I just never paid attention in history class, but I must shamefully admit, I didn't even know there was a "Great Railroad Strike of 1877." Did you?