Vikki+Partlow



** Title: ** //A Tale Dark and Grimm// ** Author: ** Adam Gidwitz ** Summary: ** Adam Gidwitz takes the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel and moves them through other classic fairy tales on their journey throughout the book. The moral of this story is that Gidwitz allows for Hansel and Gretel to learn how to take care of themselves and create their own happy ending. ** Genre: ** Fairy Tale ** Common Core Curriculum Connection: ** SL.11-12.6. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating a command of formal English when indicated or appropriate. ** Classroom/Promotional Activity: ** Reading fluently is a skill every student should have in order to be able to read accurately, have higher word recognition and to be able to comprehend what they read. Through paired reading activities, students will collaborate with a peer to read this story and help each other gain reading fluency. ** Citation: ** Gidwitz, A. (2010). //A tale dark and grimm//. New York: Dutton Children’s Books. ** ISBN: ** 978-0-525-42334-8
 * Award: Blue Grass Award for Middle School **
 * // Strategy #7: Paired Reading //



** Title: ** //The True Meaning of Smekday// ** Author: ** Adam Rex ** Summary: ** Rex creates a fantasy world in which aliens have invaded Earth and have sent all humans to Florida. A young girl named Tip befriends an alien named J.Lo and the two of them set off on an adventure to help save Tips mother and all of Earth from another invasion of an evil bunch of aliens who want to eat the Earth. ** Genre: ** Fantasy-Fiction ** Common Core Curriculum Connection: ** RL.11-12.7. Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text. ** Classroom/Promotional Activity: ** This story would be a great one to adapt to a radio broadcast, similar to War of the Worlds. Teams of students would adapt chapters of the book into a radio announcement, with commentary and opinions on what will happen next to Tip and J.Lo on their journey. ** Citation: ** Res, A. (2007). //The true meaning of Smekday//. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ** ISBN: ** 978-0-786-84900-0
 * Award: Odyssey Award **
 * // Strategy #9: Radio Reading //



** Title: ** //The Vanishing of Katharina Linden: A Novel// ** Author: ** Helen Grant ** Summary: ** Pia is a young girl living in a small rural village in Germany where everyone knows everyone. A schoolmate of hers goes missing and Pia and her friend Stefen find themselves interested in solving this mystery. Soon another girl goes missing and the town is placing blame, but possibly on the wrong person. Pia’s happy, quiet childhood is shoved into the adult world and she speaks to the audience with innocence and naivety as she relates this tale almost seven years later. ** Genre: ** Mystery Fiction ** Common Core Curriculum Connection: ** W.11-12.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences ** Classroom/Promotional Activity: ** This story can be adapted to a readers theatre model, providing students an opportunity to experience the story through dramatization. Because a readers theatre piece must be rehearsed numerous times, students will be able to develop fluency in oral reading and comprehension of the text. ** Citation: ** Grant, H. (2009). //The vanishing of Katharina Linden: A novel//. New York: Delacorte Press. ** ISBN: ** 978-0-440-33961-8
 * Award: Alex Award **
 * // Strategy #6: Readers Theatre //



** Title: ** //Room: A Novel// ** Author: ** Emma Donoghue ** Summary: ** //Room// is a story about a 5-year-old boy named Jack who lives with his mother in a room where you find out they are being held captive. Jack is the narrator for this story and told in the language of a 5 year old, with short phrases and sentences and sometimes very simply. The book explores the bond between and mother and her child and the choices she has to make in order to keep him safe. Jack’s whole world is this room where everything is personal to him. ** Genre: ** Fiction ** Common Core Curriculum Connection: ** SL.11-12.1. Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. ** Classroom/Promotional Activity: ** // Room //, although fiction, is about some very tough subject matters. Talking Around the Text is a great strategy to help tackle some of these books with very hard subject matters. Start the class off with a discussion about the content of the book. Have them read the text, then identify the areas that are difficult for them to understand. The students in small groups write open-ended questions for the discussion. Then share in class discussion about the book. ** Citation: ** Donoghue, E. (2010). //Room: A novel//. London: Picador. ** ISBN: ** 978-0-330-51901-4
 * Award: Blue Grass Award for High School **
 * // Strategy 36: Talking Around the Text //



** Title: ** //Ship Breaker// ** Author: ** Paolo Bacigalupi ** Summary: ** Nailer is a youth who makes a living striping ships of their metals and selling them off to a larger company. The novel takes place in the future and the world has been stripped of all its natural resources leaving a dirty, grimy world and kids like Nailer have to scavenge to eat. Bacigalupi creates a dog-eat-dog world where no one can be trusted and you will be killed if what you have is what someone else wants. This book is very dark and grim and a conflict between what is right and what will guarantee survival. ** Genre: ** Fiction ** Common Core Curriculum Connection: ** RL.11-12.1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain. ** Classroom/Promotional Activity: ** Students will be divided into groups and given a chapter to read from //Ship// Breaker and using the conflict dissection strategy chart, will complete the chart and then write a summary based on the information they gathered in the graphic organizer. ** Citation: ** Bacigalupi, P. (2010). //Ship Breaker//. New York: Little Brown Books. ** ISBN: ** 978-0-316-05621-2
 * Award: Michael L. Printz **
 * // Strategy #14: Conflict Dissection //



** Award: YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults ** ** Title: ** //Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing// ** Author: ** Ann Angel

** Summary: ** //Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing// is a biography written about the iconic rock-and-roll female and her struggles from her childhood to the time she died. Janis Joplin died of an overdose when she was only 27 years old and Ann Angel takes readers back to her childhood in Texas to her breakout as singer in the male populated world of rock-and-roll up to her death in 1970. ** Genre: ** Biography ** Common Core Curriculum Connection: ** SL.11-12.5. Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest. ** Classroom/Promotional Activity: ** Students will use a Book trailer Organizer to gather information about the book and then divided into teams and create an iMovie to create the trailer for their book. This is an excellent way to introduce //Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing// and for students to really research and understand a powerful but troubled part of the American culture. ** Citation: ** Angel, A. (2010). //Janis Joplin: Rise up singing//. New York: Amulet Books. ** ISBN: ** 978-0-810-98349-6
 * // Strategy #25: Book Trailers //



** EBook #1 ** ** Title: ** //A Curse Dark as Gold// ** Author: ** Elizabeth C. Bunce ** Summary: ** Charlotte’s family is in possession of a mill that many believe is cursed with bad luck. Charlotte herself does not believe in such things, but finds herself maneuvering a world of shadows and mystery as she tries to save the mill by working with a man named Jack Spinner. ** Genre: ** Fiction-Fairy Tales ** Common Core Curriculum Connection: ** RL.11-12.3. Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed). ** Classroom/Promotional Activity: ** Using the SCAMPER method, students will evaluate the text of //A Curse Dark as Gold// and in groups will construct new solutions to help Charlotte find other ways to help her family. ** Citation: ** Bunce, E. (2008). //A curse dark as gold//. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books. ** ISBN: ** 978-0-439-89576-7
 * // Strategy #26: SCAMPER //



** EBook #2 ** ** Title: ** //The Everafter// ** Author: ** Amy Huntley ** Summary: ** Madison is in a world she knows nothing about and is confused. One thing for certain is that the reader understands early on that Madison is dead and through the objects swirling around, Madison revisits moments in her life. She doesn’t understand how she died and you find out in the end. This book makes you think about those moments in your life that are really meaningful and important. ** Genre: ** Fiction ** Common Core Curriculum Connection: ** RL.11-12.4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. ** Classroom/Promotional Activity: ** Through this strategy, the reader can create a visual image of the test, recording what they read through doodles, writing down vocabulary words that are unfamiliar, taking notes about what they have read and writing down questions they have about the story. //The Everafter// is a sad and haunting novel and one where many students might not really understand. ** Citation: ** Huntley, A. (2009). //The everafter//. New York: Blazer & Bray. ** ISBN: ** 978-1-441-80182-1
 * // Strategy 15: Jots and Doodles //



** Award: Margaret A. Edwards Award ** ** Title: ** //Equal Rites// ** Author: ** Sir Terry Pratchett ** Summary: ** //Equal Rites// is one of 39 in a series created Sir Terry Pratchett called Discworld. In this novel, Pratchett takes us to a place where the eighth son of an eighth son is about to be born and a dying wizard is there to pass on his powers. Only, to everyone’s surprise, the eighth son turns out to be a girl and the powers are passed on to her before they can stop it. The story goes on to see how Esk learns to control her powers, goes to the Unseen Universe and tries to get in and how a girl can be a wizard even though girls have always been witches and boys have always been wizards. ** Genre: ** Fantasy ** Curriculum Connection: ** RI.11-12.7. Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem. ** Classroom/Promotional Activity: ** Through the use of this strategy, students will analyze the problem associated with this story-girls can not be wizards or equality-and research ideas to answer the six different perspectives the teacher has come up with for this topic. ** Citation: ** Pratchett, T. (2005). //Equal rites//. New York: Harper Collins. ** ISBN: ** 978-0-060-85590-1
 * // Strategy #27: Six Thinking Hats //



** Award: William C. Morris Award ** ** Title: ** //Where Things Come Back// ** Author: ** John Corey Whaley ** Summary: ** The story takes place in a small town in Arkansas where the main character, Cullen and his family are faced with heart wrenching pain when his 15 year old brother goes missing. Also a depressed bird watcher discovers the existence of a woodpecker long thought to be extinct. With the introduction of another character of Benton Sage, these two telling the story of that summer, the town’s crazy obsession of the woodpecker and the coming of age of Cullen. ** Genre: ** Fiction ** Curriculum Connection: ** W.11-12.4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. ** Classroom/Promotional Activity: ** Using the Academic Note Taking Guide, students will explore the different parts of a note taking found on the academic note guide. ** Citation: ** Whaley, J. (2011). //Where things come back.// New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers. ** ISBN: ** 978-1-442-41333-7
 * // Strategy 38: Academic Note Taking //