
Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks
Paperback, 220 pages
GN390L
Maggie’s been homeschooled her entire life, so high school is a huge culture shock for her. She’s always just been friends with her brothers, and now her brothers are too busy to hang out with her. And she not only has to deal with having no friends, and the differences of public school, but also the fact that her mom left (which she thinks is her fault).
Oh, and did I mention that Maggie is haunted by a ghost?
I very much enjoyed this graphic novel. I do wonder whether or not there will be another, as it feels like there were so many unanswered questions at the end. Call it The Giver effect, or something. Why did Maggie’s mom leave? What was the purpose of the ghost? I’m actually thinking that the ghost’s purpose was to help Maggie find her way back to her brothers and (sort of) come to terms with her mother’s leaving. But if that’s the case, why did the ghost show up so early?
It’s a quick coming-of-age read that is also visually appealing. If you want to see more by this author, check out the illustrations to Brain Camp.
For the second year in a row, I attended the Model Schools Conference put on by ICLE. This year, there was one session that almost everyone from my building attended, which made the reading specialist in me very happy. It was a session on reading young adult literature across the curriculum. Teaching reading across the curriculum is one of the things I’m up on my soapbox about at school right now, so the enthusiasm of my colleagues was a welcome change. Continue reading
In July of last year, I decided that I was going to create QR codes to put in the books of my personal library – a reaction to students wanting book talks (which I was happy about) while I was trying to teach a small group of students.
The project fell flat when a number of my books, which were on the bookshelves in my classroom, were destroyed on purpose. This led me to move the books into the cupboard in an effort to preserve the collection.
After months of thinking about this QR code project, and thinking about the hundreds of books in my collection that aren’t read because students tend to gravitate toward what they can see, I decided that I needed to reevaluate what I was trying to accomplish and decide whether or not the implementation of the project was meeting the objectives I set at the beginning. The solution I came up with was the creation of a card catalogue containing bibliographic information and a QR code for more information. Continue reading