I’ve mentioned before that in my class right now we’re reading The Gardener by S. A. Bodeen, and talking about science and the real-world questions that fiction can help us talk about.

The two students pictured in the picture I posted the other day have both finished the novel (they secretly spirited copies of the book out of my classroom at the end of class), and were both livid about the end. On the list of things they wanted to know

• what became of the characters after the epilogue
• how the girl could be drinking Yoohoo
• what became of the TroDyn research

They wanted me to send Bodeen a mean email asking how she could end the story like that, claiming that stories should never end. I said I might be able to find her on Twitter, but I value the relationships with authors built through Twitter enough not to say anything as strongly worded as what they were suggesting. So I said,

@sabodeen Two of my 8th graders just finished The Gardener and they’ve (loudly) asked me to ask you to write a sequel.

— Eli Oldham (@thebooksupplier) April 25, 2014

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAnd she replied,

@thebooksupplier I’ll take that under advisement 😉

— Stephanie Bodeen (@sabodeen) April 26, 2014

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

They both gave me their phone numbers so I could text them her reply.

I am excited for what books like this one and interactions like these do to students’ reading lives once they’re out of my class.  For now, here’s what they’re reading:

• One has decided he’s going to delve into Bodeen’s backlist and start with with The Compound, which does have a sequel (I recently learned) called The Fallout.
• The other is reading The Fault in Our Stars because she knows the movie is coming out in June.