Retro Book of the Week: The Pigman

The Pigman
by Paul Zindel
1968

The Pigman is one of our protected and required books for seventh grade, so I figure that it is worth a mention as a retro book of the week. This is the story of Lorraine and John, two bored teenagers with unpleasant home lives. One day, while making prank phone calls posing as a fake charity organization asking for donations, John and Lorraine meet Mr. Angelo Pignati. The two quickly become friends with Mr. Pignati, and they begin spending most of their free time at his house. Mr. Pignati becomes a father figured to John and Lorraine, and he enjoys the youthful, carefree times that the trio spends together.

However, The Pigman is, overall, a dark novel. It is a novel about loneliness, grief, pain, deceit, and betrayal. Perhaps these themes are the reason why students today can still identify with the the characters in the novel more than forty years after it was written. Many of Paul Zindel's "retro" books remain popular today. In fact, Zindel was the winner of the ALA's 2002 Margaret A. Edwards award, which "honors an author, as well as a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature."

I have read The Pigman with seventh grade students, and I can say from first hand experience that this is a great choice for bringing thought-provoking discussion and real emotions to the classroom. We have both individual copies and class sets available, as well as teaching guides and an audio recording. Check it out today @your library!

Retro Book of the Week: Dicey's Song

Dicey's Song
by Cynthia Voigt
1983

Dicey's Song is a good study in how book covers have changed over the past thirty years. I've included the covers from the 1982 First Edition, 1984, 1990, and 2002. If you look at the 1982 and 1984 covers, these are typical 80's books covers: realistic drawings done in dull colors. The 90's cover tells us absolutely nothing of what the book is about, and in fact is the least circulated edition in our collection. The 2002 cover is the most circulated, likely because it follows the more modern trend of using photographs on the book cover. But looking at any of these covers, would you really be able to tell what this book is about?

Dicey's Song won the Newberry Award in 1983, and it is actually a pretty popular story with our students that actually pick the book up and read it. It was on the Battle of the Books list last year, and I had many students tell me how surprised they were that it was such a good book. This is the second novel in the Tillerman Cycle, a series of seven books about the four Tillerman children who are abandoned in a parking lot by their mother. In this book, Dicey and her siblings, James, Maybeth, and Sammy, are living with their Gram and attempting to adjust to normal life on their grandmother's very slim budget.

The Tillerman Cycle was a very popular series in the 80's an 90's, and we still have multiple copies of all the books on our shelf here in the library, including a class set of Dicey's Song. The books in the series include:

Homecoming (1981)

Dicey's Song (1982)

A Solitary Blue (1983)

The Runner (1985)

Come a Stranger (1986)

Sons from Afar (1987)

Seventeen Against the Dealer (1989) 

  [Retro Book of the Week celebrates the oldies-but-goodies in our media center. Books with faded covers can still have modern appeal! Sometimes I just want to celebrate the books that have influenced YA literature and my literary past, and sometimes I want to give new life to timeless classics. These features will be heavy on books from the 80's and 90's.]

The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society
by Trenton Lee Stewart

This is one of those books that I read and immediately wondered why it hasn't been made into a movie. Though it is a very long book (524 pages), I can't imagine why Hollywood hasn't edited it down into a fun kids movie. After all, this is a book about kids working under cover as spies to save the world from an evil genius!

Our hero in the novel is an eleven-year-old orphan named Reynie Muldoon. Reynie participates in a special test for children with special gifts, and finds out that he has been selected as a member of a The Mysterious Benedict Society. The Society is made up of four children, each selected because of his or her special gifts. Reynie is skilled in logic, and he can think outside of the box to figure his way out of any situation. Stickey Washington is a genius with a photographic memory. Kate Wetherall is my favorite: she's a tough girl who carries a bucket filled with tools that she uses, MacGyver-style, to get things done. And, finally, Constance Contraire is a tiny, stubborn girl with a set of skills that are not revealed until the end of the book.

The Mysterious Benedict Society is sent to the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, which is run by the evil, narcoleptic Ledroptha Curtain. Using logic, resourcefulness, and pure smarts they must stop Mr. Curtain from taking over the whole world using messages sent through television and radio signals. This book is perfect for upper elementary and middle school students because it is filled with puzzles and problems that readers can solve right along with the characters. The writing style and tone are similar to that of Roald Dahl, the spy action is reminiscent of the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz, and kids who like the art puzzles in Blue Balliet's books Chasing Vermeer, The Wright 3, and The Calder Game will love the puzzles in this book. The Mysterious Benedict Society is highly recommended, and we are fortunate to have five copies of this book on the shelf because it is a Battle of the Books title for this year. Check it out today @ your library!

52 Book Challenge

Last year I made a goal to read 50 books, and I completed it. This year I'm going to read 52, and 20 of those are "required" reading (I made a list of books that I MUST read because I already own them and they've been hanging around my house for too long!). I've done quite well so far in the new year -- I've already completed two books. For a change of pace, these are both adult books, one fiction and one non-fiction:

1.) The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter
 by David Colbert
Because I'm a big ole Harry Potter nerd (at least right now, after reading and watching the seventh book). This book was really cool because it explains the folklore and mythology behind the Harry Potter series. JK Rowling has a background in the study of literature, so her choices to use names, symbols, and archetypes were deliberate. I enjoyed learning more about how these stories all fit together in the series.

2.) Room
by Emma Donoghue
Though Room is told through the eyes of a five-year-old boy, it is not a children's story. Jack has lived in Room his entire life with his Ma, and Room is the only world he knows. Ma has been locked in Room for seven years by Old Nick, who is their only connect to the world outside. This is a dark and troubling book, but very well written. Jack's narrative is believable and realistic. I have a hard time saying I enjoyed this book, as it tells about terrible crimes that no one should experience, but I give it five stars because I couldn't put it down.

Retro Book of the Week: The Boxcar Children

The Boxcar Children
By Gertrude Chandler Warner

Oh, the Boxcar Children. I read these when I was in elementary school, not even realizing that these books are waaaaaaay retro. 1941, to be exact. Warner originally dubbed these "the Alden Family Mysteries," but they have since been packaged as "The Boxcar Children." Though the other books in the series are mysteries, the first book is not really a mystery at all. It tells the story of Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny, four orphaned children who live in an abandonded boxcar in the woods. They believe their legal guardian, their grandfather, is a cruel man and they wish to fend for themselves in the woods rather than live with him. There really is no mystery in this first book, but it does develop the characters and set the stage for the rest of the series.

Of over 140 books, only the first nineteen in the series were written by Gertrude Chandler Warner, who died in 1979. All of the stories feature the four children as amature dectives, solving crimes whereever they go. I was surprised to learn that the original nineteen books are all set in the 1940's and 50's, with the children growing older over several years in time. However, the later books are set in the present day, with the children becoming frozen in time where they never get older (sort of like The Babysitter's Club, Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and The Hardy Boys). If you're feeling nostalgic, check one out today @ your library!

[Retro Book of the Week celebrates the oldies-but-goodies in our media center. Books with faded covers can still have modern appeal! Sometimes I just want to celebrate the books that have influenced YA literature and my literary past, and sometimes I want to give new life to timeless classics. These features will be heavy on books from the 80's and 90's.]

Retro Book of the Week: Kristy's Great Idea

Kristy's Great Idea

by Ann M. Martin 

If you were a teen or tween in the 80's or 90's, you know all about the Baby-Sitter's Club. Love 'em or hate 'em, these girls will go down in series fiction history. Kristy's Great Idea is the first novel in the 213-novel series. In this book, Kristy comes up with the idea to run a babysitting club in her neighborhood to help parents reach many babysitters with one phone call. Kristy, a softball playing tomboy, is the president of the club. Her shy, sensitive, bookish best friend, Mary Anne, is the secretary. The artisitic, junk-food loving Claudia gets to be the vice president because the meetings are held in her room (she has her own phone line). And Stacey, the super-stylish new girl from New York, is elected treasurer because she is great at math.

This BSC novel is a classic because it sets the whole series in motion. Readers get to meet some of the classic BSC clients. There is also some awesome fashion (baggy lavender plaid overalls, anyone?). However, the BSC is not going away any time soon! The series is currently being reissued. The original yellow cover was replaced with a pink cover in the late 1990's, but starting this year the series has undergone a serious makeover. The updated covers are in stores now. The first five books have also been made into graphic novels by Raina Telegmeier, author of Smile. We have a whole shelf of BSC books here at MSMS. Take a walk down memory lane or check one out for the first time @ your library!

[Retro Book of the Week celebrates the oldies-but-goodies in our media center. Books with faded covers can still have modern appeal! Sometimes I just want to celebrate the books that have influenced YA literature and my literary past, and sometimes I want to give new life to timeless classics. These features will be heavy on books from the 80's and 90's.]

Retro Book of the Week: The Outsiders

The Outsiders
by SE Hinton

The Outsiders is considered by some to be the first real young adult book out there. This is the story of Pony Boy, a Greaser living in Tulsa in 1965. The central conflict in the book is between the Greasers and the Socs. Soc is short for Social, and the Socs are a gang of wealthy, privledged kids that like to fight with the Greasers.

Though this book is forty years old, it is still popular because the themes are timeless. The Outsiders is read by seventh graders across Forsyth County, and it is on this year's Battle of the Books list. I can't tell you how many students I've had checking this book out again and again, it really is a favorite at our school. If you are interested in reading this book for the first time, or revisiting your teen years with a walk down literary memory lane, come check this one out @your library!

[Retro Book of the Week celebrates the oldies-but-goodies in our media center. Books with faded covers can still have modern appeal! Sometimes I just want to celebrate the books that have influenced YA literature and my literary past, and sometimes I want to give new life to timeless classics. These features will be heavy on books from the 80's and 90's.]

Geektastic:Stories from the Nerd Herd

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd

Edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castelucci

I am not typically a reader of short story collections, but I immediately knew I had to read this collection. I ordered this book with my last big book order because the reviews were great and it seemed like a fun book. When the book came in, I was actually able to see the list of contributing authors on the front of the book and I was hooked. Where else can you find a book that combines the topic of geekiness AND fabulous YA authors suchs a Libba Bray, John Green, Wendy Mass, David Levithan, Garth Nix, and MT Anderson? As a self-professed geek I could not deny my curiosity, so I had to read the book.

I was not disappointed. This is one of the best books I have read this year. All aspects of geekiness are covered in these pages -- band nerds, quiz bowl geeks, Role Playing Games (RPGs), conventions, stormtroopers, LARPing, Star Wars vs Star Trek, sci-fi, Dungeons and Dragons, comic books, Buffy, paleontology, drama geeks, astronauts, Rocky Horror, and so on. I guess I'm not geeky enough to know a whole lot about many of these geekdoms, but I enjoyed the overall geek-tasticness of reading about other geeks of all kinds. Though some of the stories were a little slow, most of the stories were perfect for getting a quick read in at lunch. I realized that the great thing about short stories is that they can be completed in one sitting!

My favorite stories in the book were "I Never" by Cassandra Clare, "Quiz Bowl Antichrist" by David Levithan, and "The Stars at the Finish Line" by Wendy Mass, and "It's Just a Jump to the Left" by Libba Bray. This is definitely a book that I have purchased and added to my personal collection. It is a book I can see myself re-reading. Apparently the MSMS students feel the same way, because I can barely keep it on the shelf! Check out this book and other short story collections @your library!

Battle of the Books Read-Alikes

Today's features come from the Battle of the Books list for 2010-2011. I read these three books over the summer, and each of them immediately brought to mind other popular Young Adult books that you may have read. I'll give you a short description of the book and the read-alike title it is reminiscent of. It's your job to come down and check these out @your library!


Truesight by David Stahler, Jr.

In a futuristic society where everyone is blind, what happens if you start to see? This book reminded me of The Giver by Lois Lowry.

Schooled by Gordon Korman

After living on a hippie commune for his whole life, Capricorn Anderson has to attend public middle school. Reminded me of Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli.

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Four very different, and very quirky, kids are recruited to help with a top secret mission to save the world. This is a fun book filled with puzzles and brain teasers that can be solved right along with the characters. Reminded me of the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz.