Reading Youth Literature

  Looking for Alaska by John Green Summary: Miles “Pudge” Halter is looking for "the Great Perhaps" when he leaves the predictable life with his parents in Florida to attend a Culver Creek boarding school in Alabama. Miles is an introvert whose hobby is collecting famous last words.  His roommate, the Colonel, gives him the ironic nickname Pudge since he’s rail thin.  Pudge is introduced to Alaska, the intelligent, beautiful, highly energetic and emotional girl that he develops a huge crush on.  But Alaska has a boyfriend outside of Culver Creek. She is the center of Pudge’s new group of friends that also include Lara, a Romanian girl, and Takumi. The five of them hang out on Strawberry Hill smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap wine, but also learning together.  Additionally, Alaska and the Colonel are notorious pranksters and lead the group into several carefully planned schemes.   Alaska bears the burden of her mother’s death when she was a ...

The Popcorn astronauts and other bitable rhymes by Deborah Ruddell, Joan Rankin (Ill.) Summary: The Popcorn astronauts and other bitable rhymes by Deborah Ruddell (2015) uses verse to describe the four seasons humorously.  Each season has five story poems to describe it with the exception of Fall that has six poems.  In Spring there is the Strawberry Queen, that needs to be addressed as Ma’am, “but don’t say a word about strawberry jam” (p.1); a picnic, a doozie of a smoothie with pickles, snails, a “nubbin of fish,” (p. 4).  Summer includes swimming in a watermelon lake, the story of a picky Ogre that eats only corn on the cob, a recipe to make raisins like “wrinkled rubber rocks...of well-worn pirate socks (p. 9), and don’t forget the summer peaches.  Fall welcomes canoes made of potatoes, a café that serves only toast, a list of 21 things to do with an apple, a menu to eat on a rainy day, and a chance to become a hero by eating the last hardened brownie....

Knights of the lunch table by Frank Cammuso Summary: Knights of the lunch table revolves around Arthur King of Cornwall and his friends, Percival (Percy), and Wayne Kozlowski, and Gwen Lee who attend Camelot Middle School.  Author is new to Camelot and claims to be a dodgeball legend.  When he gets bullied by The Horde, the hoodlums that rule the school, he gets sent to the Principal Dagger’s office. She rules the school by discipline, control, and fear (Cammuso, 2008, p.19).  As a form of punishment, she assigns Author the legendary locker 001XCL that no one has been able to open.  On it is written the words, “If you heart be true and fine, turn the dial left to 9.  27 to the right, gives the owner strength and might. Left again to number 3.  A king to all the students be.” (Cammuso, 2008, p.22).  According, to Percival whoever opens the locker rules the school. Joe Roman, The Horde leader tries with all his might to open it, but fails. Arthur...

Amelia Lost by Candace Fleming Summary: Amelia Lost shares the story of the legendary pilot Amelia Earhart who disappeared on July 5, 1937 while trying to circumnavigate the globe.  The story flashes back and forth between the day of her disappearance and other related events through her life beginning from her birth on July 24, 1897 into a middle-class family in Kansas.  Her family consisted younger sister Muriel, her mother and father who supported her greatly in her aviation endeavors.  After attending an air show with her father, she told him that she’d like to fly.  After six months of flying lessons, she decided to buy her first plane. An ex-army instructor taught her stunt flying, but her parents’ divorce in 1925 put her flying career on hold.  She really attracted the attention of the media and was often in magazines and newspapers. The result was an opportunity to become the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean . This event propelled A...

Module 11:  Leonardo’s Horse by Jean Fritz, Hudson Talbott (Illustrator) Summary: Leonardo’s Horse is the story of Leonardo da Vinci’s unfulfilled dream of constructing a 24-foot-tall horse for the duke of Milan.  The duke of Milan wanted a horse constructed in front of his palace to honor his father.  Leonardo da Vinci wanted to be the one to make it and submitted his resume to show that he was capable of doing it.  In 1482, he was given the job. In order to determine his design, he went to horse stables to study and draw horses and examined other statues of horses.  But the duke wanted a horse three times bigger than originally planned, and Leonardo had to configure the engineering and materials needed to build such a large horse. He constructed a 24-four feet high clay model that was displayed at one of the Duke’s special occasions in 1493.  However, Leonardo did not seem to be in a hurry to finish the job.  He had so many other duties a...

R on’s Big Mission by Rose Blue and Corinne J. Naden, Don Tate (Illustrator) Summary: As a young man Ron McNair dreamed of becoming a pilot. In 1959 he was nine years old and lived in South Carolina.  He wanted to get some books from the Lake City Public Library where Mrs. Scott was the head librarian and he was the best customer.  He usually stayed and read the books, but today he wanted to check the books out and take them home.  Unfortunately, there was a rule that only let white people check books out.  Ron was black.  He was determined to get his books and stood firm even when the police and his mother were called.  Eventually, Ms. Scott made him a card and allowed him to check out the books. My Perspective: This story is shared in the biography of Ron McNair (2005) written by his brother Carl S. McNair.  It provides a few more details, but never mentions the librarian’s name.  For example, Carl McNair points out that the public l...