Module 8 * Fantasy and Science Fiction * March 3-9

Uglies 

by 

Scott Westerfeld

Bibliography: Westerfeld, S. (2005). Uglies. New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc.

Summary:

Tally lives in a world/time where it is seen to be of the utmost importance that everyone be equal. especially in looks.  At sixteen each child is given a free surgery that changes their body and their face in order to make them a "pretty"- equally pretty to all the rest of the pretties.  Just before her long-awaited turn when she is looking forward to joining her best friend who had the surgery months before her in Prettytown, Tally meets a girl named Shay who has other ideas after meeting a revolutionary boy in an off-limits old town from the time of the "Rusties".  Shay makes Tally think about the surgery differently, but her life is changed forever when Tally is forced to act as a double-agent against Shay and the others who live in the Smoke- a town where no one is pretty and they live without the technology and ease of those in Prettytown, but they accept all as they are and find purpose in work for the community.  When Shay decides to stay in smoke and with the boy she loves, all hell breaks loose when the secret government agency find them and kill and capture her new friends while destroying the life they have created for themselves. Shay joins whole-heartedly with the Smoke folk and try to rescue their members and their way of life by sacrificing herself.  

My Take: 

I liked this book a lot.  Shay was a shallower character than she needed to be, but I loved the transformation of Tally throughout the story.  I cannot wait to read the sequels to this book and find out what happens next!  What the government does is bone-chilling.  The changes to the citizens' brains that are made to make them more compliant, happy and easy to manage is terrifying in its twisted logic.

Reviews: 

Gr. 7-10.  Fifteen year-old Tally's eerily harmonious, postapocolyptic society gives extreme makeovers to teens on their sixteenth birthdays, supposedly conferring equivalent evalutionary advantages to all.  When a top-secret agency threatens to leave Tally ugly forever unless she spies on runaway teens, she agrees to infiltrate the Smoke, a shadowy colony of refugees from the "tyranny of physical perfection".  At first baffeled and repulsed by the rebels' choices, Tally eventually bonds with one of their leaders and begins to question the validity of institutionalized mutilation- especially as it becomes clear that the government's surgeons may be doing more than cosmetic nipping and tucking.  Although the narrative's brisk pace is more successful in scenes of hover-boarding action than in convincingly developing Tally's key relationships, teens will sink their teeth into the provocative questions about invasive technology, image-obsessed society and the ethical quandries of a mole-turned-ally.  These elements, along with the obvious connections to reality programs such as Miami Slice, will surely cause this ingenious series debut to cement Westfeld's reputation for high-concept YA fiction that has wide appeal. 

Mattson, J. Uglies (review). (2005). Booklist, 101(14), 1287.

With a beginning and ending that pack hefty punches, this introduction to a dystopic future promises an exciting series. Tally is almost 16 and breathlessly eager: On her birthday, like everyone else, she'll undergo extensive surgery to become a Pretty. She's only known life as an Ugly (everyone's considered hideous before surgery), whereas after she "turns," she'll have the huge eyes, perfect skin, and new bone structure that biology and evolution have determined to be objectively beautiful. New Pretties party all day long. But when friend Shay escapes to join a possibly mythical band of outsiders avoiding surgery, Tally follows--not from choice but because the secret police force her. Tally inflicts betrayal after betrayal, which dominates the theme for the midsection; by the end, the nature of this dystopia is front and center and Tally--trying to set things right--takes a stunning leap of faith. Some heavy-handedness, but the awesome ending thrills with potential.

Uglies (review).  (2005). Kirkus Reviews, 73 (4), 237 

Use in a School Library: 
This book would be great to be recommended to a teacher to use as a unit in class.  It is a powerful story of acceptance of others as they are and the value of hard work.  It is also a great way to introduce to young people the fact that they have the right to question authority and government so they have all the facts.  I would recommend this book to kids having trouble fitting in with their peers for those same reasons.  

Module 7 * Realistic Fiction * Feb. 24- Mar. 2

The Fault in Our Stars

by
John Green

Bibliography: Green, J. (2012). The fault in our stars. New York, NY:Dutton Books.

Summary: Augustus and Hazel meet at a support group for kids with cancer.  They are both equally sarcastic and unconventional (to the group leader and other adults at least) in their thoughts toward the group, the process and the disease.  Hazel is living with cancer that medication has stopped the progression of and Augustus is in remission.  The two have a funny, sarcastic, quirky way between them and their eye-cancer friend Isaac.  The things they discuss are deep and difficult related to living with and dying from cancer, but the way they discuss them is so frank, honest and wholesomely sarcastic that it becomes palatable to the reader, once you get used to it.  They also share a love for a high-brow, fictional book written by a pretentious American who now lives in Sweden.  Augustus uses his "wish" to take Hazel to meet him and the mess created with that visit spills over into life in America.  Once Hazel allows herself to fall in love with Augustus and quit worrying about being the time bomb in his life, fate steps in and reverses that worry.  Augustus' cancer returns with a vengeance and Hazel must face life without him.

My Take: I love this book.  It touched me and made me think.  It made me laugh and cry, sometimes in the same sentence.  It broke my heart, for Hazel and as a parent, when Augustus died.  The storyline that has to do with the Swedish author was so odd, but it really gave you insight into both characters.  I can't wait to see the movie that comes out in June based on this book!  

Reviews:

At 16, Hazel Grace Lancaster, a three-year stage IV–cancer survivor, is clinically depressed. To help her deal with this, her doctor sends her to a weekly support group where she meets Augustus Waters, a fellow cancer survivor, and the two fall in love. Both kids are preternaturally intelligent, and Hazel is fascinated with a novel about cancer called An Imperial Affliction. Most particularly, she longs to know what happened to its characters after an ambiguous ending. To find out, the enterprising Augustus makes it possible for them to travel to Amsterdam, where Imperial’s author, an expatriate American, lives. What happens when they meet him must be left to readers to discover. Suffice it to say, it is significant. Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos—or worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations—life, love, and death—with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In its every aspect, this novel is a triumph.

HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Green’s promotional genius is a force of nature. After announcing he would sign all 150,000 copies of this title’s first print run, it shot to the top of Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s best-seller lists six months before publication. 

Cart, M. (2012). The Fault in Our Stars [Review of the book The Fault in Our Stars by J. Green].  

Booklist Online, January 1, 2012. 

He's in remission from the osteo-sarcoma that took one of his legs. She's fighting the brown fluid in her lungs caused by tumors. Both know that their time is limited.

Sparks fly when Hazel Grace Lancaster spies Augustus "Gus" Waters checking her out across the room in a group-therapy session for teens living with cancer. He's a gorgeous, confident, intelligent amputee who always loses video games because he tries to save everyone. She's smart, snarky and 16; she goes to community college and jokingly calls Peter Van Houten, the author of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. He asks her over, and they swap novels. He agrees to read the Van Houten and she agrees to read his-based on his favorite bloodbath-filled video game. The two become connected at the hip, and what follows is a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance. From their trip to Amsterdam to meet the reclusive Van Houten to their hilariously flirty repartee, readers will swoon on nearly every page. Green's signature style shines: His carefully structured dialogue and razor-sharp characters brim with genuine intellect, humor and desire. He takes on Big Questions that might feel heavy-handed in the words of any other author: What do oblivion and living mean? Then he deftly parries them with humor: "My nostalgia is so extreme that I am capable of missing a swing my butt never actually touched." Dog-earing of pages will no doubt ensue.

Green seamlessly bridges the gap between the present and the existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues to make it through Hazel and Gus' poignant journey. (Fiction. 15 & up)

The Fault of Our Stars [Review of the book The Fault in Our Stars by J. Green] 
Kirkus Reviews. (2012) p. 59. 

Use in a school library: In a Middle School or High School Library (or a YA program in a public library) it would be fun to use this book in a book vs. movie study.  Perhaps as a summer program?  Read the book, then watch the movie from the book and compare through discussion.  The kids could do a secret ballot vote for which they prefer- book or movie.  The results could be posted at the end of the program or of that book study.

Wonder

by

R.J. Palacio

Bibliography: Palacio, R.J. (2012). Wonder. New York, NY:Alfred A. Knopf.

Summary: Auggie is a kid who has facial deformities but other than that is just like anyone else.  He is finally well enough and done with surgeries and can go to a real school.  He is worried about how kids will react to his strange looks and sounds.  He finds some friends right away but has to show his courage against outsiders to win others over.  He is smart, lovable and friendly- and most see that by the end. The story is told not just from Auggie's perspective but from his sister's and friends' points of view as well.

My Take: This is a sweet story that proves to us that it is what is inside that counts.  I love that Palacio shows us what life is like for those in Auggies' family and friends circle and how his struggles effect them as well.  It is a thorough and eye-opening look into life with a physical deformity and the ending makes you smile.  

Reviews:
A poignant and remarkable first novel that will grab your attention and your heart from the first page. Auggie Pullman was born with facial deformities that make quite noticeable to others. Until now, his medical problems have required him to be home-schooled. This year his parents have enrolled him in a private school where Auggie must learn to navigate not only the complexities of middle school life, but also the difficulties that come with his appearance. Told in several voices, Wonder will make readers re-examine their own attitudes about people who are different. 

Wonder. (review) (2012). Reading Today, 29(6), 41.

After being home-schooled for years, Auggie Pullman is about to start fifth grade, but he's worried: How will he fit into middle school life when he looks so different from everyone else?

Auggie has had 27 surgeries to correct facial anomalies he was born with, but he still has a face that has earned him such cruel nicknames as Freak, Freddy Krueger, Gross-out and Lizard face. Though "his features look like they've been melted, like the drippings on a candle" and he's used to people averting their eyes when they see him, he's an engaging boy who feels pretty ordinary inside. He's smart, funny, kind and brave, but his father says that having Auggie attend Beecher Prep would be like sending "a lamb to the slaughter." Palacio divides the novel into eight parts, interspersing Auggie's first-person narrative with the voices of family members and classmates, wisely expanding the story beyond Auggie's viewpoint and demonstrating that Auggie's arrival at school doesn't test only him, it affects everyone in the community. Auggie may be finding his place in the world, but that world must find a way to make room for him, too.

A memorable story of kindness, courage and wonder. (Fiction. 8-14)

Wonder. (review) (20120.  Kirkus Reviews. 11/15/2012 Best Fiction & Children's Books, 73.

Use in a school library: 
This book would be perfect to read aloud to classes that have some inclusion Special Ed kids join them for part of the day.  It teaches you that it doesn't matter what people look like or what disabilities they may have, but what their character is like- and what yours is like when you are with them- that counts.  After reading it, kids could discuss the character traits of Auggie and the other students and create a Venn Diagram or double bubble map to show how they are alike and different.  They could also create a Wanted poster for a good friend for Auggie and the traits they should possess.

Module 6 * Picture Books * Feb. 17-23

Shark vs. Train

by
Chris Barton

Bibliography: Barton, C. (2010). Shark vs. train. New York, NY:Hachette Book Group.

Summary: Two boys play a game.  Each takes a toy out of the toy box and enacts what they think will happen if the two toys got in a fight.  They learn that each toy (a shark and a train) has its strong points and its weak points.  The two animated toys are seen facing off in a variety of situations and settings, one besting the other.  By the end of the book you see settings in which neither would win.  There is no clear winner- kids will see that it depends on the fight and that both have their merits.

My Take: This book is fun!  It is a typical argument among boys- who would win a fight between the two of them?  Which superhero would best the other?  Which ferocious animal would win a battle?  The seemingly random choices of toys to compete with each other adds a sense of realism to the story.  The way the author illustrates each scenario by animating the toys into real-life versions of themselves with thoughts and speech makes it so much more interesting!  The book would not be nearly as memorable and entertaining without them.

Reviews: 
PreS-Gr 2-- When a boy with a toy shark faces a train-wielding companion, it sets off a series of imaginative and very funny contests between fish and machine. The result of each battle depends on the setting. Shark wins at high diving, not surprisingly, while Train comes out on top when it comes to burping. Other face-offs are less immediately obvious: Train stretches vertically to triumph at basketball, while Shark's sharp-toothed clown costume works best for trick-or-treating. In some situations, neither combatant fares well: as Train comments on the scoreless video-game competition, "Sure would help if we had thumbs." The cleverly chosen contests reflect the imaginative powers of kids while retaining the consistent logic that's also essential to play. The notion of a shark and a train trying to be quiet in a library is absurd, for example, but the reasons why neither would succeed make perfect sense. Energetic cartoon illustrations take full advantage of the visual possibilities. Creative use of page space and perspectives gives a fresh look to each new battle. Just-right facial expressions capture the distinct personalities of the two competitors, including an evil grin from Shark at the Ping-Pong table and Train's uneasy look during a disastrous piano recital. Subtler visual details add to the humor, including a shark-jumping Fonzie reference that adults will appreciate. This inspired pairing, executed with ingenuity and packed with action and humor, is a sure winner.

Engelfried, S. (2010). Shark vs. Train [Review of the book Shark vs. Train by C. Barton]. School Library Journal, 56(4), 1/5.

With two boys at a toy chest, one clutching a shark and the other a train, thus begins the most unlikeliest of competitions. Who will win--shark or train? Well, it does depend on the situation. If underwater, the shark will surely triumph. But at roasting marshmallows? The train beats the shark's soggy mess every time. From one wacky circumstance to the next, from bowling to hot-air ballooning, there is always a clear winner. Until, suddenly, there is not. Both the shark and the train are not very good at playing hide and seek. They also stink at video games ("Sure would help if we had thumbs"). Just when the competitors can't bear it any longer, it's time for lunch. The boys toss them carelessly aside--until next time, that is. Lichtenheld's snarling shark and grimacing train are definitely ready for a fight, and his scenarios gleefully play up the absurdity. The combatants' expressions are priceless when they lose. A glum train in smoky dejection, or a bewildered, crestfallen shark? It's hard to choose; both are winners. (Picture book. 3-6)

SHARK VS. TRAIN [Review of the book Shark vs. Train by C. Barton]. Kirkus Reviews, (2010).  78(6), 248.

Use in a school library: I would love to use this book to spark children's writing creativity.  It would be fun after reading this book, to have a bin full of toys and have each kid choose a toy from it.  Then you could randomly draw names to pair them up and have them work together to create their own vs. book!  Younger kids could use a sentence starter to help with scenario and sentence (______ would beat _______ in a battle on land because______) while older kids could get crazy with creativity after brainstorming all the scenarios they saw and could think of to pull from.  Technology could be used to share these with other classes.

Module 5 * Other Award Winners * Feb. 9-16

How I Live Now

by

Meg Rosoff

Bibliography: Rosoff, M. (2004). How I live now. New York,   
          NY:Wendy Lamb Books.

Summary: Daisy is a sad character.  She is sent to England to live with family she doesn't know because her evil stepmother wants her out of the way.  She also has an eating disorder.  The family she meets when she gets to England is an odd bunch.  The mother works in politics and is trying to help with tension between countries and stop war.  The kids are all somewhat psychic and very quirky.  After the mother leaves on a business trip, Daisy and her cousin Edmond end up falling in love and engaging in a sexual relationship that they try to hide from his older and younger siblings.  As things get more serious war breaks out.  The mother does not come back so the kids are on their own.  They are doing well when the army takes their house and splits the girls up from the boys, sending them to other cities and families.  They survive horrible but typical war happenings until Daisy is "rescued" near the war's end by her father and sent to a hospital back home in the states.  She is there for years, but finally gets back to the cousins in England to find them all changed by what they have seen and done.  However, she stays and get her happy(ish) ending with the new Edmond.

My Take:  I think it is intersting how vague the author makes the details about the war.  We don't know who it is between, how it started, how it ended or how any part of the world outside of this family's is fairing.  I know that is how it was for this family, but it was irritating for me.  I wanted the adult details!  I wasn't even sure if this book was set in the present, past or future for a while!  I loved the story and the characters, but would have liked more information about the characters, how they came to have their "talents"  and how those "talents" affected their lives (as well as war information).  I don't want you to think I didn't like the book, because I definitely did!  I am just being greedy, wanting more about the characters I grew to care about.  This book was made into a movie in the UK and I am interested to see it.

Reviews: 

Gr 8 Up-Daisy, 15, a troubled New York City teen with a distant father, a wicked (and pregnant) stepmother, and an eating disorder, is sent to England to stay on a rambling farm with her deceased mother's sister's family. It is made up of Aunt Penn "who always has Important Work To Do Related to the Peace Process" and her brood of children: Osbert, 16; 14-year-old twins Isaac and Edmond; and 9-year-old Piper. As the kids spend more and more time together, Daisy warms to them, beginning to tnne in to a seemingly psychic bond that the siblings share. When Aunt Penn travels to Oslo, Daisy begins a sexual relationship with Edmond. At the same time, hostile forces invade England. Originally enjoying the freedom of a world that seems to have forgotten them, the cousins are inevitably separated, leaving Piper and Daisy to struggle across the countryside and rejoin the others. Daisy's voice is uneven, being at times teenage vapid, while elsewhere sporting a vocabulary rich with 50-cent words, phrases, and references. In addition, Rosoff barely scratches the surface of the material at hand. At times, this is both intentional and effective (the enemy is never named) but for the most part the dearth of explanation creates insurmountable questions around the basic mechanisms of the plot. There is no explanation of how a small force could take out all communications (including cell phones) and proceed to overrun and to control an entire country. Perhaps even stranger, the ramifications of psychic abilities and underage sexual relationships between first cousins is never addressed.

Davey, D. (2004). How I live now (review). School Library Journal, 50(9), 216.

Gr 8 Up-Anorexic Daisy, a miserable, quirkily perceptive 15-year-old New Yorker, is sent to live with British cousins whose mom is off on a peace mission. An idyllic adventure becomes more intense as Daisy and her cousin Edmond develop a deep but also physical relationship. During her stay, unidentified terrorists attack England, global war ensues, and the cousins are separated. Privation and growth necessitated by crisis move Daisy past anorexia into wisdom, and love changes her-and possibly her readers-perspectives forever.

Hoffman, M. (2005). How I live now (review). School Library Journal, 51(11), 60.

Use in a School Library: This book would be a good one to use as a study on war- the realism of the atrocities and difficulties on those left at home would be interesting to teach, but I would be wary of using it with any but upper senior high schoolers because of the incestual sex angle. 

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Looking for Alaska 

by 

John Green

Bibliography: Green, J. (2005). Looking for Alaska. New York, NY: Speak.

Summary: Miles' life is sad and boring.  So he decides to reinvent himself at boarding school in Alabama, the same boarding school his father went to, the same school he has heard his father tell fun stories about.  When he arrives at school, all goes pretty much according to plan.  Miles (Pudge to his friends) makes great friends with his room mate, Chip (the Colonel) and his friends, which include the moody and unpredictale Alaska, whom he instantly falls in love with. They do all the great things that Miles heard his dad talk about (one later in the book is done with dad's help!), and life is as good as it can be- until Alaska makes a decision that changes all of their lives forever- and the rest are left to cope and somehow move on.

My Take: I like how this book is divided into chapters filled with gettin-to-know-you stories and adventures that are numbered by how many days are left leading up to the major event, and then numbered by the days after it as they try to make sense of it and pick up the pieces.  It keeps your attention without having big stand-out moments (besides the one), but lots of small, real-life boarding school escapades and friendship moments.  You are always aware that something big is coming because of how the chapters are numbered.  You see it coming and wish you could stop it...

Reviews: 

Editor’s note: When John Green published Looking for Alaska, which would go on to win the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award, he was working at Booklist as a production editor. It is Booklist policy that a book written or edited by a staff editor receive a brief descriptive announcement rather than a review.
Green’s first novel tells the story of 11th-grader Miles Halter, who leaves his boring life in Florida in hopes of boarding school adventures in Alabama. A collector of famous last words, Miles is after what the dying Francois Rabelais called “the Great Perhaps.” At the boarding school, he is blessed with a fast-talking and quick-witted roommate, who just so happens to be friends with the enigmatic and beautiful Alaska Young. It’s Alaska who introduces Miles to the purported last words of Simon Bolivar: “Damn it. How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” It is a question that haunts Miles, particularly in the last third of the novel as he and his friends are forced to cope with loss.

Hunt, J.  (2010) Looking for Alaska (review). Booklist Online, July 19, 2006.

Grade 9 Up - Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter's adolescence has been one long nonevent - no challenge, no girls, no mischief, and no real friends. Seeking what Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps," he leaves Florida for a boarding school in Birmingham, AL. His roommate, Chip, is a dirt-poor genius scholarship student with a Napoleon complex who lives to one-up the school's rich preppies. Chip's best friend is Alaska Young, with whom Miles and every other male in her orbit falls instantly in love. She is literate, articulate, and beautiful, and she exhibits a reckless combination of adventurous and self-destructive behavior. She and Chip teach Miles to drink, smoke, and plot elaborate pranks. Alaska's story unfolds in all-night bull sessions, and the depth of her unhappiness becomes obvious. Green's dialogue is crisp, especially between Miles and Chip. His descriptions and Miles's inner monologues can be philosophically dense, but are well within the comprehension of sensitive teen readers. The chapters of the novel are headed by a number of days "before" and "after" what readers surmise is Alaska's suicide. These placeholders sustain the mood of possibility and foreboding, and the story moves methodically to its ambiguous climax. The language and sexual situations are aptly and realistically drawn, but sophisticated in nature. Miles's narration is alive with sweet, self-deprecating humor, and his obvious struggle to tell the story truthfully adds to his believability. Like Phineas in John Knowles's A Separate Peace(S & S, 1960), Green draws Alaska so lovingly, in self-loathing darkness as well as energetic light, that readers mourn her loss along with her friends.

Lewis, J. (2009). Looking for Alaska (review). School Library Journal, 51(2), 136.  

Use in a School Library: I am really not good at coming up with ways to use these more mature books in a school library.  This would obviously be good to use in a display with other Printz award winners.  It is a moving story that teaches a good lesson- in between the sex and drinking!  The characters and problems are real and older students would easily identify with the book, even if they had never been to boarding school. 

Module 4 * Newbery Winners * Feb. 3- Feb. 9

The Door in the Wall

byMarguerite de Angeli

Bibliography: de Angeli, M. (1949). The Door in the Wall. New York, NY: Dell Laurel-Leaf.

Summary: Young Robin lives in Medieval England and is taken ill by a plague soon after his parents leave him to go begin his time as a page for a knight.  This illness effects his back and legs and he fears he will be lame and useless the rest of his life; not to mention that his parents (when he sees them again) will not recognize or love him.  Brother Luke, a monk from a nearby monastery takes him in and he and his brothers care for Robin and help him recover.  They later take him to the holding of the knight he was to serve before he was taken ill and Robin improves further.  He is able to become the hero who saves his new home from invasion and makes his returning parents proud.

My Take: This book has a beautiful message and enough action to keep the story interesting.  The medieval language it is written in would be difficult for an elementary student to read on their own without a lot of background knowledge and pre-teaching.  Because of that, it would be more appropriate for a middle school student to read on their own.

Reviews: 
Grade 4-8-This Newbery Medal winning story, set in medieval times, is about a boy who learns his own strength when he saves the castle and discovers there is more than one way to serve his king.

-School Library Journal

retrieved from Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Door-Wall-Marguerite-Angeli-ebook/dp/B005LALDN2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392010383&sr=8-1&keywords=the+door+in+the+wall

"An enthralling and inspiring tale of triumph over handicap. Unusually beautiful illustrations, full of authentic detail, combine with the text to make life in England during Middle Ages come alive".  

— The New York Times

Retrieved from scholastic.com

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/door-wall#cart/cleanup

(**NOTE: Professor permission was given for this one-time use of Amazon/Scholastic professional reviews)

Use in a School Library:  This book would be great as a read-aloud for a class that is studying this time in history.  It is short enough that it is manageable to read the whole thing over a period of time, and it would give the librarian a chance to really get into the voices and language of the time.  This would also be a fun book to do a "what happens next" activity with when finished reading it.

The Graveyard Book 

by 
Neil Gaiman

Bibliography: Gaiman, N. (2008). The graveyard book. New York, NY: Harper.

Summary: A young boy's family is killed for unknown reasons when he is a toddler.  By chance, he escapes the killer and ends up in an old graveyard whose ghostly inhabitants agree to care for him when the spirit of his mother begs.  So Nobody Owens is named by the ghost family who become his parents and lives in the graveyard, learning ghostly skills, history and handwriting while his part-human guardian Silas brings him food and teaches him to stay within the safety of the graveyard.  Like all children, Bod grows up and needs more than the graveyard can give him, but in doing so he inadvertently invites the attention of the killer who is still searching for him to finish the job from years ago.  With the help of his graveyard family and friends, along with a few others, Bod is saved and the threat is forever neutralized.  This is a story of growing up in different and difficult circumstances, but finding that a child's needs are the same as they grow, no matter what.

My Take: This book is a fun, mysterious read.  I was never quite sure where it was going to take me and some of the twists were major surprises!  I wish the author had given us more information about Silas and his group- I would have liked to know more about what they did.  Seems like a great opportunity for a sequel that I hope Mr. Gaiman takes!  It is a strange thought, a toddler growing up among the ghosts and other ancient mysteries in a graveyard.  A little macabre, but fascinating.  I know there was something special about Bod's family- what got them killed, but I never really figured it out.  I need another book so that I can have more detail!

Reviews: 
“There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.” When the man Jack murders the family of young Nobody Owens with that very knife, leaving him to be raised by the denizens of the nearby graveyard, it is only a matter of time before he must grow up, forsake the safety of the graveyard, and embrace life to the fullest. With gorgeously wrought prose, Gaiman imbues his classic story with these profound truths.

Hunt, J.  (2010) The graveyard book (review). The Horn Book Magazine, 86(1), 18.

Gr 5-8-- A baby, orphaned when his family is murdered, finds his way to a graveyard and is raised by its ethereal inhabitants. Gaiman is a master storyteller and this tale won him the 2009 Newbery Award Medal.

Honig, M. (2009). The graveyard book (review). School Library Journal, 54(10), 144.  

Use in a School Library: This would be a good book to include for older elementary/middle school readers in a Newbery winner study.  Especially since the author has said that he is writing a sequel, there will be another book to hook them into.  These types of fantasy books with mysterious, dangerous and magical happenings are very "in" right now!