It’s easy to misinterpret a book; these are interesting times aren’t they? Bad Badger: A Love Story is the sort of emerging reader chapter book that has the potential to be loved, but can also struggle to find its people. At its core, Bad Badger is a sweet story about friendship, but tells the story through a very smart lens with a bigger vocabulary and a more mature, nuanced setting that will reward those who have the patience for it.
When I teach middle school or high school I sometimes use the phrase “I don’t care” to reply to some students who are making excuses for them or someone else. They don’t speak. I/They never do their work. I/they am not/aren’t smart. After the student is done watering down my expectations I’ll tell them that “I don’t care…about that unrelated issue they were trying to distract me with and that they are capable of doing the simple, age-appropriate task that I’ve asked them to do. There are some students who get momentarily put-off by what they deem as a rude comment, but then they’ll think about it and hopefully internalize that they need to raise the bar of what they can do. The Girl Who Figured It Out got that message, albeit in a kinder, elementary-age package with colorful illustrations and a can-do message about overcoming obstacles that life throws your way.
Why should students care about the life story about a woman who lived more than a century ago and studied birds? Gene Stratton-Porter is well-known in ornithology, but outside of that arena you probably haven’t heard of her. This is one of the things about well-made illustrated books that make the genre so much more than it appears to be. Bird Girl: Gene Stratton-Porter Shares Her Love of Nature with the World doesn’t break any new ground in regards to the story, even though it’s one young audiences don’t know. At it’s core, the book is about finding your way and exploring what you love. Instead, this is a great book because of the unknown variable (Gene Stratton-Porter) and the illustrations by Rebecca Gibbon that are used to tell her life story.
I’m a substitute teacher and I was in a tenth-grade class the other day. They had finished the ‘work’ they had to do online and I was attempting to pry additional work out of their surly teen souls. I did get confirmation of needed assignments from one student, but they had already waved the white flag of surrender. It was just an essay on something, they wouldn’t tell me what it was on, but it was a paragraph of original thought that had stressed this student to the point of Tik Tok-removal despair. This brings me to The Ultimate Book of Would You Rather Questions: 1001 Family-Friendly Challenges for Kids, Teens and Adults.
Why do middle school students read? A more accurate question to posit would be why don’t middle school students read more? I praise those in sixth-through-eighth grade who willingly read as it’s more commonly done under duress. It’s the kind of torture or discomfort that’s normally reserved for vampires who are shown sunlight as they climb the ceiling like a spider trying to escape its deathly rays. They just want that dark corner of the room, with the squinty whites of their eyes attempting to burn a hole through your conversation-starting soul; before they can revert to their dark, sullen place, much like an early teen. My Mummy Vs. Your Ghost is also known as Versus Series book 2 and manages to pull a Superman 2, Lethal Weapon 2 or The Empire Strikes Back.
The subtitle to this puzzle book by Alex Bellos is so true. I’m a relatively clever person so I approached each of the set ups in Puzzle Me Twice with, what I thought was, a calm head and a clear mind….and I got most of them incorrect. I rationalized it by saying that they were incorrect because once I read the correct answer I realized my response was too quick. Had I really taken my time the book would have confirmed to me the genius that I think I am. However, in my self-imposed course of humble pie, I jumped in the rabbit hole of Alex Bellos’ other puzzles and have lowered my genius peg down to humble puzzle novice.
For a children’s concept that’s seemingly so simple, it took me years to understand it. In theory I should love Rube Goldberg. I love books and the idea of engineering, tinkering with things, plus what’s not to love about Rube Goldberg? It’s like steam punk. You’ve rig up everyday objects and arrange them so that their energy will make an impact on something, like opening a door or squeezing toothpaste out of the tube. It’s a simple act made needlessly, but entertainingly, complex. Rube Goldberg’s Big Book of Building solves the issue that I had with the process on the very first page.
Ask an upper-elementary student to do a report on something and they’ll pick the strangest, creepiest, most uncommon one in the book. They might determine who they’ll research by how gross their name is, how ugly they are or how remote their habitat is, thus Brazilian Spitting Death Spider Monkeys of the word unite. Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-Of-A-Kind Creatures is an illustrated book for middle-elementary ages through lower-middle school that’s mostly creepy and not too much common.
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