This year we are starting off with Crispin: The Cross of Lead. Avi has created such an amazingly detailed setting that is perfect for teaching how setting affects characterization and plot. We have been creating maps of Stromford and soon there will be a link to see how creative the students are. If the group works hard learning setting, characterization, plot, style and theme – we may do some juggling at the end of the novel :}

We have just started, what I think, is a great project. I wish I could take credit for it but one day while searching for lesson plans related to charactization, I came across someone else’s great idea. It is to create a myspace or facebook mock home page. The kids are told to pick their favorite character from any book they have read and using a template from Word, they fill in information about that character. They have to use their imagination to decide what kind of music or movies would Dustfinger from Inkspell like for example. Or what interests and heroes does Winnie, from Tuck Everlasting have. Or give personal details like ethnicity, education, family status, character traits, occupation, and behavior for Bobby Pendragon in the Pendragon series. So far it is going great.

Comming soon, links to the students character “myspace” pages!

This novel written by Mary Downing Hahn has been one of my favorites because the main character, Kelly, who is in the beginning sarcastic and arrogant comes to see herself as well as her family and friends as the individuals that they are. Kelly at first feels judged by her father and friends for being an artistic, creative and caring teenager, but she also judges others based on her standards. Eventually she is able to give her father and her friends what she has been craving, acceptance. The novel also puts you in touch with the issues of homelessness, post tramatic stress disorder and the effects of the Vietnam War. The characters and plot line are well planned as well as interesting theme discussions came up as we read this novel.

We started our literature groups this school year by reading With Every Drop of Blood by James Lincoln Colier and Chris Collier. The great thing about this novel is that you are learning as you are reading. Though the novel is fictional, the setting is real. It is set during the last days of the Civil War. The novel helps you understand what it was like to grow up during war time. The main character looses his father to the war, but gains understanding and respect for his captor, a young runaway slave, that joined the Union army as just a boy really. What starts as animosity and ignorance for each others lives, turns to friendship. The authors are fascinating in themselves. James is the writer in the pair and Chris uses his extenisive knowledge as a history professor. Together they create believable, relatable and engaging literature.

Our current novel, Montmorency, is written by Eleanor Updale and it is the first in a series of four published novels. We chose this novel because is it unusual for young adult literature. Our protagonist is not your typical “good guy,” as a matter of fact he is a thief. Also, there are no young people in this novel. We have a cast of crooks, prisoners, spies, women of questionable morals, men of high society leaving us with only one truly good guy, the doctor who saves Montmorency’slife. The story is set in Victorian England in 1875. It opens with Montmorency in the prison infirmary reminiscing about his fall through a skylight while trying to escape from burglarizing some tools. While his body was a broken heap, his mind is always active and he takes us on an adventure from the sewers of London to a posh hotel, to the office of the ministry of defense in England, London. Take a ride with us and let us know how you like Montmorency: thief, liar, gentleman?