Let's Go to Paris!

Nesbet, Anne. The Cabinet of Earths.
Maya and her family, including five-year-old brother James, move to Paris. Her mother has cancer and has always wanted to go, so when her father gets a fellowship from the Society of Philosophical Chemistry to study there, Maya can hardly complain. Shortly upon arrival, strange things start to occur-- odd relatives show up, Maya's face appears on a statue, a packet of pictures appears. Maya and James spend a lot of time with their colorless cousin Louise, who is helping with their French, and the very strange Henri de Fourcroy who tells them a little about their strange family history. The Cabinet of Earths turns out to be a way to make people immortal-- their "earths" are bottled and kept in the cabinet, and they are fed "anbar", the essence of lively children, to keep them happy and vibrant. Once Maya finds out about this, and finds that she is the keeper of this cabinet, she is torn-- she can keep her mother alive, but must then be a part of this evil process that could strip the livliness from her brother.
Strengths: My readers are trending away from medieval fantasy, and I know just the student to whom I would hand this. Even though the cover and the title on this one set me into defensive "I don't want to read anymore fantasy!" mode, I was drawn into the story very quickly.
Weaknesses: Maya's life in school was touched on much too briefly-- I think I would have left it out. Even the friend she makes there doesn't add much. The father's position was also rather vague, although the family needed a reason to be in France. This writer show a lot of promise, but I have a feeling that her next book will be much better. Don't mean to damn with faint praise, this one was oddly compelling and yet bothered me at the same time.



Levin, Mark and Jennifer Flackett. The Family Hitchcock.
Maddy, Benji and the entire Hitchcock family are traveling to Paris even though family finanaces are tight and the children would really rather stay at home. Swapping houses with a Parisian family, the Vadim's allows them to afford this, and luckily, the Vadim's home is much posher than their own. Opera tickets show up at the door, the family is able to borrow swanky clothes and go, and things seem to be looking up. However, a case of mistaken identity gets them involved with dangerous if attractive villians involved in an international crime plot.
Strengths: Lots of action and adventure, car chases, and a humorous tone make this a book that will intrigue elementary students.
Weaknesses: Every character was reduced to an annoying stereotype with irritating catch phrases. Also, if this is "written by Dan Elish", how can this be Levin and Flackett's first children's book? Coming up with an idea is very different from writing this, and the writing in this is definitely very much like Elish's The School for the Insanely Gifted.

Guy Friday- Picture This (or more aptly, Philosophical Friday)

My three children all ran middle school cross country for two years each. My older daughter also ran for three years in high school. That's 9 years of cross country running. How many pictures do I have of them?

Two.

I don't have any of my younger daughter, mainly because it's hard to juggle a clipboard and stopwatch AND camera while running back and forth across fields to yell times at 20 runners per race. I intend, at some point, to get some pictures from other parents. The good parents.

The larger point of this, aside from my many deficiencies as a parent, is that I don't really care about pictures. Graphic novels annoy me because I have to ferret the text out from the drawings. Have to turn more pages. It's more efficient to skip the pesky pictures and put more text on each page.

The students, especially the boys, don't feel this way. They LOVE pictures. Guinness World Record books. Lunch Lady graphic novels. Books about cars and sports and World War II, as long as they have pictures.

My only reservation about this is that I am not entirely sure that boys read the words in these books. There's a lot of page flipping that indicates the information presented is not being absorbed. I believe strongly that all middle school students need to read 30 minutes a day in order to strengthen their reading skills. That way, when they are forced to read East of Eden or The Canterbury Tales in high school, they can at least get through them. If they actually read the story in Magic Pickle books, great. If they only look at the pictures, will this help them?

I always tell students that my job is to make their reading as enjoyable as possible by picking out books about things that interest them. But they have to do the actual reading. This year, I seem to have more students than ever who don't want to read ANYTHING.

The point of this? What do you hand to the hard core reluctant readers? Are there graphic novels or books with pictures that you think students actually read?

Opine. Obviously, today it doesn't have to make a lot of sense!

(And have to laugh; immediately after posting I had to help my daughter find a quote by Robert Browning, and came up with this as well: "There, that is our secret: go to sleep! You will wake, and remember, and understand.")