You are currently browsing the daily archive for January 4th, 2007.
I take my students to the library every two weeks. They must check out two books. One must be a “chapter” book. I don’t care what the other one is. . .graphic novel, drawing book, cars, snakes, weapons of mass destruction (Edson checked that one out today). As long as they are INTERESTED in it, I really don’t care if I like it or not. I cannot tell you HOW MANY R.L. Stine books I have helped kids locate, and I HATE R.L. Stine books. . .except that they get lots of kids to read.
Anyway, I am constantly searching for books to recommend to my students–especially those that normally check out two books, put them in their locker, then take them out of their locker two weeks later to go get two books that haven’t been in their locker for two weeks. I, myself, check out lots of pre-teen/adolescent/young adult novels so I can make informed recommendations. This summer my FAVE was The Penderwicks. And I’m not really much for ghost stories, but A Time for Andrew and The Ghost of Lizard Light are really good without being too gruesome. I also recommend lots of “Choose Your Own Adventure” books.
Anyway–today while searching for a Meg Cabot title (Princess Diary series author), I happened across a new one called Super What?. It’s about a 16 year old girl who is from a family of super heroes but lacks any powers herself. Common enough theme. . .but this one seems to have an amusing slant to it. Jaye checked it out and promises to give me a thumbs up or thumbs down. There weren’t two copies or I would have read it myself tonight.
The catch phrase on the back of the book says, “I am SO not wearing tights and a cape.”
Gotta love that. I’ll let you know how it goes. I like reading this level of fiction for lots of reasons. First of all, it’s normally clean. Secondly, it’s a fast read–a night or less. Third, just because it’s short and on an 8th grade reading level doesn’t mean it’s not well written, insightful, and interesting. AND it’s always a good idea to know what’s out there for kids to read–especially with a pre-teen looming on the horizon around here.
I’ll let you know how it is.
