Hello All!

This week I finished Shiloh, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I read this book for the first time when I was in third grade and can remember crying through it. Since I am a HUGE dog person, it was too hard to hold back all the tears. I was that girl sobbing her eyes out in the middle of class because of this book! Now, I will worn you that there are many parts in the book that make you just want to jump in and hurt Shiloh's original owner yourself! 

Marty and Shiloh are the two main characters in the book. Marty is a young boy and just happened to go for a walk through the woods one day and came across Shiloh. He so badly wanted to keep Shiloh, but his father would not let him because he knew that he belonged to their distant neighbor, Judd Travers. Judd was a nasty man. No one in the community cared for him because he was malicious and a drunk. Shiloh was Judd's hunting dog. When Marty's father forced him to take the dog back to Judd, Marty quickly found out that Shiloh did not have a good life with Judd. That is about the nicest way I can put it. Judd abused Shiloh and Marty experienced that first hand when he returned him back to Judd the first time. Judd kicked Shiloh over and over again even when Marty begged for him to stop.

Marty and Shiloh go through a lot with each other and that is what makes their bond so strong. They create a wonderful bond and always find a way back to each other. The ending will shock you and I highly recommend reading it! 

I also remember watching the movie after I read the book, but I do not remember if everything was the same or not. 

The past two weeks, I have been reading Fudge books by Judy Bloom. In today's post, I will tell you a little about Double Fudge, but it doesn't stop there! If you enjoy Double Fudge, I highly recommend reading Super Fudge because it is just as fun! 

I really enjoyed these books because it is easy for children to read and the author organizes the characters in a way that is not hard for young children to keep straight. Someday, I want to implement some different ideas that Fudge talks about in the book. In Double Fudge, Fudge is the five year old middle child who is obsessed with money. In fact, Fudge is so obsessed with money that he makes his own "Fudge Bucks" so that he can have millions of trillions of dollars! Peter, who shares the main character role with his younger brother, Fudge, is in seventh grade and has a hard time putting up with Fudge because he is your typical annoying five year old brother. Of course when you're in the seventh grade, your five year old brother is the most embarrassing creature on the planet! Next, the youngest child in the family is Tootsie. Tootsie is the baby who copies everything that comes out of anyone's mouth. She can be quite the handful if you ask her mother. Jimmy is an important character throughout the book and is Peter's best friend who moves into the city early in the book. This was heart breaking for Peter because he feels as if he is losing his best friend. 

As if Fudge wasn't bad enough. The family gets an unexpected visit from relatives and one of the children happen to share the same name as Fudge and he doesn't know how to take that. In fact, he doesn't take it very well at all. He doesn't understand much of anything, but one thing he did know is that no one is allowed to have the same name as him because there is only one Fudge! Now, it is important that you know that Fudge's real name is Farley Drexel Hatcher, but he will not let anyone call him by his real name so Fudge it is! 

I am a huge fan of FUN children's books and I believe that children will think this book is so funny! 

Hello Everyone! 

This week I read 42 by Aaron Rosenburg. If you have ever watched the movie, it is based off of the same thing. This is a wonderful historical nonfiction book that would be great for all young readers to read in a history lesson. I have thought about reading this book in my classroom for Black History Month in February. It would be a great novel for students to understand that race and discrimination were huge issues in Jackie Robinson's perspective. 

There are so many great quotes from the novel and movie and I wish that I could say them all. Even though the novel is based on a true story, the author does a really great job about adding emphasis to different scenarios throughout the book. The emphasis that is put on African American people in the story is extremely powerful. I think the author made it this way so that he could really get his point across about the hard lives that these people lived many years ago. The author uses many words that are not socially acceptable to use today, but that is how he got his point across so well. I know it stuck out to me, so a lot of those words would really stick out to kids. I would target this book upper elementary and secondary classrooms. I would be sure that the kids were mature enough to understand the seriousness in the text. 

The novel is geared towards Jackie Robinson being the first African American baseball player to join the major leagues. From the minute he signed to play for the Dodgers, his journey had just begun. The story goes through the many heart wrenching events and scenarios that Robinson and his family had to go through just so that he could play on the major league team. People were not happy that a black man was playing the major leagues and they did not hide their anger either. Jackie Robinson was forced to not say a word or he would immediately be kicked off of the baseball team.