I read this book in about an hour and a half. If you know me at all, that's about as much as I have to say in order to recommend it to someone else. It caught my attention primarily because it blends a lot of my interests. I'm a big baseball fan, I LOVE writing, I appreciate small novels, and have recently gotten into books written in poetry. It was a really well constructed short novel that accomplished what I think it set out to accomplish; to get kids into writing (while they're reading). It is an incredible accessible read for all sorts of students.
I liked that we weren't given all the details about Kevin's life (his mother's death, his past, etc), but that we were allowed to wonder, to infer, to question. He was an honest, interesting protagonist to follow. I've really started to like teen novels because of how useful they could be to me as a teacher. I want to have books like this to offer my students, books that they can relate to and in which they can find a part of themselves. This is a book that I would absolutely use with my students. There are literary as well as life lessons abundant in this book and I am always excited to find a book short enough that any student in my class could easily finish and enjoy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Just really glad that you turned out to like this, since I liked it too!
Love your comment about how the book can "get kids into writing (while they're reading)." Nice point about how this book works on both readerly AND writerly levels. I think it is a valuable and cool feature of this book.
Post a Comment