VVMBookBlog

Two Minute Drill by Mike Lupica

Although Mike Lupica is one of ESPN’s featured sports reporters, he also has a career writing sports novels for young adults. His novel Two Minute Drill is about football. Actually it is about more than football. It is a book about friendship and popularity. Scott Parry is the new kid at school and is having problems with a bully until Chris Conlan, the school’s quarterback befriends him. Even though Scott is known as “the brain” and Chris doesn’t do well academically, the two have more in common than it would appear.

Students who like football will enjoy this book, but students who are not football fans will also find something entertaining about this book.

Ready to read a romance with a little bit more?  Monsoon Summer tells us about 15-year-old Jasmine who has so much going for her.  She is tall, strong and athletic and a star of her track team.  She has a great family, including her bug-loving younger brother.  And she and her best friend Steve have a successful business selling souvenir photo-postcards on the Berkeley campus.  But, she also has a secret crush on her life-long best friend Steve and doesn’t recognize her value to him or to any other part of her life.  And now she’s going to India for the summer!

Why India?  Jazz’s mother was living in an orphanage in India when she was adopted by an American couple.  Now as an adult she has acquired a grant that allows her to go back to set up a clinic at the orphanage for other poor, pregnant women to help ensure more healthy babies.  Jazz and her family will all go to India for the summer to support her mother and her project.

Their family has always observed customs from India, including foods from India and learning to speak Hindi.  Jazz still had trouble taking in the poverty and crowded conditions in India.  And, because it was during the summer months for Jazz, that meant it was monsoon season in India and raining all the time.

Read Monsoon Summer to see how Jazz figures out how she fits into this summer of giving by her family, how she works out her relationship with Steve from thousands of miles away, and learns how to see herself with new eyes.

All of the Above by Shelley Pearsall

All of the Above is a clever story about four students who make a difference even though their lives are difficult. During math class Mr. Collins gets frustrated with students who don’t care about math. He doesn’t know what to do. After asking the students what it would take for them to care, he gives the class a challenge. The challenge is to make a tetrahedron (look it up!) large enough for the Guiness Book of World Records.

Each chapter is told from one of the character’s perspective. We see the challenges these students face in and out of the classroom. There are even recipes from Willy Q’s (Marcel’s uncle) barbeque and pictures drawn by James Harris III throughout the novel. This book is a great read for middle school students. It’s based on a real story and is entertaining.

November Blues by Sharon Draper

November Blues is the sequel to Battle of Jericho although I think the audience is different. Typically I stay away from saying the book is a “boy book” or a “girl book,” but since this book is about a teenage pregnant mother, I think the audience would be mature females.

The first page of November Blues starts with November throwing up in the bathroom stall at school. I find Sharon Draper to be a remarkable author, but I was concerned about the subject matter for middle schoolers. Although the subject is teenage pregnancy, the pregnancy wasn’t glorified. November and her friends have “real” school troubles… teachers, homework, friends, bullying, parents, etc. My suggestion would be to read Battle of Jericho first. Both books are for mature readers because of the topics, but both books are well written. Readers will relate to these characters.

Bert and Will are the twin sons of the baron of Ambercrest, born many years after the events surrounding the Snow White and Seven Dwarfs story.  The two boys get into trouble often, usually because of Bert who is the braver and more mischievous of the twins.  When their antics become too much for their father, the baron, he decides to separate them for the summer and send Will off to his Uncle Hugh at The Crags, a more rustic castle in the north.

Bert knows this move will be hard on the more timid Will, so the two boys switch identities and Bert soon finds himself exploring the mysteries of The Crags, leaving Will back at home.  One of these mysteries is a secret passage leading from his room to an enchanted mirror (remember Snow White?) that is ready to satisfy all his wishes.  Or is it?

Read The Mirror’s Tale, a 2008 Maud Hart Lovelace book, to find out the story about this magical mirror and what happened to the Seven Dwarfs, called Dwergh in this story, in the years after Snow White is rescued.