Ivy in the Shadows and a Giveaway!

I'm interrupting my mini-series on Dear Senator since I just finished reading Ivy in the Shadows by Chris Woodworth and have another copy to give away. 

Upper elementary and middle school girl readers will enjoy this true-to-life story of a 12-year-old girl.  Ivy is learning how to deal with her mother's failed marriages, assuming more responsibility for her younger brother J.J, navigating the waters of changed school friendships, and figuring out Caleb, the boarder her mother takes in to help make ends meet. 

Like many children in families, Ivy learns about life by eavesdropping. She listens to her mother's discussions with her best friend, "Aunt" Maureen and finds out about their love lives and about her step-father. But eavesdropping only works some of the time. When she incorrectly pieces together the information she hears Caleb telling J.J., her faulty conclusions lead her down the wrong path. 

I appreciate how Chris Woodworth portrays a young girl trying to figure out who is telling the truth, who to trust, and how appearances aren't always what they seem to be. There are strong messages on the importance of honesty, facing the consequences of false assumptions, admitting when one is wrong, and the characteristics of a true friend. 

I also loved Ivy's voice, which you get to hear right from the opening paragraph:

Some say you get your best education in school. Others say it's through life. I got my best education early on eavesdropping at Mama's feet while she talked to my aunt on the telephone. (p. 1)

Thanks to Joy Peskin, Chris's editor, of Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, I am giving away an autographed copy of Ivy in the Shadows. So, for those of you who didn't win a copy back in February when I posted the backstory about this book, here's another chance!

Here are the giveaway rules:

• Post this blog on your social media site of choice OR become a new follower of this blog. 
• Either way, leave a comment with your email address (if you are new to my blog) with what you did.
• I will draw a winner's name on Monday morning, June 3. 

Thanks for entering!

Stake Out--Giveaway!

Bonnie Doerr has done it again.

Continuing the adventures of Kenzie of Island Sting fame, Doerr presents Stake Out (Leap Press, 2011) her second eco-mystery to take place in the Florida Keys. In the first book Kenzie helped to rescue the miniature Key deer. In this sequel, another great middle school novel for boys and girls, Kenzie and her side-kick Angelo devote themselves to figuring out who wants to sabotage the local sea turtle population. 

I enjoyed the language that Doerr used to capture the action, characters, and setting. In this segment, Kenzie is rowing a boat out on the sea to hunt for the turtles' nests. A storm is brewing and the reader is pulled into the story:

   Kenzie pulled hard agains the water. 
   Row, glide.
     Drift back.
   Row, glide.
   Drift back.
   The strong current surprised her. The shore appeared no nearer.
   How close was the storm? Hard to tell now that the rumbling had stopped. She leaned out from under the canvas top for a larger view. Minutes ago the blinding-blue sky perched on a horizon of white, puffy clouds. Clouds that now billowed with gray. Above the island, charcoal clouds swelled and piled. No soaring seabirds. No blue. Vast silence.   
    Creepy. (p. 13)

Doerr introduces a new character in this book: spunky Ana, who despite being confined to her wheelchair, is an important member of the team who uncovers the villain and helps solves the mystery.

Doerr's commitment to teaching young readers to value and protect their environment suffuses this book with great educational value. Author Notes include information on threats to sea turtles, the Turtle Hospital, and relevant websites. Teachers can click here to find helpful classroom resources.

To celebrate a new year of books and reading, I am giving away a signed copy of Stake Out. Leave me a comment with your email address (if I don't have it) before the evening of January 1 and I'll enter your name. Hurry--the new year will be here before you know it!  

Crossing the Wire

Assault rifles, a wild puma, extreme cold, excessive heat, starvation, dehydration, a capture by the Border Patrol and deportation, hundreds of miles of deserts, drug-smuggling thieves, extortioners, a rattlesnake bite-- Crossing the Wire by Will Hobbs has all this and more. Girl and boy middle schoolers will be rooting for 15-year-old Victor Flores as he struggles against unbelievable odds to secure one thing: money for his Mexican mother to keep their family goats and chickens. 

I would encourage teachers to use this coming-of-age book as a good example of creating a character who faces both internal conflicts (wanting to be the man in the house since his father's death), and external conflicts (see the opening sentence of this blog!). Victor's desire to help his mother propels this book forward; this is a good example of a plot-driven story. 

But undoubtably this book will also open readers' eyes to why illegals attempt a dangerous border crossing. Although statistics indicate that arrests at the Mexican border have diminished,   the U.S. is still in the midst of many emigration issues and border controversies. This novel, published in 2006, is well-written, timely and in parts, poetic. Consider this line:

"Sorrow sings also when it runs too deep to cry."

Read this book. You won't forget it. 

Zora and Me: Multi-Racial Read #5

I didn’t realize when I selected Zora and Me from the audio book shelf of my local library that I would be treated to a powerful, multiracial historical novel. But I was.  

Under 200 pages long, this book is the result of collaboration between Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon. Their fictionalized account of Harlem renaissance author Zora Neale Hurston’s childhood, brings the reader into gator country, Eatonville, Florida, during the Jim Crow period.

Zora’s outspoken manner and boldness is seen through her best friend Carrie’s eyes. The two young girls get caught up into the myth and mysteries of the local “Gator King” (half-man, half-alligator) which they imagine to be ghostly white. In a line foreshadowing later conflict, Carrie observes, “If coloreds can be different colors, why can’t gators?”

When Ivory, an itinerant turpentine worker is murdered, Zora decides to apply her alligator-sleuthing abilities to solving the murder. The story gets more complicated when the girls meet Gold – a woman who is beautiful, stylish, and colored but “not like us.” Gold is engaged to a white man and the black community is horrified that she has turned her back on her people.

In a powerful scene, the girls come across Gold sitting in the forest by a fire, her clothes dirty and in disarray. By the firelight Gold “looks colored but like she’d been wiped down by chalk dust.” Zora confronts Gold on why she has chosen to pass. Here are snippets from this dialogue revealing Gold’s conflicts and motivation:

Zora asks, “Why would you want to be like white folks?”

Gold replies, “I get tired of being colored. I get tired of seeing everything the world has to offer and settling for a big bowl of nothing."      

During the same scene, Gold relays a story from her own childhood. Her mother was much darker than she was. When the two would go shopping, Gold’s mother would pretend to be her nanny in order to purchase what she wanted. Gold remembers, “It’s like I was the skeleton key unlocking the other world just for my Mama.” In this conversation Gold tells the two friends, “You’re both lucky. You don’t have to make hard choices. You know exactly where you belong.”

This is a powerful story about hurt, fear, and prejudice and two young girls coming of age in a town that had previously sheltered them from the bigger scope of life’s conflicts. As Carrie realizes at the end, “The bad things in life don’t define misery—what you do with them does.”

This book would be an excellent supplement to a class in US history, or to be read during Black History month. Although the two main characters are both girls, Ivory’s plight and the overarching historical theme make this also an appealing book for middle school boys. Students and writers should both analyze the internal and external conflicts permeating Gold’s, Zora’s, and Carrie’s lives. There is much to learn from this well-written book. 


View this video for more information on Zora Hurston and the story behind the story: