happy last week of august…

“the brothers” – started last week by finishing a book about the brothers who carried out the marathon bombings in 2013 – i obviously have a vested interest in the material – the part about the brothers’ background was very interesting – and the ties the FBI has to planting fake attacks – it was a good book – though i’m not sure i believe all of the author’s strong POV

“prisoner of night and fog” – middle school BOB – any book with Uncle Adolf is odd – particularly when Uncle Adolf tries to make a move on you – yeah, awkward – i liked that the author did research – it really was a bit much though – i felt like the main character was more a 2015 girl in what the author thought was Nazi Germany than anything truly historic – of course, there’s a sequel (I will NOT be reading… 🙂

“thank you for arguing” – awesome book on rhetoric – OMHS uses it for AP English – i can see why – we’re going to use some of the activities in our class – i’m excited

“i kill the mockingbird” – great middle school BOB – easy to read – and fun – unpredictable – baseball tie-ins – AND – a BUFFY REFERENCE!!! so the book has it all:) actually, it’s not thrilling or anything, but there’s even a kiss for princess sarah elizabeth – so i definitely think this is the BOB everyone can enjoy

hope everyone’s reading goes swimmingly

mafeld

tell the story of a first day for someone/something…

i’m calling dibs on the story of a mayfly

maf

you know, go for a while – then let the second and third string kids play out the rest of the day…

“all the bright places” – ah, billy… my final HS BOB – i don’t say this often – it’s a sad book – and i hate when kids say “sad” b/c they’re typically upset at the book’s ending – they always want happy ever after – and that’s not life often – that said, this is the darkest YA i’ve ever read – and the author has a reason for the book – i don’t think it should’ve been BOB though

“small group communication in context” – i read an old professor of mine’s book – there’s a chance i actually read a version of the book years ago for his class – i was surprised at what i remembered – it was a good read – here’s a fun tip for you: men, young boys even, will interrupt women – even women in positions of authority – but the reverse is seldom true – women will wait for their turn – if you ever notice my classroom, for every 100 boy interruptions – without a hand raise – there will be a female waiting to speak

i have a brilliant creative writing exercise for the detective next week

mafeld

wow, first week is coming – i wish i spent monday with kids instead of in meetings

snazzle-iciously great things planned for Day 1 – bring your tech device – and spread the word

“Flash: Season Zero” – i can count comics, right? it was good – i would watch the series on cw but i don’t get it on my tv – and i’m busy rewatching full house right now – so the comic was fun – and unlike the buffy comics, i could keep up

“Red Queen” – billy now has two BOBs he can like – actually, you all have my permission to read Red Queen – it’s not must read – but if you like the hunger games stuff, this is a step up readingwise – and in the similar vein – so i liked the book – it went unexpected directions after about the first 80 pages

“Washington Irving” – i have tons of sleepy hollow and rip van winkle trivia now – one cool thing i can share with the bloggers, irving spent the second half of his life as a diplomat for the US – he lived in spain for four years during the john tyler/james polk admins and kept tabs on isabella II

book quiz on day one – so be ready:)

mafeld

you know, so that all the cool blog kids feel included and the rest don’t

maybe snazzle???

“ten” – poor billy – HS BOB hits rock bottom with this one – girl on a remote island – all her friends are being killed by a serial killer – but she’s also falling in love – choices, choices… two things should never be mixed – horror and romance – just bad, bad…

“timebound” – poor billy – HS BOB hits bottom again – time traveling book that breaks all sorts of rules – of course, we have the insecure, female protagonist who suddenly finds herself the object of every boy’s eye – at least two of them – because as well all know, women are nothing without men – grr… i really hated this book

“thousand dollar tan line” – kids, when you’re all grown up, you too can watch the veronica mars series – and fall in love with the clever high school girl detective – veronica was made into a movie last year – and the creator/director has now issued a couple of books – normally, fiction books based on a series are bad – this one wasn’t terrible – i mean, it’s not going to make a BOB list any time soon – that’s for classy books – but the veronica series – it was good to read about her as a character – and trying to figure the mystery out – so i really enjoyed it

happy last week

mafeld

so i’m working the crosswalk at church – one of my third grade kids walks up – no Bible – but a warriors book – i told him to beware – there was a disturbed girl who loved nothing but loki and warriors – he seemed to take heed…

“flush” – a re-read – the good thing is i can use red herring with the sixth grade now as a lit term – the bad news is that flush is at best a fourth grade book – just ridiculously easy – and i’ll have plenty of kids who won’t read any of those books – sigh…

“the wells bequest” – good news for master victoria – i ordered two copies of the second/companion book to grimm – it read fine – but it was a troubling book if you put thought into it – like using a time machine to stop a death ray gun that a boy wants to use because he can’t have the time machine and go back and make everything cool with his girl – plus, the items were supposed to be no big deal in grimm – but obviously, time machine and death ray, they are in wells

“positive” – knocked out my first HS BOB – I doubt they love it – it was a biography – but i thought it was a book every educator should read – the story of an HIV positive girl who was bullied terribly in middle school – it was horrible what teachers and other people did to her – it’s a reminder that if we’d all take a minute to consider what we say and do, the world could be a better place

anyone watching the special olympics world games??? those athletes are awesome

mafeld

my how the blog has died…

“my eight world cups” – absolutely loved this book – the story of soccer in my lifetime – i grew up playing the sport – i followed the national team before anyone seemed to care – so i loved reading about things i knew about – and getting a fuller story – like how in 1996, they removed the hedges at georgia and told the people that there was a parasite – which wasn’t true – but they thought the college football people would go crazy about it

“the pedestriennes” – 140 years ago, there were these women that did endurance walking – walking for six days – walking for a month – the writer tracked down their untold story – it was pretty cool

happy band camp – may all your lockers be bottom lockers – wait, i think i have that wrong…

mafeld

of course, the answer is yes – i know it’ll be tough, but stay indoors and watch for mayfield appearances from media days on espn’s sec network – i’ll try and wear my great plaid pants in order to stick out…

“touchdown tony” – this will be a great book to go with the movie coming out this fall about b’ham integration – woodlawn – this is about one of the central characters – tony nathan – great book about the city’s history

“a year in the life of a complete and total genius” – probably setting up to be a series – a seventh grader with a major writing assignment – brings up the question: what do you do in a book when you feel like there’s been a major injustice created? that is, the situation in the book is resolved, but not the way you thought it should be – i had the same problem with the “lamar” book for BOB years ago

“throwback” – former major league player complains about how everyone else plays the game – but himself – it wasn’t the best…

“long walk to water” – it had been several years since i’d read it – so i needed a reread – still good – still took, like a couple of hours – i will try very hard not to go off on the next sixth grade parent that tells me how “tough” it was to do summer reading…

“grimm legacy” – this book wasn’t nearly as good as i thought it was – my apologies:) but the whole coupling off at the end was very predictable – i really didn’t like the use of magic in the book – like, it didn’t make sense that these objects had been around forever – and yet no one knew about them – except this creepy old guy that developed a plan to sneak them out – over time – with replicas – from another object he stole – just a lot of logic leaps that seemed convenient – that said, i can teach red herring to sixth grade now – and i’ll read the sequel – so it could’ve been worse

one week to registration – yeah:)

mafeld

ran in atlanta yesterday – actually, got a bit of hypothermia waiting for my mom to finish – it was that overcast – and that rainy – but still,  a lot of fun – they gave away baseball cards at the braves tent at the expo – yeah!!!

“strong inside” – must read for billy before he leaves for college at vandy – the story of perry wallace – the first african-american to play in the SEC – wallace is an amazing person – and he has a wonderful story – to go through what he went through without lingering bitterness – to forgive others, it’s just amazing – but it’s also just a very sad book – that he was forced to go alone so many trials

“brady v. manning” – comparison book about the two QBs – which one is better???

“anne of avenlea” – anne of green gables is the classic – i didn’t realize there was a series – but i give myself props for reading and enjoying this book – there’s an element of me that just thinks my grandmother would’ve loved reading this book as a child – would’ve loved it as an adult – and so sometimes, that can be enough reason to enjoy a book that maybe isn’t in your target range

hope everyone enjoyed fireworks

mafeld

winners of the Bible Jeopardy challenge today – don’t get me started on all the mistakes we made – starting with the team name…

“Running with Phidippides” – amazing story of the 1946 boston marathon winner – he was from greece – survived the nazi occupation for five years – five years of starvation for his people – after seven years off running – he decided december ’45 to run and win boston – in four months time – and he went out and did just that – which is truly remarkable – very inspiring story

“eight keys” – okay, lil bri – help an old man out – this was elem BOB, right??? it was better than anything at the middle school – and ironically about middle school – 6th grade – but it wasn’t great – at all

“the last season” – awesome book about a political strategist who at 60, took a fall off and took his 95-year old father – and 86 year old mother – around for ole miss’s 2013 football season – included flashbacks of going to the games in the 1960s – just a heart-warming amazing read – all my guys that love football and have watched it with their dads would love this book

“swimming upstream” – i’ve got a ton of ideas from this book for teaching next year – just for starters… i want to teach everyone to be a Detective – rather than get a bad grade on a quiz and say “I’m a failure/loser/never going to get this” – treat it like evidence – and you’re a detective – would the evidence really confirm that you’re a failure/loser – or would it just say that you didn’t do well on one quiz? for my kids that overtrust their emotions, i think the detective thing is a good way to pull back from that – thoughts???

maf