4. 11 Birthdays - Wendy Mass

This was a reread - I read it aloud to my 3rd & 4th grade book club.  They loved it.  During the last reading you could have heard a pin drop - 20 kids who are usually eating their lunch, making all sorts of chomping and crumpling noises -  were totally entranced.
Good choice for this group!

Finished  2-1-16
Goodreads rating: 4.16
2009, 267 pgs.

My original blog for this book.

Goodreads summary:  GROUNDHOG DAY meets FLIPPED in this tale of a girl stuck in her birthday.
          It's Amanda's 11th birthday and she is super excited -- after all, 11 is so different from 10. But from the start, everything goes wrong. The worst part of it all is that she and her best friend, Leo, with whom she's shared every birthday, are on the outs and this will be the first birthday they haven't shared together. When Amanda turns in for the night, glad to have her birthday behind her, she wakes up happy for a new day. Or is it? Her birthday seems to be repeating iself. What is going on?! And how can she fix it? Only time, friendship, and a little luck will tell. . .

36. Half a Chance - Cynthia Lord

read by Maria Cabezas - lovely
4 unabridged cds (4.75 hrs.)
2014 Recorded Books
218 pgs.
Middle Grade CRF
Finished 6/1/15
Goodreads rating:  3.97
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary summer in New Hampshire

First line/s:  "Lucy, we're going to love this place!" Dad called to me from the porch of the faded, red-shingled cottage with white trim.  "We can hang a swing right here and watch the sunset over the lake.  And these country roads will be great for biking."

My comments:  I have an affinity for Cynthia Lord and her stories about kids in Maine.  This one takes place on a lake in New Hampshire...the sort of place where I've spent many a summer as a kid.  The setting is described beautifully.  The story deals with dementia, friendship, jealousy, parent-child and grandparent-child relationships, moving, ecology, bird-watching, loons, photography - yup, a lot. I liked it.

Becky's review from Becky's Book Reviews

Goodreads synopsis:  A moving new middle-grade novel from the Newbery Honor author of RULES.
          When Lucy's family moves to an old house on a lake, Lucy tries to see her new home through her camera's lens, as her father has taught her -- he's a famous photographer, away on a shoot. Will her photos ever meet his high standards? When she discovers that he's judging a photo contest, Lucy decides to enter anonymously. She wants to find out if her eye for photography is really special -- or only good enough.
          As she seeks out subjects for her photos, Lucy gets to know Nate, the boy next door. But slowly the camera reveals what Nate doesn't want to see: his grandmother's memory is slipping away, and with it much of what he cherishes about his summers on the lake. This summer, Nate will learn about the power of art to show truth. And Lucy will learn how beauty can change lives . . . including her own.

68. Eggs - Jerry Spinelli

Audio read by Suzanne Toren & Cassandra Morris (excellent)
Recorded Books/Hachette, 2007
Jerry Spinelli, 2007
4 unabridged cds
4.5 hours
253 pages
Rating: 3.5

David’s mother has died in a “freak accident.” That’s putting it mildly – she slipped on a wet floor and fell down a flight of stairs. But David’s only 9, and he and his bereaved dad move from Minnesota to the east coast so that David’s grandmother can care for him while David’s father works. David is a mess. He resents his grandmother. His father is only home on weekends. He knows not a soul.

But then he meets Primrose, a 13-year-old free spirit who lives with (and resents) her psychic mother in a teeny tiny house on the end of a road. There’s an old van out in the yard that Primrose takes over for her bedroom. She paints. She decorates. She drags in mismatched furniture.

David and Primrose have an extremely odd relationship, but it works for them. They spend the nights roaming the town – trash-picking, hanging out in the all-night quick stops, visiting with their friend Refrigerator John. This part was a little unbelievable to me. A nine year old sneaks out of his bedroom each and every night and his grandmother, who loves him and worries about him, never discovers this? And they hang out in the home of Refrigerator John and he never questions it, or worries about what will happen to him if he’s found out? Yes, he’s their friend…that’s wonderful, and special. But in this day and age, this sort of arrangement between adults and kids would NOT look good……

The story was very well read in two voices, a young girl doing David and Primrose, and “older” female voice doing the narrator and grandmother. Easy and enjoyable to listen to. I didn’t think I’d continue on much past the beginning, but it hooked me and I listened happily all the way through. But it was just a bit too unbelievable. I have a student who’s listening to it right now. It’ll be interesting to see what she has to say about it….she’s enjoying it so far.

55. Eleven - Patricia Reilly Giff

Audio read by Staci Snell
Random House Audio, 2008
5:30, 5 unabridged cds
Rating: 4.4
176 pgs.

While looking in the attic for hidden gifts for his 11th birthday, Sam comes across a locked box with a newspaper article sticking out of it. Hampered by an enormous reading disability, he needs someone to help him decipher what the papers in the box say, so he makes friends with the new girl in his fifth grade class. Caroline warns him that she will not be in the town long, her father is an artist that moves the family many times each year. However, they become great friends and solve Sam's story together.

Sam has been raised by his grandfather, Mack, in a three-apartment complex that sits above three stores. These are Sam's family, the people who have raised him. After he starts thinking about his past he begins to have nightmares about a boat, a children's home, a storm, a mean lady. He begins to wonder whether he IS Mack's grandson. His reading disability makes him feel stupid, but his exceptional gift of woodworking, so like his grandfather's, helps him feel better about himself.....as do the things facts he discovers about his background.

There are many layers to this story. They work together beautifully. I'm glad I discovered this book. The narrator was excellent, and I was sorry when it ended.

51. Talk - Kathe Koja

Frances Foster (FS&G), 2005

Young Adult 940L

134 pgs.

Rating: 4

Told in two voices in alternating chapters, we hear from the two leads in a high school play - Kit, his first time EVER acting, thinking he's been acting his whole life, and Lindsay, drama star and first class b----- ummmm---- mean girl. Kit has a crush on a trumpet player named Pablo and she has a crush on Kit. The play is controversial, the school board shuts it down and the cast and director take it to another venue.

Many issues raised here - being gay and "in the closet", how do you let your parents and friends know, how to you act upon it, how do you live with homophobic slurs, how do you convince a self-centered snob who has a crush on you that she's not what you'd ever be interested in? What does the future hold for these two seniors?

25. 11 Birthdays - Wendy Mass

2009
267 pgs.
Rating: 4
$16.99

This was a really cute story. It has the same premise as Groundhog Day with Bill Murray (which I've watched at least a half dozen times). Leo and Amanda have been best friends from birth. Born on the same day, "fairy" Angelina D'Angelo tells their parents that they should celebrate the birthday together every year, and with a few pushes and tweaks from her, it happens. But at their 10th birthday party, Amanda overhears Leo telling his friends that he's only doing it because he has to - hurting Amanda's feelings so badly that they don't speak from then on.

Zoom to their eleventh birthday. It is a disaster for Amanda, and she's confused and upset when the alarm rings the next morning when it's not supposed to - it's Saturday. Wrong. It's her birthday again. It repeats, with many of the same problems and sadnesses. Days 3 she feigns sickness to stay home from school, and when day 4 begins exactly the same way, as her birthday, she is fit-to-be-tied. That is, until she discovers that the same thing is happening to Leo - and nobody else. They make up, the have fun, the try to discover old and new clues that will help them break the "spell." We're certainly rooting for them!