28. Sadie by Courtney Summers

listened on Chirp, off and on for months before I went to sleep, backing up and relistening in case I missed or forgot something as I fell asleep

308 pgs.

2018
YA mystery (Older YA, pedophile....)
Finished 6/22/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.03
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary America

My comments: Such a sad story, depressing.  I was particularly unsettled by the epilogue, which tells what happened to the podcaster in the aftermath. Excellent storytelling from various points of view.

Goodreads synopsis: A missing girl on a journey of revenge. A Serial-like podcast following the clues she's left behind. And an ending you won't be able to stop talking about.

Sadie hasn't had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she's been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water.

But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie's entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister's killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager clues to find him.

When West McCray―a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America―overhears Sadie's story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie's journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it's too late.

Courtney Summers has written the breakout book of her career. Sadie is propulsive and harrowing and will keep you riveted until the last page.

MOVIE - Same Kind of Different as Me

RPG-13 (1:59)

Wide release 10/20/17

Viewed around 10/21/2017 

RT Critic: 33   Audience:  87
Critic's Consensus:  

Cag: 3.5

Directed by Michael Carney

Paramount Pictures

Based on a true story

Greg Kinneer, Renee Zellweger

My comments: Stupid, forgettable name for a movie.  Having no clue what this movie was about, I went.  It was probably a good thing I had no clue, because I probably would have never gone if I'd known its premise.  It was OK.  A tearjerker, which I'm not crazy about.  And I felt I had to take a couple of stretches of imagination, "liberal license."  I think what they wanted to say was that the wife, Debbie, had a very strong link to Denver, when the movie made it appear that the stronger link, all along, was the husband, Ron.  It was based on a true story, I'll have to look up if it was from a book or not.  Acting was fine, I don't think I've seen either Greg Kinneer or Renee Zellweger in a movie recently, they've both aged well.  Lots of religion without being preachy.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  SAME KIND OF DIFFERENT AS ME is based on the inspiring true story of international art dealer Ron Hall (Greg Kinnear), who befriends a homeless man (Djimon Hounsou) in hopes of saving his struggling marriage to Debbie (Renée Zellweger), a woman whose dreams will lead all three of them on the most remarkable journey of their lives. Jon Voight plays Hall's father, with whom he reconciles thanks to the revelations of his new life. Based on the New York Times bestseller.

PICTURE BOOK - Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay by Susan Hook

Illustrated by Sally Wern Comport

2016, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

HC $17.99

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.38 (72 ratings)

My rating:  %

Endpapers:  Pale Aqua

Title Page: Dirt-ish background with torn scattered pieces of musical score strewn about

Illustrations:  Collage and drawings together, perfect for this book!

1^st line/s:  "Ada Rios grew up in a town made of trash."  Powerwful!

Note:  In the MIM in Phoenix, there is a display of some of these intruments!  There has been a 60-Minutes segment on it and there are all sorts of YouTube videos.  recycledorchestracateura.com

My comments:   Nonfiction picture books that tell true stories of what's going on in other parts of the world draw me like a bee to nectar.  And when they're well told, illustrated beautifully, and loaded with pertinent information, I'm one happy teacher.  However, I don't have a classroom in which to share this book anymore, and this is a book to be shared and discussed.  Perfect for the intermediate-grade classroom that is learning about how to make a difference in our world.
          I can't imagine a town that's built on, at, or even near a huge garbage dump.  What a wake-up message for kids AND adults.  Lots of additional information so that I can look and learn more, and maybe even help a bit.....

Goodreads:  From award-winning author Susan Hood and illustrator Sally Wern Comport comes the extraordinary true tale of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay, an orchestra made up of children playing instruments built from recycled trash.
     Ada Ríos grew up in Cateura, a small town in Paraguay built on a landfill. She dreamed of playing the violin, but with little money for anything but the bare essentials, it was never an option...until a music teacher named Favio Chávez arrived. He wanted to give the children of Cateura something special, so he made them instruments out of materials found in the trash. It was a crazy idea, but one that would leave Ada—and her town—forever changed. Now, the Recycled Orchestra plays venues around the world, spreading their message of hope and innovation.

14. Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver

Audio read by the author, beautifully!

15 discs (16 hrs. 56 min.)

2012, Harper Audio, $30.95

437 pgs.

Written for adults

Finished April 14, 2013

Genre: CRF

Goodreads Rating: 3.79

My Rating 4.5

Acquired TPPL

Setting: contemporary Appalachian Tennessee

1^st sentence/s:  "A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.  Or so it seemed for now, to a woman with flame-colored hair who marched uphill to meet her demise.+

My comments:  My rating is actually a 4.5. Why not 5? Because there's just a little too much scientific explanation in places. However, I'm glad I listened to the book instead of reading it, because I would have skimmed over those parts if I were reading and while listening was forced to listen to them - and they were interesting, thought-provoking, and worrisome. The added plus of Barbara Kingsolver's wonderful voice and accent made me upset when the book was over. I wanted more, more, more! At the beginning of the book I was quite unsure whether I'd like the protagonist, Dellarobia  It was a weird introduction to a character - someone sneaking off to cheat on her husband. However, the story was outstanding, and incredibly beautifully written. And tiny, red-haired Dellarobia was a superb character. Kingsolver is my favorite writer. I don't know anyone who can put words together like she does. Global warming. Monarch butterflies. Hardship and hard times in Appalachia. Mothering. Really good mothering. Interesting, REAL, well-fleshed characters. Honesty. Hmmm....I loved it.

Goodreads Review: Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town, and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed.  Flight Behavior takes on one of the most contentious subjects of our time: climate change. With a deft and versatile empathy Kingsolver dissects the motives that drive denial and belief in a precarious world.

The Mangrove Tree - Susan L. Roth & Cindy Trumbore

Planting Trees to Feed Families
collages by Susan L. Roth
2011 Lee & Low Books, Inc.
32 pgs.
endpapers:  collage of Eritrean countryside/seaside
title page:  collage papers with one mangrove tree
illustrations:  collages of lovely textured papers with one big photo (of Dr. Gordon Sato)

"By the Red Sea,
in the African country of Eritrea,
lies a little village called Hargigo.
The children play in the dust
between houses made of cloth,
tin cans, and flattened iron.
The families used to be hungry.
Their animals were hungry too.
But then things began to change . . .
all because of a tree."

Scientist Dr. Gordon Sato planted mangrove trees on the shores of the Red Sea, because they survive in a very salty environment. He taught the women of the villages to fertilize and grow them.  Goats and sheep thrive on eating the leaves, so the animals flourished.  Dry mangrove tree branches make great fuel, there's more meat to cook and milk to drink, and the roots of the plants harbor sea creatures, so that fishermen are finding their hauls more plentiful.  What a wonderful collaboration!

"This is Gordon
Whose greatet wish

Is to help all the fishermen
Catching their fish,
To help all the children
With dusty feet,
To help all the shepherds
Who watch goats and sheep,
To help all the women
Who tend the seedlings ---
By planting trees,
Mangrove trees,
By the sea."

Plant a Mangrove Tree -- Feed a Family
The Manzanar Project
P. O. Box. 98
Gloucester, MA   01931

Love it!  Ella says, "I liked the book because it told how the mangrove tree could help families in Africa."

37. Where Children Sleep - James Mollison

Chris Boot/London, 2010
120 pages
Rating:  5
$30.00
Shelved 770 in the library

Wow.  Rich children, impoverished children, and children in-between are shown in this book.  55 kids, ages four through seventeen, from one of ** countries including Israel and Palestine, Nepal, China, Thailand, countries in Africa, the U.S., Italy, Brazil....

A two-page spread for each child.  On the left, a photo taken on a neutral background, of the child. Below it, a paragrph telling a little of that child's life, with them filling in some of the blanks like how far away is there school (if they even go to school), what their favorite foods are, what they aspire to be when they "grow up." On the right, a photo of where the child sleeps.  For some it's a bedroom.  For some it's a field.  For some it's an orphanage.  For some it's a dirty floor.

 

"Home for this four-year-old boy and his family is a mattress in a field on the outskirts of Rome, Italy,  The family came from Romania by bus, after begging on the streets for enough money to pay for their tickets.  When they first arrived in Rome, the camped in a tent, but the police threw them off the site because they were trespassing on private land and did not have the correct documents.  Now the family sleep together on the mattress in the open..  When it rains, they hastily erect a tent and use umbrellas for shelter, hoping they will not be spotted by the police.  They left Romania without identity documents or work papers and so are unable to obtain legal employment.  This boy sits by the curbside while his parents clean car windscreens at traffic lights to earn thirty to fifty cents a time.  No one from the boy's family have even been to school.  His parents cnnot read or write."

"Kaya is four years old.  She lives with her parents in a small apartment in Tokyo, Japan.  Most apartments in Japan are small because land is very expensive to buy and there is such a large population to accommodate.  Kaya's bedroom is every little girl's dream.  It is lined from floor to ceiling with clothes and dolls.  Kaya's mother makes all Kaya' dresses - up to three a month, usually.  Now Kaya has thirty dresses and coats, thirty pairs of shoes, sandals and boots, and numerous wigs.  (The pigtails in the picture are made from hairpieces.)  Her friends love to come round to try on her clothes.  When she goes to school, however, she has to wear a school uniform.  Her favorite foods are meat, potatoes, strawberries,and peaches.  She wants to be a cartoonist when she grows up, drawing Japanese 'anime" cartoons."

Beatrice's Dream - Karen Lynn Williams

A Story of Kibera Slum
photos by Wendy Stone
HC $17.95
Frances Lincoln Children's Books, 2011
24 pages
Rating:  4
Endpapers:  Purple with vertical streaks

Kiberia is a huge slum in Nairobi, Kenya.  There are no roads and almost no electricity, plumbing, or drinking water.

13-year old Beatrice lives here with her brother and his wife.  Both her parents are dead.  But she's lucky to go to school every day and dreams, even in her extreme poverty, of becoming a nurse.

This simple photo journal tells of her daily life.  Well, the words are simple.  It's the photos that show her life.  A good one to share with my fourth graders when studying Africa and discussing poverty.

48. Where Do You Stay? - Andrea Cheng

Boyds Mill Press, 2011
HC $17.95
for: Middle Grades
133 pgs.
Rating:  4

First line/s:  "Mr. Willie pulls every last weed in the driveway cracks, then sweeps the concrete clean.  Aunt Geneva comes out to pay him, but Mr. Willie doesn't want any money.  'A sandwich would be nice,' he says."

Setting:  Contemporary Cincinnati, Ohio

One-Sentence Summary:  After 11-year-old Jerome goes to live with his aunt and cousins after his mother dies of cancer, he has to learn to live without his precious piano.

Mr. Willie also played the piano, though he now is a squatter in the falling-down carriage house of the falling-down (and empty) big house across the street.  His fifteen-year-old cousin Damon is mouthing off to his mother, disappearing, and possibly getting into trouble.  His nine-year old Cousin Monte is afraid of everything.  And his Aunt Geneva is determined to adopt him, as she feels was his mother's wish.  The turning point in the story comes when a couple purchase the crumbling house across the street, not to tear it down, as everyone had thought, but to create a school. 

Isn't this one of the homeliest/unappealing book covers you've ever seen?  It certainly doesnt' say "pick me up!"I wasn't sure how to rate this book, 'cause I'm not sure how kids would like it.  Throughout the book, Jerome is comparing everything that happens to him to his mother's last days and death.  However, it's not particularly depressing, and it's a great way to worm yourself into Jerome's mind.  And the storyline is engaging and proceeds in a believable manner.  I discovered that I rather liked the whole package as I mulled it over after reading.

Beatrice's Goat - Page McBrier

Illutrated by Lori Lohstoeter
An Anne Schwartz Book, Atheneum, 2001
32 pages
5 stars
Endpapers: Cream, a rooster in the middle of the left side and a slateboard and chalk laying on a banana leaf on the right

Written in coordination with Heifer Project, we hear the true story of Beatrice and her family in Uganda, Africa, and how their lives become incredibly better because of the gift of a Heifer Project goat. One single, pregnant goat. The goat has two kids. The kids can be raised and sold and the mother, named Mugisa, will continue to produce milk, which they can sell.

Beatrice has always longed to go to school, but cannot afford the uniform or the books. However, the proceeds from the milk sales grow and school becomes a reality. So does a new house with a tin roof which won't leak. Wow.

Lori Lohstoeter's illustrations give a feel for the Ugandan countryside, for Beatrice, and for Mugisa. This is a very special book. I plan to read it to my student government kids (not baby goats....children) at our next meeting. They've learned much about Heifer Project during our last two Passport to Peace festivals. And I shall certainly read it to my fourth graders. Now, let's see....the current Heifer Project International Catalog says a goat can be purchased for $120. That's really so little to help create a much better life for an African family....

http://www.heifer.org/ Check it out.

I've also read about a book called Give a Goat by Jan West Schrock that's about a class of kids that reads Beatrice's Goat and what they do because of it. The library doesn't have it...but I plan to track it down!

Yatandou - Gloria Whelan

Tales of the World: Mali, Africa
Illustrated by Peter Sylvada
Sleeping Bear Press, 2007
Rating: 4
Endpapers: White

Rusts and golds dominate this story, told in the first person by a young girl from Mali. The women in the village spend many hours each day pounding....pounding....pounding....the millet to make grain - at least three hours of pounding for one day's worth. Water is carried on the women's heads from a well. Many onions are grown to eat and sell at market. Andy they raise goats. It's work from dawn 'til dark - until the women earn enough to obtain a contraption that will immediately turn the millet to grain.

In an author's note we discover that thees grinding machines are "multifunctional platforms" that come from the U. N. Development Program and have been placed in over 350 African villages. Fascinating! I should read this to my student government in preparation for our upcoming P2P. I went to the website provided, http://www.ptfm.net/, but it looks as if this program is no longer functioning? I will have to do some further research.

Gloria Whelan also divulges in her author's note that part of the proceeds from this book will go to BwB (Building with Books) which helps kids in the U. S. and in Mali.