PICTURE BOOK - A Very Improbable Story by Edward Einhorn

Illustrated by Adam Gustavson

2008, Charlesbridge

HC $16.95

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.99 - 94 ratings

My rating:  4

Endpapers: Dark blue

Illustrations on much or most of page, text is on white

1^st line/s:  "one morning Ethan woke up with a cat on his head."

My comments:   Oh my gosh, what a great picture book to introduce probability to older kids!  It's cute and fun and gives wonderful mathematical information in a straight-forward, interesting way.  It gets a little convoluted at the end, but if it's being used as a read aloud, stress and pausing  can be used  effectively, and then play a probability game similar to one described in the book and VOILA!!

Goodreads:  Ethan wakes up one morning with a talking cat on his head. The cat refuses to budge until Ethan wins a game of probability. Without looking, Ethan must pick out a dime from his coin collection, or two matching socks from his dresser, or do something else improbable. Avery improbable story about a challenging math concept. Author: Edward Einhorn Format: 32 pages, paperback Ages: 7-10

6. House Arrest - K. A. Holt

read on my Kindle
2015 Chronicle Books
304 pgs. (written in verse)
Middle Grades
Finished 2/10/17
Goodreads rating: 4.26 (1577 ratings)
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary USA (at one point it mentions Texas)

My comments:  The beginning of the story (below) sets it up particularly well, but doesn't tell of the dire straits that Timothy, his mom, and his baby brother are in.  Not only is Levi on super expensive medicine, he must be accompanied every minute because his breathing can be compromised without notice.  That means help.  And the help they end up getting causes more bad than good.  There is so much love in this book. Lots of other wonderful stuff, but lots of love.  Written in verse, as a diary/journal.

Goodreads synopsis:
Stealing is bad.
Yeah.
I know.
But my brother Levi is always so sick, and his medicine is always so expensive.

I didn’t think anyone would notice,
if I took that credit card,
if, in one stolen second,
I bought Levi’s medicine.

But someone did notice.
Now I have to prove I’m not a delinquent, I’m not a total bonehead.

That one quick second turned into
juvie
a judge
a year of house arrest,
a year of this court-ordered journal,
a year to avoid messing up
and being sent back to juvie
so fast my head will spin.

It’s only 1 year.
Only 52 weeks.
Only 365 days.
Only 8,760 hours.
Only 525,600 minutes.

What could go wrong?

44. Listening for Lucca - Suzanne LaFleur

2013, Wendy Lamb Books, Random House

232 pgs.

Mid Grades Fantastic RF

Finished 9/21/2013

Goodreads Rating: 3.93

My Rating:  Liked it (3) 

TPPL

Contemporary coast of Maine, with forays back to 1944

My comments:  This book was set in Maine, in a big house right on the beach, and I wish the setting had been explored a little more.  This wasn't realistic fiction, it was fantasy, because Siena, the protagonist, could see into people-of-the-past's lives. Trying to figure out how to help her three-year-old brother, Lucca, to talk was a driving force in her life.  Her abilities to see and touch the lives of the family that lived 60 years before in her house is the "key" that helps this happen.

Goodreads Review:  "I'm obsessed with abandoned things." Siena's obsession began a year and a half ago, around the time her two-year-old brother Lucca stopped talking. Now Mom and Dad are moving the family from Brooklyn to Maine hoping that it will mean a  whole new start for Lucca and Siena. She soon realizes that their wonderful old house on the beach holds secrets. When Siena writes in her diary with an old pen she found in her closet, the pen writes its own story, of Sarah and Joshua, a brother and sister who lived in the same house during World War II. As the two stories unfold, amazing parallels begin to appear, and Siena senses that Sarah and Joshua's story might contain the key to unlocking Lucca's voice.