When Jeff Comes Home

We all have fears. For the last 20 years, my biggest fear has been that someone would kidnap my only child, my reason for living, Greg. For the majority of those years he was hardly ever out of my sight. He never played in the front yard without me, I always knew where he was and who he was with. Even now out 20, he calls me when he is leaving town and when he gets back home (I love you for doing that, Greg) When Jeff Comes Home by Catherine Atkins stirs all of those fears.

Three years ago, Jeff was kidnapped at knife point. He is returned to his family and is expected to live a normal life. Oh my GOD!!!!! What is a normal life???? Jeff has a difficult time living with himself over what he did to stay alive. He constantly worries about his family and friends accepting what happened to him.

This book broke my heart and I wept for all the parents who have lost children and all the children who have lost their innocence to these vultures. This is a bold book and I couldn't recommend this to any age group except high school and up.

Dancing in Red Shoes will Kill You

The cover art of Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You by Dorian Cirrone just jumps up and grabs the reader. A ballerina is dancing around holding two pumpkins for breasts. What in the world. The cover immediatley grabbed my attention and the book had my attention form the beginning to the end of the book.This book was truly a good book.

Kayla attends an Fine Arts school in Florida. An aspiring ballerina, she longs to get some good parts. But she has one problem--- or should I say two problems. That's right, her breasts are too big..As Kayla deals with her breast problem, her sister, Paterson, an artist, deals with censorship over a painting she has completed for her senior project. Both girls try to deal with conformity, censorship, and sexism and still maintain a sense of humor..

I would strongly recommend this book for high school students.. I loved it.

Ralph Fletcher

I would love to be a writer. But writing is hard work and frankly, I am a little on the lazy side. I spend lots of time reading about writing and how I can improve my writing. I just finished four books by Ralph Fletcher; Breathing In, Breathing Out, A Writer's Notebook, Live Writing and Mansfield Dreams. The first three books talk about improving your writing and gives the writers lots of great ideas to use in writing. One of the main ideas encourages the writer to write daily.. that is what I am trying to do.

Marshfield Dreams is the memories of Fletcher and his early childhood. As one of nine children, the adventures to read are hilarious and provoke lots of my own childhood memories. It is a great book and I really enjoyed the book.

Flush/ Hoot

Hoot by Carl Hiassen is the story of a young boy whose father works for the government. He moves around a lot and sometimes finds himself being picked on. He becomes involved with another young girl and her "weird" brother in fighting a business expansion that would be an environmental disaster. It is a good book that could be used as a read-aloud of older elementary and middle school students. But I thought Flush was a much better book.

Flush is the story of a young boy who explores the dumping of waste from a gambling boat. No one believes that the boat is actually dumping sewage into the river from previous nights adventures. But they are...

I think using Flush and Hoot as an author study could be a great activity to do with our students.

Introductions

Pam's Postings

My passion is reading. I am so lucky because I have a job that supports my habit. As a curriculum coordinator of reading/ language arts for Special Education for a large district in Texas, I get to read tons of books to recommend for our students. What a great job! So I thought that I would share some of my readings that teachers might be able to use in their classrooms.

I hope that you will receive some idea about books.