A Year in Review: 2009-2010

So today is the day!  I have been blogging here on YA Lit- The Good, The Bad, The Ugly for TWO years now!  Time has really flown.

Let’s take a look back and see what I’ve done this past year…

I started off my second year slowly and didn’t post a review until January!

January

Sold- Patricia McCormick

February

Twilight- Stephenie Meyer

March – NO REVIEWS!

April

New Moon- Stephenie Meyer

May

Eclipse- Stephenie Meyer

June

Push- Sapphire

how i live now- Meg Rosoff

July

Speak- Laurie Halse Anderson

August

Postcards From No Man’s Land- Aidan Chambers

September

Number the Stars- Lois Lowry

Love That Dog- Sharon Creech

October- NO REVIEWS!
Well, I’m ashamed.  10 reviews for the year.  Last year in my “year in review” post I reported that I had reviewed 45 books and hoped to do more this year.  BLOGGER FAIL.  Though I will say that one of the ways I read so much that first year was by substitute teaching and having many many days off.  It’s still no excuse and I plan on picking up the pace.  But before I leave you I do want to pat myself on my back because there are some things that I’ve accomplished that I’m pretty proud of!

I have:

55 reviews, 132 Posts, 179 Comments, and 10, 447 hits!

In just two years.

I have no idea if this is really good or bad or anything, but I feel happy with this.  People are coming across my site and hopefully finding it useful.  I have gotten a lot of insightful comments throughout this journey and hope that you all continue to provide your thoughts.  I see this blog evolving more as time goes on and becoming even more education and classroom based.  I hope you stay along for the ride!

Love That Dog- Sharon Creech

Shop Indie Bookstores

This book was handed to me by the woman in charge of curriculum at my current school.  She told me that it was the newest book that they had ordered for bibliotherapy.  I was immediately intrigued because I have read other books by Creech before and was interested in what this one was like.  Once I found out it was written as a series of free verse poems I was a little more hesitant but decided to give it a try.  It took me 15-20 minutes to read straight through- which especially for the population of students I’m working with is a big plus!  The book is written as if a early teen boy wrote the poems and through them a small story line develops revolving around his feelings about poetry and about his pet dog.

One of the things I really really enjoyed about this book is that Creech included references to well known poetry such as The Red Wheelbarrow, some of Robert Frost’s poems, and poetry by Walter Dean Myers (one of my favorite YA Lit Authors).  The focus for the bibliotherapy aspect of the book is to encourage our students to use writing as an outlet, identify their feelings, and to discuss loss and grief.  In addition to that I think that we can really use this book to explore a poetry unit- focusing specifically on the poems mentioned int he book and then writing our own poetry as well.

When I hopefully do teach this book I will fill you in on how it goes, and perhaps find a way to post any activities that I create or adapt to go with it!

This book is definitely a 6-9th grade book.  I would recommend it for middle school primarily, though reluctant readers in 9th grade may appreciate its brevity.  Our class is primarily male and we are hoping that the male protagonist will make it appealing to them.

Awards:
Christopher Award
Mitten Award (Michigan)
Claudia Lewis Poetry Award