Textbook Chart

Here is a link to my textbook chart

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6fils_mKV8wRU92YU53QnVfV2M/view?usp=sharing

Smile

Telgemeier, R., & Yue, S. (2010). Smile. Broadway, New York: Graphix.

Raina is a 6^th grade student who just wanted to fit in.  After a Girl Scouts meeting, they were dropping Raina off at home and the girls decided to run to the door.  Riana tripped, fell, and lost her two front teeth.  Raina has to wear braces, headgear, and have various treatment in a span of four years.  During those years, she goes through many obstacles that teenagers go through.  Through her adolescent years she goes through the typical issues like crushes on boys, zits, insecurities, and bullying by her own friends.  When she enters high school, she makes new friends.  She finally gets her final surgery and feels comfortable with her smile.  I really enjoyed this story.  It made me feel like I was back in middle school feeling the way she did as she had her first pimples, crushes, and just wanting to fit in.  This book is age-appropriate for middle school students from the ages of 9 and older.  I think a good follow-up book is El Deafo.  They both are graphic novels that are for the same age group of adolescents that deal with real life issues of middle school students. As a teacher, I would have students write a story about themselves in a comic strip or graphic novel format.  A good website would be http://www.toondoo.com/.  I could also have them give the story Smile an alternate ending and use http://www.scholastic.com/graphix/createcomic.htm?theme=smile.  They would be able to incorporate the characters from the story. The theme of this story is adolescent issues, middle school, dental health, friendships, and pride/self-esteem.  The author is the character in this story and tell her story of when she had dental issues through her middle school years.  She uses humor  and figurative language as she is writing her story like “All I Want for Christmas is my two front teeth.”(103) to capture the audience attention.  Her images and text foretell events in the story.  She uses dark pages in the book to tell that she is hallucinating, while she is getting her teeth extracted.  The author wrote a well-written plot that will keep you engaged through-out the story

The Crosssover

Alexander, K. (2014). The crossover. New York, New York: Harcourt Publishing.

Josh Bell is in 7th grade at Reggie Lewis Middle School.  He is the son of former basketball superstar player Chuck Bell.  He has a twin brother name JB. He is very close to his brother and father. Josh loves his family, his life, and basketball.   He wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and even has dreadlocks like him.  Josh lost a bet to his brother JB and loses five dreadlocks and has to end up cutting them off.  His brother also get a girlfriend and begins spending less time with him and his dad.  This starts making Josh feel lonely, jealous, and leads to anger against his own brother.  While this is happening, Chuck’s health starts deteriorating from his poor eating habits and his heart condition.  It causes him to have a few heart attacks and he loses his life with the last one.  When his dad dies, Josh understands that his brother JB will symbolically take his father’s place.   The brothers realize that all they have is each other and put their differences to the side.  The appropriate age range for this book is 10-12 years old, mostly middle school children.  I think this book appeals to readers who love sports.  Personally, that is the reason I chose to read this book.  Even though I am a girl, I have always grown-up loving sports. As a teacher, I can have students analyze the relationships between father/son and brother/brother.  They can compare it to their own relationships in their family and write a blog about it.   The author chose to write this book in a poetic format.  It was well written and the basketball action and Josh’s strong narrative voice speaks loud and can be envisioned by the reader.  The author uses fonts, styles, and unique constructions to make the text more appealing.  He divides this book into quarters and overtime, which is labeled according to a basketball theme.  Family is a very important theme in this novel.  The loyalty, support, encouragement, and the family structure helps for the family.  “In life, family is the court, and the basketball is one’s heart.  The heart should always be left on the court.”  (Basketball Rule #1, Paragraph 1)

Go

Kidd, C. (2016). Go: A Kidd's guide to graphic design. New York, New York: Workman Publishing Company.

Go is a book about a guide to graphic design and how we perceive and look at things.   Kidd informs the reader that everything around us not made by nature is a form of design.  Graphic design has been around for many years in different forms and explains that form is about solving problems.  From cave paintings to the Declaration of Independence, to coke cans, flags, maps, logos, many more, have their own unique design.  This book is divided into five chapters:  Form, Typography, Content, Concept, and 10 Design Projects. Content and form create visuals to communicate messages. Form is visuals and typography.   Content is the most important for of graphic design.  It has illustrations and pictures showing us examples of each part of graphic design.  Content + Form +Type+ Concept= Graphic Design.(p. 109)  The appropriate age group for this a book is adolescents from 10-17 years old.  Even at my age, I enjoyed reading this book.  I learned many new things that I did not know about.  I learned what serif and sans is a type of topography.  I learned about points, picas, and kerning.  We live in a time where our world is being ran by technology.  As a teacher and parent, I can see why children today are infatuated with technology. This book can be used as a tool to help them bring out their creativity.  The last chapter in the book gives children projects they can begin with.  This book is an informational literature.  The qualifications of the author are valid.  He uses examples of his own work in his book to show the different types of steps of graphic design. He designed the cover for Jurassic Park, Bat-Manga, Mythology, Superman, and many more.  Go has been reviewed both by The School Library Journal and Booklists and was given five stars.  Go has accuracy and current information.  For example, the author describes how written words and graphic designs have gone in a full circle.  They have evolved into what they are today.  

This One Summer

Tamaki, M., & Tamaki, J. (2014). This one summer. New York, New York: First Second.

This is a young adult graphic novel that follows Rose Wallace as she deals with friendships, faamily, and local drama, while on a summer family vacation at Lake Awago.  Rose has spent summers at Lake Awago as far as she can remember.  There, she met her best friend, Windy, who is a year and a half younger and they do everything together.  Rose and Windy like to watch horror flicks together.  They go rent movies from Brewster’s. Rose’s crush, Duncan, works there

They spend a lot of time at Brewster’s with the teen scene there and hear teenagers cursing and talking about sexual things. Rose’s parents are also going through a tough time.  Her dad ends up leaving for a few days and Rose blames her mother. Duncan gets a girl named Jenny pregnant and doesn’t want to own up to his responsibilities.  Rose and Windy go through a rough patch, but get passed it.  As the summer comes to an end, Jenny confronts Duncan and he tells her to get lost.  Jenny gets drunk and goes into the lake.  Rose screams for her mom and her mom saves Jenny from drowning. Later the same night, Rose learns that her mom had a miscarriage last summer and that why she had been acting that way.  They make peace with each other.  Rose and Windy say good-bye and look forward to next summer. The more graphic novel I read, the more I enjoy them.  Even though the reading level for this book is a 2.4, I would like recommend this book for young adult because of its content and language.  I would say that it is for high school students from grades 9^th-12^th.  The strengths in this book are how the illustrations come to life. It has a lot of small details to it, which helps bring the story to life.  Family is a very important theme is this story.  Rose’s family visits Awago Beach every year.  It is something that her family is accustomed to do.  Rose’s family is going through a difficult time during this time and Windy and her mother have a good relationship even though she is adopted. The vocabulary and word choice of the author is more of a young adult because of words such as “blow job” and the straightforward language used throughout the novel. 

Everything I Never Told You

Ng, C. (2014). Everything I never told you. Westminster, London: Penguins Press.

 The Lees are a middle class family from Ohio.  One morning as the family sits down for breakfast, they realize Lydia is missing.  She is found dead at the bottom of a lake nearby their house. Her death is ruled a suicide and to answer the reader’s questions the author goes back to the 60’s to recount the events leading up to her suicide.  Her father is Chinese American and is a young professor at Harvard.  There he meets his wife, Marilyn, and she becomes pregnant with her first child Nath.  She leave medical studies at Harvard to become a housewife.  When Lydia was 6 years old, Marilyn leaves her family to go back to medical school, soon after she leave she realizes she is pregnant with her third child, Hannah, so she goes back home.  When she returns, she starts to live her dream of becoming a doctor through Lydia. Putting the other children to the side, both parents focus on Lydia becoming what they never where.  Lydia becomes extremely overwhelmed. Never feeling like he fit in, James has an affair with Louisa, another Chinese women.  This affair goes on for a while. Lydia starts to suspect that her father is having an affair.  Lydia not having any friends, befriends her neighbor Jack, who is in love with Nath her brother.  The night before she died, she tried to kiss Jack and he rejected her telling her he was in love with Nath.  All these events, led her to commit suicide.  After her death, her family discovers things about Lydia that they did not know about.  In the end, James comes home to Marilyn and they both start to renew their love for each other.  At the end, Nath and Jack have a fight and Hannah accidently pushes him in the lake.  While he is down there, he feels a connection with Lydia and swims back.   The appropriate age group for this book would be high school students from the age of 14-18.  I feel like this story is something that young adults can relate too.  Young adults not only have peer pressure, but this book show how parents put pressure on their children as well.  The family dynamics in this story are reality for some children today. As a teacher, you can discuss how seeking help can help you and that suicide is the answer to someone’s problems.  This story is contemporary realistic novel.  It deals with family issues like maternal expectations, sibling conflict, and interracial marriage.  The plot is very well written with developed characters.  They style which the author used to write this story is frequently lyrical and have rhythm and poetic quality.  The characters’ thoughts are italicized to separate them from each other.  

Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different

Blumenthal, K. (2012). Steve Jobs: The man who thought different: A biography. New York: Feiwel and Friends.

Steve Jobs was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs. He didn’t like the school or the structure of school.  He would get into mischief.  He knew he was different from others and loved to take apart electronics and devices and put them back together. He was living in a world where technology was in boom. In his neighborhood, he become friends with some boys that loved technology like he did. Steve Wozniak worked at Hewlett-Packard, was a computer whiz, and brilliant inventor.  Jobs dropped out of college and started working for Atari. Later Jobs and Wozniak formed Apple Computer Company in Job’s garage.  They knew they needed each other, Wozniak created the technology and Jobs sold them.  They both helped each other to assemble the product.  A small company invested in them and when they grew they got an office.  The company became Apple, Inc. Today, it is one the biggest technology forces in the world.  It has created our personal computers, iPhones, iPods, iTunes, iMacs, and iPads.  Jobs changed the world and made $7 billion dollars from it. Personally, I have been intrigued with Steve Jobs and would recommend this book to others.  I love to read biographies and learn about people who have impacted our world.  We see Steve Job and all his accomplishments even though he did not have a perfect life.  This book is age appropriate from 12-18 years old, but I think adults would also enjoy reading it.  Students can create a timeline of his life using a prezi or a timeline maker.  Then they have to present it to the class.  This book is a biography about the life and accomplishments of Steve Jobs.  The information in this book is accurate and current it starts from his early life to his today where we all use his Apple products.  The book is divided into three parts:  1st his early life, college,and Steve Wozniak, 2^nd his exile from Apple and how he never lost sight of it, and 3^rd his last years with pancreatic cancer.