Reading this poetry book, I felt like I was slowly watching a young boy fall in love with literature & poetry. He started expressing himself & his feelings. He was honest about how he thought poetry was for girls & how his words were not poems. As he starts to gain confidence that his words were in fact poems he lets his teacher put them on the board, but only as “anonymous.” Slowly, the readers see that he is enjoying writing poetry & wants to be proud of his words. He eventually lets his teacher put his name on his poetry & his classmates are blown away. He finds an author he connects with & resonates with. This book is all about a young boy's personal journey with falling in love with literature.

Standards Related: ELAGSE4RL2: Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.ELAGSE4RL5:Explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., verse, rhythm, meter) and drama (e.g., casts of characters, settings, descriptions, dialogue, stage directions) when writing or speaking about a text.ELAGSE4RL10: By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, in the grades 4-5 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

fairytale

Best friends are always going to be best friends, right? That is what Hazel thought about her best friend, Jack. However, he has been acting strange ever since he got a piece of glass in his eye one day on the playground. Let us go back a little bit so we understand who Hazel is as a person. Hazel has an imagination as big as can be. She sees the magic everywhere she looks in the world. This can sometimes be a bad thing. Her mom wants her to grow up, but Hazel doesn't see the fun in that. She wants to see the magic in the world forever. Her and Jack make-up fairytales about superheroes and villains. Jacks doodles all of their imaginations to life. Okay, back to the story. Jack has glass in his eye that the reader knows is from an evil mirror belonging to a demon named Mal. While Jack is sledding the Snow Queen finds him and takes Jack to her home in the woods. One thing the snow queen was not counting on was someone seeing her take Jack into the woods. Jack's friend Tyler saw him leave with the Snow Queen. Jack's parents were unaware of where he was- they were under some sort of trance thinking he was helping his sickly aunt. Tyler goes to Hazel to tell her what he saw. Hazel immediately thinks he is making fun of her imagination. She quickly comes to realize he is being serious. Hazel knows what she has to do- She has to save her best friend. Off to the woods she goes- That ends part one! Part two is where the story gets good. This is where we learn about the magic and power of friendship. I won't spoil anything for you, but lets say there are wolves, giant clocks in the woods, lost girl turned into flowers and much more. As Hazel follows the cold to the castle she wonders if Jack actually wants to come back with her. This book shows the true magic of friendship and that we should always have some imagination in our life.

Standards Related:

ELAGSE6RI2: Determine a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.

ELAGSE4RL3: Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions).

ELAGSE5RI3: Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.

Nancy Drew is a young sleuth who has found herself a mystery. When her friend, Helen, comes to her with a mysterious haunted mansion, Nancy knows she must solve the mystery. However, another strange occurrence has happened. Her father has been threatened! Nancy's father assures her that he is perfectly safe and to go on to solve the mystery at Twin Elems. As soon as Nancy arrives strange occurrences start happen. The strangest of all, the man that threatened her father has shown up trying to purchase Twin Elems!! What will Nancy do?! As Nancy is trying to solve the mystery strange occurrences keep happening that make this a rather difficult case. Music playing at random times, stolen jewels, an owl put into a locked room and much more going on at Twin Elms.

I would recommend this book for younger students. Students in 4th-6th grade would enjoy this book. It is a classic series so older students could enjoy the series as well.

Standards Related: ELAGSE4RL1: Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.ELAGSE4RL3: Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., character’s thoughts, words, or actions).

Percy Jackson is a normal boy who lives with his mom and her awful boyfriend. Percy had a normal field trip during school that would change his life forever- he would discover who his true father is. Poseidon, yes as in the God of the sea. That Poseidon. That would mean Percy is a half-blood. Rushing to camp half-blood for fear out of his life, Percy is accompanied by his best friend who has actually been his mythical guardian for the past few years. As Percy is just figuring out that he is a half-blood, something more alarming has happened. Someone has STOLEN Zeus’s (oh you know just the master of the God's) lightning bolt. Percy and his friends must race to find the lightning bolt, his mom and his father. Can they do it? Can they save Olympus and reunite a long lost father?

Standards Related: ELAGSE4RL4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including those that allude to significant characters found in mythology (e.g., Herculean).ELAGSE4RL7: Make connections between the text of a story or drama and a visual or oral presentation of the text identifying similarities and differences.ELAGSE4RL9: Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes and topics (e.g., opposition of good and evil) and patterns of events (e.g., the quest) in stories, myths, and traditional literature from different cultures.

A good ole book about boys being boys. Doing strange things, for no reason whatsoever. This group of boys has decided that one of their friends, Billy, must eat FIFTEEN worms. Alan does not think he can do it, so, he bets him 50 bucks. Small problem he knows his dad won’t let him have his 50 bucks. Alan finds ways to slowly hijack this experiment of theirs. Adding new rules, finding huge worms, and just overall chaos. Not a very good friend, huh? Watch this experiment unfold with many twist and turns along the way. Even a call to poison control is thrown in there(: This is a great book for young boys who like gross things.

Standards Related: ELAGSE4RL7:Make connections between the text of a story or drama and a visual or oral presentation of the text identifying similarities and differences.

ELAGSE4RF4: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

§ Read on-level text with purpose and understanding.

§ Read on-level prose and poetry orally with accuracy, appropriate

rate, and expression on successive readings.

§ Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and

understanding, rereading as necessary.

Ms. Battle's Opinion:

I, personally, thought this book was slow and boring. I didn't enjoy it at all. It felt like a chore to sitdown and read this novel. However, that is my opinion, please do not let it sway your decision to read this text. I thought I would love this book because I loved the movie. That was not the case. I was pretty disappointed.