How to Stay Invisible
by Maggie C. Rudd
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How to Stay Invisible
By Maggie C. Rudd
Informational Resources:
Author Information:
Author Website:
Author Interview with Maggie C. Rudd
https://library.teachingbooks.net/author_interview.cgi?id=59091
Activities & Resources:
New Students:
Think about how many schools Raymond attended each year. Have students create welcome cards from art supplies to have ready for new students who will enter their class this school year.
Food or Clothes Collection:
This book opens up the opportunity to discuss students (or people) who may be less fortunate than we are. Take the opportunity to research places in your community that your students can give back. Make posters, advertise, let them be leaders and complete a food or clothing drive and deliver them to a community resource.
Coyotes:
Learn about coyotes from National Geographic Kids. Is it realistic that a coyote would befriend a boy in the woods? Why or why not?
Make a coyote origami:
Snake Bites:
Learn about snake bites and what to do if you or someone you know has been bitten by a snake.
snakebite - Students | Britannica Kids | Homework Help
Snake facts for kids (4:13):
Survival:
Take students outside. Encourage them to collect supplies to create a miniature lean to or safe place for Raymond to survive in the woods. All of their supplies should come from nature just as Raymond’s did. Allow them to look at and talk about their classmate’s shelters. Will they hold up to the weather? Will they protect him from animals?
Learn to create a variety of knots:
https://www.moore.army.mil/infantry/amws/content/pdf/Knot%20Guide.pdf?22JUN2018
Art:
Create an origami dog. Raymond’s dog was with him through it all!
https://www.origamiway.com/easy-origami-dog.shtml
Create a poster about poisonous snakes, wild animals or dogs with at least three facts. Include artwork, research and cite your sources.
Create clay animal tracks:
Create Clay Animal Tracks | Crafts for Kids | PBS KIDS for Parents
Discussion Questions:
Based on the cover image, what are your predictions about this book?
How many middle schools has Raymond attended this school year? How would this make you feel?
What happens when Raymond returns to the trailer park? Who does he talk to?
Where does Raymond sleep the first night?
What happens as Raymond goes to school the next day?
What had Raymond’s Dad done at work the day before?
Who doesn’t help Raymond? Who does help Raymond?
What does Raymond do for food? What food does he eat that makes him sick?
How do Harlin and Raymond become friends? Is Harlin a good friend? Why or why not?
How long will Raymond be on his own for winter break?
Who is Rosie?
What does Rosie kill for them to eat during winter break?
Who is Stigs? What does he do to help Raymond?
Why are the police called?
Why did Harlin’s dad show up the day that he did?
What books does Raymond check out from the library? Why?
Who follows Raymond to the hollow?
What bites Raymond? What happens because of this bite?
Who found Raymond and saved him?
What happens to Raymond after the police come? Is this a good or bad thing for Raymond?
Who was Raymond’s hardest goodbye? Why?
Read Alikes:
Freeman, Megan E. Alone. When twelve-year-old Maddie hatches a scheme for a secret sleepover with her two best friends, she ends up waking up to a nightmare. She's alone, left behind in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated and abandoned. With no one to rely on, no power, and no working phone lines or internet access, Maddie slowly learns to survive on her own. Her only companions are a Rottweiler named George and all the books she can read. After a rough start, Maddie learns to trust her own ingenuity and invents clever ways to survive in a place that has been deserted and forgotten. As months pass, she escapes natural disasters, looters, and wild animals. But Maddie's most formidable enemy is the crushing loneliness she faces every day. Can Maddie's stubborn will to survive carry her through the most frightening experience of her life? (NovelList Plus)
George, Jean Craighead. My Side of the Mountain. A young boy relates his adventures during the year he spends living alone in the Catskill Mountains including his struggle for survival, his dependence on nature, his animal friends, and his ultimate realization that he needs human companionship. (NovelList Plus)
Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet. After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the wilderness, learning to survive initially with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce. NovelList Plus
Philbrick. W. R. Wildfire. Twelve-year-old Sam Castine is at summer camp while his mother is in rehab, but when the camp is evacuated ahead of a fast moving wildfire, he makes the mistake of going back for his phone, and finds himself left behind, disoriented, and running for his life, together with a girl, Delphy, from a different camp--finding an old jeep keeps them going, but in the wilds of Maine, there are only logging roads and the deadly crown fire is everywhere. (NovelList Plus)
Reviews:
Booklist: (Booklist, vol 120, number 3)
Grades 4-6 Survival tales generally take place in remote locales, but this one hits closer to home. Suddenly abandoned once again by his deadbeat parents, Raymond takes up residence in the woods behind his latest middle school—determined to make a go of it and actually doing a creditable job of keeping his head down in class while, often, going hungry or barely subsisting on dumpster produce and fish from the local stream as days turn into weeks and then months. While Rudd makes it clear that Raymond is far from safe or comfortable, as points of reference she name checks both Hatchet and The Outsiders and lightens the load by giving him an unusually intelligent dog and a playful young coyote, two loyal but not too inquisitive friends in school, and an elderly loner who is willing to respect his refusal to contact social services while providing help and temporary shelter at need. Rather than even try to explain the behavior of her protagonist’s parents, the author just focuses on Raymond’s realistic hurt, incomprehension, and resulting lack of trust in any grownup’s motives, all of which many young readers may, sadly, find easy to understand. Still, following a nearly fatal reversal of fortune, she closes the tale on a hopeful note by leaving him in the care of adults who do at least seem to have his best interests at heart.