Saturday, March 24, 2012

Book Club with the gr. 9's

So my teacher and I thought we should start a book club with our class. For various reasons this has now turned into a class adventure, which is fine...a little strange as the kids now don't understand why there was such a contest to get into the book club.

Anyways to start I gave the ''book club'' kids a list of ten books (young adult books, that I believe are at their level, some are a bit higher level than others.

Here is the list they had to choose from:


Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
The Uglies series is set in the future, after current civilization has been destroyed by a type of bacteria,
causing chaos. The survivors of this disaster established small cities, each of which is independently
governed, with limited traveling. At the age of sixteen, everyone undergoes an operation which turns
them into "pretties". Later operations follow to show signs of increasing age while maintaining this
beauty. Uglies tells the story of teenager Tally Youngblood who rebels against society's enforced
conformity, after her new found friends Shay and David show her the downsides to becoming a
"Pretty".They show Tally how being a "Pretty" can change not only your look but your personality.

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
Elsewhere tells of a girl, Liz, who dies from a bicycle accident and wakes up to find herself traveling
on a boat. There, she meets a girl who had gotten shot and a famous person who died. After watching
her own funeral, Liz eventually realizes that she is dead, later she arriving in what is known as
"Elsewhere". She meets her grandmother, who died before she was born, and begins to live with her.
Liz has been told that everyone in Elsewhere age backwards from the day they died to the day of their
birth, and are then sent back to Earth to be reincarnated as a baby.
Liz misses her life on Earth, and becomes obsessed with watching her family and friends through
Observation Decks. She is depressed, and sees no reason to do anything because she is dead. In time,
she makes new friends in Elsewhere who help her to overcome the fact that she has died.
Soon, she learns that a life lived backwards is not much different to a life lived forwards.

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin
Just a luck of the draw. Just a flip of the coin. And now Naomi can't remember anything. A fall down
the stairs as she went to get the yearbook camera has left her with no memory of her life after 6th
grade. No memory of her boyfriend. No memory of her parents' split. No memory of a half sister.
What would you do? Naomi searches for her past as she tries to come to terms with her present. What
would you do if you had a chance to totally reinvent yourself?

Zombies vs. Unicorns A collection of short stories
Unicorns and zombies battle for supremacy in this ultra cool collection of short stories edited by YA
rock stars Black and Larbalestier. The rival authors engage in a fervent back-and-forth argument
before every story, each claiming that her supernatural creature is the more badass of the two. But the
spectacular stories the two editors have assembled make it very hard to choose between Team Zombie
and Team Unicorn.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Katniss Everdeen, the story's narrator, tells the tale of a dominating Capitol and the mistreated twelve
districts of Panem. Yearly, each district is forced to send a boy and a girl, called tributes, to fight to the death in their annual Hunger Games. Katniss' little sister Prim is selected for the Games, but Katniss takes her place, and finds herself thrusted into a whirlwind of violence, confusion, and domination as she struggles to survive.

Stranger with my Face by Lois Duncan
Have you ever been haunted by the feeling that someone is spying on you, lurking around your house
and yard, even entering your bedroom? Are your friends plotting against you when they say they've
seen you do things you know you haven't done? What's going on -- and does Laurie really want to find
out?

Gallows Hill by Lois Duncan
Role-playing takes on a terrifying cast when 17-year-old Sarah, who is posing as a fortune-teller for a
school fair, begins to see actual visions that can predict the future. Frightened, the other students brand her a witch, setting off a chain of events that mirror the centuries-old Salem witch trials in more ways than one.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Bridge to Terabithia is the story of fifth grader Jess Aarons, who becomes friends with his new
neighbor Leslie Burke after he loses a footrace to her at school. Leslie is a smart, talented, outgoing
tomboy, and Jess thinks highly of her. He himself is an artistic boy who, in the beginning of the novel,
is fearful, angry, and depressed. After meeting Leslie, Jess is transformed. He becomes courageous and learns to let go of his frustration.

The Giver by Lois Lowry
Jonas's world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear of pain. There are no
choices. Every person is assigned a role in the community. When Jonas turns 12 he is singled out to
receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and
pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back.

The Hunter's Moon by O.R Melling
Idealistic Findabhair and her cautious cousin Gwen have always shared a love of fantasy and hunted for a door into other worlds. The teens plan to spend their summer hitchhiking through Ireland, but when Findabhair is abducted from a barrow by the King of the Faeries himself, Gwen has to become selfreliant and overcome her fears in order to rescue her cousin. When she finds a gateway into the Faeries' world, she is unprepared for the beauty of their land, and for her cousin's decision to stay. Complicating the matter is Gwen's memory of the words from a dream: "I, too, was the Hunted and the Sacrificed." Fearing for her cousin's life, Gwen must take help in whatever form it comes to see Findabhair safely delivered from the Faerie lands.


As you can probably guess The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins was one of the top three books. However, after a class vote Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin won out (a better choice I think, this way the kids won't just go watch the movie in German!).

So this past week I have been making a list of activities for the kids to do. Frustratingly they have two weeks of Easter Break coming up, plus two weeks of ''Career Week''...which basically means they have four weeks of no English and no school! After that I only have about 4-5 weeks left at the school! (Time flies!!)

In an effort to make this post a bit smaller I will upload the activities into my next post.

Here is the website for the book... Although I only really recommend it for people who have read the book. Or as a help for teachers wanting to do this book in class.

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