Link up with Jen at TeachMentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders. and Sheila at Book Journeys. Come visit, and tweet at #IMWAYR. Thanks to Jen, Kellee, and Ricki for hosting!
This first book was in the top ten of the best fiction books of 2013, thus meeting the award challenge from Myra, Iphigene and Fats at the blog, Gathering Books.
The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, The Blue
Death, And A Boy Called Eel -
written by Deborah Hopkinson
Deborah Hopkinson has interwoven
her story of Eel, a thirteen-year-old homeless boy, a “riverfinder”, into the
true story of Dr. John Snow’s discovery in the mid 1800’s that cholera is a
water-borne disease. It is a middle-grade book and the plot events happening to
the young people in the story seems fanciful, yet I enjoyed it as it also told
of this terrible time when most people thought the “blue death” came from air,
the horrible miasma from unclean and close living, mostly in poorer areas of
big cities. “Riverfinders” were both adults and children on the streets, smelly
and filthy because they earned what pennies they could by going through the
muck by the river to find the few things, like pieces of coal, they could
sell. They slept where they found a
place that seemed safe; earned it or fought for it. What a life! Eel’s life
took different turns in the story. Luckily for him, he had gone to school for a
while before both his parents died. He knew how to read and write! In this
story, he ends up working as Dr. Snow’s assistant, and it turns out to be
helpful to Dr. Snow and to Eel’s life. You’ll need to read the book to discover
more about London at this time, and the brief few days when cholera struck and
killed over 600 people. Middle grade students will enjoy the intrigue and the
setting very much.
Goodbye Stranger - written by Rebecca Stead
Thanks to Net Galley for allowing me to read this book before the actual publication, August 5th! As
I think about how to review this book by Rebecca Stead, I first wonder about
the title of multiple meanings. Can it be that Stead has written a book that as
the reader reads, the characters are no longer strangers, to the reader, to
their friends (and frenemies, too)
and most important, to themselves. It’s definitely a growing up book, with
alternating voices of Bridge and Sherm as well as a stranger who jumps in once
in a while with her (his?) own adventure. We don’t discover the ‘who’ until
almost the end. All the parts of growing up today are there, like social media
problems; and quite a bit is there that has always been, young teen friends
changing in different ways, divorce adding to some problems and finding out
what kind of person one is adding to other challenges. It’s a mixed-up story
like all of Stead’s books, compelling because one is lead on by the story
structure of mystery and the authentic voices of the characters, growing up
with friends, leaving old friends behind. One voice asks: “Is the new
you the stranger? Or is the stranger the person you leave behind?”
