A good chapter book is hard to find. This, the reader's first introduction to long-form books, must have a quality mixture of entertainment, depth and reading challenge. If it is too wordy or deep, the young reader will give up. If it is too shallow or cheesy, he or she will lose interest just as easily.
Here are three I just finished reading that I think do a pretty decent job of finding the Chapter Book sweet spot:
Bayars, Betsy. Keeper of the Doves. Puffin, 2004
ISBN 0142400637
It is not an easy task for an author to write a story dealing with heavy subjects (family discord, mental illness, death) that is aimed at 7 to 10 year olds. However, Bayars does an excellent job of not only covering them, but embracing them as an intricate and necessary part of the story. What I loved about this book was that it came from the point of view of a child, as she would see it. Life just seems to come at her from nowhere (family members just show up. Mom is suddenly pregnant and about to give birth. Discoveries about her own story, told through other people...) and yet she has a playfulness and overall contentment throughout.
Amie, the protagonist, has a way with words, and sees the world through her poems. This gives her a special connection to her father and grandmother, and allows her to notice many things others miss. Especially when it comes to the strange old man who lives on their property and takes care of the doves (whom her twin sisters are afraid of, and make up wild tales about).
This story held my interest, and was not overly heavy. It would also be a great story to read aloud to younger readers who are not quite ready to tackle a Chapter Book on their own.
Gannett, Ruth Stiles. My Father's Dragon. Illustrated by Ruth Chrisman Gannett. CreateSpage, 2010 (originally published in 1948) ISBN 1453782052
As an adult, this tale was a tad boring due to the predictive, redundant nature of the story. However, this redundancy is also a useful tool when creating a Chapter Book. Predictability is comforting, and often helps beginner readers push through when the text may seem long.
Still, the characters were fun and interesting. A young boy ("my father" as the narrator of the story begins) finds a talking cat. His mother hates the cat and throws it out, but feeling sorry for the cat, the boy befriends him and agrees to go on an adventure on the cat's behalf in order to save a dragon who is enslaved by talking animals on a wild island.
The creatures are creative, and as the boy meets set after set of them, each time he is afforded the opportunity to use his cleverness to outsmart them, and eventually save the dragon. The illustrations definitely help the story along, as some parts are a bit tough to grasp, and they also provide a bit of comic relief.
Evans, Douglas. Apple Island, or The Truth About
Teachers. Illustrated by Larry Di Fiori. Scholastic, 2002
ASIN: B000VHE3CI
I loved this book! I found it highly entertaining, funny, and extremely clever.
As a kid, did you ever think that there was no possible way your teachers were ever kids, or did normal things outside of school? They practically lived at school, right? And furthermore, they never seemed to age. Some were crabby, and some were nice, and that was that.
In The Truth About Teachers, we discover that this is exactly right! Teachers come from an island, where half live on the nice side and half live on the crabby side. The island is full of school-isms: Chalk Mountain, "Shhhh" Canyon, Office Palace, where Prince Apple ("principal") lives, a Big Book Building where Miss Library rides her motorized sliding ladder from section to section and never sees the light of day...everything that defines school was created and exists on Apple Island.
When a group of students are kidnapped to this island, it is up to one of them to discover the truth about teachers and find a way to bring them all home. A truly fun read.
Henkes, Kevin. Olive's Ocean. Scholastic, 2003. ISBN: 0-439-70194-5
This book has flow. From beginning to end it feels seamless. The short, two to five page chapters are not abrupt or disjointed, and the heart of the story is carried throughout.
I often enjoy the Newberry Honor Books even more than the Newberry Award winners, and this story is no exception.
Olive was a young girl who was shy and often teased in school. She had no friends and spent many hours writing, and dreaming of becoming an author. Olive was tragically killed in an accident while riding her bicycle.
Martha barely knew Olive. Martha barely knows herself. She is simply trying to survive in junior high, with the discovery of her attraction to boys and the propensity for embarrassing situations that make the world feel as if it is about to end. Martha really only thinks about herself...that is, until Olive's mother hands Martha a note that Olive wrote about her, before she died.
This coming-of-age story follows a summer family vacation to the ocean where Martha learns about death, living, boys, and how one can have the best moment of their lives and worst moment all in the same day. It is not overly dramatic, nor does it shy away from difficult themes or topics.
I found myself laughing with, pitying, and growing alongside Martha. Told through the lens of a tween, Henkes reminds all of us what it was like to be 12.
NOTE: For a similar and just-as-marvelous story of growing and grieving, read Perch, Mrs. Sackets, and Crow's Nest by Karen Pavilicin (Alma Little, 2007. ISBN: 9781934617007).
Flinn, Alex. Beastly. HarperTeen, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-06-087416-2
There's a reason the Beauty and the Beast tale as been retold so many times. The basic concept, the moral of the story, is a truth that so many of us wrestle with: "true beauty is found within", "beauty is not skin deep", "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"...
Flinn takes a new twist on an old story. Just as Suzanne Collins had a young boy fall through a hole in New York City in Greggor the Overlander (a twist on Alice in Wonderland), Flinn writes about the son of a celebrity who angers a witch disguised as his classmate. Also in New York City. (What is it about NYC that is so magical? See the entry on Wondrous Strange for more details.)
But it is not only the fact that Flinn made the Beast the protagonist that I appreciated about this retelling. I also enjoyed her fun, humorous perception and the fact that her writing was most obviously aimed at tweens. The first pages of the book depict a session of an online chat support group called "Unexpected Changes" that involves such characters as SilentMaid (we know her as the Little Mermaid), and Froggie (whom we know as the Frog Prince). These characters are not major players, but simply add comic relief, setting the tone for this fable about ordinary, modern-day teens who undergo extreme circumstances.
There is nothing new about this story, but the way Flinn tells it is refreshing. We can clearly see the ego, shallowness and lack of value for humanity in our beast, Kyle. The high school setting is wrought with typical teenage drama, cliques, and stereotypes. Our heroine, Lindy, is described as plain, with crooked teeth and unremarkable personality traits. Furthermore, Kyle's transformation is slow - about a year - and he must learn, by his forced solitude, to appreciate people, life, and true love.
I smiled at the end of this book. It was a pleasant escape with the familiarity of an old tale.
Since the previous post about classics tended towards books tween girls would love (since I was drawing from my own experiences as a tween, my mind naturally went there), I wanted to make to make sure to include some resources for male tweens.
Of course, there is always the resource website Guys Read (see previous post). On the site is a list of "Classics that Actually Hold Up." I would not necessarily agree that all these titles are classics in the true sense of the word, but they are good stories exhibiting the traits of classics, recommended by guys, to guys:
http://www.guysread.com/books/categories/category/classics_that_actually_hold_up
Another website I found enjoyable was Unshelved Answers and their online dialogue/wiki about "Books Teen Boys Would Read (If They Actually Knew They Existed)". Although, once again, many of these are not classics, the classics WILL indelibly pop up from time to time, simply because the stories are great.
http://answers.unshelved.com/questions/1434/books-teen-boys-would-read-if-they-knew-they-existed
Do you remember the feeling of crossing over the boundary of required reading and reading for pleasure? Do you remember what it was like to sneak a flashlight to your room so that your parents wouldn't know you were up late with an enthralling piece of fiction (in my case, it was sneaking to the living room, sitting behind my Dad's recliner and reading by nightlight)? What was the first actual book that caused you to stay put for hours on end until at last it came to completion, and then left you with an empty feeling when you could no longer anticipate returning to it for more of the story?
I'm sure the book titles are different for all of us, but most fluent readers DO have at least one title. My goal with this blog is to introduce a myriad of titles that will hopefully draw out the avid reader in some of us. My hope is to save you the time and money judging a book by it's cover, and instead considering my own humble opinion as a guide.
And it won't be just books. I hope to build a database of audio, visual and other types of written material for those important years...the tweens...when learning a love of reading beyond "See Jane Run" is so vital. Feel free to read my opinions, add your own, agree and disagree. The more communication we have, the better understanding we will have of the depth and width of each entry.
Enjoy!
