DREAMING A NEW DREAM

Jessica loves running.  There is nothing that makes her feel more empowered or more alive.  Her life revolves around running.  Running on the track, in her neighborhood, with her dog.  All of her friends run track with her at her High School.  Then one day, on the way home from a track meet, the bus gets into a terrible accident and Jessica loses her leg below her knee.  She doesn’t know what to do.  She feels like she’s lost everything her life was about.  Everything her life was heading towards.  And then, she gets her first prosthetic leg.  It’s ugly and hard to use, but with support from her family, friends, and team, Jessica finds it within herself to become the runner she was and will be again.  Experience the journey of searching inside yourself for strength you never knew you had and fulfilling dreams you never thought possible.

The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen is a great book for sports lovers and realistic fiction lovers in Grades 7 and up.

WEDNESDAY WARS

A book review by Mr. B. From the Grandview Branch: 

Holling HoodHood is the only 7^th grader in Camillo Junior High School not excused on Wednesday afternoons for religious lessons. Presbyterians don’t have special training, so he’s assigned to an extra hour every Wednesday afternoon with his English teacher, Mrs. Baker.  In The Wednesday Wars, Gary D. Schmidt documents those awkward, silly, touching, growing afternoons, from chalk dust powdered cream puffs to escaped rats, to reading Shakespeare together, and an unfortunate life lesson at the hands of Mickey Mantle. We also meet Holling’s ambitious father, budding Flower Child sister, and housewife Mom.

In this subtle historical, we see the Stateside 1967-1968 turmoil surrounding the Viet Nam War and its effects on the families it touched as well as the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Obviously in touch with his inner seventh grader, Mr. Schmidt has written a funny, tender, immensely readable historical suitable for seventh graders and their parents.

Reading Level: 5+ / Age level: 11+