Life As We Knew It

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May 29th

After I finished my last post, I took a little time to play with the kids and then it was time to pick up the next book on my reading list.  This one, a Truman Nominee from 2008-2009, Life As We Knew It has an interesting cover with a giant moon on it.  Wondering what it was going to be about, somehow I forgot one of our best ways to learn this information - read the back cover.  Oh well, I started reading without this information and only finally turned the book over after about 50 or so pages into the book.

The back cover reads as follows:

"When a meteor hits the moon and knocks it closer in orbit to the earth, nothing will ever be the same.  Worldwide tidal waves.  Earthquakes.  Volcanic eruptions.  And that's just the beginning."

What this tells me is that I have jumped head first into the Science Fiction genre of a world after a disaster.  My first thoughts, this book has to be a cross between the movies Deep Impact (1998) and Armageddon (1998).  The more I read though, I learned that while this is quite similar, this gives us a first hand account from the point of view of a 16 year old girl named Miranda, as she writes about her family, friends, and neighbors and their experiences through the events after the night the moon gets hit by a meteor in her journal.


Something that I have noticed that plays out is Mom's views on the world around her and how they are changing as the story progresses.  Can you name some of those views and changes?

May 30th

Last night I must have read more than half the book between going to yoga and sleep.  The back of the book did mention something about not being able to put it down, its that or I just like to know the ending of any book that I start.  Anyway, after dropping my girls off at their respective schools, I took the morning off from going to the gym and continued reading Life As We Knew It.

Life has not gotten any easier for Miranda and her family as many people have left their small hometown for a "better" life.  I only say that because better in this book is an unknown.  It is something that we the readers and our protagonist, Miranda, can only imagine.

Can you imagine what life would be like without contact to anyone beyond Springfield?

Also, did you notice how I wrote these as journal entries?  That is because this the way the story is written, as if we are reading Miranda's journal of accounts from beginning to end.  While I was reading this, it made me start thinking of events in my life as journal entries, so I wondered if it would cause my students to think the same way.  I even thought it would be interesting to see if those who read this book would do what Miranda did and write in a journal each night about what happened to them throughout the day.  Hmmm...that would be some interesting reading.

Some notes on the author.

Susan Beth Pfeffer is the author of over 70 young adult fiction books.  Currently (as I am writing this) she is working on the rewrites to her next book, Shades of the Moon.  I am a little perplexed about this next book as Wikipedia said that it was scraped in February, but according to her blog post on May 29th (http://susanbethpfeffer.blogspot.com/), she was working on the final rewrites.  I guess I will have to do a little more research.  

If you like this book, here are the other books currently in the series:

• The Dead and the Gone (2008)
• This World We Live In (2010)
• Shades of the Moon (2012?)

I'm trying not to rush out and buy the other two books, but as I said earlier, I really like to know how things end up.  So I guess you will have to ask if I was able to help myself or not. :)

The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Eighth Grade Bites

 

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My first book, it would have to be about a vampire wouldn't it.  Oh, there is nothing wrong with books about vampires.  In fact, I love the Supernatural Genre.  Going all the way back to when I was in Middle School, so I guess this would be a good choice for my first book of the summer.

A little synopsis (short summary of the story) of The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Eight Grade Bites.  This is the first book in a series of 5 books featuring a young half human/half vampire whose parents were killed three years prior to when the story takes place.  Vladimir lives with his "Aunt" Nelly who is attempting to make life as normal as possible for the young vampire.  While he attends Middle School with his best friend Henry, he still feels out of place and ostracized by most of his classmates and principal.  As Vladimir struggles to find his place, his favorite teacher goes missing and the substitute that has been chosen to replace him, has an odd way of teaching English.  It will be a challenge for Vladimir to not only survive eight grade English, but someone from his dead father's past as well...

Just a little side note, I am a fast reader, so this book took me about a day to read - I do not expect my students to read this fast, but if they do, I will have plenty of other books for them to read.

Back on topic!  This was an interesting book.  As I said earlier, I enjoy the supernatural genre so I liked how this story played out.  The writer does not try to incorporate all the "usual" vampire lore.  Our young protagonist is part human/part vampire, so not all the usual rules should apply.  The antagonist, a vampire by the name of D'Ablo is "seen" only in short segments until we are really introduced to him more than half way into the book, which does help to setup some suspense - who is this guy and why is he looking for Vlad?  Since I don't want to give anything away, I will leave that up to my students to discuss. :) We also meet some interesting support for our protagonist in his "Aunt" Nelly (I say this because she isn't really his Aunt, but you do learn a little about her and how she came to be Vlad's guardian) and his best friend Henry.  Both of these characters are well aware of Vlad's interesting condition and accept him for who he is.  We will also learn a little about Vlad's father through his journal, but not much about his mother.  I hope that they explore that more in other books.

Speaking of other books, here is a list of the other books in the series, as well as the spin off series:

• Ninth Grade Slays (April 2008)
• Tenth Grade Bleeds (July 2009)
• Eleventh Grade Burns (February 2010)
• Twelfth Grade Kills (September 2010)

The Slayer Chronicles

• First Kill (September 2011)
• Second Chance (Coming October 2012)

The author of these stories is Heather Brewer, a Missouri native, who likes to call her fans Minions.  Her website is www.heatherbrewer.com and I highly suggest you take a look around if you have a chance.  She blogs about up and coming stories and even gives things away to her minions. :)  She also does book signings here in Missouri and since it looks like she will be releasing a new book in the near future, I would expect that she will be doing another signing soon.

Also, I found that there is an App for this series on iTunes.  Here is a little info on that:
"Based on the internationally bestselling book series The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod by Heather Brewer, this fun, fast-paced, retro-style game lets you battle your way through the halls of high school, scoring points and refueling with blood bags and blood-filled PB&J sandwiches. But you've got way bigger problems than a second period calculus test—Slayers are haunting the halls and they're out to get you! Do you have what it takes to make it out of high school alive?" - iTunes

So check out the book, let me know what you think, and maybe we can gets some minion buttons for ourselves!

Starting this fall I will be a student teacher at Study Middle School.  My first assignment - 6th grade Reading with Mrs. Wicklund.  In order to prepare myself for this exciting journey, I will be spending most of my summer reading books off the Truman Nominee lists for last year and this year.  I do this because I will be expecting my students to read these same books and I would like to have some knowledge of the books so that I can sit down and discuss these books with them, just in case they have questions or would like some guidance on these books.

So my plan is to read as many of these books as possible and write my thoughts and any information that I  find out about these books in my blog.  Maybe my thoughts can be used to help my students determine what they want to read.