Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie

Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick

This is a fast, serious, sarcastic, reassuring YA read. I'm serious. This is perfect for middle school. Even the format and layout is excellent. Arial-type font, lots of white space to help feel like you're flying through the pages. At the onset, the protagonist is easy to identify with. Steven Alper is an 8th grade boy grappling with his goals (drumming and Renee), girls (Renee and Annette), and his family. Steven's first person narration is well-mixed with sincere reflection and emotion and sarcasm and humor.

By the second chapter, Steven's five-year old brother, Jeffrey, has been diagnosed with leukemia. The story flies by as Steven relates how his family copes (in good ways and in bad) with the cancer. Steven withdraws, agonizes over his brother, and go through many other emotions as he tries to come to terms with how he should be handling this situation and his life. Through Steven's narration, the reader will also fall in love with his charming and brave little brother. The other characters are well-drawn, although we don't get a lot of insight into them; however, this is first-person narration.

This is an excellent, but quick read. If I give any more information, I'll be taking away a good bit of the story. I'll leave with a fun reflection from Steven.

We argued back and forth about this for a while. Initially, my mom was on my dad's side, but as the "discussion" (It's amazing - my parents call everything a discussion. If I were standing across the street, firing a bazooka at my mother, while my father was launching mortars back at me, and Jeffrey was charging down the driveway with a grenade in his teeth, my parents would say we should stop having this public "discussion.") ...

Grade: A

The Misfits

The Misfits by James Howe

These are our names.

Bobby.
Addie.
Joe.
Skeezie.

These are our names. But they are only names. They don't tell you who we are. We have other names, too. Names we have been called, names we have been given. We figured it out. Between us, we have a total of seventy-two names, other than the names you see here. These names we have been called since kindergarten. The names we remember, anyway.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.

Anybody who believes that has never been called a name.

The Misfits centers on the protagonist and narrator, Bobby Goodspeed, and his friends: Addie, Skeezie, and Joe. Each has grown up being picked on by classmates for being too fat, too smart, too bad, or too gay. When school election time rolls around, Addie wants to organize a third-party system for Paintbrush Falls Middle School. Despite her efforts, Addie's efforts fall short with the administration: she seems to have no real purpose for a third party. However, Bobby hits upon the idea of a "No-Name" Party. A party whose platform is to end name calling.

This narrative is set up in an interesting manner that took some slight getting used to. Chapters are narrated in first-person, present tense by Bobby Goodspeed, a delightful and articulate personality. Interspersed are chapters in transcript format, detailing the groups "forums" at a local diner. The "Gang of Five" as Bobby and his friends call themselves (five because it adds mystery) regularly meet on Fridays for their forums. Forums are where the friends discuss big and small issues: name calling, goals for the future, middle school justice, popularity, etc.

Bobby's insights are humorous and relate-able, but at times, too mature for a seventh grader. However, Bobby is also an avid reader and that probably can be accounted for when looking at his fabulous vocabulary. Each of the Gang of Five and other cast of characters adds a lot of flavor to the story line. One complaint that I have is that the story seemed to take a long time to really go anywhere. Addie's efforts to start various justice, freedom, or liberation third party systems almost lost my attention completely. Unfortunately, this seems to be about 1/3 of the book.

I read this book for school. Each 7th grader will need to read this book or Schooled by Korman. I'm trying to really reach some conclusions about the parallels between the two books that go beyond the superficial: school misfits, school elections, etc. I would say that the message from The Misfits feels more explicit and the outcomes more realistic. In Schooled, the protagonist, a hippie, home-schooled boy, enters public school and becomes the local hero. In The Misfits, the Gang of Five does find recognition, but it has a more believable outcome (and yet, still hopeful). In addition, it covers the realm of homosexuality, which is a subject that needs to be broached in middle school (imo). What I really enjoyed about Schooled was the multiple perspectives: from the bullied, to the bystander, the principal, etc. Schooled is a fun read: quick and easy. I think kids will connect more readily to it because the language is easier to follow. Despite the multiple perspectives, I think it is easier to comprehend than the narrative/transcript format. However, the lessons in it are sometimes overshadowed by the sheer unrealistic nature of the story. The Misfits is a more complex and challenging read, although still humorous, that has a more realistic lesson.

Grade: A-

Currently Reading: Nancie Atwell's The Reading Zone and Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie.

Required Reading

For Summer School, I must read the following:

The Red Badge of Courage
The Gift of the Magi
The Last Class: The Story of Little Alastian
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun
The Most Dangerous Game
The Lottery Ticket
The Cask of Amontillado

With the exception of "The Last Class" and "The Lottery Ticket," I've read all of these at some point. I wish "The Lottery Ticket" was really Jackson's "The Lottery," because everyone likes that story.

The Red Badge of Courage is going to be a painful read, but most kids like "The Gift of the Magi." The only issue is that they read that in 8th grade, so why read it for summer school in 9th? However, I'm going to also bring in Zwerger's lovely picture book of the story.

I taught Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" to my 7th graders, so I've got that covered, too.

Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" is a challenging read, but fun, and I'm going to get the graphic novel version to show them after the reading. Also, I wonder if The Simpsons have a version. I bet they do for "The Most Dangerous Game."