Ms Rush Reads

copyright date: August 3, 2021 primarily marketed for: middle grades I have been a fan of Jerry Spinelli's work for a long time, and  Dead Wednesday  did not disappoint. The narrative style in this one struck as me being similar to Loser, but not just because of the third-person point of view. The protagonist of Dead Wednesday , Worm Tarnauer, will tug at your heartstrings the same Zinkoff did in Loser. Dead Wednesday is a tradition the whole town gets behind in an attempt to help 8th graders avoid potentially fatal decisions as they head into their high school years. Each 8th grader is assigned the name of a local teen who passed away due to avoidable reasons (mostly accidents involving risky behavior). Students were black t-shirts and are ignored by others for the day to encourage quiet reflection. However, for most 8th graders being ignored by adults is more of an invitation to act out than to turn inward.  Worm approaches the day expecting to celebrate his freedom in ...

copyright date: 1991 primarily marketed for: young adults (8 th grade up) If you like A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer and think What Daddy Did by Neal Shusterman is going to be another true story to indulge your desire to read about the human spirit’s will to endure, think again.    What Daddy Did is so much more.   So much bigger. I started reading it one night before falling asleep.   Two hours later I still hadn’t closed the book and I don’t remember having taken a breath.   I awoke the next morning still within the powerful grip of this story. What Daddy Did is the fictionalized true story of young boy who Shusterman calls Preston Scott.   When Preston was only eleven years old, his Mom was shot in the back of the head and murdered by his father after marital struggles tore their family apart.   Although the book tells about the events leading up to the murder as well as the moments during which the news un...

BOUNCE by Natasha Friend copyright date: August 2007 primarily marketed for: young adult (7th grade up) Bounce by Natasha Friend has sat on my shelf for years.   Because it is nominated for the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award this February, I finally picked it up and cracked open the cover.   And, boy, am I glad I did.   In its pages I not only discovered reasons to laugh and reasons to get choked up, I also discovered a new favorite author.   Since reading Bounce , I have been on a mission to read all of Natasha Friend’s books. Bounce is the story of a girl named Evyn , who, although her mother died years ago, is not ready to see her father move on.   While she and her brother were away at camp for the summer, her father has met a new woman and plans to marry her.   To make matters worse, Evyn’s future stepmom has 6 children for Evyn and her brother to embrace as siblings.   With hilarious scenes th...

copyright date: September 2012 primarily marketed for: young adults I love a good murder mystery.   Confessions of a Murder Suspect by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro is just that. Although the writing will not amaze you with literary quality, the story is well structured and manages to wrap itself up satisfactorily while still leaving loose ends enough to leave readers yearning for the next in what is sure to become a series. Tandy, short for Tandoori, Angel is one of four children left behind after her parents, the wealthy and well-known Malcolm and Maud Angel, are murdered.   There are no signs of forced entry and nobody heard any noise.   The factual evidence leaves only Tandy, her three brothers, and her mother’s live-in assistant as suspects.   The story is told in Tandy’s voice, including chapters titled ‘Confession’ that seem to let readers deeper into her story by revealing background.   Throughout the book...

copyright date: June 2012 primarily marketed for: young adults (14 and up) “We spent the rest of the evening together, hanging out in my room, my mother telling my father and me the stories behind each and every one of those worn swatches of fabric.   As I listened, losing myself in each little tale, I realized that the quilt would not have been the same, not nearly as beautiful, without the sadness.   The robin’s egg blue patch from a baby blanket that had belonged to my uncle who died when he was two, the purple satin ribbon found after a tornado destroyed my grandparents’ first home, the black silk from the dress my grandma wore to her father’s funeral—those slices of life, they were just as important as the rest.” -a taste of the amazing book One Moment by Kristina McBride Thanks to my friend Ruth , I am a Kristina McBride junkie.   After reading her amazing first novel, The Tension of Opposites , I was excited to hear she had ...

copyright date: April 2012 primarily marketed for: young adults (high school) I’m just going to put this out there:  I like books about death.  I didn’t know this about myself as a reader until my students this year pointed out how many of the books I booktalk (basically all of them) involve someone who died or someone who is dying. I am not sure if that is just a me thing, or if that is a common thread in books since it is such a major part of life and conflict.  I’d like to think it is the latter. At any rate, I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga , is obviously my kind of book—it is quality literature with sophisticated vocabulary, and it is about death.  Jasper Dent, known as Jazz, is a teenager who is struggling to overcome the odds, to say the least.  His father, Billy Cornelius Dent, is the most infamous serial killer, with victims totaling triple digits.  Since his father’s arrest, Jazz has had to care for his grandmother ...

copyright date: May 2012 primarily marketed for: middle school (age 10 and up) Everything you have heard about this book is true.  It is one of those books that will find its way into your heart and nestle in for a good long while. See You at Harry’s by Jo Knowles is filled with endearing characters far beyond the protagonist: twelve-year-old Fern.  Fern’s family is made up of a (much) younger brother Charlie, (who only pronounces his /r/ sound when calling Fern’s name), an older brother Holden (who is struggling with his own identity), an older sister Sara (who wears her hair in dreadlocks and torments her siblings as much as she adores them), a mother (who is juggling attending to her husband’s passion for the family business and a house full of children with varying needs), and a father (whose love of his restaurant often comes at the cost of family embarrassment).  The story largely takes place at Harry’s, the family restaurant, which hosts...

copyright date: May 2012 primarily marketed for: young adults (14 and up) Kekla Magoon is the amazing author who won me over with The Rock and the River (historical fiction) and captured my heart with Camo Girl (contemporary realistic fiction).  I have been waiting impatiently for her latest book 37 Things I Love to be released.  Did you know she will be our visiting author for the 2012-2013 school year?  I. Can’t. Wait. 37 Things I Love has been described as Magoon’s first book that is really meant for a high school audience.  I agree.  Although, I think mature 8 th grade readers will also appreciate this story. High school sophomore Ellis is struggling to remain positive in the face of some major challenges.  Her father is on life support, putting strain on her relationship with her mother, and her best friend is becoming increasingly self-centered and self-destructive.  With little support around her, Ellis turns to a ...

copyright date: September 2011 (2010 in UK) primarily marketed for: intermediate readers (5 th grade and up) Growing up, I was familiar with Roddy Doyle .  My sister read his books for grown-ups and convinced me to watch a couple of her favorite movies, which were based on those books.  Years ago, I discovered his hilariously clever book for younger readers, The Giggler Treatment , a story about creatures called Gigglers who place dog poop in the paths of adults who’ve done wrong.  So, when I saw he had a new book out for young readers, I couldn’t wait to read it.  A Greyhound of a Girl is a book unlike any other I’ve read.  Roddy Doyle is a genius.  Life is a bit of a struggle for the protagonist, twelve-year-old Mary O’Hara.  Her granny is dying and she lost her best friend when her family moved away.  Now, she has to walk home down the hill from the bus stop alone before heading home to join her mother on a visi...

copyright date: May 2010 primarily marketed for:   young adults (high school) Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler is one of those books I wish I would have had when I was in high school.  This is what I would’ve liked to have read then.  I picked it up after reading a letter-essay about the book by one of Nancie Atwell ’s students.  The excerpt she included showed the realism of the friendship between Anna and Frankie.  It was humorous and the dialogue felt like conversations I could’ve had with my high school best friend. I had no idea how serious the book is, too.  Anna and Frankie have always been best friends.  They grew up together and were part of a trio of best friends that included Frankie’s brother Matt.  It was a relationship they all trusted and relied on. That is, until Anna’s fifteenth birthday when everything changed.  That was the day Matt and Anna finally admitted to each other that they had stron...

copyright date: February 2012 primarily marketed for: (a mature) 12 and up Ever wonder what becomes of the broken hearted?   Read the Catastrophic History of You and Me by Jess Rothenberg to find out.   Aubrie, or Brie as she referred to by friends, heard the words she never wanted to hear from her boyfriend: I don’t love you.   Moments later she was dead.   Her heart had literally split in two.   She died of acute broken heart syndrome.   Her story picks up after Brie’s death and follows her journey towards acceptance and, ultimately, peace.   Along the way, she meets a host of interesting characters—including Patrick, her sarcastic guide, who looks like he is ready to attend a costume party dressed as Tom Cruise from Top Gun .   Brie also learns more than she ever thought she might about her family, her ex-boyfriend and the best friends she left behind.   She even discovers she might not be the Brie she always tho...

copyright date: May 2012 primarily marketed for:  young adults (14 and up) I could probably start and end this review with: THIS IS THE SEQUEL TO DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth, because if you read Divergent , of course you want to read this next installment in the trilogy.  The sequel to Divergent is out.  Enough said.  Now you want to read it.   But I just can’t read a book this good without, well, blogging about it! I read LOTS of books between the moment I finished Divergent and the moment I got my hands on Insurgent.   However, it only took seconds for the details of the first book to come flooding back to me as I read the sequel.  Plus, Roth included helpful reminders about key character points (and there are a lot of characters to keep track of) to make catching up even easier.  In fact, other than a temporary (but crucial) mix-up between the characters of Johanna and Jeanine, I had no trouble keeping everybody stra...

copyright date: February 2011 primarily marketed for: intermediate readers (grades 4-6) Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LeFleur is nominated for the 2013 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award in the state of Illinois.  I can see why.  This is one of those stories that is good for the soul, and the craft employed to tell it is just as nourishing.  At the start of the book, Aubrey is home alone.  She keeps referring to her mother as if she will be coming home.  However, it doesn’t take long for readers to figure out that her mother is not coming back.  At first, Aubrey tries to hide her mother’s disappearance in an effort to protect her.  Eventually, though, she is discovered and is taken to live to with her grandmother while her mother is located.  Life with Aubrey’s grandmother is not smooth sailing for Aubrey.  She is still mourning the loss of her younger sister and her father in a car accident.  She needs her ab...

copyright date: 2009 primarily marketed for: 8 th grade and up I am fascinated by books featuring a character who is already dead ( The Lovely Bones , The Afterlife , The Sledding Hill , Everlost , Elsewhere , Heaven Looks A Lot Like the Mall to name a few of my favorites).   That’s why I picked up this one.   The Everafter tells the story of the immediate afterlife of Madison Stanton.   Somehow the author is able to explain her version of being suspended in nothingness so that as a read I could almost feel what Madison felt, or rather what she experienced since she is no longer capable of feeling.   While floating, existing, in the everafter, Madison encounters objects she lost in life.   The objects appear to her in the form of x-ray-like images (like the orchids on the cover).  By touching these objects, she is transported back to certain moments from her life.   As she visits, she experiments to figure out the rules of her new state ...