Ms Rush Reads

copyright date: January 1, 2021 primarily marketed for: middle grades The Greatest Superpower  by Alex Sanchez is a gem. I was in a bit of a reading slump until I picked up this book, thanks to NetGalley .  This middle grades book is about comic book loving Jorge who is navigating his parents' divorce and his first crush on a girl. Jorge's parents not only announce they are getting divorced, but his father also reveals to Jorge and his twin brother Cesar that she is transgender and wishes to live as her true self.  Although this announcement is a confusing surprise to Jorge, his love for his father ultimately trumps all. Cesar, however, is angry at their dad and works to prevent Jorge from sharing the truth with his friends.  In the midst of the changes in Jorge's family life, he and his friends are trying to invent a new superhero for a comic book contest. When Jorge blurts out the idea of the superpower to gender-shift, his friends jump on board.  Conversatio...

copyright date: February 2014 primarily marketed for: young adults (high school) I have been a fan of Lynne Ewing ’s Drive By for years.   It is a short, easy to read story about a boy whose older brother is gunned down in a drive by while they are walking home together.   At first, it seems to be a case of an innocent child in the wrong place at the wrong time.   That is, until the younger brother is approached about taking his older brother’s place in a gang.    It is a story filled with action and tough choices.   So, when I saw that Lynne Ewing’s new book The Lure , I immediately knew it would be one I would want to share.   Ewing gives us a hard core look at life in the inner city.   The Lure is the story of Blaise, a self-reliant teenage girl, living with her grandmother.   She has a rough history and often eats ketchup packets and sugar packets as meals to leave enough money for her grandmother t...

  copyright date: May 2013 primarily marketed for: Young Adults (high school) Have you ever read Looking for Alaska by John Green?   I never thought I would ever read another book that I could recommend as being just as good as Looking for Alaska .   Until I read Winger by Andrew Smith .   I laughed audibly at fictional characters while reading this book.   My heart ached for fictional characters while reading this book.   I had tears streaming down my face over fictional characters while reading this book.   It is a good book.   Great book.   Incredible book.   It is about a brilliant fourteen-year-old kid at a boarding school with sixteen-year-olds.   After getting into some cell-phone trouble, this self-proclaimed runt is thrust into living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troubled students.   The kind of troubled students who would love to squash a fourteen-year-old boy.  ...

copyright date: May 2011 primarily marketed for: young adults (high school) Shine by Lauren Myracle is one of those books I felt an itch to talk about as soon as I finished reading.   The story is that powerful, the craft that stunning, the characters that compelling.   It is a book that will surely linger in my mind for days to come. Ever since I took a summer literature class in Southern American Fiction, I have been in love with stories set in the South.   So, I am sure that element drew me further into what is already a captivating story.   Shine begins with a fictitious, yet chilling, newspaper article reporting the brutal beating of sixteen-year-old Patrick Truman, apparently driven by his homosexuality.   From that point on, while Patrick lies comatose in a hospital, the story becomes Cat’s.   Cat used to be one of Patrick’s closest friends, before a traumatic event in her own life caused her to quietly withdraw fr...

copyright date: May 2013 primarily marketed for: young adults (middle/high school) What a treat to find an unexpected sequel to a book I love!   Formerly Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham is the sequel to Shark Girl .   Both books are written in poetry form, which means each chapter(poem) uses sparse language to pack an emotional punch. Formerly Shark Girl tells what life is like for Jane now that over a year has passed since she lost most of her right arm in a shark attack.   Although she has already faced the initial struggle to heal and face life without the talent of her drawing hand, Jane’s struggles are not over.   She has to decide where to go to college, has to choose whether to study art or nursing, and has to make up for precious time in the dating scene that was lost while she focused on her physical recovery. The same thing that struck me when I first read Shark Girl struck me while reading this book—how real the chara...

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 (14 and up) Dying to Know You by Aidan Chambers was a book I couldn’t wait to read because of what I’d read about it.   Negative reviews said things about it being narrated by the voice of an older man, an eccentric author.   They said teens wouldn’t be able to relate to his voice.   I was sure that wouldn’t be true.   Positive reviews said things about what a powerful story the book told.   Having read the book, I have determined that it is definitely not the kind of story everyone would enjoy.   It is a very philosophical story.   If you are not an intellectual sort of reader, this would not be the book for you.   However, if you are the kind of person who wonders about his place in the world, about why people act the way they do, about his purpose in life, then the is most definitely the book for you.   You will be as charmed by Karl as I was...

copyright date: February 2010 primarily marketed for: intermediate and middle school readers (5 th -8 th ) A Mrs. Rush-Levine confession:   I had to wear headgear when I was in middle school (thankfully, not to school, but I did have to wear it overnight).   I am wondering if the fact that I feel like this is a book about my own youth might not be the reason I am madly in love with RainaTelgemeier ’s graphic text Smile.   Somehow, Smile made me see the humor in my own humiliating past.   Smile is an autobiographical story of the author as a young girl.   It is drawn in full-color comic strip style illustrations and tells the story of Raina’s dental woes, beginning when she knocks out a tooth in a nasty spill.   The initial damage causes a large gap in the front of her mouth and leads to multiple dental procedures.   The rest of the book continues to follow the story of perfecting her now imperfect smile at the ...