Ms Rush Reads

copyright date: January 2014 primarily marketed for:   young adults “Leaning against my father, the sadness finally broke open inside me, hollowing out my heart and leaving me bleeding.   My feet felt rooted in the dirt.   There were more than two bodies buried here.   Pieces of me that I didn’t even know were under the ground.   Pieces of Dad, too.” -from The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson is undoubtedly her most powerful work so far.   And that is saying a lot.   Somehow this story managed to charm me, break my heart, coax me to giggle, steal my breath away, and fill me with hope.   From the moment I began reading, I allowed little else to interfere with my path to the last page.   Hayley has traveled the country with her war veteran truck driver father for years before finally settling down to attend high school and lead a ‘normal’ ...

copyright date: June 2011 primarily marketed for: intermediate readers (5 th grade and up) Three things I cannot get enough of are: 1.      books that take place during WWII (there is so much to know about this important time in our history that these stories never get old) 2.      books told from multiple viewpoints (I love the layers of story this reveals) AND 3.      books about elephants (I am in love with these emotional creatures) An Elephant in the Garden by Michael Morpurgo (author of War Horse ) satisfies my craving for all three kinds of books.  The story is initially told from the point of view of a nurse whose son comes with her to work at an assisted living facility.  Her son, Karl, bounds into the room of one of her most challenging patients.  Upon meeting Karl, the patient begins talking about an elephant that lived in her garden when she was a young girl.  ...

copyright date: February 2012 primarily marketed for: young adults (12 and up) Somebody Please Tell Me Who I Am by Harry Mazer and Peter Lerangis is not your typical war book.   It tells the story of Ben Bright, high school drama star and promising student.   Ben decides to enlist in the army, but keeps it a secret from everyone with whom he is close to avoid being talked out of it.   He is aware of the risks, but he deeply feels a need to serve his country, to do something big.   The book is divided into three sections: Before, During, and After.   Based on the title and the fact that the section titled ‘After’ is the lengthiest of the three sections, it is clear that things don’t go smoothly for Ben in the army.   He is injured and most of the book focuses on the impact of that injury on his family, his friends, and his life after military service. This is not a book with a political message against war, like it might seem to ...

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:   October 2011 primarily marketed for: young adults (high school) Everybody Sees the Ants by A. S. King is unlike anything else I have ever read.   Lucky’s story has lingered in my mind long after I put the book down.   {The ants cheer.} Lucky Linderman has been ruthlessly bullied by Nader McMillan since second grade.   Needless to say, high school is not a pleasant experience for him.   His mother is a squid; she swims laps to escape reality.   His father is a turtle; he works long hours at his restaurant to escape reality.     His grandfather fought in the Vietnam War and never returned.   He is officially listed as Prisoner of War/Missing in Action.   When Lucky’s grandmother died, she charged him with the duty of continuing the search for his missing grandfather.   The book covers a summer in Lucky’s life when the bullying reaches a point where it can no longer b...

I had to post these two books together.  They are both about Vietnamese refugees during the Vietnam War.   (You know I love a good war story.)  They are both told in verse.  And they are both REALLY good.  ALL THE BROKEN PIECES by ann e. burg copyright date: April 2009 primarily marketed for: grades 6-8 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award Nominee 2012 Tells the story of a 12 year-old-boy whose mother is Vietnamese and father is an American soldier that never returns.  When life becomes too dangerous in Vietnam, Matt’s mother seizes the opportunity to send him to America as soon as she is given the chance.  Matt is adopted by a loving couple, but that doesn’t mean the memories of a war-torn Vietnam and the family he left behind don’t haunt him. Although it is not likely all the experiences would happen to the same kid, it sure makes for a moving story.  Matt not only battles his past, but he also struggles with bullies on h...