Twilight is a book that follows Isabella (Bella) Swan as she moves from her mother’s home in Arizona to her father’s home in Forks, Washington. Bella is an introverted, clumsy high school junior, and she dreads the cold and dreary weather that awaits her.

When she moves to Forks she makes friends quickly, because she is the exciting ‘new girl’. She soon meets the Cullens, and after a strange meeting with Edward Cullen, she begins to wonder about this interesting, exotic family. Her questions continue to grow as Edward saves her life and continues to exhibit a number of strange behaviors. She soon finds that the Cullens are a coven of ‘vegetarian’ vampires, and an unconventional romance soon develops between she and Edward, as they soon find that they didn’t know what living was until they found one another. Bella continues to be led further and further into the world of vampire culture, and her relationship with Edward deepens.

Hanging out with vampires doesn’t come without certain dangers, however, and the Cullens soon encounter a rogue coven of vampires that has been killing people in the surrounding towns. They threaten Bella and a race ensues to keep Bella safe from James, the tracking vampire.

This is an extremely fun novel, and while it isn’t necessarily extremely well written, it would be a great read for any middle or high school student. I wouldn’t teach it extensively in the classroom, but I would use it as a tool to get students interested in reading. I think it could be a useful book for a fun reading circle unit that could entice students to start reading for fun and develop close reading skills in students.

Capricorn, evil and stuck in the real world, kidnaps Mo and forces him to read treasure out of books. However, it is not an exact science and Mo tends to read other characters out of the books, including Farid from One Thousand and One Nights. Mo escapes and tried to find the author of Inkheart in order to read his wife back out of the story. The rest of the book becomes a search for Meggie’s mother and a race for their own lives.

This book playfully touches upon characters from various genres, introducing readers to stories they may not have heard of before. I would strongly suggest this book for 6-8^th grades, though I have known high school students who still found it enjoyable. There is also a movie version of the story now featuring Brendon Fraser. They made some significant changes, so it would be interesting to have students do a compare and contrast activity, asking them to choose which version they liked better. Additionally, for students who enjoy the story, it is part one of a trilogy.

I believe this is a great novel to read with students in 8th – 10th grade because it is a fairly manageable read with great philosophical questions about love, dreams, and finding one’s Personal Legend. This book was used in an English class at my high school, and students really engaged with the character of Santiago because they could personally relate to the character. They all debated about whether or not they would have listened to the gypsy and supposed king, leaving their life behind to travel to Egypt in the hopes of a undetermined treasure.

I also enjoy this book greatly because of the setting; most students do not get to read books that take place in Spain and Africa, making it a great book to discuss historical and cultural factors in that area of the world. For example, readers meet an Alchemist during Santiago’s journey, a term and position most students would not probably understand. The book was originally written in Portuguese, but the translation is highly respected. I would definitely recommend reading this somewhat fantastical, intriguing story about dreams and finding your true path.

Written in a matter of fact and poignantly poetic voice, Mr. Wiesel’s account will return to you in your dreams and walk with you throughout many days, even after the back cover is closed.  The words he lays upon paper cry out towards apathy and challenge every reader to assess and reflect upon the days they’ve spent idle in their thoughts, when their hands and mind should have been doing something.

The story ends with Mr. Wiesel’s liberation from Buchenwald.  He lost his entire family and was reduced to the sight of a corpse.  The last written words in his account reads: “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.  The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me”

Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, Steve is thrown in jail as a murder accomplice.  While awaiting the verdict of his sentence, he writes the story of his experience as a screenplay to a movie.  The screenplay  includes camera angles and stage directions that act as the novel’s narrator.  Steve also journals about his emotions and fears which is included in the story’s text.  Throughout the novel, Steve is faced with many uncertainties and reflects upon his life before he entered through the steel hardened, jail doors.

Before entering jail, Steve was acquainted with a few young men that were living the street life.  Though he grew up in a good family, his acquaintances do some things that Steve doesn’t agree with.   Eventually, those acquaintances are what lead him to jail.  Steve claims innocence, but the men that commit the robbery and murder of the drug store clerk are the same acquaintances Steve knows.  Will he become like them, now that he’s in jail?  Steve opens his story with a journal entry:

“Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie.  It is a strange movie with no plot and no beginning.  The movie is in black and white, and grainy.  Sometimes the camera moves in so close that you can’t tell what is going on and you just listen to the sounds and guess.  I have seen movies of prisons but never one like this.  This is not a movie about bars and locked doors.  It is about being alone when you are not really alone and about being scared all the time.”

His only way out is the jury conviction, but even if he is innocent, how will people view him if he is freed?

Though the books are not chronological sequels to each other (i.e. each following in direct succession), they are loosely based upon one another. The interesting idea behind the three books as a whole is they individually stand as complete stories, but certain characters overlap between all three. Essentially the books are like a pull apart Twizzler, where each strand can be separate from the other but they all pull from the same piece of licorice.

The Giver: The story line follows a character named Jonas, who is a young boy that will become a twelve through a ritualistic ceremony that acknowledges when adolescents pass a certain year in the community. This means that Jonas will be passing his 12th year and will receive is apprentice training to begin learning his role in the society. However, Jonas becomes the “Giver,” a person who is given the ability of remembering all the events, feelings, emotions and other things from the life before the community. The Giver, Jonas’ teacher, is the only one in the community who holds the knowledge from the times before the community. As Jonas is exposed to feelings and experiences his view of the community changes and he makes a decision that will change his life forever.

Gathering Blue: The community in this story is more primitive when compared to the community Jonas is from. The story follows a young girl, Kira, who is physically handicapped. Though the community shuns physical differences, she was loved by her mother and encouraged to be true to herself. But the novel begins with the burial of her mother and Kira is left alone in a community that rejects her. Aside from her few friends, she is left alone until a unique gift that Kira develops is discovered. Through her gift, Kira holds an important part in the community, yet she is still not accepted. Her gift carries her through the novel and leads her to new understandings. Eventually she is faced with the decision to leave…

Messenger: Matty, Kira’s closest friend from Gathering Blue, is a messenger that floats between communities bearing news from one community to the next. Matty has a special relationship with the forest through which he walks. Most people are unable to pass through the forest because the trees are alive, with thoughts and actions of their own. As the novel progresses, the forest becomes more thick and more impassable. There is something brewing in Matty’s community and he suspects the same with the other communities. He decides to journey one last time to Kira and aid her home to his community. The forest does not appreciate his daring and requires a toll before his journey is through. Matty’s free spirit leads him through an adventure that exposes his true gift. Though he is the messenger, there is more to his gifting than one might suspect.

I would recommend this book for an older teenager because it deal with so many controversial topics. I would want to be sure that they had the maturity to read this type of book. One other interesting detail is that the father in the story is a comic book author. Almost every chapter ends with his comics which pertain to the story. It is an interesting device and would appeal to those students who are visual learners.

This novel is appropriate for young adolescents, grades 7-9 for example, and raises questions about truth, race, government, and history. The young people in the novel face a very significant moral question when they grapple with whether or not to prevent the death of the person who has set the world on its current path. Mergers reminds me of The Giver, but speaks specifically to racial diversity, rather than general diversity. Like The Giver, Mergers addresses issues of identity formation. In my experience, the students enjoyed the novel and begged for the opportunity to continue reading even when class time would not allow. The teacher presented a number of writing and book report alternatives. For example, students created their own super heroes, and then described in a paragraph how these powers would impact a world like that in Mergers. This book is definitely worth a try in the classroom.

It seems to me that a primary theme of young adult novels is “separation from the family”; either literally or in the form of alienation. This novella takes this theme to chilling lengths. The story concerns a young girl named Coraline who has moved into a new apartment with her preoccupied parents. After she discovers a door in her wall, she goes through to discover another world which is quite similar but also very different. In this world she has another set of parents — her supposed “Other Mother + Father” — who seem much more concerned with making Coraline happy than her busy original parents. Everything seems to be great, except these Other-Parents want Coraline to stay with them forever, and there’s that weird thing about having only buttons for eyes…

Gaiman is a very good writer. His prose is evocative and quite funny. He has an economy of prose which is nothing short of elegant. He is a natural storyteller and Coraline is a ripping yarn.  I’d imagine 6th or 7th graders would love to read this, especially around Halloween as it is a indeed spooky. The only problem I could foresee regards the popular film which was made from the book: students may try the scam of watching the film and skipping the book. However, there are some major differences in the book. Telling them this may inspire them to read it anyway. Also, the book is just plain good and entertaining I’d imagine that after a few chapters many students will not want to stop reading.

The really interesting part of this book is the fact that it is narrated by Death. As you can imagine, Death sees quite a bit during World War II, and specifically, in Nazi Germany during World War II. At the beginning of each part of the book, Zusak, the author, lists the event that are going to happen in that part. He doesn’t give anything away, and the list acts more as a hook than anything else.

I would recommend this book for ninth graders and above. It is long (550 pages) so it would take awhile to read, but it is well worth it. Also, it is a pretty fast read so don’t be too intimidated by the number of pages.