Not your ordinary fantasy book

Hale, S. (2005). Princess academy. New York, NY: Scholastic.

         I was really excited to finally read Princess Academy.  I ordered a set of six of these from Scholastic a few years ago because they were on sale and I love fantasy books, but had not gotten a chance to read it until now.  Once I started reading it, I realized this is very different from the other fantasy books I’ve read, but I still could not put it down.

         Princess Academy is a novel about a group of girls who live in Mount Eskel in the mythical country of Danland.  The prince of Danland is destined to marry someone from Mount Eskel, so all girls of eligible age attend a princess academy for a year to learn how to be a princess.  They learn to read, and learn about history, negotiation, poise, dancing, and commerce.  Miri is the main character and she focuses really hard on her studies.  Through reading a commerce book, she learns that the traders who come four times a year have been cheating her village.  She learns that one block of linder (really fancy rock that only her village knows how to mine) is worth more than they were ever given before.  With this knowledge she helps her village get a fair price for the hard work they do.  When the prince finally comes to the academy for the ball, he is cold and distant.  He is nothing like what Miri pictured, and it makes her think about Peder, a boy in the village whom she really likes.  The prince leaves without choosing his princess, and the girls are made to stay at the academy another winter.  During the winter, a group of bandits come to kidnap the chosen princess and hold her for ransom.  Since no princess had been chosen, all the girls pretend to be the princess and the bandits hold them all hostage.  I won’t share anything else, so you’ll have to read the ending for yourself.

         As stated earlier, this is unlike other fantasy books I have read.  There are no mythical creatures like centaurs or fauns, there are no talking animals, there are no spells or curses.  It could almost be a historical fiction novel, if it were to take place in an actual country with princes and princesses, instead of the imaginary country of Danland.  The setting of this story is integral to the story.  It takes place on Mount Eskel, and the village is moved from quarry to quarry as they mine linder.  Miri is in charge of the goats that her family raises; the same goats sleep in the house with them, too.  The weather on Mount Eskel makes travel impossible during storms and if you get too near the edge of the mountain you could fall off.  All of this is important to remember when the bandits come.

         One thing that makes this a fantasy story is something called “quarry-speech”.  This is a telepathy-like language that the villagers can speak to each other in the quarry.  Miri slowly tries to quarry-speak, learning how to speak through memories and then to send actual messages through her thoughts.  Miri learns that the villagers of Mount Eskel have linder in their blood and it is through linder that they are able to quarry-speak.  Toward the end of the novel, Miri is able to quarry-speak to Peder, who is miles away.  Their close bond they’ve formed helps out all the academy girls when they are in need.

         This novel has foreshadowing in it.  In the beginning of the novel, the villagers share a story of when a group of bandits came to the village a lifetime ago.  They were scared away when they saw that all the people in the village (due to years in the linder mines) where bigger and stronger than them.  The villagers have not have a problem with bandits since.  Toward the end of the novel, bandits did come to the princess academy.  The foreshadowing at the beginning was very clear when the bandits appeared toward the end of the novel.

         A theme that runs through this story is of love.  Miri has deep love for her family and for the place where she is from.  Miri has an inner struggle (self v. self conflict) between wanting to become a princess and see the rest of her country and the desire to stay with her family and friends in the place she loves dearly.  A theme of family and unity also goes along with the theme of love.  The villages band together when their daughters are in trouble.  In the linder mines, everyone works together to get the blocks out of the quarry safely.  The villages come together every spring for a big celebration.  While reading this novel you get a real sense of love, family, and unity. 

         BIG QUESTIONS: If you were in the princess academy and chosen to marry the prince, would you leave your hometown and become a princess, or would you stay with your family?  What memories would you share through quarry-speech?  Is there anything that you felt you couldn’t do that everyone around you seemed to excel in, like Miri feels when she isn’t allowed to work in the quarry?

         I really enjoyed reading this book and being put into Miri’s world.  I am looking forward to using this book with some of my girls next year.  I think they would really like it, too.

*Note: When I went to get a cover shot of the book, I read on Shannon Hale's website that a sequel will be published in August, 2012!  :) 

The worries of a mouse named Wemberly

Henkes, K. (2000). Wemberly worried. New York, NY: Scholastic.

       Wemberly Worried is a picture book about a mouse named Wemberly who worries all the time.  She worries about big things and little things, but mostly she worries about going to school.  Wemberly worries that no one else will look like her, dress like her, or have a doll like her.  Once she gets to school, Wemberly meets Jewel.  Jewel and Wemberly have a lot of things in common, so they become friends and Wemberly worries a little bit less.

       While I enjoyed this picture book, I don’t think this story would keep my fifth grade students engaged.  I would recommend this story to teachers who have primary students.  This would be a good story to use at the beginning of the school year.  Students can discuss things that worry them about starting school.  They can also share things that make them unique and see if other students share any similarities to them.

       My favorite part of this book was the illustrations.  According to the publishing history, they were done with watercolor paints and black pen.  They are bright, vibrant colors, with lots of pinks, blues, and purples.  They are done in cartoon art style.  The illustrations vary from page to page.  Some are full-page pictures, some are small cutouts on the page, and some are stand-alone images of mice.  There are also small pieces of dialogue written on some of the pictures.  These add to the story and are interesting to read.

       BIG QUESTIONS: What is something that you worry about as much as Wemberly worries about school?  Meeting a friend helped Wemberly worry less – what have your friends helped you do?

A powerful story about the "junkyard wonders"

Polacco, P. (2010). The junkyard wonders. New York, NY: Scholastic.

The picture book The Junkyard Wonders is a very powerful book.  My school librarian recommended this book to me, since I was looking for another Patricia Polacco book to read.  This book, like Pink and Say and other books by this author, is a true story from Polacco’s life.  This book is about a year in Polacco’s life when she went to school in Michigan.  She is placed in a class called the “junkyard” because all the students in that class are a little bit different from their peers.  From the beginning, their teacher Mrs. Peterson strives to show all the students that they are geniuses and are each unique and special in their own way.  During the school year, the students go on a field trip to a junkyard to find items that can be made into something new.  Polacco’s tribe (her group that she always works with) finds parts to make an airplane.  Their hope is to have it fly to the moon. 

As stated earlier, this is a very powerful book.  There are themes of friendship, dealing with heartbreak, and learning to ignore bullies.  Each of these themes are things that can occur in a student’s life.  This would be a great book to read at the beginning of the school year.  It would also be a good book to have great discussions with.  Students can use their schema for school, friendship, and bullies to relate to and understand this story.

The Junkyard Wonders’ illustrations are done in a realistic art style.  They are rendered with pencil and then colored in with marker.  The illustrations cover ¾ of the double-page spread, with the text taking up the remaining ¼ of the page.  The text is usually on the left-hand side of the spread.  This book has plain endpapers, but the flyleaf in the front is really neat.  It includes a prologue for the book, explaining why the main character of the story is attending a new school.  It also shows an illustration of the main character, full of hope for the upcoming school year.  On the verso of the title page is the publishing history.  There is also a dedication on that page.  This book is dedicated to Mrs. Peterson (the teacher in the book) and Polacco’s tribe, further proof that this book is a true story about the author’s life.  At the end of the story, there is an epilogue of sorts.  It tells about each of the tribe members as they got older.  It was neat to read that one of the children worked on the Apollo missions for NASA, and that the others seemed to be doing well, too.  Polacco also had an epilogue in Pink and Say that told how the story was related to her.  I think this makes the book become more real for the reader.

BIG QUESTIONS: 

1. Before reading the book, ask students to write or share what they think it means to be a genius.  Discuss this before reading.  (Genius is defined on the third page of text.  It is a really empowering definition.)  

2. How would you feel if you were part of the junkyard wonders?  

3. How does Mrs. Peterson allow her students to be creative and learn all that they can?  

Learning about the Civil War with Pink and Say

Polacco, P. (1994). Pink and Say. New York, NY: Philomel.

       Pink and Say is the story of two Union soldiers during the Civil War.  Say (short for Sheldon) is a white soldier who gets injured while running away from the army.  Pink is a proud soldier and former slave who finds Say and takes him to Pink’s home to heal.  This is a fantastic picture book to use when teaching about the Civil War since it gives students information about what daily life was like for the soldiers.  I loved this book because it develops the two main characters really well, and you really feel for Pink and Say throughout the whole book.  A word of warning: This book will tug at your heartstrings and can get very sad by the end of the book.  You want to have time to read it all the way through with your students without interruptions, so that they, too, can feel the impact of the ending.

       I would use this picture book with any students learning about the Civil War (5^th, 8^th, and 11^th grades are the ones that teach U.S. History in KY, I believe) to help teach what life was like for the soldiers.  I teach fifth grade, so I would also use this as a reading lesson with Core Content 5.RL.3.  This standard has students comparing two or more characters in a story.  Pink and Say is a great book to use with this standard, as the two title characters have many similarities, but they also have distinct differences.  I would use a Venn diagram with my students that they would add to as I read the book aloud.

       Polacco is the author and illustrator of this book.  The illustrations are similar to those of her other picture books.  They appear to be sketched first, then colored over with paint or watercolors.  The illustrations match the time period.  For example, you can tell that Pink and Say are Union soldiers based on their uniforms.  There are lots of double spreads in this book, where the illustrations stretch from one page to the adjacent page.  This characteristic makes Pink and Say a great book to read aloud with a class.

       There are many literary terms in this picture book.  One is point of view.  The point of view is in first person, from the point of view of Say.  The writing style is also a big part of this book.  Say is uneducated, and as the narrator of the story, that comes across.  In the book, the words that end with –ing only end with –in’.  When you read this aloud, it sounds like Say is really the one talking and telling the story, which makes the story all the more real to the reader.  Another literary term found in this book is conflict.  There is conflict between Mo Mo Boy and the marauders, there is the overarching conflict of the Civil War, and the conflict that Pink and Say experience in the prison camp at the end of the book.

       BIG QUESTIONS:  Even though Pink is a former slave, how is he able to help Say?  Why does Say want to stay away from the war?  Why does Pink want to go back to the war?

Rosa makes Rosa Parks come alive

Giovanni, N. (2005). Rosa. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Company.

       Rosa is a picture book written about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  This is an excellent book to use when teaching about Civil Rights in the 1950s and 1960s.  It goes much more in depth than the one or two paragraphs the social studies textbooks give to Rosa Parks and the boycott.  This book also makes Rosa Parks come alive for the students and they see her as a real person, instead of just an important person in history.

       In this book, Rosa gets on the public bus and sits in the neutral section, where whites and black can both sit.  She starts daydreaming and is startled awake by the bus driver yelling at her to give up her seat.  Rosa refuses to leave her seat, so the bus driver calls the police.  After Rosa is taken to jail, the women in the Women’s Political Council decide to organize a bus boycott.  The boycott lasts for almost a year, and ends with the Supreme Court deciding that segregation on public transportation is unconstitutional.

       The illustrations in Rosa are by Bryan Collier.  Rosa was a Caldecott Honor Book in 2006, because of Collier’s beautiful illustrations.  They really make the story come alive for the reader and are great for sharing whole-class with students.  Collier uses paintings for the illustrations.  They have a dark hue to them that sets the stage for the dark tone of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  The edition that I read was a hardcover without a dust jacket.

       The setting of this story is an integral part of the story.  This story takes place in Montgomery, Alabama, and on the bus that Rosa Parks was asked to move her seat on.  This story would not be the same in another setting.  The character of Rosa Parks is developed in this story.  We hear her thoughts in this story.  The reader sees that Rosa is a normal wife – she thinks about her husband and what she is going to make for dinner when she gets home that night.  This is something students reading or hearing this story can relate to, since they probably ask their parents every night, “What’s for dinner?”  This helps Rosa Parks be relatable to the readers.

       Rosa is appropriate for intermediate students in elementary school and middle school students.  I wouldn’t recommend it to primary students because of the vocabulary.  This is a great book to use with intermediate students to help build their vocabulary, especially words like segregation, boycott, seamstress (Rosa Parks’ job), and “separate but equal.”  As mentioned earlier, I would use this during a lesson on Civil Rights, especially an introductory lesson to get the students hooked on the topic.  It mentions Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King, Jr., and segregation laws, so there are a lot of things to do with Civil Rights mentioned in this book and it lends itself well to great discussions with the students while reading this book aloud. 

       BIG QUESTION: After the bus driver yells at Rosa Parks to leave her seat, pause and ask the students, “How would you react if you were asked to give up your seat?  How would you feel and what would you do?”

Introducing Ms. Fry!

Hello all!  My name is Samantha Fry and this is my first blog.  I hope you enjoy reading it and getting to know me and my love of reading.  


A little bit about my teaching career: I am a fifth grade teacher at Brookside Elementary School in Nicholasville, Kentucky.  Nicholasville is in Jessamine County, which is right next to Fayette County (Lexington).  This month I am finishing my third year of teaching.  I will be teaching fifth grade again next year.  We are self contained at Brookside, except for math, where we level our students.  I have really enjoyed teaching the accelerated/gifted math class this year.  I enjoy teaching all subjects, as I think I would get bored teaching the same lesson 4 or 5 times a day.


I graduated from the University of Kentucky in December of 2008.  I am currently working on my Masters at the University of the Cumberlands.  I am halfway through and am so excited to graduate in December 2012!  I love reading and am hoping that I will discover new books to use in my classroom next year, whether they be a novel for read aloud, student literature circles, or a picture book to share with the whole class.


In my free time, I love to spend time with my boyfriend and my friends.  I love summer vacation because it means I can read by the pool (or in the pool)!  I hope to travel this summer and explore new places.  I am also a big fan of the Food Network, and (with the help of Pinterest) am slowly building up my own stack of favorite recipes to cook.


Thank you for reading my introduction, and check back in the upcoming weeks for blog posts about the new books I'm enjoying.  Happy Reading!