Vive La Paris

During Memorial Day weekend, my mom and I drove to Columbia, MO for a half marathon I was running. The concept of this race series is very inspiring. It's called the Go Girl Run and it took place in three cities in MO.  It's an all female half marathon, so I already felt empowered by the amazing women I was around. Part of the proceeds of the run went to charities that aided women in need. How great!

On the way there, we started listening to the audiobook Vive La Paris by Esme Raji Codell.  I LOVED her book, Sahara Special, so I don't know why it took me forever to get to this book (as the little mantra goes through my mind, "too many books, so little time"). This book focuses on 5th grader Paris and her life lessons learned through multiple characters: her piano teacher, Mrs. Rosen, her brother Michael, and his bully, Tanaeja.

Paris takes you through time spent practicing the piano with Mrs. Rosen, a Holocaust survivor. Mrs. Rosen spares no time dispensing advice or her opinions (which come with a side of humor). Paris thinks she has got it all figured out, but you come to find out that her view needs some readjusting or as Mrs. Rosen puts it, Paris needs to view the world through "rose-colored glasses".

Paris divulges about her anger towards classmate, Tanaeja, who bullies her 13-year-old brother, Michael, out on the playground daily. She shares this anger with Michael, who brushes it off and responds that he won't hit a girl. When Paris doesn't get the response she wants from Michael, she goes to Mrs. Rosen. Mrs. Rosen lets Paris know that maybe she needs to talk with Tanaeja to figure out the problem or try and be friends with her.

Around this time Michael starts joining in on Paris's piano lessons by singing along. Mrs. Rosen decides that with enough practice they can take their show on the road...to the local retirement home. Their show is a hit! Paris notices for the first time just how genuinely happy Michael is to be able to sing in front of an audience. 

The happiness for Paris is short-lived with a gift that Mrs. Rosen bestows to her. This part of the novel is when you realize just how young and naive Paris is, but also just how much every student in America needs to read this novel. It brings about a powerful, and at times both delightful and sad ending.

To Understand What Loving a Dog Means

Recommended for Grades 3-6

I’m just going to come straight out and say that I almost stopped listening to the audio book of Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles right in the middle of the story.  Reason being is that if I think an animal in a story is dead or is going to die, I can’t handle the story—I shutdown.  I have an overwhelming emotional pull when it comes to dogs and I can’t even walk through the Humane Society without crying. 

Wiles’ protagonist, Comfort, has a dog named Dismay, who is all love and loyalty.  The climax in the story is when there is a flash flood that Comfort, her cousin Peach, and Dismay get caught in.  Dismay is swept away in the flood waters, but Comfort has this eternal hope for him that kept me listening to the book.  And yes, I yelled at the book when that suspenseful scene ended—“Did she just kill off the dog?!  I CAN’T believe she would do that!  I will never read another Wiles book.  Well, maybe she didn’t…. (denial with a false sense of hope, oh goody…)

Comfort’s family owns the town’s funeral home and so she has grown up surrounded by death, but it hasn’t created a dysfunctional family, if anything it bonded her family.  The family’s motto is, “We live to serve,” and that they do.  Each family member acted as a team player.  Comfort has to face loss that she wasn’t expecting in the beginning of the story, when her Uncle Edisto and Aunt Florentine pass away.

I love all of Wiles' characters, but Comfort Snowberger steals the show and rightfully so—she writes her own “life notices” (her version of obituaries), her spot to ponder the world is her closet, she has to live with and accept that her best friend has become a ‘mean girl’, be annoyed by her little cousin Peach, and work through her grief. 

She becomes lost in a world unfamiliar to her without the ones she loves, even if her mother, father, and brother are still there for her.  She ends up taking her grief out on Peach, who is so innocent (even if whiny and over-dramatic), that he still chooses to adore and be Comfort’s shadow whenever he can.  And when I say over-dramatic, I mean in the ‘have to stop Aunt Florentine’s viewing because Peach decided to attach himself to her IN her casket and bawl the words, “Come back!”’

The search for Dismay changed both Comfort and Peach.  And I have to say that Wiles has written an endearing tribute to dogs and their humans, as well as family.  I’m very satisfied that I finished the story.

Wiles, d. (2005). Each little bird that sings. Orlando, FL: Harcourt.

The Lost Pieces To Her Life

Recommended for grades 9-12

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” -Elizabeth Stone

Does this feeling as a parent give due cause to make life and death decisions for your child? Decisions that could forever affect the way the child feels about him/herself. This is one of the many questions to consider while reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson. The book chronicles the life of 17-year-old Jenna Fox, who has just woken from a year-long coma. She doesn’t remember a thing, her family has moved across the U.S., and she senses her parents are keeping something from her.

Written from Jenna’s point-of-view, even the text is structured to make the reader feel Jenna’s slight disorientation to the world she has re-entered. Short and somewhat choppy sentences, mixed with definitions of words Jenna has had to look up to remember exactly what they mean, her thoughts don’t relay any emotions quite yet.

Jenna soon finds out about the accident she was in that cost the lives of her two best friends. Jenna also finds out that she is only 10% of her original self. Only 10% of her brain survived the accident, the rest of her is bio-engineered. Jenna must deal with this overwhelming information. Her parents try to convince her it was the only choice they had, “Someday, when you have a child of your own, you’ll finally understand what a parent will do to save their child (Pearson, p. 137)”.

This book brings up many ethical issues. Jenna presents many of them: is she really human anymore; what does it mean to be human? To what extent does body reconstruction become too much? Would you make the same choice as Jenna’s parents when you have a child? Do you think parents can adore their child too much? Were Jenna’s parents right for keeping information from her at the beginning?

The book is suspenseful and thought-provoking. Readers will fall in like and sympathize with Jenna Fox’s character.

*Discussion questions and author interview included in the back of the book. Click here for book's website.