Yesterday I completed Fever, 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. This is the historical fiction novel on the 8th grade list.
I really liked this book, and in fact, stayed late after school yesterday to finish it. In all the history books I have read throughout the years, I never knew that Yellow Fever had killed nearly 5,000 people in the Philadelphia area in 1793, when George Washington was our president.
This is a great story about a young girl dealing with an epidemic, family loss, and other things.
You will like Mattie, she's a great character.

Old Yeller by Fred Gipson is a 7th grade Battle book. This is one of my favorite books of all time. I have read it aloud to many of my classes, and they all end up loving it. (And Disney did a good job on the movie.)
This is the story of how a young teenager, Travis, grows up in the wilds of Texas just after the Civil War. Life was very different back then, and Gipson does a good job describing how difficult it could be. The characters are very much alive, though, especially the little brother Arliss, and of course, that "ole yeller dog."
Picture yourself in the west, give yourself a western drawl, and have fun with this book.

Al Capone does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko is on the 8th grade list. I read this book back in November, but never got around to discussing it in my blog. It was both funny and serious at the same time. The setting is during the 1930's, when Al Capone is a prisoner at Alcatraz. Well, curiously enough, the guards and their families really lived on the island of Alcatraz at that time, and this story is about a young man, and how he copes with a sister who has major problems (autisim?) and how he makes friends at his new school. It's a good read, with the family problems, gangsters, and Alcatraz looming in the background.

Happy 2006 to all Maxson Battle of the Books participants. I hope most of you have been reading during this vacation. I finished reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. This book is not on any of our lists, but I really liked it. It was a story told from the point of view of an autistic teenager.

I am planning on having some lunch-time meetings this week, perhaps on Thursday or Friday. I will be making an announcement during homeroom.