Eleanor and Park is the cutest book ever! Yes, this book is a love story that is shown through both of their perspectives but told in third story which is kind of interesting. This book made me believe in love again. Love doesn’t have to be a point in life or certain age, it is something that shows how much someone else cares for you. I love Eleanor’s character and the story behind her. She has a hard life and the details about her life are explained with some mystery. It is really great because we get to hear about her story as she tells Park about it. It is cool to see how a love story started on a bus. This young couple started as strangers in the bus and became the cutest couple ever. I love Parks heart! At first park seems like and ordinary jerk boy who is just feeling bad for Eleanor but as the story goes on you can see how those feelings change.

 

I love this book because it really does play like a movie in your head. Except that this book has an ending that leaves you wanting more. In a way I love that the ending was left open ended because you are allowed to make your own interpretation. I also like how the characters both Eleanor and Park are somewhat different than the traditional characters. Eleanor is a young poor girl who comes from a big family in which she is a bigger girl with freckles and red hair. Park is the “stupid Asian kid” As referred by Eleanor at the beginning of the book. He comes from a well standing family that provides almost everything he needs.  I feel like we have all had that crush of ours that we first hated and ended up liking and this is what this book describes.

                    I think what I liked the most about this book is Eleanor’s life story. She has it rough but she keeps on going and stays strong for her siblings. I can see how her story can be very relatable to other people who might share some of her stories. It does show the evil step father figure and the life of an unfortunate girl. She doesn’t get new clothes, she gets Good Will jeans when her mom can sneak some money from the step father who is always using drugs and alcohol. The book gives an insight on people who might be fighting these struggles. There might be someone in your classroom that dresses and acts like Eleanor and you might be one to join on in and make fun of someone. However, after reading this book you see that Eleanor’s clothing is out of her control and how smart and strong she really is. She gets made fun of every day of her life and people just don’t seem to understand her. It does teach a valuable lesson about bullies and personal stories that might be going on with other people right now.

I am a sucker for love stories and this one was perfect! It had a sense of realism and it shows the kind of things that young teenagers go through. The story is very believable and it makes you cry! I got a sense of empathy as I read her story. My favorite part has to be when Park’s mother runs into Eleanor and her family at the grocery store and realizes that Eleanor comes from a big family too. I won’t say much more because then I’ll ruin the book which I don’t want to do that. I recommend this book to all high school students and young adults, especially to those who come from a different challenging family backgrounds.

The Crossover:

I loved this book! Let me just say that I am not a basketball person but I really did love this book. I like how descriptive this book is especially with the basketball terms used. It involves a family structure life explanation tied in with basketball and middle school. It goes through the topic of identity and loss. Looking at the title and having it based on basketball and two twin 7th grade boys, I as a girl loved the book and let me just say that it did make me cry. The book is in poetry form in which I would say that it sounds a bit more like a rap and a basketball announcer most of the time. This book goes through the family lifestyle and family hardships that might arise through life. It gives these 7th graders a taste of their history and what they should become aware of in their futures. It is also filled with “basketball rules” which I took in as “life rules” that can be applied to everyone.

 

Overall it is a great book and I would recommend it to both basketball fans and non-basketball fans. When I began to read the book I was a bit confused about the story line and what ii would get out of this book. I was afraid that it would all be about basketball and basketball terms that I would be unfamiliar with. There were a few basketball terms that were included in the book but it also provided a definition of each term that was used, both for basketball terms and newer vocabulary words.  At first I was also confused about the twins since they both have “J” names but a few pages in I caught on. When I first picked up this book I thought that it would be the first book that wouldn’t make me cry in this class since it was about sports, but boy was I wrong.

 

I love how it is so easy to read! The text and form of this book makes it so you get hyped up just like a basketball player would or an announcer. If you are hyped up you are reading so much faster than usual and with excitement in your voice. The text makes you feel like you are there like you are the main character and towards the end it makes you empathize with the main character and the family.

I think that this book is not just for boys but I think that it would be a great way to get more boys in my future class to read more poetry. Since it is sports related and in poetry form I can see how children can fall in love with this book. The book holds a lot of emotions that maybe some of my student will go through and this book might help them cope or understand the things that they will go through while in middle school. This is honestly one of my favorite books and it just holds so many emotions, feelings, and meaning within this book.

Cento:

 

 

The book series that I decided to start reading was Babymouse. The reason I decided to pick up this series is because it was one of the books that I haven’t heard of or read yet. I was wondering what they were all about. The books are very small in size and in content which I was surprised about. However now that I think of it, the book is probably built for small hands (aka children). Both of the books I read were very pink in illustration so I can see why maybe a young boy might be resistant to pick this book out himself. Although I think that Babymouse does have an even amount of gender characters and the theme or morals of the stories could relate to both genders. It is a bit heavier on the girl side of the stories being told.

                                                                                          

The first book is called “Queen of the world” when I first picked it up I thought it was going to be about this little girl trying to rule everyone and have everything her way and rule the world and bash on the guys. I was totally wrong! The book was about Babymouse getting invited to the popular girl’s sleep over and how she would give away her homework just to attend her first sleepover. Babymouse wanted everything that the popular girl had so of course she wanted to go to the sleepover. I thought it was cute that Babymouse’s best friend was a guy in the story, unfortunately she leaves her best friend to go to the sleepover. The sleepover was not was she expected and Babymouse realized that maybe being popular or “the queen of the world” was not something that she wanted. She loved her life the way it was, she realized that she had an amazing friend that she let down. Most importantly Babymouse realized that she was already the queen of her own world.

I don’t want to ruin the whole series for anyone because they are fun quick books to pick up but I want to mention the similarities that I noticed with the two series books. When I read the 5^th book “Heart Breaker” I realized that Babymouse always has some sort of trouble with her locker. Something really cool within the series is that she reflects back to prior books that are intended to be read before the one you are reading, in my mind it kind of creates an inside joke. I thought it was so cool because I knew what baby mouse was talking about when she mentioned something from her first book in her 5^th book so I felt like part of Babymouse’s life or part of the community. By the way Babymouse 5^th book “Heart Breaker” is a really cool book to have around Valentine’s Day. It talks about a Valentine’s Day dance and getting asked to it and how it is okay to go alone.

I feel like these books give out mini life lessons that anyone can take on at some point in their life. I know that this series is very short and maybe the writing level is intended for very young readers but I can see how a teacher can use these books from middle school and even in high school. Reading Babymouse in my opinion feels like seeing a cartoon on television but you are reading and creating your own images in your head which is much better.  Like battle bunny with Babymouse you can have the children rewrite this comic and make it personal which is one of the activities that I saw online. You can also build a community with the children in your classroom and recreate the famous Babymouse cupcakes. Randomhousekids.com actually has a place where you can download these activities. Overall Babymouse series is a great series to invest in because you can use it at any grade level that you decide to teach. It is also a great book for a read aloud if you have 10 minutes because these books can be read in less than 10 minutes which is great because there is so much to cover in one day.  I am excited to be able to use these books in my classroom and excited to spread the word about the Babybook series.