I chose to do my book walk project on Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech! This book is really well written and a quick but captivating read! Let me know if you guys have any questions or wanna borrow the book! :)

 

http://www.pinterest.com/mrwilliams1993/ruby-holler-by-sharon-creech/

I love my series! I stayed up til one in the morning reading the first book! It’s a book that you can’t put down once you start! So basically its about this girl, Beatrice, who at the age of 16 joins every other 16 year old to take a test to see which faction they will belong in. The factions are: Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent), Candor (the honest) and Abnegation (the selfless). When Beatrice takes the test, her results are inconclusive which will get her into trouble later on. She picks Dauntless and goes through the initiation. She makes new friends and really finds herself. She has to make some tough decisions and face her fears…. I can’t say anymore for I do not want to ruin the book!

I really like that the book is about a strong, independent woman. She does have a love interest but that isn’t the biggest part of the book. It’s about finding herself and acting for just her! I think that a middle school girl or boy who is having troubles with self identity. I would use this in the classroom just because I feel that my students (if I taught 6th grade) would be able to connect. When I read it, it gives me a sense of empowerment! So if it impacts me and I can connect at 20, I’m sure some younger people will be able to as well! I think that these are the types of books that we should be giving to read to the future generation. Books about empowerment and finding yourself! About love that isn’t life consuming and healthy! That’s what we need to show the future generation, especially girls!

I’m so excited to finish! I am currently on the second book and I have to chose between my homework and reading… I think you can tell which one I pick more! YAAASSS :D

I really like Miller’s text! Besides the fact that it has a really soft cover and I like to pet it (not to sound creepy) I think that this book will be very beneficial to myself as a future teacher. I really enjoyed the little excerpt on series reading. I never thought of the fact that reading a series that a child actually liked would result in them actually wanting to get through the series! Thinking back on my reading, I loved to read series books because it was just a really long story broken up! I mean I did enjoy just a singular book too, but if I didn’t get into it I wasn’t motivated to read it whereas the Hunger Games and the third book I just had to know how it ended! I think that a challenge may be to get students interested in constant reading! She has her students read a lot and log it. I just feel knowing my luck I would get someone who doesn’t enjoy reading at all or who feels pressured to do all that reading by peers so they just fake it. I don’t want my students to be forced to read or feel like they need to go a certain speed, which is what I fear the most about myself teaching reading. Also what if I pick a book and nobody likes it! Reading really should be enjoyed not forced! I guess I could just learn some strategies about making a list and letting the students pick. But other than that I think that once I read the whole book that I will learn some pretty awesome tactics! YAAAAY TEACHING!

I really enjoyed this book! I liked that it was a different take on the familiar tales and that the tales were about an object rather than the person. I would probably use some of these stories in my class just because these stories allow people to relate more to them than the originals. I think this because there are no characters and just a feeling or an object. It was really cool!

My favorite story was the Tale of the Rose. Of course my favorite Disney princess is Belle from Beauty and the Beast… BUT besides that I thought that this story had a lot of good meaning behind it. The object of this story was a rose and that to me is just so symbolic. In class I made a comment about how I thought that the rose was significant to the story because it could symbolize a person or love. A rose is a beautiful flower but it has thorns all over it. I think that this could symbolize people that everyone has beauty but we also have little thorns that come with us. Same with love, it is a beautiful thing but you are going to run into some hardships (thorns) along the way. I think this is a great tale to read to children, especially young teens, because they are at that age where they need to learn how to deal with a lot of different people and not everyone is going to be perfect. I think this story came at just the right point in my life for me to learn about it, which is pretty awesome!

To be perfectly honest, I don’t know why the author titled the book Kissing the Witch. I mean it could be a funny diss to society because all of the stories are about these powerful and determined women and in the last book with the girl kissing the witch and having it be not so much of a deal could just be the last point in which the author is saying “We are strong and powerful women and we don’t give a rats ass if you disagree”. Then again I could be wrong. In the last tale the witch’s life is changed from solitude and loneliness to wanting the girl to come live with her and keep her company. The kiss changed that for her. I’m not saying that it had to be only romantic but I think the fact that this girl saw past the evil and wasn’t scared allowed the witches wall to be broken down a little. We all need that one person to help us bring that wall down so that could be why she titled it Kissing the Witch in hopes that her readers would see the moral of looking past the appearance.

Last comment for this very long post… I’m really sad we are done with fairy tales because I LOVE THEM! Oh and I’m rocking out to Disney Pandora while writing this! :D