Book Club will move to 7:45 - 8:15 a.m. on same Zoom link starting Fri Nov 13. This is to accommodate the new hybrid bell schedule which has the first block (periods 1, 5) starting at 8:25 a.m.

Ms. Tolva heard author Alan Gratz speak at an Association of Illinois School Library Educators conference event last night. He has written 17 books, many historical fiction books.

His most popular book is Refugee.

• Summary: Although separated by continents and decades, Josef, a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany; Isabel, a Cuban girl trying to escape the riots and unrest plaguing her country in 1994; and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy in 2015 whose homeland is torn apart by violence and destruction, embark on harrowing journeys in search of refuge, discovering shocking connections that tie their stories together
• genre: historical fiction

Which authors would you like to meet?

• Neal Shusterman, author of Scythe, was scheduled to visit VHHS in November 2019, but he had to cancel due to a family emergency.
• Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down, visited VHHS in October 2017. He is now the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.

Emily says she's in a "reading funk." How can she get out of it?

• Maddie suggested she re-read "something you know you like."
• Ashley also prescribed re-reading old favorites.
• And so, we prove that the antidote to a reading funk is more reading.

What are you reading?

• The Women of the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
  • Summary: Marianne - widow of a resistor to the Nazi regime - returns to the grand, crumbling castle where she once played host to all of German high society. She assembles a makeshift family from the ruins of her husband's movement, rescuing her dearest friend's widow, Benita, from sexual slavery to the Russian army, and Ania from a work camp for political prisoners. She is certain their shared past will bind them together. All three women must grapple with the realities they now face, and the consequences of decisions each made in the darkest of times . . .
  • genre: historical fiction
• Dear Evan Hansen by Val Emmich with Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek & Justin Paul
  • Summary: Evan goes from being a nobody to everyone's hero and a social media superstar after a chance encounter with Connor just before his suicide leads others to believe Evan was his only friend.
  • genre: realistic
  • Based on Braodway play of the same name

Skilled authors can carry parallel stories that intersect:

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
  • Summary: A blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
  • Genre: historical fiction
• A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
  • Summary: Two stories, told in alternating sections, about two eleven-year-olds in Sudan, a girl in 2008 and a boy in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours' walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the "lost boys" of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya's in an astonishing and moving way.
  • Genre: realistic
• the Spanish language film La Misma Luna"
• The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer
• I Will Always Write Back by Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda with Liz Welch
  • Summary: It started as an assignment. Everyone in Caitlin's class wrote to an unknown student somewhere in a distant place. All the other kids picked countries like France or Germany, but when Caitlin saw Zimbabwe written on the board, it sounded like the most exotic place she had ever heard of -- so she chose it. Martin was lucky to even receive a pen pal letter. There were only ten letters, and forty kids in his class. But he was the top student, so he got the first one. That letter was the beginning of a correspondence that spanned six years and changed two lives.
  • genre: non-fiction

"2020 is the year I have read the least in all of my life," Tyler says. Why is that?

• Does having *more* time make you more likely to read?
• "In theory, you have lots of time to read, but in practice .. . not," Tyler says.
• Emily's theory is that having more available time also makes it easier to choose to do nothing.
• Mrs. Stevens shared a statistic that today's teens are less able to be idle. Book Club members say they are more likely to multi-task.