Fri Sep 17: what we talked about

The Girls I've Been cover
  • Happy birthday Hunter!
  • We made ourselves hungry this morning by talking food:
    • sushi
    • hot dogs
    • chicken sandwiches
    • cereal (Isabel had to eat plain Cheerios because her brother ate all of the Lucky Charms)

What we've been reading:

  •  The Reader by Traci Chee
    • Genre: fantasy
    • Summary: Set in a world where reading is unheard-of, Sefia makes use of a mysterious object to track down who kidnapped her aunt Nin and what really happened the night her father was murdered.
    • What would it be like to live in a world where one of our favorite things (reading books) does not exist?
  • The GIrls I've Been by Tess Sharpe
    • Genre: Action/Thriller
    • Summary: When seventeen-year-old Nora O'Malley, the daughter of a con artist, is taken hostage in a bank heist, every secret she is keeping close begins to unravel.
    • Ms. Tolva nominated this excellent book for the 2023 Illinois Teen Choice Award
  • The Silence of Bones by June Hur
    • Genre: science fiction
    • Summary: In Joseon Dynasty-era Korea, sixteen-year-old Seol, an indentured servant within the police bureau, becomes entangled in a politically-charged investigation into the murder of a noblewoman.
  • Good Omens by Neil Gaiman
    • Genre: fantasy
    • Summary: When Agnes Nutter predicts that the end of the world is days away, the demon Crowley and his angel friend, Aziraphale, team up to save humankind.
    • TV show
  • Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley
    • Genre: fantasy
    • Summary: Even though his awful Great-Aunt Gertrudis doesn’t approve, Micah believes in the stories his dying Grandpa Ephraim tells him of the magical Circus Mirandus: the invisible tiger guarding the gates, the beautiful flying birdwoman, and the magician more powerful than any other—the Man Who Bends Light. Finally, Grandpa Ephraim offers proof. The Circus is real. And the Lightbender owes Ephraim a miracle. With his friend Jenny Mendoza in tow, Micah sets out to find the Circus and the man he believes will save his grandfather. The only problem is, the Lightbender doesn't want to keep his promise. And now it's up to Micah to get the miracle he came for.
    • Other circus books:
    • Wilder Girls by Rory Power 
      • Genre: horror
      • Summary: It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her. It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything. But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true.
      • Other pandemic books

Do we read non-fiction?

  • Sasha told us about AP Language & Composition, a junior/senior level English class
    • focuses on reading non-fiction
    • writing essays
    • examining rhetorical writing
  • The Diary of Anne Frank
    • Genre: non-fiction, memoir, classic
    • Summary: A thirteen-year-old Dutch-Jewish girl records her impressions of the two years she and seven others spent hiding from the Nazis before they were discovered and taken to concentration camps.
    • Related book: