Justin Fisher Declares War Good in So Many Ways

So I'm back for a short time, everyone returned safe and sound from my second trip to Boston and in two days I leave for my annual golf trip to Michigan, or as I like to call it Dads' Camp. I won't be reading anything there, but I managed to read James Preller's new book Justin Fisher Declares War. For all of you recent readers of Literate Lives, James, or Jimmy is a friend of our blog and Karen and I so I was thrilled when he sent me a copy of his new book, autographed too! Here are several reasons I really like Justin Fisher Declares War:

1. It's short! Only 135 pages but so much is packed into those pages! It will be easy to convince my students to pick it up because they won't be intimidated by the size. I'm really starting to look for titles that are 200 pages or less.

2. It has some familiar characters. Trey and Spider from Along Came Spider are back in cameo roles. Kids like catching up with characters from other books, that's why series are so popular. James brings these two memorable characters back to interact with Justin Fisher, class clown.

3. It has a reading pit and a male librarian! WOO HOO!

4. It has lessons that can be taught through read aloud. I know class clowns everywhere who are struggling with the fact that they are losing friends because everyone is growing tired of their constant joking will see themselves. Hopefully it will lead them to reinvent themselves without changing completely, just like Justin Fisher.

5. It has a new teacher and an old teacher interacting with the old teacher sharing the age old advice "never let them see you smile." Obviously I don't agree with this philosophy, but it's such a classic. I loved it when the new teacher, Mr. Tripp, finds success with Justin when he chooses to ignore it.

6. As with all James Preller books, it has great characters interacting with each other.

7. It will appeal to all 4th and 5th graders.

As I was reading I realized that I have never created a mosaic for any of James Preller's book and since I love his stuff and he's a friend, I thought it was about time. So here it is.

Some Tech Stuff for the Summer

So after the first summer tech discussion at Katie's house, I came away inspired to try one new thing and to practice and old thing...nothing happened. After I read about the second tech discussion at Karen's house I was once again inspired to try one new thing and practice an old thing...this week...something happened!

I finally took the plunge into Twitter, Franki has been bugging me for about a year, maybe more, to get hooked. I kept putting it off because I wasn't sure why I needed to join. Truthfully, I still haven't figured that out, but after talking with Karen, I learned that was one thing that took place at the last tech discussion. Everyone who didn't have a Twitter account, now does. I didn't want to be left out, so here I am. If you have any suggestions for things I should do with this Twitter thang, let me know. Right now I'm mostly just lurking and have only tweeted on my Twitter once. That was the new thing.

The old thing I practiced was the book mosaic idea I came up with last summer. Basically the idea is to put together a collection of 9 pictures that represent a book in some way. I've done them for The Small Adventures of Popeye and Elvis, Savvy, and Make Way for Ducklings. I also created one for a family vacation. I hadn't done one in a while so yesterday I sat down and created one for Countdown, my first pick for some Newbery attention this year.