Archive for the ‘Historical’ category

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All the Broken Pieces by Ann Burg

September 13th, 2010

I will be honest: I judged All the Broken Pieces by its cover. It has a baseball on the cover and a Language Arts teacher told me it was a good book, especially for boys. I was skeptical because I knew it was a verse book and, even though I love verse books, I know that the direct market for verse books is girls.

All the Broken Pieces challenges that. Yes, baseball is not much of the story; protagonist Matthew must confront his memories of fleeing a war-torn Vietnam, so emotions and the conflict versus self are the main focus of the story. But how is that different from March Toward the Thunder? That one is marketed to both genders, but I know more boys check it out.

Burg’s verse format actually helps the narrative. One characteristic of verse novels is that, when written well, you can finish them in one sitting. That’s the case here. I kept turning pages, just one more segment of poems, wanting to know more. That process repeated all the way to the end.

This is a well-told story about the effects of the Vietnam War on the soldiers, on the US homefront, and on the people of Vietnam. If you’re looking for something like The Journal of Patrick Seamus Flaherty, this is not it and you won’t hear much about squad combat. You will, on the other hand, hear what it’s like to have napalm dropped on your village. The thing I appreciate, though, is that Burg does not take sides. She presents the effects and lets you draw your own conclusions without being preachy.

This is a great debut novel from Ann Burg and I’m excited to see more.

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Posted in Historical, Poems

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

September 9th, 2010

I realized today that there is no main antagonist in the Leviathan/Behemoth series. It’s straight character vs. self and character vs. society. I wonder if that’s why students don’t quite get into the action. The only complaint I’ve received is that there’s so much focus on the history and not on excitement.

The “focus on history” comment is an interesting one, considering the book is about giant flying whales and steam-powered mechs.

Behemoth is a great sequel to Leviathan. It continues documenting the travels of the airship crew as they delve into the Ottoman Empire. There’s a little bit of airship combat but mostly it’s adventuring in the streets of Istanbul as Alek tries to find help to overthrow the German presence. Real ships and vehicles, like the Goeben and the Orient Express, show up, but in steampunk glory.

There is a cutesy mascot that gets added to the party, in the same vein as Gurgi from the Prydain Chronicles. Lots of babbling, lots of cuteness, and I must admit that, until I knew its true purpose, I sided with Count Volger on killing the thing.

In Behemoth, Westerfeld built up the revolution in Istanbul so that it explodes within the last 50 pages of the book. Students who are looking for battles galore are going to be disappointed that it takes such time to develop. Students who love character interactions and a believable world, though, will enjoy it without a doubt.

I’m marketing this book as an adventure, more like Indiana Jones, where there’s running and crashing and stuff like that alongside witty one-liners. We’ll see how it does in October when it hits the shelf.

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Posted in Historical, Sci-fi, Scott Westerfeld

Oregon Trail Online

August 17th, 2010


I’m helping a Social Studies teacher with her westward expansion lesson and we found Westward Trail, which looks very, very similar to the old Apple IIgs game we played when we were in elementary school.

You can find the game by clicking here. May your oxen be healthy and your axles unbreakable.

Side note: the original Oregon Trail is now on the Nintendo DS and on the iPhone and they are both worth checking out.

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Posted in Game, Historical

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

June 29th, 2010

I know that this book has been out for a while but I finally had a chance to read it. It’s always on hold at school.

I just finished the book, like, five minutes ago and I’m still reeling. Most students and teachers had alluded to a sad ending, so I expected that. But the way it ended still had suspense for me.

There are a lot of books about World War II out there. Many people are trying to make sense of what happened to so many families. Some think that it was a clear cut-good versus evil with the Axis and the Allies and want the excitement you see in Medal of Honor video games. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas has no action scenes whatsoever but I’m willing to bet that once Bruno meets Shmuel, you will be hooked.

Because the issues are so complex it is beautiful that Boyne chose a nine year-old boy as the person to follow. His mispronounciations of key people and places in the Holocaust let the reader know where he’s at but clue us in to his naivete. You’ll probably figure out what he’s talking about early on, but a great scene is when Shmuel draws the symbol he was forced to wear, the Star of David, and Bruno draws the swastika from his dad’s uniform. They talk frankly about which symbol is better and wonder why they’re different.

Saying anything more about the plot will ruin the innocent exploration of a horrible concentration camp. Go read the book, plain and simple.

What I will challenge you to do is research modern day holocausts. Check out Darfur. Look at Rwanda. Get to know Bosnia-Herzegovina.

And then do something.

Arizona has an influx of refugees from war-torn parts of the world. Like Boyne says in his author’s note, there will always be fences like what separated Bruno and Shmuel. I hope that the students I interact with will tear down those fences and not build them up.

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Posted in Drama, Historical, Society-Challenging

Dust Bowl Webquest

April 27th, 2010

This link is for Ms. Redden’s Language Arts students. Click here for the link.

This WebQuest is to add historical context to Out of the Dust.

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Posted in Historical

The Way of the Warrior by Andrew Matthews

November 17th, 2009

There are many books with the title Way of the Warrior, so if you want to read this book, make sure it’s the book by Andrew Matthews.

I picked up this book because it was a short read. After a big epic-type book like Leviathan, I wanted a book that I could speed through. Also, despite their popularity, there are not many stories about samurai in the YA market (or at least ones that promise a little bit of realism). I started it wondering how authentic the book would be to 16th century Japanese lifestyle.

The Way of the Warrior by Andrew Matthews is the story of Jimmu, a 10 year-old boy whose father dies in the first chapter of the book. Jimmu is then taken in by Nichiren, his father’s bodyguard. The set-up for the quest is that they will search for Lord Ankan, the person responsible for destroying Jimmu’s family.

The book reads like a good samurai movie, such as Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai or Hiroshi Inagaki’s Musashi Miyamoto. Because the book is so short, the action sequences move very quickly. It’s not these long, drawn-out Hollywood scenes. One or two sword slashes determine the end of a duel. Something that I did not expect was who would live and who would die by the end of the book. I figured, “Hey. This character has a name, we know his background; he must be…” and then the character was dead on the ground. That kept me guessing and really added to my enjoyment of the story.

Characters that I was pretty certain would make it were the rulers from that time period. I knew that Tokugawa Ieyasu would make it since he eventually helped unite most of Japan. I’ll be honest with you, though. Most of my knowledge of 16th century Japan comes from playing Kessen on the PS2, so I had to check my facts with a little research.

For being such a short story, the characters do develop a little. It’s not all swordfights; there are traces of dialogue (although the conversation sometimes ended in swords being drawn).

Final verdict: I think it’s an enjoyable read, much better than most books that length.

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Posted in Action, Historical

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

November 3rd, 2009

This is one that I had been waiting for for a long time. In my opinion there are not enough books out there about giant robots.

In addition, there are many more books about World War II than World War I. I wonder if it’s because more veterans from WWII are alive, or if our perceptions of the war have clearer boundaries between right and wrong, or maybe it’s because Indiana Jones fought Nazis and we all want to be like Harrison Ford.

Leviathan is a steampunk version of World War I. The Clankers (Westerfeld has such a knack for fun to say words) consist of the Austrians, Germans, and Ottoman Empire. Alek is a Clanker, trained in the art of fighting with giant robots. Steampunk is a subgenre of sci-fi, with the technology being more like Jules Verne and from that transition into the 20th century. The Clanker mechs run off of kerosene, steam, an a whole lot of levers and gears.

The other side fights with genetically engineered whales. I mean, obviously.

You do have the two perspectives, one protagonist from Clanker, the other from Darwinist, and of course they’re going to cross paths – this is a YA book. Deryn has a whole Mulan thing going on, hiding the fact that she’s a girl so that she can enlist for the Darwinist forces. We’ve seen that plot hook done many times before, but it’s a necessity if you’re talking British military from 1914. We’ve also seen the shipwrecked airship mixed with a feisty female scientist, like Ken Oppel’s Airborn series.

Even though many parts of Westerfeld’s book are tropes used in other stories, Westerfeld still puts his fun spin on them for an enjoyable book. Another fun aspect is looking up the real life events and people from World War I to further explore this alternate history. It is a series; I am anxiously awaiting book two. The first booktalks today for book one drew a lot of student interest.

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Posted in Action, Historical, Sci-fi, Scott Westerfeld

Philosophy of Revolution

September 10th, 2009

For 8th grade Social Studies

What are some of the thoughts that influenced the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the American Revolution?

Here are some sites that provide a great jumping off point:

First, you might check out AP Study Notes for an overview of the philosophies. usconstitution.net (not an official government site, though) gives an overview, as well.

Here are some documents:
The Magna Carta
The Mayflower Compact
The Articles of Confederation
The English Bill of Rights

You can also look at this site for some specifics about how the Enlightenment helped shape some of the thoughts.

Once you know who you are looking for, you can check out sites like Biography.com for more information about the specific philosopher. infoplease also has some great biographies, collected from different encyclopedias.

The National Archives has a history of the U.S. Constitution and a section for questions and answers about the document.

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Posted in Historical, Philosophy

March Toward the Thunder by Joseph Bruchac

July 16th, 2009

I like history.

I’m not a history buff in the sense that I can name every Battle of That Guy Bridge or the Raid On This Guy’s Stuff. That emphasis on memorizing battles out of context has no appeal for me.

What I enjoy is learning about how real-life people lived through crazy experiences.

Civil War stories usually don’t grab my attention, to be honest. Normally it’s random battles and dysentery.

Killer Angels by Michael Shaara brought the war to life for me. Joseph Bruchac’s March Toward the Thunder does this, as well.

Basing it on the true story of one of Bruchac’s relatives, Louis Nolette is a young boy who volunteers for the Union army even though he does not meet the age requirement. He’s big enough to pass, and they’ve lost enough soldiers, that he is able to enlist.

Throughout the story Louis interacts with real soldiers expressing real concerns – things like questioning orders of distant generals, not wanting to make friends that will die soon enough, and what it’s like to leave family behind. One great scene is an interaction between Ely Parker, a Seneca chief/Union officer, and Louis, an Abenaki youth.

The battles play out from Louis’ perspective. My only complaint was that they usually occurred in flashback, so we knew Louis made it out okay before we read the battle. Not as much danger as losing a character we’ve related to.

The issue of race is dealt with in an interesting manner: Louis joins up with the Irish Brigade. Frequently they were thrown into the front lines of combat, resulting in more casualties. The book points out the segregation between the units, despite the fact that they’re fighting on the same side. Even the infantry hates the cavalry because of a class difference.

These issues are handled in a way that adds to the narrative and contributes to a well-paced story.

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Posted in Historical

Fire from the Rock

January 7th, 2008

Sharon Draper is a great author and Fire from the Rock is no exception. Sylvia is torn between changing the world and living a normal teenage life in 1957 Arkansas.

On Fire

  1. Perfect historical fiction where a character interacts with real-life events and people. When Faubus does his TV broadcast, you can hear the hatred.
  2. Sylvia remains a teenager. She struggles with wanting/needing to be a hero, but never is she completely unrealistic. When considering integration she also considers what her sorta boyfriend wants and if a rival girl will horn in.
  3. Not everyone is one side of the integration spectrum or the other.

Ice Cold

  1. The only frustrations I truly had were directed towards characters and I think I was supposed to be frustrated with those characters. I wonder what it would be like to have Ms. Draper as my high school English teacher.

All in all a great book that students will love and Social Studies teachers will thank you for.

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Posted in Historical