145 Street: Short Stories

145th Street: Short Stories

Walter Dean Meyers pulls another great book from up his sleeve.  This one contains, as the title suggests, a collection of stories that all take place in Harlem.  Each story focuses on a different character, but recurring characters give each one a familiar feel.  Meyers’ stories are remarkable in that they are full of tough issues.  Poverty, discrimination, police violence, and poor work conditions are all present in this vibrant collection of stories.  However, the focus always comes back to the community’s or an individual’s strength to respond to any situation.  Meyers’ narrative voice hooks his reader and pulls them into Harlem and the lives of its residents.  How could a reader not have an emotional connection to Billy the boxer who is willing to risk his own wellbeing so that he can be a good father and husband for his family?  Or with Big Joe who just wants to pull a Tom Sawyer and attend his own funeral? Or Peaches Jones who thinks Big Joe has gone too far and must be defrauded? 

This is a fantastic piece of literature, especially considering it was written for middle school students.  It is an extremely accessible book.  The first page hooks the reader and the rest is history.  I would highly recommend this book to any middle school teacher for his or her classroom.  Although 5th through 7th grades would probably be best.  It would make an excellent catalyst for discussions about race, poverty, and many other issues.

Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Muri

Shizuko's Daughter by Kyoko Muri

Yuki Okuda, a smart, creative, and bold, twelve-year-old girl from Japan finds herself lost and confused after her mother commits suicide. Having been left to live with her father, a distant and numb man, and her new insensitive stepmother, Yuki struggles to cope with her tragic loss and searches for the meaning of life and death. After seven years of pain, loneliness, nostalgia, and growth, Yuki emerges from the depths of tragedy as a new young woman with a new perspective on life. In a rollercoaster of emotion, Mori’s novel takes the reader through moments of laughter, pain, joy, and sorrow to convey the ultimate message, hope.

This novel deserves to be taught in a middle school classroom. Mori combines a fairly simple read with some very mature ideas and issues. This book deals with some of the struggles that middle-schoolers face on a daily basis like independence, coping with loss, self-exploration, love, family issues, growing up, and certainly appeals to a wide variety of readers. Obviously, some of the content deals with extremely sensitive material, so it would have to be handled properly and taught to a mature group of kids, but overall, I would highly recommend this book for teachers and students everywhere.

The Island by Gary Paulsen

This story tracks the childhood of the Wil Newton, whose family moves from a busy urban environment to the solitude of a rural area.  When he gets there, he explores his new home, where he finds an island that he regularly visits.  On this island he takes time to reflect on his own thoughts and discover himself.  This is where he spends time making discoveries about nature, animals, as well as a girl named Susan.  Symbolizing his own emotions, Wil finally decides to show Susan his journals where all of his discoveries and thoughts were listed.

Nature and the island in particular serve as Wil’s escape from the realities of his life back in the town.  The island remains untouched and isolated from everyone going on around it; therefore Wil finds comfort in becoming his own island where he can escape his father and problems with the local bully Ray Bunner.  Only when Ray discovers Wil’s island is Wil’s solitude and escape tampered with, and he must make a move to come to terms with his reality.

This novel is a strong candidate for middle school literature, especially with the inclusion of family issues and bullying.  Bullying is a tragically common routine in many students’ lives, and this book creates a great example of how a child can stand up to adversity and defeat it.  I also enjoyed the use of journal entries in the book because it adds a fresh format to the usual reading routine.

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

Love That Dog, Sharon Creech, HarperColins

This short book consists of poems that a student writes as part of a poetry unit in his classroom.  All of Jack’s narrations are in poetry form and show his development as he learns more about poetry.  His narrative poems reflect on other famous poems that he has learned in class and even develop throughout the story with his poetic form and word-choice.  In the book, he is inspired by a poem by Walter Dean Meyers, and his teacher convinces Jack to write to Meyers asking him to pay a visit to their school.  When Meyers does come to visit, he writes him a thank-you letter, which is, of course, a poem.  At the end of the book, Jack’s most prized and hidden poem is published on a page for the readers to finally see, which is a poem about his dog written in the same form as his favorite poem by Meyers.  Also, all of the famous poems alluded to in Jack’s narrative are available to read. 

I think that this book would be perfect to read in a poetry unit.  It would probably be most appropriate for the sixth grade just because it is such a quick and easy read.  This book has many teachable qualities for a poetry unit.  Not only is the entire book written in free-verse poetry, but different types and forms of poetry are slowly introduced to the book, which would be a fantastic opportunity to introduce these ideas to students.  Additionally, the frequent connections to other famous poetry would give teachers a chance to read those poems as well along the way and discuss them as Jack does.  The way that this book develops is almost perfect for breaking it up into different lessons that can follow the new information that Jack is introduced to in class.  This book would be a great tool for teaching poetry to students!

First Crossing

First Crossing: Stories About Teen Immigrants
Edited: Donald R. Gallo

So, this book contains 10 short stories about mostly high school kids who have immigrated or are immigrating to the United States.  There’s a story about a kid from Palestine, Romania, Korea, Cambodia, and others.  It gives you a pretty well rounded group of stories.  I think my favorite one is Lines of Scrimmage which is about a Palestinian boy who wants to play football and makes friends with a Navajo boy and they go to Canyon de Chelly.  Sweet.  I thought it was interesting how the story brought up how there was racial tension between the two minorities.

Are these stories teachable?  Absolutely.  I think they are great to use in a classroom setting.  They aren’t too long and they aren’t too short.  There’s humor, there’s drama.  They are definitely relatable stories and some of them give some twists that you weren’t expecting making them different than your average immigrant story.  Some of the stories use words from the native language which is always culturally enlightening.  The vocabulary wasn’t too difficult but I am sure there were vocab teaching moments in there.  If not used in the classroom I would also recommend students to read this book independently.  Overall, a good choice.

To Spoil the Sun - Joyce Rockwood

To Spoil the Sun by Joyce Rockwood explores 16th Century Native American life as seen through the eyes of Rain Dove, a young woman who’s tribe lives in a town called Mulberry in south Appalachia. At the beginning of the story, Rain Dove dreams of marrying a young warrior. However, her dreams are put in jeopardy when omens of death and destruction reach her tribe. Among the omens which would spell out death was the coming of the “Immortals.” Rain Dove eventually marries and has children. However, her family and everybody around her are put into harms way when Europeans arrive in their village, bringing with them the deadly disease Smallpox.

To Spoil the Sun  deals with he topic of Smallpox on Native American life, as well as the issues associated with European contact in general, which I feel can often be misunderstood by young people. This novel could be a great introduction into student understanding of the troubles that Native Americans faced at this time. Although the story deals with dark and heavy subject matter, the ending provides a sense of hope and resilience from the main character, which could be a valuable lesson for young people.

This novel is written in a plain diction which could easily be read by students in a seventh or eighth grade classroom. Although the subject matter is quite heavy at times, it is important that students get a glimpse of this period in time in order to understand its impact on Native American culture. 

When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead

Stead's novel, targeted for middle school readers, is told from the perspective of Miranda Sinclair, a twelve-year-old girl living with a single mother in New York City in 1978. The two of them are poor, but content. (This made for an interesting dynamic--though they aren't wealthy, they also are not destitute and/or miserable. I think it is important to show readers this side of life, because it seems very realistic.)

Miranda receives a strange note asking her to record future events and write down the location of her spare key. From there, Miranda is tossed into a whirlwind of a mystery, wherein she must attempt to break past the mystique of this precarious situation. Taken out of her sense of self, Miranda must make sense of her surroundings and the people she interacts with. It is an enthralling, cleverly written story, one that is engaging and page-turning, and not at all trite. It doesn't feel like the author is talking down to her audience, even though the targeted audience of this novel is, in fact, middle schoolers. It's refreshingly smart for a "middle school book".

The mystery of the book will keep readers engaged, but I'd say given the somewhat dark nature of the book and the fact that it's not the most straightforward, easy read, it is best suited for 7th or 8th graders.