| Author: | Chaim Potok |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1967 |
Orthodox Jewish boy trying to decide what to be when he grows up. | |
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The Story Space radio program played BD Wong’s rendition of the Daniel Kehlmann short story, The Mathematician, last night. Listening, riveted, I was severely slowed in my dinner preparations.
Anyone who asked Professor Gauss about his early memories was told that such things didn’t exist. Memories, unlike engravings or letters, were undated. One came upon things in one’s memory that one sometimes was able, on reflection, to arrange in the right order.
He remembered that he had started to count before he could talk. Once his father had made an error when he was counting out his monthly pay, and this had made Gauss start to cry. As soon as his father caught the mistake, he immediately fell quiet again.
…
Most of his later memories were of slowness. For a long time he had believed that people were acting or following some ritual that always obliged them to pause before they spoke or did anything. Sometimes he managed to accommodate himself to them, but then it became unendurable again. Only gradually did he come to understand that they needed these pauses. Why did they think so slowly, so laboriously and hard? As if their thoughts were issuing from some machine that first had to be cranked and then put into gear, instead of being living things that moved of their own accord. He noticed that people got angry when he didn’t stop himself. He did his best, but often it didn’t work.
The story goes on to describe how, at 8 years old, Gauss was discovered by his elementary school teacher to be — a genius — and transferred to high school, where Gauss discovered that students don’t think notably faster than in elementary.
The story reminded me of a recent conversation between two of my friends. One is a college student. The other has become “certifiably crazy” (CC), a ward of the state. The college student moaned, “There are so many stupid people at school. SO many.” “Remember,” responded CC. “Fifty-percent of all people are of below average intelligence.” “And that’s why,” CC added, “I had to go crazy. I really can’t cope with all those very slow people.”
I’m going to present both M and CC with a copy of Daniel Kehlmann’s book, Measuring the World.
| Author: | Meg Wolitzer |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2003 |
First person fiction in which the wife of a famous author describes the events that lead to the end of their marriage. | |
Plot seems to describe a situation that I suspect is fairly common in pre-feminist societies. -- Emily Berk | |
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| Author: | Diana Wynne Jones |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1999 |
We here are huge fans of Diana Wynne Jones. We admire the magical worlds she creates and her characters -- human, wizard, and fantastical -- captivate us. We find the plots of her stories unpredictable but plausible, at least in the magical environments in which they take place. One of the coolest things about her stories is that although the plot of each of her novels is really unique, characters and laws of magic overlap in intriguing ways in the many worlds described in her many stories. We enjoyed reading Deep Secret, mostly because we became interested in Nick Mallory, who is a protagonist in another of Jones' many novels, The Merlin Conspiracy. However, it is not one of our favorite Diana Wynne Jones books. For one thing, Deep Secret seems to mostly target adults, perhaps because it seems to be Diana Wynne Jones' tribute to science fiction conventions. The plot -- regarding a Magid (a powerful wizard whose undercover job is to keep magic under control in some sector of the multiverse) in search of a student -- is certainly compelling for certain young readers. But Jones unnecessarily throws in words (such as "orgy") that young readers are likely to ask their parents about.Anyway, Nick is a nice, seemingly ordinary teenage boy with a witch (in all senses of that word) for a mother and a touching relationship with his ne'er-do-well cousin Maree. When my daughter and I first "met" him in The Merlin Conspiracy, he was looking for someone to train him to control his wizardly gifts. In Deep Secret, Nick seems not to be consciously aware that he needs training. We enjoyed learning more about Nick and Maree and the Magid Rupert Venables and many magical creatures, including some fascinating centaurs and phantasmagorical chicks, but might not have found ourselves so riveted if we were not already familiar with many other stories in the Diana Wynne Jones opus. | |
This might be a good read-aloud for older readers. It was fairly easy for me to just omit the few paragraphs that alluded to activities at science fiction conventions that would not be appropriate for young people. | |
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| Author: | Sara Lewis Holmes |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2007 |
Abandoned by her parents (her father, a long-time sufferer from chronic depression has disappeared; her mother is just not around), constrained by overly restrictive homework assignments that she can't or won't complete, condemned to spend long, long hours in detention, terrified that now that she has been identified as gifted, she will be forced to hang out with the nerds in the gifted pull-out class, Candace frantically tries to metaphorically grow hair long enough to provide an escape. While not a fairy tale in the ordinary sense, Letters From Rapunzel brilliantly demonstrates the power of those ancient stories to help us understand our seemingly mundane lives. | |
The descriptions of the father's illness did not unduly upset my relatively sensitive 13 year old, but I would not recommend this book for young readers. Highly recommended for adolescents. | |
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| Author: | Jerry Spinelli |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2007 |
It had been one of those errand-intensive Saturdays. On the way home after much driving, with groceries in the car, my 13 yr. old said, in a studiously casual way, "Hey Mom, you know the sequel to Stargirl is out." One of the pathetic things about us is that we forget our own phone numbers, but know by heart the precise coordinates of every bookstore and/or library in our current vicinity (where ever in the world that might be) and their hours. We checked Love, Stargirl out of the library within 15 minutes. If you have a gifted child, particularly a girl, who is about to enter high school, or who is already in high school, and who has not already read Jerry Spinelli's amazing novel about the glory and the pain of being orders of magnitude different from one's peers, go now and read Stargirl. And then hand it to the child. Love, Stargirl, which takes the form of a letter that Stargirl writes to the boyfriend who was insufficiently tolerant of her uniqueness, is not really a sequel that can be fully appreciated unless one has already read Stargirl. In her letter, Stargirl describes the process by which she rediscovers her joy in creatively reaching out to others. | |
Solving the puzzles that Stargirl poses us is interesting and moving and so we recommend reading Love, Stargirl highly, but -- read Stargirl first. | |
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| Author: | Diana Wynne Jones |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1998 |
"The cool thing about Diana Wynne Jones is that we've read many of her books, but her stories are all very different. She doesn't repeat herself. This one goes from amazing to intense, maybe it's even a little too intense," says my 13 yr. old. As you can tell, we here are huge fans of Diana Wynne Jones. We admire the magical worlds she creates and her characters -- human, wizard, and fantastical -- captivate us. We find the plots of her stories unpredictable but plausible, at least in the magical environments in which they take place. Dark Lord of Derkholm is about a planet that is used as a playground by a imperial power, in the person of one "Mr. Chesney". The inhabitants are compelled to stage elaborate wargames, games in which they and the tourists who pay to join them risk losing lives, families, and livelihoods. (Lest this be thought of as a metaphor for the American adventure in Iraq, please note that this story was written back in 1998, before our Mr. Cheney lead us there.)I have a friend whose brilliant son graduated from college and then promptly enlisted in the military. "Maybe I won't get sent to Iraq," he told her. "Yeah, and why are they teaching you Arabic?" she asked him. There are young people who need to truly understand how terrible war can be. And maybe we should try to communicate this to them before they are old enough to sign on the dotted line of that enlistment contract. But what about the kids who have already drunk the Kool-Aid? Those who know that war is not a game. Do they need to know that mercenaries sometimes rape innocent children? That sometimes heroes die in battle? That those who sponsor the wars often profit vastly from the carnage? Maybe not. But I think I'd have been happier if my friend's son had thought about these things before he enlisted. | |
So, do we recommend Dark Lord of Denholm? Not for sensitive children. Because they will fall in love with the griffins and the dragons and flying horses and annoying geese and Derk and his human children and then they will read about how all these gorgeous characters suffer just because they live in a society that plays at war. Do I think our children ought to read books like this one? Even though they can hardly bring themselves to read on? Yes. In a country where our leaders feel comfortable cheerfully singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" to the melody of a Beach Boys song, our children need to read about how a downtrodden society can pull itself together and say "No" to war. | |
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| Author: | Brian Selznick |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2007 |
At the advanced age of 12, and although my precocious reader loves reading chapter books, she still misses having pictures in her books. The Invention of Hugo Cabret solves this problem. A Dickensian fairy tale, told in words and beautiful, complicated charcoal drawings, Hugo Cabret tells the story of the rediscovery of a silent film director and a young boy in Paris of the early 1930s. | |
My sensitive reader gasped at the way adults failed to take care of Hugo throughout his young life, but rejoiced at the way he is able to create a family for himself which does, eventually include responsible adults. A lovely celebration of train stations, automata, clock mechanisms, and film. The depth of the illustrations and the gentleness of the words would make this a great gift for book lovers and film lovers of all ages.-- Emily Berk | |
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| Author: | Susan Cooper |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
After reading The Dark Is Rising, I never would have imagined that Susan Cooper was capable of writing a book in which all characters are not either entirely good or entirely evil. And yet, here we meet the Boggart, an Old Thing, whose purpose in the world is to play tricks on people. He never intentionally harms anyone, but he almost always acts impulsively and many of his actions result in chaos at best. Accidentally exiled from his castle in Scotland, the poor Boggart discovers peanut butter and that playing around with electricity and streetcars in modern-day Toronto can lead to dire (unintended) consequences. Even the gifts the Boggart bestows on his hosts, ten-year old computer nerd Jessup and his twelve-year old sister, Emily, cause terrific problems. | |
The Boggart is the story of several families -- some are families by blood, others by community -- separated by miles and in some cases oceans, and by history -- who come to know and cherish each other. Parents, children, actors, friends, and one magical creature draw on prodigious, if often hidden, talents and work together to understand each other as awesome (and often dangerous) supernatural events nearly destroy them. The depictions of:
Note: The limitations of the personal computers that existed when this book was written play a significant part in the story. And for that reason, the fact that the author's descriptions of how computer operating systems work are a bit off deflated the story a little for me. If I were to make a movie of this book (and I think it would make a fantastic one), a slight change in a couple of the nouns would resolve this issue. Highly recommended. | |
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| Author: | Margaret Atwood |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2003 |
Margaret Atwood's gift is to write entirely plausible nightmares that resonate to her readers' bones. Problem is, the nightmares she drags us into are so plausible that they do seem to be coming true. The nightmare we inhabit in Oryx and Crake is an ecological one. Intense, violent, horribly sad. Just what we expect from the best of Margaret Atwood. A must read.A bit of a spoiler, below. | |
The germ of Oryx and Crake, and yes, in this context, that is a pun, is that at some point, pharmaceutical companies might worry if all disease were wiped out. After all, if no one ever gets sick, then, what would Big Pharma sell? -- Emily Berk | |
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