It's Monday! What are you reading?

Hello, Armadillo Readers!  It's been HOT outside this past week!  I hope you've been able to cool off with a good book indoors.

I've been reading an advance copy of The Kids Under the Stairs:  BenBee and the Teacher Griefer by K.A. Holt, who just happens to be a local author!

If you're a Harry Potter fan, you might be thinking the kids in the title are in a closet...but they're not. Ben Bellows (Ben B.), Benita (Ben Y), Javier, and Jordan J are attending summer school in the space under the stairs in the school hallway after failing the sixth grade language arts part of the FART. It's really the FRAAT--Florida Rigorous Academic Assessment Test, but everyone calls it the FART, including Ms Jackson, their teacher.

You are divergent thinkers, Ms Jackson tells them.  All four hate reading for different reasons.  Ben B. has trouble making sense out of words; it feels like it takes forever to finish even a page, so he's never finished a book.  Ben Y has a hard time reading, too.  Javier refuses to read out loud and spends his time in class drawing comics instead.  Jordan J is the class clown, and has a hard time paying attention.

The one thing they are all good at is Sandbox, a video game in which you build worlds and avoid ghosts.  When they play Sandbox, they feel smart and accomplished--the exact opposite of how they feel in school.  Ms Jackson decides to use Sandbox as an incentive for completing work each day--but is that allowed in school?  Will Ms Jackson and the students get in trouble for playing video games?  After all, that kind of "smart" isn't measured by the FART.

If you like Minecraft, if you think school is hard, if you want to know what kids who have trouble learning might be thinking, then you'll like BenBee and the Teacher Griefer.  The story is told in the students' voices, each chapter written as they think:  Ben B's and Ben Y's free verse, Javier's comics, Jordan J's stream-of-consciousness prose.  BenBee is recommended for third grade on up.

It's Monday, and I'm reading a "windows and mirrors" book--a window into the thinking of students who have difficulty learning, and a mirror because I've taught students like Ben B, Ben Y, Javier, and Jordan J.  How have books been windows or mirrors for you?