It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

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This book is getting a lot of attention and it is part of our Newbery Book Club this year. I am in the minority of people who didn't LOVE this book.

Genre: Historical

AR level: 4.1

Grade appropriate: 4th and up

RATING BREAKDOWN:

Overall: 3/5-- My biggest problem with this book was the severe abuse of Ada. That doesn’t detract from the quality of the book, but it did detract from my enjoyment of it. I do have a bit of a sensitivity to that kind of thing though.

Creativity: 4/5-- This is a story about a brother and sister in London during World War II. The girl, Ada, has a clubfoot and their mother is extremely abusive to her and very vocal about preferring her son. They escape to the country to avoid the bombs that are feared in London and find a loving foster home.

Characters: 4/5-- The characters do grow very naturally through the story, but having experience with abused children, Ada seems to recover awfully quickly. Again, this may seem so to me because of my own experiences.

Engrossing: 3/5-- It was not a story I wanted to escape into.

Writing: 5/5-- There wasn’t the edge-of-your-seat, what’s-going-to-happen-next appeal of many World War II stories.

Appeal to kids: 3/5-- I will recommend this one to the kiddos who loved Number the Stars and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas though it doesn’t have the same excitement they do.

Appropriate length to tell the story: 5/5

CONTENT:

Language: none

Sexuality: none

Violence: mild-- the abuse of Ada bothered me a lot.

Drugs/Alcohol: none