Jessica

2/6/12
 * # || =Book Title= || =Author= || =E, JR, C= || =Date Completed= ||
 * ==1== || ==Zorgamazoo== || ==Robert Paul Westen== || ==e== || ==Late September== ||
 * ==2== || ==Scat== || ==Carl Hiaasen== || ==c== || ==September== ||
 * ==3== || ==I,Q== || ==Roland Smith== || ==jr== || ==1st week of school== ||
 * ==4== || ==Ellie McDoodle have pen will travel== || ==Ruth Mcnally Barshaw== || ==e== || ==2nd week of school== ||
 * ==5== || ==The Leanin' dog== || ==K.A Nuzum== || ==jr== || ==Beginning of Sept.== ||
 * ==6== || ==Silverwing== || ==Kenneth Oaple== || ==Ms. Sellers read== || ==10/4/11== ||
 * ==7== || ==The Year the Swallows Came Early== ||  || ==jr== || ==9/16/11== ||
 * ==8== || ==Long Shot== || ==Mike Lupica== || ==e== || ==9/20/11== ||
 * ==9== || ==The Magicians Elephant== ||  || ==c== || ==9/26/11== ||
 * ==10== || ==Cracker== || ==Cynthia Kadohata== || ==c== || ==10/2/11== ||
 * ==11== || ==Lost and Found== || ==Andrew Clements== || ==jr== || ==10/4/11== ||
 * ==12== || ==Where The Mountain Meets the Moon== ||  || ==jr== || ==10/6/11== ||
 * ==13== || ==Sunwing== || ==Kenneth Oaple== || ==Ms Sellers reading== || Sometime in Dec. ||
 * ==14== || ==Dewey== || ==Vicky Myron== || ==c== || 10/28/11 ||
 * ===15=== || ===Summer Camp Secrets Acting out=== || ===Katy Grant=== || ===e=== || ===10/27/11=== ||
 * ===16=== || ===The Prince of Fenway Park=== || ===Julianna Baggot=== || ===jr=== || ===11/6/11=== ||
 * 17 || ===The Mixed- up Files of Mrs, Basil E. Frankweiler=== || E.L. Konigsburg || e (guided reading) || 12/7/11 ||
 * 18 || Dying to Meet You || Kate Klise || e || 11/7/11 ||
 * 19 || Sunny Holiday || Coleen Murtagh Paratore || e || 11/15/11 ||
 * 20 || The Secret of Zoom ||  || JR || 11/20/11 ||
 * 21 || Return to Sender ||  || jr || 12/4/11 ||
 * 22 || Operation Redwood ||  || JR || 12/12/11 ||
 * 23 || Dr Proctors Fart Powder || Jo Nesbo || c || 1/4/12 ||
 * 24 || How Oliver Olsen Changed the World || Claudia Mills || e || 1/9/12 ||
 * 25 || The Girl who Threw Butterflies || Nick Cochrane || jr || Sometime in Jan. 2012 ||
 * 26 || The Sacrifice ||  || jr || 2/4/12 ||

Dear Ms Sellers,

One of the books that I have recently finished is __The Sacrifice__. This book is about a girl named Abigail Faulkner and she is not like other girls. She runs around freely with her skirts up high. But something unusual is happening in the next town over Salem Town. There have been spottings of witches and there are two girls who claim that the Devil has touched them. The girls come to the town of Andover to see who is a witch. Unfortunately Abigail's Aunt Elizabeth has been accused of being a witch. But then Abigail and her sister Dorothy got accused by their former housekeeper Sara. They have to go to prison in Salem Town for 3 months. But during that time their Aunt dies off all the things that she went through during that time. These girls aventualy get out but they have to acceuse someone. I wont tell you that part because you'll have to read the book yourself! I hope you love it.

Your Friend JO'Neil

1/10/12

Dear Ms Sellers,

One of the books that Im enjoying right now is __The Girl Who Threw Butterflies__ [knuckle balls]. In this book the main character [Molly Willaims] father had just died and she wants to find something that she can connect with her father and be her own person at the same time. And that thing is baseball!! Molly isnt a tomboy, she just likes baseball. Shes nerves at first that the boys wont let her in the team but this one boy asked her to be his partner for catch at practice since none of the other boys wouldnt ask. I cannot tell you any more because thats as far Ive gotten into it, but by tommorow I might finish and youll see a new sticker on the chart. Did I mention that Im almost done with reading ALL THE MCBAs!!!! Im so exitedfor the pancake party!!!!!!!

How was your vacation I would love to hear about it?

Your Friend in reading, JO'Neil :-)

January 2, 2012

Dear Jess,

I can’t believe that vacation is already over! I actually am even more in shock that it’s 2012! This school year is going by awfully fast. I was able to read over this vacation and that made me very happy. I did not however read the stack of MCBAs and other books that you guys have been so kind as to recommend to me. You see I got sucked in to a couple more adult books. One of the books might be one that you’ve seen around your house or you’ve seen that it is a movie; it’s called __The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo__. Just about everyone I know read and loved this book a couple summers ago. I must not have been able to read it then because I was reading MCBAs J One of the people who loved this book was my dad. He was really excited when reading it as the first setting of the book is in Stockholm the capital city of Sweden. (You know home of our Vikings.) I know that I told you guys that one of my very best friends lives in Stockholm and my whole family travelled there for her wedding eight years ago. My dad loved that he knew all the little places that were described in the story. ***Having some background knowledge of what you are reading about certainly helps you as the reader better understand what’s going on in the story and helps you to better visualize the places that are being described. This book was 640 pages long, and it was really hard for me to put down. This book was a murder mystery with lots of twists and turns. You as the reader spend the book trying to put together the clues of what is going on and figuring out who may be the “bad guy”.**

The big question now is- what book shall we read for our MCBA class read aloud? I would like to do something that might be slightly more challenging and one that maybe not too many people have read. We will have to investigate the chart!
 * One thing I might change about the story is the ending. The way the mystery was solved reminded me of another kid’s book I love called __Journey to the River Sea.__ Both in that book and __Dragon Tattoo__, the mystery is kind of solved with 100 pages left to go in the book and you as the reader kind of wonder- what’s left to say in this story? I guess it’s just a different kind of style that the author uses to not have the book wrap up immediately after the mystery was solved. But, I do feel like both books kind of dragged on a bit after the big climax/resolution of the mystery. There are two other books in the Dragon Tattoo series, but they will probably have to wait till February vacation.

Your friend in reading, Ms. Sellers

December 13, 2011 Hi Jessica-

Long time, no write! What have you been reading lately? Over Thanksgiving, I finally picked up the MCBA __Return to Sender__. One of the things I noticed right away that I'm not sure I knew before is that this book is written by a previous MCBA author. Julia Alvarez also wrote one of my favorite heart warming books called __When Tia Lola Came to Visit (or Stay)__. *Very quickly after I started reading __Return to Sender__, I recognized some connections and similarities between the two books. Both books have main characters who are Hispanic and newly moving to Vermont. One of the main characters is an 11 year old girl named Mari. She is originally from Mexico, and is struggling with some family problems. She and her family have just moved from North Carolina to Vermont. The main character of __Tia Lola__ is, you guessed it, Tia Lola! Tia in Spanish means "aunt" and Tia Lola comes from the island of the Dominican Republic to visit her niece's family in Vermont. Right away I obviously recognized these two spanish characters in an unlikely setting of snowy, cold Vermont. __Tia Lola__ had a funnier tone or feel to the story as the funny and colorful aunt often embarrased the little boy Miguel. __Return to Sender__ has a more serious tone as Mari's family are illegal aliens and her mother went back to Mexico for a visit and has never returned. Mari has been writing letters to her mother, but not sending them since she doesn't know where she is and doesn't want to risk getting her family in trouble. I think the title __Return to Sender__ refers to what happens to letters that people try to mail to someone that either end up going to the wrong place, or the person doesn't live there anymore, or they forgot to put postage stamps on it. A red stamp like the one below is put on it to show that your letter had to be "returned to sender". Your friend, Ms.Sellers:)

Nov. 16, 2011 Hi Jeesica, ====I think that you should work on reading some more just right books on your log. You are doing pretty good when you write your letters to Ms. Sellers and you use lots of sentence leads. Can you tell me about __The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler?__ I was wondering what your opinion of __Long Shot__ was?==== ====What are your favorite types of books? Is Sunny Holiday good because I have not read it yet? The second __I, Q__ is really good even though it only has like only one setting in the book. The author got me interested when Q outsmarted adults with tricks. I like how Angela can be a huge help to Q sometimes. I can realate __I, Q__ to __Silverwing__ because Angela is a bit like Marina and Q is like Shade. What was your favorite MCBA so far? ====



Dec. 13 2011 Dear Ms Sellers, I thought that __Operation Redwood__ was an interesting book because of all the main charaters problems. One of his problems was that his mother is in China (Wich I can connect to bacause my Dad goes to China sometimes.) so that leads to living with his "evil" Aunt Daphene and Uncle Sibly and his (nice) cousin, Preston. His uncle wants to send him away to MATH CAMP!! So he decides to runaway to his "penpal" Robins house as an "exchange student" because they want to save the redwood trees that his uncle is cutting down. They want to make it a law saying that you cant cut the trees down under any circumstanses. But after a few days there, his Aunt finds out that he ran away because she called the camp and they said that he never arrived there, and he ends up in huge trouble. So he gets sent away again to his grandmothers house and he ends up going to the farm again but he doesnt get in to trouble this time... I would also recomend this book to you because it is about humans and not animals (like __Silverwing__).To find out if he saves the redwoods READ THIS BOOK!!

Talk to you soon, JO'Neil

Nov. 7, 2011 Dear Ms. Sellers, I think that all of the mythical creatures in __The Prince of Fenway Park__ would make it fiction because these creatures are not real for example the Poka, is part human and part horse wich paint a desturbing picture in your mind. I thought that it was pretty cool that Oscars dad was living under Fenway park!! Exept the thing that I didnt get was that Auntie Feldma wanted Oscar to fail even though she was cursed too. Now that I have finished working on my book talk I am starting to think of a book that would be good to read and to present. After reading your letter I thought that __Tuck Everlasing__ would be a great book! But I might change my mind, do you have any other suggestions? If so please include them in your next letter. I am thrilled because I only have a few more MCBA books to read left! I have 8 more to go and the next one that I am just dying to read just happens to be __Dying to Meet You__ because the way that Vin and Lacey described it for their book talks made me want to read it even more! The reason that I wanted to read it in the first place is because Kaitlin just happened to choose it for her book talk too!! So far I am realy enjoying __The Mixed- up Files of Mrs, Basil E. Frankweiler.__ But what confuses me is the fact that Claudia wants to runaway and live in the museum and I understand that she want heat and a nice place to sleep. But seriously a museum?! My B-DAY is coming up, Nov. 20 oh yeah!! Talk to you soon, JO'Neil :-)

November 5, 2011 Dear JONeil:), I thought the Prince of Fenway Park would turn out to be a popular MCBA book this year considering it's connection to our Red Sox. I thought it sounded a little strange when people started telling me about all the peculiar things that happen with the people (including Oscar's father) who live underneath Fenway! Would you also say that these cursed creatures would make this book Fantasy?

I have not had a lot of time to read lately, but I am hoping to devote some time to reading on either the long Veterans Day weekend coming up or maybe Thanksgiving. There are still many MCBAs that I haven't read yet that I want to read. One of them is __The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate__. You haven't read it, have you? Historical Fiction is one of my favorite genres, probably because I love history and social studies so much! When I read the back of the book, I see that Callie is growing up in turn of the century Texas. She is a rich girl, but wonders a lot about nature and finds that it's a way to connect with her grumpy grandfather. *Reading this little bit caused me to make a text- to-text connection with another favorite fifth grade book called __Tuck Everlasting__. The main character of this book is also a girl living around the turn of the century. Her name is Winnie and she resents having to be a girl and be cooped up in her hot house during the summer. She wishes to be outside exploring. I wonder if Callie and Winnie will have any other similarities.

What are you reading these days? What do you think of __Mixed Up Files__ so far?

Talk to you soon,

Ms. Sellers:)

P.S How was The Help, my mom said it was a great book!! From "JO'Neil"
 * October 31, 2011**
 * Dear Ms Sellers,**
 * Yes, I have been reading up a storm and guess what? I just started a new book called The Prince of Fenway Park.**
 * Its about an orphan named Oscar whos foster mother sends him to his foster father, but his father doesnt want him to find out where he lives and Oscer thinks he is cursed. He loves baseball, he is unpridictable! You never know what he is going to do next. Oscar soon finds out that his father, and his great Aunts are faries (kind of out of this world!!) His father lives UNDER FENWAY PARK wich is where all the cursed creatures live. The fact that Oscar has a gift means that Oscar might be able to break the curse but some one wants him to fail...**
 * I would say that this book is fiction because there is no such thing as the "cursed creatures" but there is such thing as the curse (the curse when the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to NY) Ive only gotten that far but I hope to read more tonight!!**

October 22, 2011 Dear Jessica, Boy have you been reading up a storm! I'm very impressed. I can't wait to hear more about all these great books. I'm glad that you are also enjoying the "Silverwing" tv show. I enjoy parts of it too, but since I love the Silverwing book sooooo much, it's kind of hard to accept the differences of the tv show. Last weekend I went to see the movie of "The Help". This was based on a book that I read and really enjoyed last spring. We could call this book historical fiction as it takes place in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962. __***The setting of this story is important as it will help us know that this is a Southern town during the Civil Rights movement.**__ This book is told from the point of view of three main and very different characters. (You would recognize this author’s style as our favorite Kenneth Oppel did something similar by having alternating chapters as seen by Shade or Goth, or even Marina in __Sunwing__.) In this book, we see the story through the eyes of a girl named “Skeeter”. No, Skeeter is not her real name, but a nickname. Her real name is Eugenia Phelan. The other two main characters are African-American maids named Minnie and Aibileen.

I knew this book was going to be pretty good because I had a very hard time putting it down. Since each chapter alternated between different characters, I found myself peeking ahead at the end of each chapter! It was really hard when the author left you hanging with something that happened to Minnie, and then moved on to Skeeter. Of course, I can appreciate the author’s style in trying to keep the readers reading. ***I would like to read another book by this author because I enjoyed her story-telling style and really liked the characters she made.** The end of the story was kind of cliffhanger, and I must have really liked the book because I really worried if everything turned out ok for Minnie, Aibileen and Skeeter. The movie was made to be less of a cliffhanger- I guess the movie makers wanted to make everything feel really good in the end!

__Dewey__ sounds like a great book. I love your descriptions of it. Is Sherbert an orange kitty too? Ms. Hothckiss has an orange kitty named Dusty. You'll have to ask her about him. What other kinds of books are your favorites, or can I recommend any new books to you?

Your friend in reading,

Ms. Sellers:)

Dear Ms Sellers,
==I just started a new book called __Dewey__, it is about a cat that is found in a book drop for the Spencer library. The character that I like most is Dewey because he is cute, funny, and he has a great personality! This cat was found in a book drop on a freezing January morning by a librarian named Vicky Myron. Vicky saw that this animal needed some help so she took him in the library and cared for him. Dewey has many adventures in this book and its ALL TRUE!!!!! When I started reading this book it made me think about MY cat, Sherbet who is just like Dewey.... exept for the point that she doesnt like to hang around people. When I read the first chapter it made me feel like I was right there with Vicky and her fellow library staff.Italmost made me cry at the thought that someone would just through him in the book drop like that and just walk away like they did nothing wrong!!!! It also had made me happy when I found out that the townspeople let Dewey stay. So far in the book Dewey has ran away, got carryed by a little girl upsidedown, ate many rubber bands, and got his picture profecianally taken ( the picture on the cover of the book ). Dewey os a great cat and I hope you can read this book too.==

October 6, 2011

Dear Ms Sellers,

After reading the book __Silverwing__ I relised that the book and the show are different. A way that they are the same is the fact that there is a bat named Shade and his new friend Marina who are trying to get back to Shades colony. Another reson that they are the same is that the show has the same characters as the book (examples) Shade, Marina, Shades colony, Goth and Throbb. Allthough we haven’t actually got to meet Goth and Throbb I know that they are different because in the “fake jungle” Goth and Throbb escape right away but in the book it takes them a long time to escape. I personoly like the like the book better. I love 5th grade but I especially like the books.

Your student, Jessica O’Neil

September 27, 2011 Dear Room 7, I’m very excited to hear all your thoughts about what you’re reading on your individual wiki pages. I’ve really enjoyed all your enthusiasm about __Silverwing__. Even though this is my twelfth time reading it, I still get really excited about sharing it every year. ***The genre of this book is definitely fantasy since I don’t believe that bats and owls have wars or detailed adventures together. I also consider this to be a genre of my own invention- called Animal Adventure. I love the character Shade; he’s one of my all-time favorites.** *If I could talk to Shade, I would ask him if he thinks it was worth it to break the law and see the sun, especially after what happens to his colony as a result. Your friend in reading, Ms. Sellers J