Summer Reading List

Last year I wrote about the mostly immensely depressing 
choices on the summer reading list for rising 5th graders 
(5/28) and my eventual choices for my son (6/5 & 6/14).
I don't know if I ever mentioned that our work together 
on laboriously getting through Dodger and Me (funny) 
and The Magician's Elephant (melancholy) was largely 
moot. My boy was in Reading Resource. 
Why isn't there a Reading Resource Summer Reading 
list? It might have more cheerful books.
He worked really hard all year, and made good progress.
So this Fall, the teachers are going to try to keep him in 
with his peers for reading. Which means we're back to the
Summer Reading List, this time for rising Sixth Graders.
At first glance, the list seems a bit less doom laden.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret has been suggested to me
for years as a possible read for him. I've avoided it because
the illustrations seem more distracting than helpful, but it's 
worth a try.

I had high hopes for Avi's Nothing But the Truth. It has 
journal entries and my son is currently obsessed with journals.
Unfortunately, the first journal entry date did not match up
with the copyright year and pleas that the author wrote the
book the previous year when March 13 was on a Tuesday
were to no avail.
The book has a miserably unhappy ending, but nobody dies.
Plus, it makes a case for literature, funding schools, 
supporting teachers, and paying attention to your kids. 
TO BE CONTINUED .   .   .
This week I want to plug a play-kids with autism read
the script and the lyrics, so it sort of fits the blog. 
If you're in Nashville Friday or Saturday, come see the 
kids of SENSE theatre perform Bridges.  Full details here:
http://www.sensetheatre.com/