Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Paperback, 447 pages

Published February 6th 2012 by Egmont Press 

Oct. 11th, 1943-A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun.

When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.

As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage, failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?

A Michael L. Printz Award Honor book that was called "a fiendishly-plotted mind game of a novel" in The New York Times, Code Name Verity is a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other.

I posted earlier about the free audiobooks from Audiobooksync.com and if you haven't taken advantage, you need to! This was one of the downloads from last week and all I can say is WOW! This book is a fantastic read, but it was so much better with the audio! The book is told in two parts and each part represents a character's point of view of the story. The narrators are FANTASTIC! The accents (Scottish, British, German, English) are all what really made the story for me. I can read with an idea of what the accents should be, but to have an authentic reading... totally made the story! I highly recommend this novel!!


Teaching Ideas:
This is a great mentor text for WWII for Social Studies teachers. Elizabeth Wein does a phenomenal job at the end of the audiobook explaining how she found the pieces which inspired the story. She also explains how she took liberties with pieces. This would be great for ELA teachers to allow students to see how a writer goes through the writing process, their inspiration, and how they research. 


Find out more about Elizabeth here and see what her upcoming projects, more about her books, and much more!

Happy reading!

Caminar by Skila Brown

Hardcover, 208 pages

Published March 25th 2014 by Candlewick Press

Set in 1981 Guatemala, a lyrical debut novel tells the powerful tale of a boy who must decide what it means to be a man during a time of war.

Carlos knows that when the soldiers arrive with warnings about the Communist rebels, it is time to be a man and defend the village, keep everyone safe. But Mama tells him not yet — he’s still her quiet moonfaced boy. The soldiers laugh at the villagers, and before they move on, a neighbor is found dangling from a tree, a sign on his neck: Communist. Mama tells Carlos to run and hide, then try to find her. . . . Numb and alone, he must join a band of guerillas as they trek to the top of the mountain where Carlos’s abuela lives. Will he be in time, and brave enough, to warn them about the soldiers? What will he do then? A novel in verse inspired by actual events during Guatemala’s civil war, Caminar is the moving story of a boy who loses nearly everything before discovering who he really is. 

Is it strange to anyone else that this is considered historical fiction?! It is set in 1981- one year before I was born! Apparently I am getting old... sure don't feel it though!

This powerful debut novel is simply amazing. Carlos lives a life that most of us could not imagine in his village, but he is happy. Things change when the soldiers come and he is faced to make the decision that no one wants to make, but we all have to at some point. The beautifully scripted prose of this novel sets readers in a place where they can feel Carlos' emotions and envision what his life is like. There are many coming-of-age novels, but this is one that will forever stick out to me. I thoroughly enjoyed this magnificent novel.


Lesson Ideas for Social Studies:
This book is a wonderful text to pair with the text when teaching this time period in history. If you do not cover this particular event in your standards, you could pair it with another event to give the students another viewpoint from another event that is similar. The Holocaust is one that comes to mind. The poems can be analyzed in isolation or as a group. There are a great many to choose from and pair with a variety of events to show the effects throughout history. 

Lesson Ideas for ELA: 
Where do I even start?! There is so much that you can do with this beautiful novel. Each one of the verses in this novel are stylistically different from the looks to the verbiage. This could be a mentor text for poetry, but also for teaching narrative writing. There are a multitude of possibilities that this text could be used for.


This is one of my favorites (there are so many) and I wanted to share it with you so that you could see how beautiful and powerful this novel is...

Happy reading everyone!

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

Genre: YA Historical Fiction

Publisher:  Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Hardcover, 472 pages

BROOKLYN: Andi Alpers is on the edge. She’s angry at her father for leaving, angry at her mother for not being able to cope, and heartbroken by the loss of her younger brother, Truman. Rage and grief are destroying her. And she’s about to be expelled from Brooklyn Heights’ most prestigious private school when her father intervenes. Now Andi must accompany him to Paris for winter break.

PARIS: Alexandrine Paradis lived over two centuries ago. She dreamed of making her mark on the Paris stage, but a fateful encounter with a doomed prince of France cast her in a tragic role she didn’t want—and couldn’t escape.

Two girls, two centuries apart. One never knowing the other. But when Andi finds Alexandrine’s diary, she recognizes something in her words and is moved to the point of obsession. There’s comfort and distraction for Andi in the journal’s antique pages—until, on a midnight journey through the catacombs of Paris, Alexandrine’s words transcend paper and time, and the past becomes suddenly, terrifyingly present.

Jennifer Donnelly, author of the award-winning novel A Northern Light, artfully weaves two girls’ stories into one unforgettable account of life, loss, and enduring love. Revolution spans centuries and vividly depicts the eternal struggles of the human heart.

 Have you ever read a book and then walked away going, "Dang, I learned a lot from that!" when you never meant to? That is what I felt after I read Jennifer Donnelly's novel. History class gave me a tremendous knowledge base for so much, but reading about a character and having the author's research come to life is nothing that can compare to sitting in a lecture. Throughout this novel, I felt that I truly was living in the character's lives and experiencing all that they were. The emotions that Andi went through were gut wrenching and so very well written that readers can't help but feel her pain as it bleeds off of the page. Jennifer Donnelly has a way of sucking readers in and making them have an instant connection to the characters and their lives. 

I was lucky enough to meet Jennifer in Chicago at NCTE this year and was absolutely star struck. I had been reading this book on the plane and had no clue that she was going to be there. When I walked into the room and saw her, I couldn't believe it. It was fate!! Haha!! When she spoke to us about writing (on a panel with Neal Shusterman, no less) she talked about how the stories that her mother told her are what gave her the idea for this story and so many others. It made me want to go back and think about all the stories that were told to me as a child and find inspiration in them. If a novel like this one comes from it, then I need to run and do it now!! 

Happy reading everyone :)