recent readings.

about a month ago, our charter school's headquarters (that sounds so secret agency, and it's so, so far from it...) sent us lucky middle school English teachers a huge shipment of fiction and non-fiction books for our classroom libraries.

needless to say, we were pretty stoked.

we got so many books that i haven't really had time to sift through most of them, so i've been relying on student recommendations.

on Tuesday, one of my 8th graders had this book lying on her desk:

A Monster Calls
by Patrick Ness
inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd

one glance at the cover, and i was intrigued.

a look inside revealed to me that there were GORGEOUS illustrations on almost every other page. i immediately knew i had to read this book. i asked my student about it, and she assured me that even though she was only a little ways in, it was already fantastic. she had finished it up by Thursday morning, and turned it back in so that i could read it.

i devoured it in a day, and it was MAGNIFICENT.

i've never read anything by Patrick Ness before, but he's definitely on my radar now.

it's about a teenage boy whose mother is dying from cancer. the boy, Conor, has a recurring nightmare that he is afraid to admit, even to himself. he also has hallucinations where he talks to a giant monster made out of a yew tree. it's bizarre, but in the most wonderful way. it's also incredibly touching. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. at our in-service meeting last Friday, another book was brought to my attention:

The Fault in Our Stars
by John Green

now, i have long been a fan of John Green.

it was a couple of years ago that i read An Abundance of Katherines, but i'll never forget how zany and brilliant the main character was. in fact, all of the characters were fantastically written. i couldn't put it down.

and then i read Looking for Alaska.

Looking for Alaska changed the way i think about Young Adult Fiction, because for the first time, i knew that YA fiction had the ability to be witty and exhilarating and devastating all at the same time. John Green was all of these things and so much more.

i'd been steeped in sappy YA novels for so long that Alaska was a breath of much needed fresh air. again, the main character was brilliant. again, the other characters were fantastic. but it was just so...raw. and i hate when people throw that word around...but there's really no other way to describe it. Alaska made me feel as though my heart had been ripped open and exposed to the world, and no realistic fiction YA book had made me feel that way in quite some time. not since Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, which is more historical fiction anyway.

so when i heard that John Green's NEW BOOK was stupendous, i made it a mission to read it immediately.

that same evening, it was purchased and sitting on my bedroom dresser.

i just started reading it today, but it's already making me laugh aloud (i'm sure the cashier at Jason's Deli thinks i'm a little insane, because i was reading and giggling hysterically while waiting for my sandwich...) and sigh with romantic notions.

i'm already anticipating a hurricane of tears to come.