[LIT] caution used re:reading suggestions for students

[Ginny Paisie]

">I totally agree with you all on this "   Me too.  By the way my latest 
'wonderful' YA book that I would hesitate to recommend to my 12/13-year olds 
but I LOVED it is "How I Live Now" by Meg Rosoff.  Anybody read it?

    Also:  A colleague (the dept chair) ordered several 6-book sets "for 
literature circles" of books that, in my opinion, are beyond the scope of 
even our AIG kids:  "The Mousetrap and other plays" (A.Christie)  "44 
O.Henry short stories" (yes, Gift of the Magi and After Twenty Years are 
do-able with my kids, but the others - yikes, the vocabulary is enough to 
turn even me off).  Are these titles any of you have used with 7th graders? 
Luckily we also have other titles to choose from.
   Part 2 - totally unrelated.  I am planning to rebuild our small deck and 
in surfing, stumbled on Google Sketchup, a free download that lets you play 
architect with CAD-type drawing tools.  This is way cool and I'd love to 
hear some of your ideas on how to incorporate this into my reading/writing 
workshop. I thought maybe design a city as in City of Ember or somesuch... 
If you're familiar with Sketchup, what can I use it for, and if you're not 
familiar with it - try it!

Ginny Paisie
Cary NC