[LIT] that time of year

[hollies at indy.rr.com]

During winter break I read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  It was truly one of the best books I have read in a while.  I wanted some of my8th grade honors students to read the book, but since it wasn't part of the curriculum, I knew I had to ask them to read it on their own.  I went back to school in January and talked about the book and told all of my classes not just honors what I wanted to do.  I thought if I had twenty students volunteer to read the book, I would be doing well especially since the book is 550 pages long.  Imagine my surprise when I ordered 45 books from Amazon.com.  I had 15 others say that they would get the book on their own.  We met once a week during lunch for four weeks to discuss the book.  Students could come on either Thursday or Friday because there were too many for my classroom.  Each day I would leave the discussion revitalized because the discussion was student driven, and I was so impressed with their insights.  44 students completed the book.  Yesterday we celebrated the completion of the book with a pizza party and watched an interview with Markus Zusak.  Now the kids are saying "What are we going to read next?"  Any suggestions?

Margaret Hollies
mhollies at ccs.k12.in.us