Amos & Boris & .....Scot

Amos is William Steig's mouse who loves to sail; Boris is a whale with a great sense of timing; and Scot, well, Scot is our Second Grade teacher. He decided to read this "faintly Aesopian tale" (who writes these reviews?) right up to the resolution, and then have his students write their own conclusions (before they heard Steig's). How about this for a seven year old--
"Amos thot and thot. then a ideaya came to him so he walked down the roed. he whent to a man's hous. when the man soa him he chased him down to wher Borus wus. the man got the hole town to the Beach. And thay helped Borus into the water. The man looked at Amos. "you did a good dead today my little frend. then Amus whent happly home and so did Borus the end."
The New York Times Book Review described this multiple award-winning story as "pellucid and profound." Pellucid? An unclear word that means "clear in meaning or expression". I prefer "full of wonder, full of enterprise, and full of love for life."
As Boris would say, "Holy clams and cuttlefish!"

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

Three months ago, Gary D. Schmidt learned that his latest youth novel, The Wednesday Wars, had won a coveted Newbery Honor. This is the Calvin College Professor of English's second such award. He previously won it for Lizzie Bright, a finely crafted and beautifully phrased story of friendship and courage drawn against racial bigotry. Sprinkled profanity and a brave, but ultimately unsatisfying attempt to be fully human from an evolutionary worldview make this work not appropriate for our younger students. But, I ask you, where else is a kid going to learn the adjective "hugger-mugger"? (Yes, it is in the dictionary.) Quality = 5; Acceptability = varies with age of reader.