Baby-A Book Review

I facilitate for 2 student book clubs on our campus-one for K-2 and one for 3rd-5th graders. It's a competition our district has every year. We get a list of books-many of them Bluebonnet nominees, the rest simply classics teachers and librarians had suggested. It means I have to stay after school for this club two days E.V.E.R.Y. week. It means I usually buy too many of the books myself, because I want to get a jump-start reading over the summer. I also buy them awards at the end of the year and t-shirts for those who can't afford one. We have over 90 kiddos participating altogether this year! It's time-consuming and expensive, I am often asked why I do it....

There is, of course,  the reason of seeing kids leaving book club with their noses in books and being able to discuss this literature with them-that is very rewarding in itself. There's nothing like suggesting a story to a student and having them come back and say they loved it or it made them cry (Wonder was one of our books this year)! But also every year I discover gems that I would not have found otherwise. This is one of those books. It's called:

 I had put off reading it because when I read the summary, it kind of seemed like Lifetime movie. I wondered how this would be something kids could relate to. You see, in the description it says it's about a family who finds a baby on their doorstep and take care of it as their own. But, in my humble opinion, that's not what this story is about. I think it's about words. How words can hurt or comfort. How sometimes a lack of words is more difficult than hearing something you don't like. The main character's teacher often refers to "wondrous words"-I may just have to steal that. The beginning has a quote from an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem, which I of course, looked up before I began the story and that is now one of my new favorites as well. I love the grandmother character in this story-totally how I want to be when I get old! :) Overall, I thought it was a touching story and although it's not very long, I stayed up on a school night to finish it-which I am not usually one to do!

I haven't decided yet if it's something I am going to share with my 1st Graders, but if you teach older kids I would definitely recommend checking this one out. :)

If you have read it already or end up reading it-I would love to know what your opinion of it was!