a book
I tutor one afternoon a week in a program for local sixth graders who need help with their math homework and practice with reading and vocabulary.
Yesterday, Justin and I started reading a book (which almost never happens because the kids are usually in the middle of a book when they meet with me, so this was a kind of cool thing), and I was impressed with the opening chapters, so I made a mental note to look up the author on amazon. It turns out that it's the first book in a YA series (such a surprise!), so rather than plunge in on the basis that the author has a nice way with dialogue and a fairly light touch in delivering exposition...
I thought I'd turn to you, flist, and see if any of you have read Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief.
Is this worth my time and money?
Will it hook me in the first book and then be major fail in the subsequent volumes? Does it belong to the finite set of books one ought to read if one wishes to be able to connect with sixth grade boys who are readers? Am I going to end up throwing the book across the room because the antagonist is a smart-mouthed, pushy, vindictive girl? (I suspect that there is some bigger, supernatural antagonist to come, but the opening chapters offer up a mean girl in what I would call the 'Draco Malfoy' role, though one hopes--in vain, no doubt--that she might realign as an ally.)
Should the fact that I've never seen any of you mentioning this author be taken as significant?
Yesterday, Justin and I started reading a book (which almost never happens because the kids are usually in the middle of a book when they meet with me, so this was a kind of cool thing), and I was impressed with the opening chapters, so I made a mental note to look up the author on amazon. It turns out that it's the first book in a YA series (such a surprise!), so rather than plunge in on the basis that the author has a nice way with dialogue and a fairly light touch in delivering exposition...
I thought I'd turn to you, flist, and see if any of you have read Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief.
Is this worth my time and money?
Will it hook me in the first book and then be major fail in the subsequent volumes? Does it belong to the finite set of books one ought to read if one wishes to be able to connect with sixth grade boys who are readers? Am I going to end up throwing the book across the room because the antagonist is a smart-mouthed, pushy, vindictive girl? (I suspect that there is some bigger, supernatural antagonist to come, but the opening chapters offer up a mean girl in what I would call the 'Draco Malfoy' role, though one hopes--in vain, no doubt--that she might realign as an ally.)
Should the fact that I've never seen any of you mentioning this author be taken as significant?