Something to do late at night.

I've been spending long hours at school, so when I finally get home I'm all for doing anything but correcting vocabulary packets, student writing, or mentally sweating from trying to think of a way to motivate a few unmotivatable students. The choice for tonight was a new book, "Surviving the Applewhites."

Jake is a 13 year old delinquent from the city who has run out of foster families and has thus moved to the North Carolina country to the Applewhite family farm and their home school, the only place left that will take him. E.D. is the only Applewhite who is his age and who isn't all artsy-shmartsy and flighty. The story is about a change of heart in both characters and follows fun and rolling events to help make it all believable and heart warming.
The story won the Newbery Award and definitely deserves it. It's at a seventh grade level in ideas, plot and vocabulary, but the morals and themes are beautiful to think about. All of us are needed in our own special ways and there's such value in finding something in life that you're both good at and passionate about. It's an easy read- it took me only a few hours to get through. I'd definitely recommend it if you happen to have time.. I know, I know... you're already thinking that only single, SLC teachers have time to read books for pleasure. It's quite the life, I know! :)