![]() ![]() Without including a spoiler in my review I'll mention several kids and a grownup parent both make similar mistakes that get amicably resolved by the end of the book, even the new kid finds a comfortable place in his third grade class in his new school. New kid in the classroom Khufu is sufficiently different from and very much more studious than the other kids to puzzle them even the teacher doesn't seem to quite understand everything about Khufu. Bicycles are the central subject of confusion and concern-how apt is that, in a world full of urban small boys? ![]() As my first from The Carver Chronicles series of chapter books for young readers, The New Kid has inspired me to read them all! The story's really quite simple-a few days in the lives of Carver elementary school friends and their families, along with too quick perceptions or misperceptions (judgments?) about objects and happenings from both kids and grownups. ![]()
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![]() ![]() Mohammed shared his ideas about Islam, Arab leaders, and how a ruler should run a country. So there was Mohammed, sipping coffee on the couch and talking about world history, while Ouda, one of the Muslim world’s most popular imams with more than thirteen million Twitter followers, sat listening. It wasn’t good practice to ignore the son of the crown prince. Ouda would have politely turned the meeting down, but he had already rebuffed Mohammed once, about a year earlier, at a wedding. ![]() He didn’t even know why Mohammed bin Salman, whom Ouda knew as a princeling of uncertain influence in the Royal Court, had invited himself over in the first place. ![]() Islamic leader Salman al-Ouda didn’t know what to make of the young prince sitting across from him in his living room in October 2012. Listen and subscribe to the Religion Unplugged podcast for a conversation between Justin Scheck and executive editor Paul Glader. The book, by award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters Justin Scheck and Bradley Hope, shows how a rift in the world’s most powerful ruling family, Saudi Arabian royalty, produced Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a charismatic leader with a ruthless streak. The following excerpt from Blood and Oil: Mohammed bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power is republished with permission from Hachette Books. ![]() ![]() Tom Rogers: I came to it in a very roundabout way. What inspired you to start working with Disney? The Harvard Crimson: Disney magic has made up a great deal of our collective childhoods. The Harvard Crimson sat down with Rogers to talk about his circuitous path to writerdom and Disney’s move away from “white princess culture.” ![]() ![]() Rogers is the writer behind such childhood classics as “Kronk’s New Groove,” “Cinderella II: Dreams Come True,” and “The Lion King 1½,” as well as his new show, “The Chicken Squad,” which is coming to Disney Junior in the fall of 2021. Now, after a nine-year stint as a staff writer for Disney animated television, he has a Daytime Emmy to his name for “Elena of Avalor,” a book titled “Eleven,” and a whole host of awards for his various movies. Tom Rogers ’84 came into his senior year of high school thinking he wanted to be a physicist. ![]() ![]() ![]() “Does she understand how good you are?” he asked completely freaking seriously. “She does, but she’d rather see me do something else with my life.” Out of my peripheral vision, I could see his head turn. At the end of the day, I’m going to keep living the way I want, regardless of what she says or thinks.” I just let her say whatever she wants to say and I suck it up. ![]() ![]() ![]() I’m not ever going to do what she wants me to do, or be the person that she wants me to be. Well… “She just has a different view on how I should live my life, Rey. I don’t want to hurt her feelings and tell her that her opinion doesn’t matter -“ “I…” I turned back to face out the windshield and tried to tell myself that this moment was real. “Why do you let her belittle you in that way?” He on the other hand, was busy facing forward. My head snapped over to look at his face. “I don’t like the way your mother speaks to you.” I had barely turned the ignition and driven to the corner of the block when the German spoke up. It was the same restaurant we’d gone to for the last three years so I knew exactly where we were heading. Since we wouldn’t all fit into my mom’s sedan, Kulti and I drove separately. ![]() ![]() ![]() But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others. ![]() While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. ![]() Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive. ![]() When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. ![]() ![]() ![]() But, the likelihood of me doing the latter is low. I think the first step is putting fewer books on my TBR or creating a reading schedule to manage my reading time better. I want to figure out how to create a TBR for mood readers. ![]() I’m hoping to get better at predicting my reading mood, which will hopefully help me prioritize all the unread books on my shelf □. I also started Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. In March, I only completed two books from my Hopefuls list: Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson and She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. Otherwise, Kingdom of Ash will be my longest book of the year for the 3rd year in a row! Now, my goal for 2022 is to read an even longer book. ![]() Unsurprising that Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. I finished my re-read of SJM’s Throne of Glass series in March. March was really stressful, so of course, I read quite a few books □. My March Wrap Up is yet another monthly wrap that I’m writing retroactively. ![]() ![]() "I typically write late at night, because it's quiet and there are fewer distractions," Rothfuss told Newsweek. His worn keyboard attests to writing as more than a mental act. Rarer are insights into the labor of writing itself. ![]() He's been remarkably candid in his responses, admitting when " the writing isn't going well," describing his approach to writers' block and comparing the third book to a car engine under repair: the parts are all there, he's trying to find how they best fit together. Martin with Game of Thrones fans, Rothfuss is endlessly pestered about his progress on the third book of his Kingkiller Chronicle, the highly anticipated sequel to The Name of The Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, currently titled The Doors of Stone. "This keyboard has seen some shit, y'all," The Kingkiller Chronicle author Patrick Rothfuss captioned a photo of his yellowed, 30-year-old Model M keyboard (originally manufactured by IBM, beginning in 1984) in a recent blog post. ![]() ![]() She loses the fight, reluctantly stepping in Lakesedge estate, meeting with eccentric alchemist Clover and tough, loyal, caretaker Florence and the eerie, empty, freezing, haunted estate slowly brings out the nightmares and secrets she kept about her past. The dark lord is presumed to massacre his entire family! And now he wants to take his brother drag into the haunted Lakesedge! Hell, no! She cannot let him take away without a fight. ![]() Only thing she prays for is providing a safe place and taking care of him.īut their lord Rowan Sylvanan returns back to town for collecting tithes. ![]() Poor Violeta Graceling was found in the woods with her brother, raised by a woman who tortured both of them to kill the shadows and pure darkness growing inside her thirteen years old brother Arien. You get your fix and read your feel-worse book! Sometimes scary things in this book can be therapeutic by distracting us from the real villains at the outer world! A dark, gothic fantasy about a monster who collects his tithes from the townies, resides at his mansion sets on the banks of cursed lake where he drowned his own family one by one! If you don’t start screaming and running away yet, this may be good fit for your dark, claustrophobic, suffocating thriller intake! ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() This is not exactly news, but it is an important truth that bears repeating for every generation. Rothstein is right to attack the systematic racism that has plagued this country and to lay bare the way our cities have been racially segregated - and continue to be to this day. As he summarized it in an article for the libertarian magazine Reason, “Racial segregation in America was, to a large degree, engineered by policy makers in Washington” - above all, the policy makers of the New Deal. ![]() Rothstein has toured the country lecturing about the book he’s has been interviewed on National Public Radio and other outlets many times and he’s been widely cited by mainstream liberals - and even some on the left. It’s been widely praised for its no-holds-barred look at American racism. Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law has made quite a splash. ![]() ![]() ![]() And like novels, there is plenty of room for interpretation which can be seen through different clips of the same scene. We do not read this entire play aloud in class. Because plays are performed, they tend to be built around dialogue and action which without a narrator to provide further context, give us room to read between the lines and explore motivation (even though sometimes we are gifted with a monologue or aside to help). ![]() This is something we keep in mind the entire time considering and analyzing stage directions. One thing we discuss up front is that plays are written to be performed – not read. I’ll share my approach then Cindy Dixon will share hers. ![]() Cindy Dixon and I collaborated on this unit but approach it differently. This post is going to focus on and provide resources for the play Fences, but these ideas and strategies work for any drama. The division of acts and scenes make for easy discussions about structure. A play offers so many opportunities for interaction as students can read and act out scenes which easily leads to lessons about, tone, setting, and characterization. I love the possibilities and teaching points that plays provide. ![]() |