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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
This book resonated with me as I remember watching the Challenger explosion. I love the girl empowering component of the story.
Thank you Goodreads for an ARC of this book. I read this in one sitting-loved the characters and hope the author would consider a sequel to see how the Nelson Thomas family fares. While the story is about the Challenger Space Shuttle, it's also about the Nelson Thomas siblings and how they interact with each other and try to navigate the fighting of their parents. A good book for middle grades.
Like many disasters I remember when the Challenger exploded. I was teaching Kindergarten in North Texas and we were not watching it live, but older grades were.
"Cash loves basketball, Dr. J, and a girl named Penny; he's also in danger of failing seventh grade for a second time. Fitch spends every afternoon playing Major Havoc at the arcade and wrestles with an explosive temper that he doesn't understand. And Bird, his twelve-year-old twin, dreams of being NASA's first female shuttle commander, but feels like she's disappearing. The Nelson Thomas siblings exist in their own orbits, circling a tense, crowded, and unpredictable household, dreaming of escape, dreaming of the future, dreaming of space. They have little in common except an enthusiastic science teacher named Ms. Salonga—a failed applicant to the Teacher in Space program—who encourages her students to live vicariously through the launch. Cash and Fitch take a passive interest, but Bird builds her dreams around it."
Like many disasters I remember when the Challenger exploded. I was teaching Kindergarten in North Texas and we were not watching it live, but older grades were.
"Cash loves basketball, Dr. J, and a girl named Penny; he's also in danger of failing seventh grade for a second time. Fitch spends every afternoon playing Major Havoc at the arcade and wrestles with an explosive temper that he doesn't understand. And Bird, his twelve-year-old twin, dreams of being NASA's first female shuttle commander, but feels like she's disappearing. The Nelson Thomas siblings exist in their own orbits, circling a tense, crowded, and unpredictable household, dreaming of escape, dreaming of the future, dreaming of space. They have little in common except an enthusiastic science teacher named Ms. Salonga—a failed applicant to the Teacher in Space program—who encourages her students to live vicariously through the launch. Cash and Fitch take a passive interest, but Bird builds her dreams around it."
Three children from a dysfunctional family respond to their environment and to the Challenger Disaster in different ways. My favorite was Bird, the girl in the family, who wants to be an engineer and is always taking things apart and making "Bird's Eye" schematics of them. She worships the women on the Challenger. What will her two seemingly disconnected older brothers do in the face of Bird's grand disappointment?
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I loved this books!! It’s about a dysfunctional family set with the Challenger disaster as the background. Definitely has themes for middle grades of being overlooked, not finding your place and anger issues. I will definitely recommend it to students.
This is a hard book to read because it is all leading up to the Challenger disaster and it hurts. But it's also very hopeful as it ends and overall, I think, it can help kids think about hard things - gender discrimination, when you've hurt someone's feelings and have to apologize, managing emotions, persevering through hard things to achieve your goal, dysfunctional families. They do reference expletives in that they say that someone said an expletive or a swear word (very period typical) but they don't actually say what the words are - and I thought that was a great choice for the age range. I would give it to 12-13 year olds since it's set in the 8th grade.
Spoiler
mentions crushes and kids going out with other kids though none of the MC's are in a romantic relationship through the book
It's hard to believe that it was almost exactly 35 years ago that I watched in stunned silence as the Challenger exploded... I was only in 1st grade, but I still remember quite well how the mood in our classroom (where another class had squeezed in to join us) changed in an instant from awe and joy to confusion and sadness. This book not only did an excellent job of following a young girl's (Bird's) thoughts and emotions leading up to and following the Challenger tragedy, but it also did a great job exploring dynamics within her family and her school. I especially appreciated the attention given to how Bird's working mom navigated family life in the mid-80s, amid changing gender roles. Not to mention how well this book explored the turbulence of friendship, dating, and finding one's purpose in life during middle school. It's no wonder this book just received a Newbery Honor!
This new book by Erin Entrada Kelly is a bittersweet tale about a family under the pressure of everyday life. They may live under the same roof, but they are not really functioning as a unit with the parents unaware of the impact their fighting has on their children. Kelly also weaves the tale of the Challenger disaster deftly into the story capturing the excitement and the heartbreak. I was one of many kids all over the country who felt we had a particular stake in Challenger because there was a teacher on board. Highly recommended.
Read more at Bookish Adventures.
Read more at Bookish Adventures.
The characters were interesting, but there was no real compelling plot. No problem, or set of problems, that needed to be "solved," so nothing to compel me to keep reading (other than I cannot abandon a book for some odd reason). Couldn't connect and didn't finish the book with any big ideas. Felt like it just ended. Sorry - this book just didn't do it for me.