FernFolio » Red Maple Program

Lunches with Lenin by Deborah Ellis

fernfolio — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:46:28 +0000

Matthew buys pot from Hammer, the high school football captain and local source for marijuana, though he knows he’s being overcharged and risks discovery by one of the sniffer dogs the school administration regularly bring in. Tahmina is proud of her expertise in harvesting opium from her father’s poppies, until disaster strikes and the local police move in and destroy the crop, leaving her father with few options to repay his debt to the local money lender. Fifteen-year old Brandon reacts with rage when he learns that all of his learning problems, and difficulties controlling his behaviour are consequences of his mother’s drinking when she was pregnant with him. Abandoned in Red Square, when he was a child of five, by his mother who said she was going to visit Lenin’s tomb, Valerin grows up in state institutions until, at sixteen, he is released to make his own way in the world, and is offered a chance at the Gates of Heaven, through an injection of heroin, by his only friend.
Deborah Ellis’ Lunch with Lenin is a collection of short stories that examine the human cost of illegal drugs and substance abuse through the eyes of teenagers in Russia, Afghanistan, Canada, the US, the Philippines, Mongolia, and Bolivia. Searing and tender and brutally honest, Ellis’ stories are nothing short of wonderful. A must-read for Intermediate students.
FernFolio Editor

The Shepherd’s Granddaughter by Anne Laurel Carter

fernfolio — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:18:18 +0000

From the time she was a little child, Amani Raheem knew she wanted to accompany her grandfather, Seedo, each day as he herded his flock of sheep up into the mountain meadows to graze. When she reaches the age of six, Seedo starts to teach her how a good shepherd tends to his, or her, sheep, and, as head of the family, decides that, rather than attending school in the village with her cousins, she will spend her days on Seedo’s Mountain, and study in the evenings at home.
Amani rapidly shows her grandfather, and the rest of her extended family, that she is a skilled and dedicated shepherd, and, when Seedo grows to frail to manage the family’s flock his crook is passed to her. The young girl communicates online with veterinarians, and works to improve her breeding stock, eager to use modern science and technology in a job that her family has pursued on Seedo’s Mountain for a thousand years.
However, politics and religion, and the Israeli occupation, which has long created problems in nearby Palestinian towns and villages, begin to create hardship and growing frustration for Amani’s family. From her vantage point high up the mountain above her family’s village, Amani can see the encroaching roads and settlements of Israeli settlers approach ever nearer. Then one day, while she is tending her flock, she sees markers indicating that a new settlement will be built right next to her family’s olive orchards. As the settlers’ road is pushed through their grape vines, and fences are put up on what has traditionally been her family’s land, Amani finds it increasingly difficult to follow her late grandfather’s advice and pray without anger in her heart.
A chance meeting up on the mountain with Jonathan, an American Jew whose father is leading the building of the new settlement, shows Amani that not all Jews believe that God has given them the right to seize land from Palestinian inhabitants. With the support of volunteers from Israeli and international peace movements, Amani and her family make a desperate bid to save their farm and preserve a centuries-old way of life.
Author Anne Laurel Carter has written a wonderful story in The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, one of courage and love, that serves to underscore the importance of tradition and family, as well as of acceptance and understanding of others. Well worth the read!
FernFolio Editor

Greener Grass by Caroline Pignat

fernfolio — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:56:04 +0000

During Ireland’s Great Famine, in the 1840’s, the potato crops were struck with blight and turned to rotten mush in the fields. For poor tenant farmers, who for generations had planted potatoes as their only crop, the blight spelled disaster. Without food to fed their families, or a crop to sell for money to buy goods and pay their rent, Irish men left to look for jobs in England, but soon there was no jobs to be had, and people starved.
With her da off in England looking for work, Kit Byrne, fourteen, works long hours as a maid in the house of Lord Fraser, the English landowner, and helps her mother with little Annie, while her brother, Jack, helps old Lizzie, the village wise woman and healer, for an egg a day. Though times are difficult, her mam’s devote belief that God will provide and her abiding hope in the future, help Kit and her brother and sister in the face of growing adversity. Kit delights in her friendship with Millie, and enjoys stolen moments with Tom Lynch, son of the Frasers’ middleman.
But this winter, things turn harder, faster, than the winter before. Kit is fired along with many of the other household servants by Lynch as a cost cutting measure. Though she finds work helping Lizzie alongside Jack, she watches in growing alarm as no letter arrives from her father, and her mam and siblings get thinner.
In the year that follows, Kit watches as, unable to pay their rent, friends and neighbours are evicted from their houses by Lynch, others say good-bye before boarding ships to Canada, Australia and America, and other, too many others, die of starvation, overwork, fever, or grief.
Forced by bitter circumstance to become the head of her own family, Kit discovers in herself the determination to do anything it takes to ensure her loved ones’ safety and survival, even if it means imprisonment or death.
Written by Caroline Pignat, author of the wonderful Egghead, Greener Grass is a gripping account of one girl’s struggle to survive the Irish Potato Famines. Pignat’s story is rich in historic detail, yet simply and movingly told. Terrific!
FernFolio Editor

Red Maple Reading Program

fernfolio — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 00:18:44 +0000

Intended for students in Grades 7, 8 and 9, the Red Maple Program is one of three Ontario Library Association reading programs in which our school participates each year. In mid-October, the OLA announces the books nominated for the Red Maple prize. This year, there are ten nominated fiction titles, and ten nominated non-fiction titles.
At our school, five copies of each novel and two copies of each non-fiction book are purchased, enough to allow any interested students to read! After I and my assistants read the nominated books, we present the books to every intermediate class through book talks designed to encourage students to read the books for themselves.
At some schools, only strong readers, or those who commit to reading the minimum of five titles needed to vote in either category, are allowed to borrow Red Maple books; not so at our school. Any student who wants to is welcome to read and enjoy a Red Maple book, and teachers, especially those who teach special education classes, are encouraged to choose one or more of the nominated titles to read aloud to their classes.
In past years, readers have been invited to attend lunch-hour book discussions, at which we have debated the relative merits of different books. Most years, student preferences are as wide ranging as the books themselves. And, generally, it is easy for the discerning reader to find something wonderful in each. Last year, Lost Goat Lane captured the hearts of many strong readers, as did The Gravesavers, The Greenies, and From Charlie’s Point of View.
Kenneth Oppel’s Skybreakers won the Red Maple prize last spring, and I, for one, thought it was a terrific book and certainly deserved the prize, but the real winners, last spring, and every spring that I have been involved with Red Maple have been those of us who read the books!
FernFolio Editor