Parenthetical

“I can never decide which book I want, and I hate buying a book and then realizing halfway through that I hate it. I can’t just return it and I’ve wasted money. I wish there were a way I could just borrow a book instead.” You can borrow books and return them if you would [...]

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Diane Ravitch is an education expert I’ve long respected. As assistant secretary of education under George H. W. Bush and a member of conservative think-tanks, she was a strong supporter of No Child Left Behind. Now she’s come to believe the reliance on test-based “accountability” is a failure: KS: What do you think about the [...]

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The bones of this story are pretty standard YA. Unable to deal with a baby, Hope’s mom Deena dumps her with Deena’s big sister Addie. Addie is a transient diner cook, so Hope grows up working in restaurants up and down the east coast. At the beginning of the book, Hope and Addie are about [...]

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Aerin Renning, fugitive from a slave planet, gets an unbelievable chance to attend Academy 7, “the most prestigious school in the universe.” Dane Madousin, son of the Alliance’s top military man, also scores high enough on his entrance exam to attend Academy 7. She is terrified and withdrawn; he has deep-seated anger and a death [...]

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The foxes of Foxboro are starving this winter. Real meat is a luxury, and rabbit hasn’t been seen in longer than anyone can remember. Impoverished hunter Harry’s wealthy, morally bankrupt brother Isaac, the leader of Foxboro, has heard a rumor of rabbits living in a fortress a couple of days’ walk away. He bribes Harry [...]

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Orphaned Matt (not Matilda!) has reached the end of a string of distant relatives: a Quaker couple in a small Pennsylvania town who have also adopted a special-needs boy. It doesn’t pay to get attached, Matt has learned, so she keeps every potential family at arm’s length. But Sam and Jessica aren’t put off so [...]

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5 out of 5! Reggie has big dreams for his school, but Clarke Junior School isn’t stepping up. His classmates are more interested in helping themselves than helping each other, and besides, nobody listens to Reggie anyway after an unfortunate incident on the first day of school left him with the nickname “Pukey.” With help [...]

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Teachers’ unions in the MA towns of Raynham and Bridgewater are fighting against volunteers keeping their middle school libraries open after the librarians were laid off to hire more teachers. You can probably see both sides of this: on the one hand, the library needs to stay open so kids can use it! What’s wrong [...]

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A couple of weeks ago, I suggested a Group Read of this one, in honor of President Obama’s inauguration. (Man, the phrase “President Obama” ain’t getting old anytime soon.) The premise (in case you haven’t been murmuring “gay Jewish president” in your sleep) is that the first gay Jewish president is elected by a solid [...]

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To celebrate the inauguration of President Obama, I hereby announce a Group Read! The book is Wide Awake, by David Levithan (author of the fabulous Boy Meets Boy), and it begins: “I can’t believe there’s going to be a gay Jewish president.” As my mother said this, she looked at my father, who was still [...]

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