The Book of One Hundred Truths by Julie Schumacher

“My name is Theodora Grumman, and I am a liar.”

There.  That’s all you need to be intrigued enough to pick up this book.  Go get it!

The Book of One Hundred Truths is a great summer vacation book, because it takes place at the beach on summer vacation.  Theodora, or Thea, is visiting her grandparents’ beach house in New Jersey.  (That’s right, the Jersey Shore is a real place, like on MTV, only with REAL people.  Please don’t watch that show, ever.  Or anything else like it.  Stay in school, kids, stay in school.)  Thea arrives in New Jersey to discover that the beach house is already full of other relatives, and she has been assigned to share a room in the attic with her annoying little cousin.  As it turns out, she is also nominated to be Jocelyn’s babysitter, much to her dismay.  Jocelyn follows her around, talking a mile a minute and asking her 500 questions all day long. Ugh. This is not the quiet summer at the beach Thea had planned at all.

Jocelyn immediately spies Thea’s secret notebook and wants to know what it is about. (She’s a nosy 7-year-old, like most little sisters/cousins are. They are curious, they can’t help it. Be patient with them.)  Anyway, back to the notebook!  Right before she boards her airplane to New Jersey, Thea’s mom hands her a brand new notebook and tells her to write it in over the summer.  Write down 100 things that are true, she says, and you might learn something about yourself.  It turns out that Thea has a bit of a problem with being honest.  She lies about everything, from tiny white lies to something bigger that has been bothering her for a while.  Lies come in all colors, did you know?  Meanwhile, some sort of lie is looming over the beach house, too, so she and Jocelyn make it their summer project to figure out what is happening…

Underneath the story about what is going on at the beach house, Thea is slowly revealing the story of how she lost her best friend.  This part made me nervous in a Bridge to Terabithia kind of way.  If you are a nervous reader, you’ll experience that here, too.  You end up with two mysteries to solve as you read and eventually all of the threads come together, and without giving too much away, I can say that I was relieved at the conclusion.  All in all, this is a great book about family and what it means to stick together. Read this book if you are part of a big family that drives you crazy, or read this book if you’re an only child (like Thea) who wishes for tons of cousins and shared vacations and traditions.  It’s all good, for whatever you need to find out about yourself.

The Book of One Hundred Truths has an AR level of 4.2 and is worth 5 points.

Ivy and Bean series, by Annie Barrows

I almost forgot these two little cuties!  These books are geared toward younger readers at the third grade level.  Even though I teach sixth grade, I always end up with a few students who are behind in reading.  I want to make sure everyone has access to reading material in our class library, so when I saw Ivy and Bean being recommended in various places online, I knew I needed to check them out for some of my kiddos.  I went right out and bought the first two books and delivered them directly to one of my students.  She read them both and then headed to our school library to look for more!

The story is told from Bean’s point of view.  She’s a tomboyish girl who likes a little adventure, getting dirty, and pestering her older sister, Nancy.  Ivy has just moved in across the street, but Bean is not interested in getting to know her.  Ivy has curly hair and is more of a girly-girl, and Bean is not convinced they would even get along at all.  Besides, Bean’s mother keeps suggesting that she go meet Ivy, but Bean is a little on the stubborn side anyway (as you might have guessed.)  However, one day when Bean needs to escape after playing a prank on Nancy, Ivy turns out to be a valuable friend. As luck would have it, she’s up for a little mischief as well!

So far there are 9 Ivy and Bean books in the series.  I haven’t read them all, but I really like that they are beginning chapter books that don’t talk down to kids.  They remind me of Ramona Quimby (Beverly Clearly) books because they relay a realistic kid’s point of view, but without the baby talk of Junie B. Jones (which I enjoy and DO think are quite funny, but I feel that a reader has to be able to recognize the word play that makes them funny in the first place.  Older readers are better able to understand Junie B’s mistakes.)  They are a nice transition or bridge into longer chapter books, and hooking up a new reader with a good series can keep them on track and reading constantly because the next book is already waiting for them!

The Ivy and Bean books range in the AR level 3s and are worth about 1 point each.

More and more suggestions…

Check out this list of “100 best chapter books” for kids.  I counted and I have read 72 of these myself.  I brought a few home for summer reading, many are on my future to-be-read list, and there are a few others  that I’ve just missed over the years somehow.  I’ve heard of ALL of them though, even the ones I haven’t read, and I’ve heard good things (for example, The Lightning Thief.  Everyone has read that and loved it, but I never seem to get around to picking it up for some reason.  I own it, it’s in my house, but I have yet to read it.)  This is a great list!

As of right now, I can’t get this to work as a link, so copy and paste into your browser for the time being, and I’ll try to figure this out!  Sorry about that!

http://childrensbooksguide.com/100-best-childrens-chapter-books-of-all-time

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

Do you like a good mystery?  I’m not talking about some Scooby Doo, haunted amusement park-type mystery.  A real mystery that you can solve as you read, gathering clues just like the characters in the book.  Then this book is a must-read for you!

I had seen this classic mystery set-up referenced in another book, so I knew I had to go back and read this book.  It is an older book, from 1978, way back when I was a kid  before I was born.  It is also a Newberry Award winner, which is the mark of a book that would be considered to a “classic” in children’s literature.  This book has an AR level of 5.3 and is worth 8 points.  (I’ll talk more about book awards and my thoughts on AR later, but I’ve been providing this information because I know kids do use these levels to narrow down their reading choices.)

In this book, millionaire Sam Westing has died, and his will indicates that he was murdered.  A lawyer gathers up a group of seemingly unrelated people who all happen to live in the same new apartment building, and presents them with the Westing Game.  Whoever can solve the crime will inherit $200,000,000 dollars.  Oh and by the way, the killer is among them even as they sit and listen to the instructions!  They are split into pairs and given clues to work with, but it is up to them to decide if they want to share their clues.  They all interpret their clues and instructions in different ways and thusly take different approaches on how to figure out the mystery.

I did end up able to solve the puzzle at the end, but some readers might get frustrated with how jumbled up the story gets.  The reader is only allowed to know what each team of characters knows, which keeps the mystery going.  It is challenging to keep track of each character’s details, but that’s part of the game now, isn’t it?  You might like to jot down some notes to help you stay organized as you read.  (This would be a great time to use a thinking map, like the tree map, and you can play detective, too!) Reading this book is very much like playing a game of Clue in your head.

Read this book if you like The 39 Clues.  I personally haven’t read any of those yet, but I keep seeing these books linked together as I am reading more about The Westing Game.  Don’t go looking for the solution online— read the book yourself! No spoilers! If you like this one, you might like some Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew books, or if you want something harder you could try a Sherlock Holmes story (though the language will be much more difficult because the writing is so much older and more formal.)  This collection might be a good place to start!