Put up 11 fingers

I do this preschool math class, right?  And we do the numbers 0-10 and once as a joke I asked them to put up eleven fingers.

A very smart four year old held up her two pointer fingers, each to look like a one and held them side by side, so she did put 11 in the air.

It was awesome!

And very smart!

Eleven is by Patricia Reilly Giff who has written some super-popular first reader series like The Kids of Polk Street School and Polka Dot Private Eye.

This a mystery book about a boy, age eleven, who discovers something that makes him question his past.  It is a really good little mystery and moves very quickly.

Judged the Cover...

But I didn't even look carefully at it!  All of these years I kept thinking on the cover was a dude with a cowboy hat!  And he was looking away from the cover, you know, with his back to the reader! Dude! It isn't!  It's Max holding Kevin on his shoulders!  I wish I would have just taken the time to LOOK at the cover before judging it and thinking, BORING!  Because Freak the Mighty wasn't boring at all.  I also wonder if maybe I could appreciate the story more now at this time in my life because I know a kid similar to Max and one with the same physical concerns as Kevin.
This is a heart-breaking yet beautiful book.  Loved it.  Loved it. Loved it.
And it is weird that I judged this book by its cover when the characters in the book are sometimes judged by their covers.  Max, because he is so big and looks so much like his father who is in prison for murdering his mother and Kevin who has Morquio Syndrome.

Hatchet Cannot be Compared to Johnny Tremain

I really loved Absolutely Almost.  It reminded me a bit of Sahara Special.  There is a lot of Newbery Buzz around Absolutely Almost.  As much as I loved this book, I will be incredibly aggravated.  Yes to Absolutely Almost and no to Sahara Special? What is going on here?  I think, sadly, it would be easy to see exactly what is going on.  Just like After Tupac and D Foster, One Crazy Summer and Elijah of Buxton. But there is no reason to complain now.  I will save that for later.  And I I do not want to take anything away from Absolutely Almost.  This was a great, great book about Albie, who is not a great student, not really an "average" student either.  He is a kid who has trouble in school.  Like so many kids.  Tiny spoiler:  his mom gets upset when it is discovered that he doesn't have dyslexia.  She would rather he had this very challenging learning disability than just be a regular kid who has trouble at school.