"Don't you have a book on Scotland?"
"Um.... I might. Why?"
"I need one. Four hundred pages."
"Four hundred-- that long? Why?"
"We have to read four hundred pages on travel and culture by September 28th."
"Four hundred pages!?"
"Yeah."
"Can you maybe read four books one hundred pages long? Because four hundred pages seems a little long for sixth grade." (I know Mrs. Wallace was hardcore when I had her for third and fourth grade, but four hundred?!)
"Okay, yeah, we can do it that way."
Oh. Good.
I'm pretty sure Mrs. Wallace said they were to do it 'that way' to begin with, but already Some Of Us weren't listening... and the school year is young.
So, the call goes out to the blogosphere:
WANTED: Young Scholar, Struggling But Enthused Seeks Books on Culture and Travel, both nonfiction and fictional acceptable. Prefers Scotland, but open to Cambodia, Thailand and Other Countries.
Big sister thanks you.
P.S. - If you're a rabid movie fan of and love reading about screenwriting, one of my former students is now writing for Creative Screenwriting and hopes you'll check it out!
11 comments:
I've got a couple of books on Celtic myths/fairy tales, Druids, and the like. Also some outdated travel guides to Britain, and somewhat more recent ones for Japan, China, France, and Mexico. Happy to lend anything I will get back. In fact, Dover edition of "Celtic Myths and Legends" is just over 400 pages...
The Horrible Histories Series (by Terry Deary, Scholastic UK) has Bloody Scotland.
That's a great series. It might amuse you to know that I have one of the titles (The Cut-Throat Celts) in Welsh.
It is a great series. And of course you have it in Welsh. That just goes without saying.
For fiction, how about 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnston? Scotland's in there!
Land I Lost: Adventures of a Boy in Vietnam
by Huynh Quang Nhuong (not Cambodia, but close!)
Thanks! My sister is half Cambodian and half Mexican (Maybe. Her birth mother said she could be wrong on that.), and is always open to connecting with her culture. Would the Dover books be readable for someone who tends to stumble on big words? (She also has the heebies about all things spooky - which might make reading about Scotland (Nessie, anyone?) a bit difficult.
The Horrible Histories sound hilarious!
Does The Boggart by Susan Cooper have enough Scotland in it? I don't think it's TOO scary, but then I don't do enough scary to know what that really means.
Carolyn Marsden has written a couple of MG novels set in Southeast Asian countries - When Heaven Fell is in Vietnam, and Silk Umbrellas is in Thailand.
Home is East by Many Ly is about a Cambodian-American girl, which might not count for her required reading, but she might like anyway.
I look for any chance to recommend Monsoon Summer about a teenage girl who goes to India with her family. Love this book. And it's 272 pages, so she'll be more than halfway there. (I didn't know that off the top of my head. I went to Amazon, silly.)
Sex Lives of Cannibals - no sex, actually; a great travel and culture book.
Narnia series - travel
First they killed my father - cambodia
Out of the Dust - easy reading, dust-bowl culture
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