November 2018 - Page 10 of 14

Long Way Down
by Jason Reynolds (Author)

Booktalk: Will has known about the rules ever since his childhood friend was killed on the playground, and he’s followed the first two: no crying, and no snitching. When his older brother, Shawn, is shot and killed while walking home from the store, Will knows he is expected to follow the final rule and avenge his brother’s death. He knows where Shawn keeps his gun, and he thinks he knows who the shooter is: a member of a rival gang named Riggs. Even if Will has never used a gun–never even held a gun before–rules are rules. But in the elevator on the way down to meet Riggs, Will encounters family and friends who died playing by the rules, and now Will has to decide what he is going to do when the elevator reaches its final stop.

Snippet:
IN CASE YOU AIN’T KNOW

gunshots make everybody
deaf and blind especially
when they make somebody

dead.

Best to become invisible
in times like these.
Everybody knows that.

Even Tony flew away.

A 2018 Cybils Poetry nominee

BONUS! Download the Reading Group Guide

My new Focus on STEM column: Making Models is in the November Quick Tips for Schools and Libraries newsletter.

Snippet:
Fall is here, and with the colder weather comes the yearly science fair. It’s time for students of all ages to think of a new way to solve an old problem and then test their ideas. To plan their experiments and to share their results, these young scientists will need to develop models.

Click here to read Making Models with eight #kidlit science books that support the Next Generation Science Standard for Developing and Using Models in the classroom and library.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)