Book Letter: Boy Overboard

One of the ways I assess reading in Reader's Workshop is through using book letters. Every two weeks I will post a book letter task and example. This week I am focusing on main idea/theme using Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman. As this will be the first time we discuss theme/main idea as a class, connecting the book to known information will be a big part of this book letter.

Book letter task: PDF
Book letter task: Doc

Dear Class,

I am writing to tell you about the main ideas I found in the book Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman. Boy Overboard is a story told by Jamal, a boy in Afghanistan in the time just before the current war. Jamal and his hot-tempered sister Bibi are forced to flee the country with their parents when the Taliban discover their parents are running an illegal school from their home. The rest of the book deals with their difficulty in reaching a far away country they are aiming for – Australia.

Before I started reading Boy Overboard, I already knew some things about its setting. I knew it was set in Afghanistan around 1999 to 2001. I knew that it was about children who were refugees, and arrived on boats seeking asylum. This was a big topic in Australia at that time, with many people worried that there were too many people coming to Australia, and some politicians using this worry to help them win elections. This was also the time of the Tampa controversy, with refugees accused of throwing their children into the water (this was later found to be false). I also knew that the Taliban had very strict laws in Afghanistan at that time, particularly when it came to girls and women.

The cover of the book told me more about the story. It shows a soccer ball with a globe on it, and an arrow pointing to Australia. This let me know that the main character was really interested in soccer, and that it might be important to the story. Although I do not know much about soccer, I know it is one of those sports that people get really passionate about, and that it was likely that the main character was too. It turned out that a soccer ball was one thing that connected Jamal to different parts of his life and the world, and also was an item which made it possible for Jamal to make friends and connections with new people and new parts of the world.

I think that the main idea in Boy Overboard is that children all around the world are essentially alike. That they all have dreams, ambitions and passions; that they love their families and that they want to be safe. Gleitzman expresses this through using a first person narrative – we are able to see inside Jamal’s head, and his thoughts are pretty similar to the thoughts that an Australian child would have in the same situation. I think Morris Gleitzman focused on this theme, because at the time the book was written, there were people who thought Afghan refugees were too different from Australians to ever fit in.

There are other themes running through Boy Overboard as well. One of them is how important family is, which is seen in Jamal and Bibi’s relationship with each other and with their parents. It is also seen in the other two children they meet – one whom has no family, so ‘adopts’ families along the way, and one whose family have given up everything to make sure she is safe. I think Gleitzman included this theme to back up the main idea.

I think it’s really important that we think about main ideas in a book like Boy Overboard. A lot of Morris Gleitzman books have strong themes – he tries to tell his readers a lot through his stories. It would be interesting to look at his other books and look at all his main ideas and whether any of them link together!

 

Example letter: PDF

Example letter: Doc

Find more Book letters here

Master List: Book Letters

This is where you'll find book letters. I use book letters as one form of assessment in Reader's Workshop. Each book letter task covers different questions and topics.

The Hunger Games: The book and the reader
Love, Aubrey: Character
Boy Overboard: Main Idea

Book Letter: Love, Aubrey

One of the ways I assess reading in Reader's Workshop is through using book letters. Every two weeks I will post a book letter task and example. This week I am focusing on character using Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur.

Book letter task: PDF
Book letter task: Doc

Dear class,

I am writing to tell you about a book I read recently and its remarkable main character. The book, Love, Aubrey, by Suzanne LaFleur tells the story of Aubrey, who has been left on her own by her mother. Aubrey feeds herself, looks after herself and even buys herself a fish, determined to stand on her own. This need to stand on her own carries throughout the book, as Aubrey’s grandmother comes to look after her. This is not a book with a huge plot; rather it is a book with a lot about character.

The main character is eleven-year old Aubrey, an independent, spirited girl who is struggling with a lot of emotional weight on her shoulders. When Aubrey moves to live with her grandmother, she quietly follows her grandmother’s lists of chores, and tries to make friends with the girl next door. Slowly, with the help of her grandmother, her friend and the guidance counsellor at her new school, she begins to come to terms with her new life and the events that led up to it.

I really like Aubrey because of the way she approaches things in her life. It would have been easy to write Aubrey as a depressing character, or as someone you would like to shake a little, but instead you see her a bit like an onion, with more layers peeling off as you keep reading. She’s a very real character, and I could imagine knowing someone like her.

Aubrey’s best qualities – her resilience and her ability to look after herself – are also the things which make life difficult for her. She is resilient when she picks up the pieces, when she makes the best of a bad situation. She is able to look after herself on her own when her mother leaves, and believes she will be able to continue this when things in her life change. But these elements of Aubrey mean that she finds is very difficult to lean on the people around her who want to be able to help her.

Aubrey reminds me of several other characters in books I have enjoyed. She reminds me of Francesca in Melina Marchetta’s Saving Francesca, and the way she tries to keep going on, without help, when her mother struggles with depression. She also reminds me of Zoe from A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban. Zoe spends a lot of time on her own, especially when dealing with her father’s agoraphobia.

I don’t think Love, Aubrey would have been as half a good without a strong character like Aubrey. In a book without much of a plot, I think it’s really important to have a strong, multi-layered character like Aubrey. The careful unpeeling of her character also allowed the story to unravel in an engaging way.


Example letter: PDF
Example letter: Doc

Find more book letters here

Book Letter: The Hunger Games

Happy New Year! I hope you all have a great 2010!

There are many ways to assess students in Reader's Workshop. One form of assessment  is the Book Letter. Every two weeks, I ask the students to write a letter to me about a book they have read over the past two or three weeks. Each time I ask the students to focus on something different, and I ask them to answer different questions related to our mini lessons. Here I have posted my first example letter which I would show the students to demonstrate to them how it could be written. I have also included the task sheet/assessment checklist for your own use.

Task sheet/Assessment checklist - PDF
Task sheet/Assessment checklist - Doc

Dear class,

I am writing to tell you about a book I finished recently. The book is called The Hunger Games and it is written by Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games tells the story of sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen who is keeping herself and her family in existence in Region 12, part of a world in which the Capitol is all powerful and the regions are continuously reminded of this. Each year, a terrifying reality TV show takes place: twelve boys and twelve girls – all aged under 18 are selected. In the game, they must kill or they will be killed. When Katniss’ sister is selected, Katniss comes forward to take her place, finding herself in the midst of the Hunger Games.

I have been looking at reading this book for more than six months now, but after finding good reviews on different book blogs, I knew I had to read it. I was impressed by how many good reviews it was getting, both from other famous authors like Stephen King and Stephanie Meyer and from regular readers. I also was intrigued by the premise of the story – a reality television show where people kill each other- and wanted to know how that would work.

The Hunger Games is a thriller and an adventure story, and while I do not read a lot of thrillers or adventure stories it is a genre I occasionally enjoy. I have been reading adventure stories since I was little, and I enjoy adult spy books, so The Hunger Games fit in nicely with other books that I have enjoyed. I’m not sure if I would enjoy ‘copy-cat’ books like this, though, because I think it takes a very skilled author to make this type of book work.

 I really liked the characters in this book and the relationships they had with each other. Very little of their relationships was simple; mostly things were as complex and intertwined as things are in real life. I think the relationships added some realism into an otherwise unrealistic story. I also enjoyed the way the story built up, it kept me reading right through to the end, even when I thought I knew what was coming next.

The book made me feel like I was part of the action. I think the author wanted the reader to almost feel like they were part of the audience, seeing all this unfold on a television screen. Of course, we only see things from Katniss’ point of view, which made me feel, as a reader, that I really knew her. Most of all, the book made me want to know more about Katniss, her family and her friends and the world they live in.

I have been fortunate to read the next book in the series: Catching Fire, and I cannot wait for the third book. Collins has created a world and a story which is irresistible to both young and older readers, with characters which everyone should be able to identify with. There are some themes which would provide greater understanding to older readers, but it is definitely accessible to younger readers as well. An absolutely brilliant read, which I recommend to everyone.

Example letter: PDF

Example letter: Doc

Please feel free to share your own reviews of The Hunger Games in the comments!