Oh my gosh! This book was delightful!
I saw this book sitting in a 4th grade classroom. For some reason the cover, with a forest of green trees and two kids running barefoot under a rainbow sky, kept drawing me to it! I picked it up several days: one to look at the cover up close, another to look at the cover again and read the back, and a third to flip through the pages. Now I typically don't go for realistic fiction books, but when I saw it was Sharon Creech and that she wrote in free verse (like that of her Love That Dog and Hate That Cat books), I had to ask to borrow it!
Luckily no students in the class were reading the book. I took it home over the weekend with me. I've been in a reading slump lately; I think this book lifted me up out of it.
We hear Annie's thoughts throughout the book about:
- running for the love of running
- her mother having a growing baby inside of her
- best friend Max who is going through a tough time reaching his goals to put him on a path towards a successful life for himself
- her grandfather who is suffering from some negative effects old age
- her growing love and interest in art and drawing
The book's time frame is as along as Annie's art assignment: drawing 100 apples - 1 each day. We go on a journey with Annie through many days of her deciding how to draw her apple and viewing it in different ways. We experience happy times, tense times, and ending with a time of renewed strength in her relationship with her running partner Max. In these 100 days, Annie shares her feelings about the alien baby growing in her mother's stomach, about her and her father learning how to help their mother during labor, and the birth of her new sibling.
Sharon Creech's writing is beautiful, and her free verse lets us fly through the story. She makes us care and really feel all the emotions Annie has through the ups and downs of her day to day life. We feel the effects of all the people in Annie's life.
[this book has a guided reading level of W]
I saw this book sitting in a 4th grade classroom. For some reason the cover, with a forest of green trees and two kids running barefoot under a rainbow sky, kept drawing me to it! I picked it up several days: one to look at the cover up close, another to look at the cover again and read the back, and a third to flip through the pages. Now I typically don't go for realistic fiction books, but when I saw it was Sharon Creech and that she wrote in free verse (like that of her Love That Dog and Hate That Cat books), I had to ask to borrow it!
Luckily no students in the class were reading the book. I took it home over the weekend with me. I've been in a reading slump lately; I think this book lifted me up out of it.
We hear Annie's thoughts throughout the book about:
- running for the love of running
- her mother having a growing baby inside of her
- best friend Max who is going through a tough time reaching his goals to put him on a path towards a successful life for himself
- her grandfather who is suffering from some negative effects old age
- her growing love and interest in art and drawing
The book's time frame is as along as Annie's art assignment: drawing 100 apples - 1 each day. We go on a journey with Annie through many days of her deciding how to draw her apple and viewing it in different ways. We experience happy times, tense times, and ending with a time of renewed strength in her relationship with her running partner Max. In these 100 days, Annie shares her feelings about the alien baby growing in her mother's stomach, about her and her father learning how to help their mother during labor, and the birth of her new sibling.
Sharon Creech's writing is beautiful, and her free verse lets us fly through the story. She makes us care and really feel all the emotions Annie has through the ups and downs of her day to day life. We feel the effects of all the people in Annie's life.
[this book has a guided reading level of W]
Heartbeat is a School Library Journal Best Book and no wonder! Sharon Creech's books have great character and plot development that engage 4th and 5th grade readers. Beautiful covers are not to be underestimated. :)
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