Download And Enjoy Look Both Ways: A Tale Told In Ten Blocks By Jason Reynolds Available In Interactive EBook
he did it again, Jason Reynolds is such a talented writer, This is one that I definitely want to listen to again, I want to go into details about why I loved this book but I think Im going to save it for me full review.
A nice, easy read that lightly touches on deeper topics such as bullying and grief, Some of the stories individually would get five from me and I might change my rating if I feel it, this is one of the best middle grade books I've read! Would recommend if you want something light but not mindless and to middle graders.
Go into this one knowing it's a series of short stories linked together because all of the kids go to the same school.
There are characters who cross over and reappear, but this isn't about how they intersection, necessarily, It's about how they share the same common ground but live such vastly different lives, It's a peek inside the bus windows, so to speak, as kids deal with a whole host of challenges at home and outside the home.
What I really loved about this one is that these are
such middle school kids.
Some are super mature and ready to take on the world, Others are just getting the chance to walk to school on their own and learning what it means when they rush and fall over.
It's not my favorite Reynolds story, as I love the intensity of and plot of some of his other stories better.
But this is a powerful addition to his catalog and one that will resonate with so many young readers.
Could a school bus fall from the sky Find out how in this collection of loosely related short stories.
Which will your favorite The one about the pick pockets, the one with the first kiss , the one about the young comedienne or one of the otherchapters blocks After finishing it, I couldn't help but think that it kind of reminded me of Paul Fleischman's sitelinkSeedfolks.
Im somewhere between aand a,.
Ive always wanted to read a Jason Reynolds book because Ive heard him speak on multiple occasions and he is amazing.
So when this book was nominated for the National Book Award, I decided to give it a go without even checking out its premise.
You may think that my rating is low but I assure you that theres nothing wrong with the book.
The writing style itself is wonderful and easy to read, and the different narrators for each of the stories in the audiobook do their job beautifully.
This is definitely one of those books whose experience is enriched in the audio format, The stories themselves are happy, sad, funny and everything in between while also dealing with important topics like bullying, homophobia, death or cancer in the family etc in a simple and easy to understand manner.
I didnt realize this was a middle grade book until I was almost done with the first story, and thats probably the main reason I couldnt connect with it personally.
To conclude, I think this book is a very good choice for young readers or anyone who is more accustomed to reading middle grade books hence able to rate and review them more accurately.
I think it might also be an interesting book to read along with your kids and help them understand the various issues that are talked about in it.
And I would definitely recommend the audiobook because its narration is perfect, I'm a little disappointed . but, I don't know what it was exactly that I expected from the book, .
Full marks to the author for his flight of imagination, subtle messages and tying the stories together neatly with the twine of Latimer Middle School!
My favourite were the Ookabooka Land, Five Things Easier to Do than Simeon and Kenzi's secret handshake and The Broom Dog
The anecdotes are fun, now and relatable.
. . but missing that little zip which would have crossed this read from okay to fab!short stories that all share a common connection: Jason Reynolds.
Can I get an amen! In this collection of short stories, Jason Reynolds tells ten tales, each one featuring the afterschool life of a student at an urban middle school.
The stories explore such common middle school themes as best friendship, first love, family struggles, sexual identity including two boys kissing, and bullying.
Jason Reynolds is an extremely talented writer, and I gave this book four based almost exclusively on the quality of the writing within each story.
As in his Track series Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu, Reynolds creates a group of completely believable and endearing characters and manages to bring each of them fully to life despite being confined to the length of a short story for each one.
I didn't necessarily love all of the subject matter there is so much dialogue about boogers in the first story that I almost abandoned the book, but I can't deny that Reynolds has a strong talent for voice and character development.
I started out reading a digital ARC of this book, but I took so long to get to it, that the book was published right after I started it, so then I listened to part of the audiobook, which was read bydifferent narrators, including Reynolds himself.
This was a great way to get immersed in the world of these kids' school and neighborhood and hearing the way the characters were intended to sound made me enjoy the book that much more.
I still would have liked a stronger connection between the individual stories, and some of the topics covered I could have done without, but a betterwritten middle grade book fromwould be difficult to find.
This review also appears on my blog, sitelinkReadatHome Mom, Well and to be honest, I actually only considered Jason Reynolds'Carnegie Medal winning middle grade Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks because the Fiction Club of the Children's literature Group on Goodreads was doing a Carnegie Medal project.
But this having been said and totally notwithstanding, I do, I must happily and readily admit that I have totally and absolutely adored, that I have absolutely loved loved love every single page of Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks and have found Reynolds' ten interconnecting stories of middle school life delightfully diverse and with scenarios both contemporary and also at the same time and place defying in other words universally relevant.
And thus and therefore, Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, it is a wonderful, readable and often also sweetly relatable combination of humour and seriousness not only for my adult reading self, but also and probably even more so for my inner child, who has felt herself understood, spoken and listened to with Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks and has also felt vindicated for saying pretty much forever it seems that many of the issues facing today's middle school students are in fact not really all that different from my own issues at middle school decades previously, and yes, that this is of course both encouraging and also rather frustrating and freaky at the same time.
But first and foremost I oh so much treasure and appreciate how and that Jason Reynolds with Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks acknowledges relevant and essential issues and problems that many young people and if they are in middle school and earlier often must face and handle racial intolerance, questions of sexuality, health and welfare, family dysfunction etc, etc.
but that Reynolds thankfully and appreciatively does not ever wallow in this, but instead has penned a wonderful and delightful collection of stories in Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, providing a nicely balanced array of parts, of texts both laugh out loud funny and also sometimes heartbreakingly serious and painful, showing a painting, a realistic portrait of life and of school life in particular and that indeed, one needs to as the book title says so tellingly and appropriately "look both ways" to see and to understand, that both what is above the surface and below the surface must get equal textual time and indeed they very much do so from Gordon Reynolds' pen in Look Both Way: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks.
Five for Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, for a wonderful and emotionally satisfying and often also both though provoking and laughter inducing reading experience that truly shows and demonstrate universality while at the same time also totally and wonderfully celebrating and focusing on diversity and that differences are good and also something essential and necessary and shame on ANYONE seeking to challenge or to ban Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks and that those of you taking issue with for example boogers and same sex kissing being featured and being discussed, well yes, you are at best and indeed being laughable and absolutely ridiculous.
This review was going to begin like all the best reviews, With a new Jason Reynolds books falling from the sky, “Falling from the sky” is probably a bit hyperbolic, but thats what it feels like whenever a new Reynolds hits the market.
Now due to the focus required of my job, I couldnt care less when Reynolds has written a new book for teens.
As far as Im concerned, books are best when written for thecrowd and anything that speaks to readers of more mature years is apocryphal.
Untenable. Untouchable. And I think Mr. Reynolds is still seen as primarily a YA author at this point, This, in spite of the fact that hes written an entire series beginning with sitelinkGhost for middle grade readers, to say nothing of sitelink As Brave As You.
So you can keep all that teen stuff, Hand me the Reynolds meant for the smaller fry, Now Look Both Ways isnt baby fare, by any means, Its probably accurate to call it straight up middle school/junior high fiction, That sad little neitherherenorthere age range where youve too many hormones to pass as elementary, but not quite enough to slip unnoticed into a high school hallway.
Nobody knows quite what to do with middle school books, Do you shelve them in the kids section of the library/bookstore or the YA section Or do you give them their own section entirely Well, good news.
I know exactly what to do with this particular middle school book, You need to weigh it down with awards, so many that it can no longer stand under its own weight and is forced to stagger to the display front and center in the library where all the best books go.
Then, and only then, will it have found its true home,
One day. Ten stories. When you look at a group of kids tearing out of a school, what do you know about them What do you assume These kids all have their own problems, some big and some small.
Theres the kid that wont let go of his blue ball and needs a crazy piggyback ride from a massive friend just to navigate the halls.
Theres the girl whos always writing in her journal, no one ever knowing what it says, The kid terrified of dogs, whos working out an escape plan in his brain, The pickpockets. The stinky romantics. The beaten and the yuksters and the one thats clutching a little broom without even remembering its there.
Ten stories. Not much room to tell what needs to be said, but by the end youll realize you wouldnt have it any other way.
Due to the nature of my chosen profession I read a lot of novels for kids.
Let me let you in on a little trade secret:of them Very samey, Im reading books that have garnered starred reviews from professional journals left and right, and half the time Im bored out of my ever loving skull.
has turned out to be a particularly dire year as well, The running gag amongst my librarians is that if the novel youre reading doesnt contain some long treatise on loss then check the publication date.
Youre probably reading something from, So you want to know the first reason I was looking forward to reading Reynolds latest It wasnt because it was by him, necessarily.
No, it had a lot more to do with the sweet page sizeand not a paper fiber more to say nothing of the fact that ten stories equals a significant decrease in the likelihood that these would all be stories about dead parents.
I cracked open the book and you know what the first story was about Boogers! Right there I was officially in love.
Then, as I read, I remembered something Id forgotten, Jason Reynolds That guy knows how to write, Knows how to go for the emotional jugular, Is aware that even the shortest, silliest story and, let us be clear, this book begins with boogers and practically ends with a cans worth of body spray can work when you catch a reader offguard with a quick, hard truth.
Doggone it. This book is really good,
Let us imagine for a moment that instead of reading this review you are instead attending a master class on writing, through the framework of Jason Reynolds books.
I hand you Look Both Ways and ask you to consider some of the ways in which this book is better than better than average.
Well begin at the beginning, Page two, to be precise, After an opening that, for the record, delivers what may well be the best line about snot in the whole history of childrens literature, we meet our two characters, Jasmine and TJ.
Their story is all of fifteen pages long in total, Thats fifteen pages where Reynolds has the chance to flesh out their character traits and to nail down their personalities.
Only he doesnt take fifteen pages to do that, He takes two to three, and he does it by showing how they open their lockers, Here is how TJ opens his: “TJ spun the black lock dial confidently, like he could feel the difference in the grooves and would know when he landed on the right numbers.
” Here is how Jasmine opens hers: “ Jasmine, unlike TJ, turned her lock with an intense concentration, glaring at it as if the combination could up and change at any second, or as if her fingers could stop working at any moment.
” Consider that. Two sentences and you now know everything you may ever need to know to understand these characters.
The beginning of a book is never a mic drop, but that comes close, Real real close.
Ten stories means ten challenges, How do you organize your tales How much variety can there be between them while still allowing them to feel like theyre part of the same book Theyre all told in the third person, though you do occasionally get a glimpse into a thought process here or there.
Some are funny. Some are pretty serious, though none are dire a trademark of childrens rather than YA literature, Death pops up but doesnt stick around too long, In a particularly neat twist, because these stories all take place on the same day, characters and incidents that you saw earlier like when our characters walk by “a cloud of body spray that smelled like cinnamon if cinnamon smelled like garlic” pop up later, in context.
Close readings and rereadings are rewarded amply here, But like any good writer Reynolds had to give this book some kind of overarching theme, Just saying its the same kids from the same school at the same time on the same day isnt enough.
So he threw in a reoccurring school bus falling from the sky, Its subtle, but its works,
When I grow up, I want to be able to write descriptions as well as Mr.
Reynolds. Im already older than he is, so this dream is running into a bit of an early snag.
No matter. I will now proceed to write some of my favorite lines of this book, out of context, but youll still get a bit of the flavor:
“Jasmine Jordon said this like she said most things with her whole body.
Like the words werent just coming out of her mouth but were also rolling down her spine.
”
“And Jasmine would laugh because his jokes were always funny even though she knew they were almost never jokes.
”
“The way they were a braid of brilliance and bravado concerned everyone, ”
“He tapped his wrist where there was no watch, Checked it like checking a pulse, A live one, for sure, ”
“Theres a feel in the air, A stickiness like walking through an invisible syrup, A thickness to life. ”
“Always smelled like incense smoke trying to mask dirty mop water, ”
Im not being fair, taking all these lines out of context, Out of their pages where they glint, You know when youre reading a book and you run across sentences that stands out, but not in a showy way, from all the others on the page.
That little glinting is what these lines display, If you put them all back theyll still work their magic and, whats more, theyll let you get to the best part of any Jason Reynolds story: the payoff at the end.
I suspect hed deny it, but Reynolds has figured out how to get kids to read, On his website, he says that kids who “hate” reading dont hate books, They just hate reading boring books, Now Im enough of a child myself to hate boring books too, so the short tales in this book were just my speed.
And as I read, I realized that if I made it through a story, Id get a little kick at the end.
Sometimes its a kick that makes you want to cry, Other times, laugh. But whatever it does, it makes you feel, so you give in to it and keep reading story after story.
For the kick. For the glint. For the feel.
Jason Reynolds wont do a number of things for the kids that read this book.
He wont give them hardened onedimensional villains and heroes, He wont hand them boring overdone tropes that theyve encountered a hundred times before, He will completely fail to bore them to death, He wont make them sorry they picked this book up, Heck, he wont even write a chapter without slipping in some universal truth about humanity, So what will he do Hell make your kids want to be better writers, Even if theyve never written a word in their lives, Especially then. And hell make you want to be a better person for those kids, The ones that disappear into the crowds and sometimes dont even see one another, The ones that only an author can really see, A good one.
A Jason Reynolds,
For agesan up,
.