Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper (by Guest Reviewer)

Imagine having a photographic memory, imagine being extremely smart..... Well that's exactly how eleven year old Melody is except there is one problem, she can't talk or walk. Every day she goes to school to a special class for kids that have problems and every day they go over the alphabet. For her, though, she is past just learning the alphabet. Melody belongs in advanced classes but she has no way of letting anyone know that. Doctors and experts diagnosed her with cerebral palsy and insisted that she wasn't capable of learning. Little did they know she is destined to prove them wrong. With a little help from a friend and a lot of hope, Melody finds what she's been looking for all her life. She will prove to the world what she can accomplish.

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I've never read any of Sharon Draper's books before, but what caught my eye on this book was the cover. It is very interesting how the fish is jumping out of its bowl and it goes very well with the title. The characters were written very well and sometimes I found myself getting frustrated with some of Melody's problems. I started worrying if it would end okay. Even though it had some sad parts I really enjoyed reading Out of My Mind. I would recommend this for kids 11 and up.

|Pages: 304|Year Published: March 2010|Publisher: Atheneum|

|Genre: Contemporary fiction, teen issues, drama, tragedy|

|Age Group: YA or 11+|Content: None|

|Enjoyed It: 4/5|Content Rating: 5/5|Cover: 5/5|

|Overall|

Review by Margaret May

WINNERS of The Stone Child

The 3 winners for The Stone Child by Dan Poblicki are:

Girl With the Braids

Katie

Roxie

Congrats guys! You should get an email from me shortly. For those of you who entered this contest, I request that you leave a comment telling me about a spooky local legend or inspiration for a sleep-over ghost story.

Here's what the winners had to say:

Girl With the Braids - "My favorite ghost stories come from Scary Stories and More Scary Stories. They creep me out! Especially when my friend reads them in an old lady voice."

Katie - "My favorite ghost story is one I actually heard in a class. In Spanish, they told us the story of the Chupacabra, a blood-sucking creature that is of an unknown breed. It's not really scary for me now but it was when the story was first told!"

Hey Kaite! People have found supposed Chupacabras very near where I live! In fact, one was just shot a few months back. They call them "Chupacabras" because the ranchers don't know what they are! The animals really only look like hairless coyotes but it's sooo weird!

Roxie - "This is actually a fact. In the building I now work in which is the Public Library here in a small town of New Mexico. There’s a saying that in our children’s department (this is located downstairs) you can hear voices, voices of children. I once myself heard kids talking and I was the only one downstairs covering a shift for a coworker. Also we have a Young Primary shelf and you can display the books, when I was there working on a craft one of the books fell and I was completely alone (this shelf in next to the circulation desk) If you take a look at the shelf someone has to knock the book down. So finally I went to pick it up and put it back on the shelf as I was sitting down it fell again. It makes you think and believe."

Here's a book trail or for The Stone Child I made a few weeks ago.