The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary by Jeff Kinney

 

What did it take to turn Diary of a Wimpy Kid from a book into a movie?  More than you would ever believe!

If you are interested in the complex task of turning a book--any book--into a full length motion picture, this book will walk you through the steps one by one.

Some things I found fascinating were the following:

·         7 1/2 hours of filming usually produce 2 minutes of actual usable clips for the final cut.

·         Scenes are not shot in sequence; rather any scenes needing a certain set are shot whether they occur months later in the actual sequence of the movie

·         Child actors must complete 15 hours of education through the use of tutors weekly--plus child actors can’t work more than 7 ½ hours per day.

Read this easy to understand nonfiction title to see how complex the production of a movie from a book really is.

Under Siege! Three Children at the Civil War Battle for Vicksburg by Andrea Warren

The Civil War raged from 1861-1865. One of the most important battles was fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

General Pemberton commanded the confederate (Rebel) forces while Ulysses Grant commanded the Union (Yankees).

A defeat of the confederacy at Vicksburg, due to its strategic position on the Mississippi River, could turn the tide of the war in the North’s favor.

What is unique about this book is that three children, two from the South and one from the North, actually wrote memoirs of their experiences during the siege of Vicksburg.

Lucy McRae and Willie Lord were both children during the battle.  Lucy would watch the battle from her second floor porch or from Sky Parlor Hill.  Willie Lord’s father was an Episcopalian priest in Vicksburg. Residents of Vicksburg, including Lucy and Willie, spent days and nights in hastily dug caves.  Lucy was partially buried when a cave roof fell on her as she slept.

Frederick Grant was only twelve when he accompanied his famous father, Ulysses S. Grant.  Fred was present at every battle and witnessed the surrender after the 47 day siege to starve the southern army out of Vicksburg.  He was shot in the leg, suffered a horrific infection- almost losing his leg. Dysentery and typhoid fever further weakened Fred.

Andrea Warren’s book draws from primary source document research.  With abundant archival photos and paintings from 1863, this book is easily accessible to young people.

 

 

Outlaws and Lawmen: Crime and Punishment in the 1800s

Since I really knew very little about how our crime and punishment system came into being in the United States, I found this book very informative.

The first part deals with the years 1800-1834.  In the 1700’s most crimes were punished by public ridicule.  The use of stocks, where people were publically on display in village greens, was common as were hangings for more serious crimes.

The religious influence of the Quakers changed the public displays to “houses” where criminals were separated from society and each other and placed in solitary confinement to contemplate their crimes.

When huge influxes of immigrants arrived in NYC due to the potato famine in Ireland, gangs formed to avoid persecution.  By 1850, police were formed to try to control the rising violence.

By the 1860’s political corruption- buying off the police, controlling the courts, etc. had sprung up. “The appearance of the law must be upheld, especially while it’s being broken.”

Meanwhile, in the West—especially Texas--large groups of settlers needed protection. Rangers were formed. Their duty was to protect the new settlers from Native Americans and to deal with cattle thieves.

The second period of the book deals with the years 1838-1865. Many crimes in this period revolved around slavery.  The Civil War would rage for four years before some disputes would be settled.

The third part of the book deals with outlaws in the Wild West from 1867-1889.   Greed for gold, land, or cattle proved to be the real cause of crime in the West.
Primary source documents help the reader see how both outlaws and lawmen operated at that time.

This book scratches the surface on crime and punishment in the 1800’s, but does provide a vehicle for understanding the time period.

 

Real Courage: The Story of Harper Lee by Katherine Don

Harper Lee is best known for her first and only novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

Katherine Don has written an extensive piece on Nelle Harper Lee’s life.

She has researched Lee’s early years with her family in Monroeville, Alabama.  Harper’s close relationship with Truman Capote is evident. Anyone who has read To Kill a Mockingbird will realize the character of Dill is fashioned from her childhood days with Truman Capote.

The author traces Harper Lee’s years in New York City. What was interesting to me was the author’s assertion that Harper Lee was not a recluse as she aged. Rather, she was just very particular with whom she associated.

It is a rare thing in our culture to shun notoriety and publicity to maintain a low profile of true friendships.

I learned a great deal about Nelle Harper Lee from this thoroughly researched piece.

Kennedy’s Last Days by Bill O’Reilly

Accessible!

Bill O’ Reilly’s book entitled Kennedy’s Last Days is easily accessible for middle school readers. It gives a brief history of the Kennedy family, but the majority of the book details the 1,036 days of his Presidency.

It is chilling to see the cover of the book. There is a photo of John Kennedy seated beside his wife Jackie as their motorcade winds its way down a street in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. The next moment, a sniper’s bullet hits John Kennedy delivering a fatal blow. The assassin is Lee Harvey Oswald.

Filled with archival photos of John and Jackie Kennedy and their children Caroline and John, the text is easy to follow providing just enough detail without confusing the reader.

Students who desire more information can follow the reading of this book with Killing Kennedy, also by Bill O’Reilly. Killing Kennedy was written for an adult audience but motivated readers can easily follow it.

Chasing Lincoln's Killer by James Swanson

The Civil War in the United States was a fight to retain the union. Even after Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army, surrendered to Ulysses Grant on April 19, 1865, there were still major divisions in our nation. One such group was the band of men who wanted to kidnap President Lincoln.

In James Swanson’s book for young adult readers entitled Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, he details the plot which was originally designed to kidnap Lincoln to reveal when it changed to an assassination plot against Lincoln, his vice president, Andrew Johnson and his Secretary of State. John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor of the time period, was the mastermind behind the plot.

He and he alone shot President Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre in Washington as he was watching a play with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. Lincoln and his wife and another couple were seated in the balcony of Ford’s Theatre in a special Presidential theater box. The guard who was supposed to be stationed outside the Presidential box had left his post after the play started to have a drink in a local bar. John Wilkes Booth was able to easily gain entrance to the box and shoot Lincoln. The gunshot to his neck lodged in his brain and led to his death many hours later. Booth escapes by jumping from the box onto the stage of Ford’s Theatre. He breaks his leg in the fall. This does not deter him. He makes his getaway despite the pain he is suffering.

Swanson details the manhunt to find all of the coconspirators as they fled from Washington.

Swanson’s award winning adult title Manhunt is a more detailed version of this title. For students who enjoy Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, they may want to read the adult title for further information.

Personally, I loved this highly accessible account of the dark days following one of the darkest days in American history.

The Incredible Transcontinental Railroad by R. Conrad Stein

What an amazing feat it was to complete the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869.

Imagine the time before this great railway was completed.  If you wanted to get from the Eastern seaboard of our country to the Gold Rush in what was to become the State of California in 1849, you would either have to book passage on a boat which would go around South America and especially the treacherous rounding of Cape Horn and then through the Pacific.  The passage would take anywhere from 6 to 8 months to complete.  Or you could take the overland route across our vast country by horse and covered wagon.  This overland route would take from 4-5 months.

Once the railway was completed a passenger could travel from New York to San Francisco in a week’s time!

What is so amazing about the accomplishment of the railroad is the timing of its completion and the sheer engineering feat.

Our country was divided in 1861-1865 by the Civil War.  Once the war was over, the country united to get this completed.

The Union Pacific Railway was started in Omaha.  The Central Pacific was started in Sacramento, CA.  The two mountain ranges- the Sierra Nevadas in California and the Rockies in Colorado-- had to be conquered.

I was lucky enough to walk through the 20 foot high tunnel at Summit Peak in the Sierras this summer.  It was 1500 feet long through granite.  It was one of the 15 tunnels needed to go through mountains.  It was awe inspiring to see!

Read this highly accessible book for young teens to find out just how amazing this engineering feat proved to be.

 

The Journals of Lewis & Clark

I like how this book starts with a description of primary and secondary sources.  The primary sources are from the journals kept by the men.

This is a very easy to read documentary of the historical journey that Meriwether  Lewis and William Clark made to find a passage from St. Louis to the Pacific through the mountain ranges and uncharted territory of what we now know as North and South Dakota, Idaho, Montana and Washington states.

By navigating down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River at St. Louis, they c continued following the river upstream, to where it connected to the Missouri River.  They needed the help of local Indian tribes to navigate the Bitterroot Mountains and the Rockies.
What an arduous, dangerous journey it proved to be.  Their journey spans from May to 1804 to September of 1806.

Luckily for our country, they kept journals which detailed their famous excursion.

Read this book in the series entitled Documentary U.S. History to find out just how courageous these brave men and their party of men were.

Making Freedom: The Extraordinary Life of Venture Smith by Chandler B. Saint & George A. Krimsky

Sometimes I am stunned by what I don’t know! Making Freedom The Extraordinary Life of Venture Smith educated me about a very significant person from Connecticut’s early history.

Born the son of a tribal prince in about the year of 1729 in an interior West African country, Broteer Furro, was from a cattle-herding people. His African name would be one of his memories of his homeland.

Venture Smith was the name Broteer was given as a slave. His people in Africa were invaded by an army of other Africans and forced to march nearly 400 miles to the sea. Venture was probably 8 or 9 years old at the time. They were held in the infamous “Slave Castle” (a fortress much more like a dungeon) on what is now the coast of Ghana.

Venture survived the barbaric “middle passage” on board the ship from Africa to Barbados. He was named Venture by the man who decided to keep him as the ship continued on its journey to Newport, Rhode Island.

Making Freedom: The Extraordinary Life of Venture Smith details the three slave masters he suffered under and his eventual freedom which he earned by paying for it.

His narrative was recorded by a school teacher named Elisha Niles and verified by five prominent residents of New London, Connecticut.

I especially liked this quotation from the Foreword of the book written by James O. Horton: “Venture Smith’s story is also the iconic story of a self-made man who struggled against the greatest of odds to become a successful entrepreneur. This volume tells this story through the extraordinary life of a man one cannot help but admire.”

Education yourself about one of Connecticut’s most successful black entrepreneurs by reading about Venture Smith!

Titanic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson

“Most of all, the Titanic and the questions it raises reminds us that history isn’t about learning names, events, and dates.  Knowing that the Titanic sank at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, doesn’t begin to convey what happened that night and why more than a century later, we’re still drawn to this event.”

I’ve read many books and articles about the sinking of the Titanic.  What I really liked about Deborah Hopkinson’s book was the way in which she explained the voyage from survivor accounts.

This technique made the story very accessible to me.  The freezing temperatures, the inadequate number of lifeboats, and the total lack of safety drills were all factors which contributed to the tragedy that took so many lives.

If you are interested in the story of the Titanic’s voyage, this is a title you are certain to appreciate.  The archival photos and attention to eye-witness accounts add to the power of this nonfiction piece.

 

The Ghost of Flight 401 by John G. Fuller

I ordered The Ghost of Flight 401 after students requested the title. They had read a very intriguing part of this story in reading class and wanted to have the full story of the event.

John G. Fuller is an author of nonfiction titles. He usually investigates heady subjects such as nuclear disasters. One of his nonfiction titles is entitled: Fever: The Hunt for a New Killer Virus.  So he was very skeptical about the story he had heard regarding apparitions of a pilot and flight engineer who had passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly when the Eastern Airlines Lockheed Tristar  L-1011 they were piloting crashed in the Florida Everglades near Miami airport. Of the 176 people aboard, 75 survived the horrific crash.

Although this book is written for an adult audience, interested young adult readers can certainly understand it and benefit from the detailed research that John Fuller conducted in order to understand the strange sightings stewardesses and other pilots were having of the pilot—Bob Loft--and the flight engineer—Don Repo--after the crash on other airlines.

I really liked this book! It made me think about the possibility to life after death in a new way. I found the thorough way in which the author told the story to be most compelling.

Students who are mature readers and are open to new ways of thinking about ghosts will enjoy this title.

Killing Kennedy by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard

I was very interested to read this nonfiction book because I have vivid memories of John F. Kennedy and his young family.  I was in 7^th grade when our country held its breath as the Cuban Missile Crisis played out.  We were so close to a nuclear holocaust which would have annihilated the Soviet Union (Russia) and the United States.  I was in ninth grade when it was announced in school that President Kennedy had been shot by a gunman and killed in Dallas, Texas.  We were dismissed from school.  I cried all the way on my walk home.  The entire country mourned the death of our beloved president for the next four days.

This book was well researched – relying heavily on primary source documents.  It is written in a highly readable manner.  Although it is written for an adult audience, it is accessible by determined young adult readers.  Be warned that some of the personal issues about the President are for a more mature reader.

 

To listen to a later chapter from this book, click on the link.

The excerpt is from the audiobook read by Bill O'Reilly:

http://media.us.macmillan.com/video/olmk/macmillanaudio/killingkennedych24.mp3

 

Lincoln’s Last Days: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever

I’ve been to Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. and I’ve stood in the Presidential box where Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and President Abraham Lincoln sat watching the comedy Our American Cousin with Mayor Rathborn and his finance’ Clara Harris.  It is chilling to read the account of what fateful event took place in that theater.

Lincoln’s Last Days is an excellent, highly accessible account of the events leading to the end of the bitterly fought Civil War, the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln, and the chasing of the assassins.  Filled with archival photos, lithographs, maps and artifacts from the period, the story unfolds in a highly readable text.

Most chilling to me was the reading about the brutal attack on Secretary of State William Seward and his family in their home known as the Old Club in Washington, D.C.  by co-conspirator Lewis Powell. Lincoln’s assassination took place in the Presidential theater booth. Even after Wilkes’s attack on the President, the formidable strength of Lincoln’s physical body was remarkable considering the grave, mortal wounds to his head.

 Students will be fascinated by this nonfiction book!

 

Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917

I knew absolutely nothing about the largest man-made explosion before the atomic bomb. I would venture to guess that not many people know anything about this disaster. The author of Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917, Sally M. Walker, did a wonderful job of researching this piece of history.

The city of Halifax in Nova Scotia, Canada was a thriving port in 1917. With more than 45,000 people living in Halifax it was a major “jumping-off” port for ships carrying troops and supplies from North America to the countries involved in World War 1.

Because Halifax had a deep harbor, it could house ships of all sizes. The railroad stretched across the harbor area allowing the easy access of freight to the ships.

On the opposite shore from Halifax lays the settlement of Dartmouth. An unusual aspect of the harbor is its very narrow entry.

The inexplicable accident that caused the ship carrying explosives to ignite, devastated this close-knit community.

Read Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 to find out  just how the accident occurred, how many people died, and how people for all over the Northeast rallied to help the survivors.

Stolen into Slavery: The True Story of Solomon Northup, Free Black Man

In 1841 Solomon Northup was living in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., with his wife and three children. Solomon was educated. At 32 years old he was happy with his life as a free black man. Slavery had been outlawed in New York in 1827.

Times were difficult. Solomon was willing to work in many different jobs to make ends meet for his family. He was an excellent fiddler having learned to play the violin as a child. Solomon also drove a carriage for the hotel where many people stayed in Saratoga Springs during the summer. At other times he worked as a carpenter building railroads.

When two white men hire him to drive them by carriage to Washington, D.C., Solomon is eager for the money he will make. He makes certain that he has his “free papers” with him should they be stopped along the way. What the trusting Solomon doesn’t realize is that these two men are actually going to make money off of him by selling him to a slave dealer.  

His hardships begin when he is transported by ship to New Orleans. He has a merciful master at first, but when this man falls on hard times, he sells Solomon. Each time he is sold his name is changed. His first name is now Platt. His masters’ names become his last name.

How will he ever regain his freedom? Writing and the mailing of letters by black men in the South is outlawed. Who can he trust to help him? How can he endure the suffering and hard labor demanded of all the slaves? If his family does try to look for him, how will they find him since his name is changed?

I loved this easily accessible book which contains maps to help envision his journey, illustrations from the 1840’s, a bill of sale to one of his masters, and his brave account of the torment he endured.