I just finished reading the young adult novel Firegirl by
Tony Abbot. This is the first of 12
books I will be reading for the course Adolescent Literature for my reading
masters program at Florida Gulf Coast University. Starting today, I will begin a series here on
The Apple, spotlighting each book. The
series will be called, “Book Blurbs,” so keep and eye out!
For each of the Book Blurbs, I will post the title and
author of the book, the genre, present themes, awards, a summary, my personal
response to the book, and my rating. In
addition, each post in this series will be accompanied with some resources that
I have located to help teachers, like you, integrate these books into your
classroom instruction! So here it goes:
Book Blurb #1: Firegirl by Tony Abbot
In the young adult novel, Firegirl, Toni Abbot shared a powerful story laced with themes of friendship and acceptance. The main character, Tom, develops throughout the story and is able to overcome several hurdles related to social pressures. In the story, a young girl named Jessica joins Tom’s class. Everyone is excited to meet the new girl, until they see that she is much different when compared to her peers. Jessica was a victim of a horrible car crash that left her scarred from the burns of the accident. The majority of her body was affected, and as Jeff, Tom’s friend, describes, Jessica’s skin looks like melted plastic. Many of the students are fearful of Jessica, but Tom is the only one courageous enough to hold Jessica’s deformed hand during the morning prayer. Tom’s friendship develops with Jessica and as his other friendship crumble; he learns what it means to be a true friend and compassionate person. Jessica was not in Tom’s class for long, as she moved around to a lot of hospitals. Though she was only in Tom’s life for a short while, the impression that she left on him made an impact that ultimately changed his perspective on life.
I absolutely adored this book! I loved the dynamic of all of the characters and the impact the characters had on one another. Tom was most certainly my favorite character. I felt as if each event in the story was purposeful and meaningful. I would love to read this story to my class, as I feel it has many lessons related to friendship, tolerance, acceptance, and sensitivity awareness. Firegirl received the ALA Teens’ Top Ten and the Golden Kite Award, both in 2007
If I were to teach
this book in the classroom, I would incorporate it into a unit on sensitivity,
acceptance, and friendship. Students could use
reader response journals to write reflective journal entries from different
character’s perspectives. In writing I think
it would be interesting for students to write alternative endings for the
story, imagining if Jessica would have stayed.
Students could
complete various activities through the following resources:
No comments:
Post a Comment