4. Judge A Book By Its Cover. Pick out a book based SOLELY on the cover. First, write about what you expect the book to be about based on the cover art. Then read the book and write about how the book was different from and/or similar to what the cover art led you to expect.
Browsing through the library one day (not yet brave enough to pick my random position challenge book), I came across Flip Flop Girl by Katherine Paterson. It interested me. When I tried to download a picture of the cover from the internet I found only a different cover (one with feet and flip flops)-- I may not have picked that one. I took a picture of my chosen cover to show you. It shows a girl with a sad face and red barettes. In the background there is a little boy and a woman (so I assumed). I wasn't sure what to expect. Did this girl want flip flops? Why was she so sad?
It turned out the sad girl is Vinnie Matthews, and the early pages of the book tell about her father's death. She and her mother and younger brother must now leave the only home they've ever known and move across the state to her grandmother's house. If Vinnie is distraught, her younger brother, Mason, is even more so. He is the little boy in the background. He stops talking and hardly eats for weeks after the dad's death. Eleven year old Vinnie tries hard to hold it together during the traumatic transition to a new home and school. The adults in her life don't talk much and like I said, her brother doesn't talk at all. The children in her class are unfriendly except for the strange tall girl with orange flip flops, who herself doesn't seem to have any friends. This is Lupe and the person who I thought was a grown woman on the cover.
Things go from bad to worse when Vinnie makes a bad choice and her brother runs away on the same day. Through the concern of her teacher Mr Clayton, and with a lot of help from Lupe, Vinnie learns that there is more then one meaning to the term "flip flop girl". If you want to know what that is, you'll have to read the book.
I highly recommend this book to you and your 9-13 year old daughters!
Incidently you'll find that wherever possibly I will be choosing books written for young adults...there are so many good ones out there, so many that I want to read, and so many that I want my kids to read.
To see other books chosen for their cover go here.
4 comments:
I've found myself drawn more towards YA type books lately, too!
Sounds like a great book! I also like to read YA books, there are some good stories out there and they are usually clean!
I love reading YA books when I am not reading my trashy romance novels ;)
Sounds like the cover was pretty much on the money as far as presenting the characthers in the book. And the book itself sounds like a winner -- especially in dealing with such a difficult subject. I like that you will be using this challenge to choose books for your children! What a good mom!
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