The
Girl Death Left Behind Summary
Beth’s, a young high school girl,
family had been invited to the company picnic. She was not feeling well and
wanted to stay home. That was the day her entire life changed; her entire
family was killed in a car accident. From that day forward, she wished she had
died. Her and her best friend had lived next door to each other for most of
their lives and now she was being forced to move with her aunt and “perfect”
cousin. She wanted nothing move for her life to be over or to go back to what
it was, but now she was being forced into a new life and new situation she
wanted nothing to do with. In her new life she made a new friend, one her aunt
and cousin did not think was a good fit. This friend encouraged her to skip
school and do things against the “norm”, and she met a boy who she wanted to
make a connection with. Her life came to another screaming halt when she found
out that her family home was being sold and her aunt was going to clear out the
house. She was devastated, and with the help of her new friend she ran away
home. Her aunt finds her and calms her down and they work out an agreement to
keep all of her parent’s things in storage so that she can go through them when
she is a bit older. The story ends with them visiting her families graves and
her finally making peace with all that was happening in her ever-changing
world.
I’ll
Be Seeing You Summary
Carley
was a sixteen-year-old girl who had been scared by a facial deformity. She had
been in and out of the hospital trying to get it fixed so she felt more
confident about herself. It is during one of her visits she meets a young man
named Kyle. Kyle had lost his eyesight during a chemistry experiment with his
friends. Carley kept the secret of her scaring from him and they struck it off.
This story is a journey of her keeping her secret as they head back into the
real world. The problem is that Kyle regains his eyesight and wants badly to
see Carley for himself. When Kyle finally learns of her scaring he tries to
convince Carley that he does not care but she lashes out and ends things saying
she doesn’t want to be a charity case. Kyle is persistent and proves that he
cares about her by flying with his uncle a banner over her school on
Valentine’s day.
Rationale
These books show a young reader how
they can overcome bad things that happen in their lives. When I was a young
reader I had self-esteem issues and dealt a lot with death. These books helped
me to see the brighter side and how good can come out of the bad. We all need
that push to see the good out of the bad. Life changes all the time and it is
our challenges that make us who we are today.
Teaching Ideas
This book has great topics and may
be good for some to read it may not be good books for the entire class.
However, these books would be great for an independent reading or a book club
talk. It has some tough topics about death that would not be good for some to
hear given their background, but it does have good topics of self-esteem and
coming of age. Something to consider would be to have students who may be
inspired by young women overcoming their personal issues could relate best to
this. If I were to use this in the classroom it would be a good book for
imagery and how to write comparison stories.
Challenges
The only challenges I see is some
kids my not want to hear about a girl’s struggle with what these two girls
face. What I think would be fun is to see a young mans take on what these girls
go through and how they shape them into men.
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