Beautiful Books

BY LAUREN LACHOWICZ

Who doesn’t love curling up with a good book, cup of hot chocolate, and warm blanket?!

Look at our book list to find a book that satisfies your needs!

*Note: we didn’t include manga, anime, comics, and graphic novels as they are styles not genres. Thank You!

Book Ideas

PRE-K TO K: Room On The Broom by Julia Donaldson. This is a story about a witch who has bad luck, but makes friends along her journey. (fantasy)

The Pigeon books by Mo Willems (series). These follow a pigeon who wants to do different things but is not allowed to. (fantasy)

GRADES 1-2: Princess in Black by Shannon and Dean Hale (series). This follows a princess who is also a superhero in secret. (fantasy)

Magic Treehouse by Mary Pope Osborne (series). A story about a brother and sister who travel through time. Will things go smoothly or horribly wrong? (historical fiction)

GRADES 3-4: Bad Guys by Aaron Blapey (series). A group of friends who are “bad” but will they turn good? (fantasy)

Wings of Fire by Tui Sutherland (series). A story about dragons who are trying to save not only their world but other worlds. (fantasy)

GRADES 5-6: Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley (series). Two sisters move in with their grandmother in a fairy tale town after their parents die. But this town hides more mysteries than they think. (fantasy)

Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling (series). This is about a young boy who goes to a school for wizards and witches. Little does he know he will have to save the world from the dark wizard. (fantasy)

GRADES 7-8: The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (series). The main message of this story is that social constructs ignore people’s personality. (fantasy, mystery)

When Life Gives You Mangos by Kereen Getten. A girl who spends time with her friend, and as they grow apart can her friendship be saved? (psychological fiction) c

There are multiple reasons why books are being prohibited. Some of these reasons include inappropriate language, violence/mention of violence, talking animals, LGBTQIA+ support, titles about race and racism, and many, many more.

An example of book censorship is that several stories by Roald Dahl have been restricted. They have taken words like dumb, ugly, or fat, and have changed them to be more “child appropriate.” Authority figures have been “baby-proofing” titles that children should be allowed to read.

Banned books also help kids and adults to connect to the world around them, and deal with issues that characters they read about are going through. Those who ban these think that children who read these are “exposed” to things that really happen, which means that if they lose that experience, they could never find out. This can be concerning because it can affect how they react to situations that require information that they weren’t given.

It is up to our generation to protect our right to books, because our own school library could lose a lot of stories students love. Even though students technically can’t “unban” books, we can still raise awareness for banned books. Although Massachusetts has not banned many titles, our administrators are quickly following in the footsteps of Texas, Florida, and other states that have banned books.

Some things that YOU can do are stay informed, go to protests, and tell others about what is happening. Education and getting information is key to learning about the world. Most importantly of all, engage in book love. You could start a book club, go to bookstores, or visit your local library. If this situation teaches us anything, it’s that books are precious and should be adored and cherished.

Books are being banned or censored around the U.S. for having real, true, and important topics. It’s tearing away ideas that matter in our education. Books are not only entertaining, but are the building blocks of life.

We need to make sure that they are out in the world for all to read, without worrying about losing their place on the shelf. c having only 15 minutes outside and the constant mental health drops? I believe there is.

Looking back on the younger grades, who have two or even three recesses throughout the day, students seem much more filled with pep than the older students. They spend much more of their time outside, and the common argument as to why this is occurring is that they are younger. They have “more energy” and need to run around the playground to get it out. But how does one even measure the energy of the older kids to the younger kids? Could it be that the older kids are less excited to go to school than the lower grades?

Well, obviously this is not an accurate form of measurement, because we are not given a large enough time outside, therefore making us less energized and excited. And even if some people don’t play active games when outside and just stand around and talk, they are also improving their mental state by socializing. Humans rely on social connections, and being able to freely talk with friends can improve our mental health greatly.

But there is always the issue of when this break of freedom should take place. Grades 3-8 have an x-block, which in my experience, is often used to finish work from other classes. My suggestion is to find some way that this block can be used for time outside. The teachers could take the students outside. Either that, or we could give each of the teachers a well deserved break, and find someone else, like the people who help with lunch, to watch them. Another option is to dip into the x-block time for a longer lunch period.

Consuming food is incredibly important, and the suggested amount of time lunch should take is 30 minutes, according to Kingcounty.gov. However, the time we are given for lunch at our school is not even 15 minutes. In fact, some elementary grade level students timed how long they had to eat. One student got school lunch, so they timed from when they sat down to eat until when they were instructed to line up. They recorded 9 minutes and 32 seconds. Another student had a similar experience. They spent 3 or 4 minutes in line, and had only 11 minutes to eat. Not only can the line for the school lunch take a few minutes, if the teacher dismisses the class a little late, then those are minutes wasted as well. Being timed while eating can be dangerous for the students’ health and manners. It is considered rude and even unsafe to race to finish your food, but the small amount of time we have to eat is teaching kids to try and finish their food as fast as possible.

Having such a short lunch and such a short recess also cuts down on time to enjoy the company of friends. Oftentimes when students talk during class, the teachers say that they can talk during lunch and recess, but realistically no. We really can’t. We don’t have enough time to be outside, eat our food, or socialize. So…isn’t it about time we change that? c