The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
How do you deal with death when you have barely begun to live? That is the question that John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars tackles as readers experience a small glimpse into the life a teenage cancer patient. The book is the story of a girl battling terminal cancer and her daily struggles and joys. Readers grow fond of Hazel Grace as she meets her true love (another teenage cancer patient) and attempts to come to terms with death and the lives of those left behind.
While some may narrowly view this work as a Young Adult “cancer kid” book, I believe it offers something for older readers as well. The themes of life (and a life well lived) as well as death (its impact on us as well as our loved ones) are issues that are not unique to “cancer kids”. They are the universal issue of being human. How do we make peace with the universe? How do we define ourselves in our space in the universe? Addressing these issues from the POV of a teenage girl with cancer makes the reader pay more attention and offers a more intense emotion connection (both b/c of the “unfairness” of a short life and the emotional vibrancy of the teenage years and first love). Still, as I read (or rather listened) to The Fault in Our Stars I found myself relating Hazel Grace and caring about where her journey would end.
Hazel Grace’s voice is masterfully written by Green. But he also crafts fully realistic character’s with their own emotional challenges to surround her: Her friend Isaac– who looses his sight but keeps his life: Her mother– who “think” is defined by the cancer and her role as caregiver; and of course, Augustus–the boyfriend who is dealing with his own cancer issues.
Green weaves these characters together around the center, Hazel, without making it all about Hazel. He also uses literature and symbolism and dialog that are very engaging.
I would recommend this to old and young alike.
PS. As a mom, I am not s big fan of teenage sex in books for teens. But, I get it in this case.
was a dance party around the family island. We played Winnie-the-pooh music and went round and round in a dancing/marching circle to look for a Woozle.
was my bedroom. We cuddled up and read some stories.
Of course we have been reading this book for years! But it seemed like a nice choice for Monster Day.
Cinco read this for his reading book of the day and it was okay, but a little too simple for him.
This one was not so great. The pictures did not really match the layout of the equations and that made it difficult for young readers to follow. I wouldn’t recommend this one to others.
The bow and arrow is finished! We got the idea from 
You can get the paper on Amazon for about $6. I buy this one even though its sold as a “re-fill” pack. It comes with everything you need and why pay more a
For books, we continued our Midsummer Night’sDream for kids. They really loved that one of the character’s is named Nick Bottom. I tried to make the connection for them that Bottom was turned into an “ass” but I am not really sure they understood where I was going with that “joke”.
We bought this solar power kit (I got it for $4 new @ Goodwill– go figure) The kit was not quite as easy as they suggested it would be on the box. We had to use the glue gun to make sure all the parts stuck together, especially the Eiffel Tower–which would NEVER have stayed together without the glue gun!
We also made a wand for the fairy princess! But sadly, we did not have the time to make the bow and arrow. I guess that has to wait until tomorrow!
Even mom campers have to eat, so we went to Trader Joe’s. We didn’t let that car ride go to waste.We listened to Shakespeare for Children by Jim Weiss. It’s a children’s version of two of Shakespeare’s plays on the disk narrated by Jim Weiss. I love his CD’s and now you can you can get audio downloads of his work on Amazon, which is new and great! We listened to Midsummer Night’s Dream on the car ride. The story is a little confusing with so many changes in the love triangles.
. This book fit so perfectly with our activities today!
Cinco read The Circus Ship by Chris von Dusen. We read this last year for Circus Day as well. I simply adore it. It has beautiful illustrations and the story is written in rhyme which helps with children who need to improve their fluency. The story is a delightful tale about some circus animals who are shipwrecked and end up joining a small community living on an island in Maine. The author even provides an interesting historical note about his insperation for the story. Additionally, the author uses some great vocabulary words (bedraggled for example) that you can discuss with your kids to improve their own language acquisition.
I decided on the disney classic, Dumbo!
The Booky Mom 
