Wild Things: YA Grown-Up discussion

Changeling

This was a book I'd never heard of until it was nominated for our state award this year, but I am so glad I read it- and specifically as a teacher.

Changeling gives us a world called The New York In-Between which is a magical world that is parallel to NYC. I love this book specifically as a teacher, though, because of a couple reasons:

1)Delia Sherman uses magical folk from folklore from all over the world in the novel. We meet Boggarts from England, Dryads from Greece, Chin Chia from China, etc. (And it has a glossary of all the fairy tale folk.) How much fun would this be to use with a folk lore lesson?!?!?

2) She also has some literary folk that live in the NY In-between such as The Water Rat from The Wind in the Willows("A writer made him up, but he was so real that he took on a life of his own").

3) Lastly, Astris, the fairy godmother, tells fairy tales to Neef, the main character, but they are all New York-ified. For example, "Little Red Riding Hood" becomes "Little Red Baseball Cap"- How much fun would it be to have students write their own version of the stories using Astris's titles?!?!?!

So, I just had to share my excitement about this newly found fantasy (and action/adventure) book with you all :)

DAMN! I saw this one at the library sale and didn't pick it up. Boo for me :(

Jackie wrote: "DAMN! I saw this one at the library sale and didn't pick it up. Boo for me :("

:(
Next time....