Saturday, May 24, 2014

Flashback Friday {Review: Signal by Cynthia DeFelice}


(photo courtesy of google image search)

{Synopsis: courtesy of amazon.com}: 

One day while running on the trail near his house in upstate New York, Owen McGuire meets a girl with startling green eyes and bloody cuts all over her body who seems to be utterly alone. Her name is Campion, after the wildflower that is an alien species in the area—alien meaning “from someplace else”—and Campion claims to come from someplace else entirely, a planet called Home. She plans to signal her parents to come pick her up in their spaceship. Owen agrees to help, and as he does, he feels happier than he has in a long time: His mother died a year and a half ago, and now he and his workaholic father live together like two planets on separate orbits, in a new house far from his friends. What will he do when Campion asks him to come with her into outer space, away from his lonely life on Earth?

{Review}: 

There are a few things that I love about this book.
1.      It takes place on the shores of a finger lake in Upstate NY—where I’ve grown and spent all of my 29 years on this Earth.
2.      Cynthia DeFelice is behind this great piece of fiction.
3.      The cover is interesting and appealing, before you ever open the book to read it.
Cynthia DeFelice again paints a very realistic picture of an adolescent who is going through some pretty serious changes in his life. His mother has died, his father is very consumed with his life, and doesn’t necessarily have everything together himself, let alone getting himself together for his son.
And then we meet Campion: this poor scared alien-girl who mysteriously ended up near Owen’s home, and has no family to speak of, except the family from another planet. There is also a man—Ray, who is looking for her. Ray is a bit of a tough guy, and you’re never quite sure what the connection is. Until the ending, which will tear your heart out and stomp it on the floor.
I bought this selection from a scholastic book fair, because I knew that my guided reading students would love it. I could see {from a teaching perspective} that this would be a great addition to any child’s library, but especially to children who have already read Weasel by C. DeFelice--- there are a multitude of similarities of the story outlines, and it would be interesting for a middle-grade level to take these texts and really dive deeply into them. Cynthia DeFelice is also just a good author “to know”…as she has written a LOT of awesome books that appeal to young readers. My fifth grade students—upon receiving this book said the following:
Student 1: “Signal… the cover looks pretty cool…”
Student 2: “OMG! It’s by Cynthia DeFelice!”
Student 1: “That’s awesome. After we read Under The Same Sky, I tried to read all of our libraries books by her…”
{that’s super powerful stuff, peeps!}

{Where can I buy this?}:

Like I said, I bought mine at the last scholastic book fair we had, but you should be able to pick this up wherever books are sold.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Signal-Cynthia-DeFelice/dp/0312617763/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400961886&sr=8-1&keywords=signal+by+cynthia+defelice

B & N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/signal-cynthia-defelice/1100357585?ean=9780312617769

{What would I rate it?}: 

4.8/5: I REALLY enjoyed this book, and it was an incredibly quick read. My students thought the same, and were intrigued by the story the entire time.


{Who would I recommend this book to?}: 

Anyone with an advanced reading 4th grader/ 5th grader (on or above level) who is looking for something quick, and a good all-around read. Her stuff is really amazing, and once you've read one DeFelice, you really yearn to read at least 3+ more.... if not everything she's ever published. :-) 

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