I Have To Read This Book...

Citation

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I started discussing the book, Scat, by Carl Hiaasen, with a small reading group today, and after just a couple of minutes, I decided to work through the book just as I ask my students to. This means that I'll be reading and posting right along with the students. Hopefully, I'll learn as much from them as they have from me. The assignment directions are located here, but in addition to those directions, I've asked this group to really focus on the characters as well as the great word choice in the text we are currently reading. So here goes my first attempt at completing my own assignment...

The lead from the story lets us know that this is going to be a bit mysterious, because apparently, a teacher goes missing. In the text, the very first line says, "The day before Mrs. Starch vanished, her third period biology students trudged silently, as always, into the classroom." The author goes on to introduce some characters, including a student named Nick, who it turns out has one parent in Iraq, and another who is a prison guard. Graham is the student in the class who always has his hand in the air, but never really knows the answer, and Marta, who some of the students in our group think is admired by Nick. Duane (a.k.a. Smoke) is also introduced. He was a wimpy kid, but over one summer, he grew about 5 inches, and told everyone to call him smoke. Some students have heard a rumor that he is a "pyro," which is short for pyromaniac. He's really got some issues. So far, we've read about how he chewed up a Ticonderoga pencil, while the teacher was pointing it in his face, and about how he consumed a gym teacher's pinkie finger in a fight. We also meet the headmaster, Dr. Dressler, who "was neat and cautious and mild-spoken." The setting so far has been mostly at the Truman School, which is a private school in Florida.

So far I am loving this book because of the great writing. The author is using incredible dialog, and the characters are super interesting. I'm excited to find out more about why the book is titled Scat. In the front cover, I read that this book is "A hybrid madcap swamp adventure and environmental whodunit." All of this makes me feel like I'm going to really enjoy this book. I love mysteries, and I love other books by this author. I'm also interested in anything related to science, so I think there will be a lot for me to love as I read this story.

Side note: I wrote a bit more in my summary paragraph because there was all sorts of new information. Normally, my last paragraph will have more writing. Thanks fore reading, and I lookg forward to reading your work as well!

~ Mr. Moore