Sahara Special - Hardcover

Codell, Esmé Raji

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786807938 ISBN 13: 9780786807932

Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children, 2003

Synopsis

There are two files on Sahara Jones. The one the school counselor keeps is evidence that she's a fifth-grader who needs special education. The other is the book Sahara is secretly writing, her Heart-Wrenching Life Story and Amazing Adventures. The latest chapter in her book unfolds when her mother insists that she be taken out of special Ed. So Sahara is facing fifth grade in the regular classroom, again. But why even try to do the work, Sahara wonders, if everything just winds up in the counselor's file? Enter Miss Pointy, the new fifth-grade teacher. With her eggplant-colored lipstick, and strange subjects such as "Puzzling" and "Time Travel," she's like no other teacher Sahara has ever known. Through Miss Pointy's unusual teaching, storytelling, and quiet support, Sahara finds the courage to overcome her fears and prove which file shows her true self.

About this title

About the Author

A nationally renowned advocate for literacy and literature-based instruction, Esmé Raji Codell is today "one of the nation's most sought-after voices for empowering teachers" (People) and a "Superstar of Education" (Scolastic Instructor). Esmé has been interviewed on CBS This Morning, CNN, C-SPAN’s Book Talk, and NPR. The author of How to Get Your Child to Love Reading as well as award-winning books for children, Esmé lives with her husband and son in Chicago, where she spent many years as an educator in Chicago public schools and now runs the popular children's literature Web site PlanetEsme.com and the unique literary salon, the PlanetEsme Bookroom.

Reviews

Grade 3-6-In this delightful first novel, readers meet Sahara Jones in the school hallway, where she's been pulled out of class for sessions with the Special Needs teacher. It seems that Sahara's official school file is filled with her letters to her father, who had left the family, instead of her completed assignments. Sahara is a secretive writer; she fills her journal at home, then rips out the pages and stuffs them on the public library shelves behind the 940s for someone to discover someday. At her mother's insistence, the girl is taken out of the Special Needs program but is forced to repeat fifth grade. Enter a new teacher, Madame Poitier, who encourages her class to do, to write, to be, as never before. Sahara is sweeter than Harriet the Spy, as needy and engaging as Ramona, and is sure to be a character whom children will want to read about and get to know. Codell's take on fifth graders, teachers, Special Needs students, and mothers is very funny, and underneath the humor glows real warmth and love. A special novel that readers will not be able to put down.
Linda Beck, Indian Valley Public Library, Telford, PA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 4-6. Codell, author of an award-winning adult nonfiction book, Educating Esme (1999), about teaching in an inner-city Chicago school, brings her experience to bear in this debut novel. Sahara is a quiet, self-conscious kid, who misses her absentee father and can't seem to fit in at school. When her poor school performance and letters to Dad she's hidden in her desk come to light, she's put in Special Needs, an experience so dreadful that her mother pulls her out for another crack at fifth grade. As it turns out, her new teacher is just what she needs to build confidence and set her on a path to becoming a writer. It's meant to be Sahara's story, but it's her teacher, "Ms. Pointy," who takes over. Pointy's audacious, yet caring, demeanor and her undisguised disdain of educational bureaucracy will be a revelation to kids, who will see narrator Sahara as a sympathetic, but pale, second stringer. Codell works in wonderful metaphors and important life lessons, but that's not always enough to carry the peripatetic goings on, which come across as two parts message and one part story. An upbeat and certainly well-intentioned novel, but flawed. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786807938
• ISBN 13: 9780786807932
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192