Wednesday, February 1, 2012

The Map of Me by Tami Lewis Brown–NOT RECOMMENDED

Brown, Tami Lewis The Map of Me, 160 pgs. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. $14.11. (Rating: G in all catagories)
Maggie is a 6th grader who is at a total loss of how to create ‘a map of me’ for a school assignment. When her mom leaves the family, Maggie decides to go find her and bring her home. This involves taking her very unwilling little sister along for the ride. During their stolen car rode trip Maggie has a lot of time to think about her life and what it means to be her.
This is the kind of book well-meaning but antiquated teachers like to choose for dreaded theme discovery assignments. The dated setting, the overly-repetitious use of the words Momma and Daddy, the annoying younger sister, and the incredibly dull flashbacks -didn’t quite lead me to the life lesson/realization that it did for the main character.
Elementary –NOT RECOMMENDED Reviewer: Stephanie MLS graduate.

3 comments:

Ms. Yingling said...

Have to agree with you on this one. Why do teachers love these so much?

Cindy Mitchell said...

Wow, Stephanie! You read that one quickly. Didn't you just pick it up today? Way to dispense with the problem titles - I hope the next one is more to your liking. And remind to never get on your bad side. --Cindy

Stephanie said...

I had a ton of uninterrupted reading time, so I read this one first. I know that teachers love books that are on the shorter side but are packed with themes and meaning, so there is a lot of potential for discussions and assignments. For all intents and purposes this book seems like it would fulfill those requirements, I just think there are so many better books out there for assigned reading.