Runt

I love the animal kingdom/human kingdom behavioral connections that Nora Baskin uses throughout Runt. It is a simple and strong way to really capture the Middle School environment without being preachy. Runt is a sophisticated book despite its brevity. You have to read slowly or you will feel a bit lost in the early adolescent cacophony. This book makes me wish I was teaching again. It offers the opportunity for great discussions about voice, writing techniques, capturing the perspective of animals--what is that dog thinking?, teachers, and parents.Runt should be required reading in every classroom from the middle grades up because Baskin understands what makes these characters tick and they are so very real. Students will recognize themselves and be drawn to the parallel universe with animals. This book will prompt strong discussions about bullying and standing up for yourself without compromising your integrity. It is a crowded story just like the hallways of middle and high schools.(Nora Baskin's son Ben wrote a chapter,"The Trouble with Urinals". You will hold your breath as you read because it rings so true. I read in an interview that Baskin said she couldn't truly know what it was like to be in that situation, so she called on her son who is also a writer. Just an extra touch of cool and real in this truly wonderful book.)

This book is about sixth graders who experience bullying. It begins with a girl named Elizabeth Moon. Elizabeth lives in a poor household with her mom, who runs a kennel. Her mom told her that female dogs will always fight to the death. Elizabeth wonders if this is what it will be like in middle school. Then we meet Maggie, Zoe, and Patrice. All are rich, snotty, and mean girls. When Elizabeth becomes their new victim, she discovers the answer to her question. Middle schools attack to the death, just like dogs. When Maggie posts rude comments about Elizabeth on her 'person2person' page, she has to learn to live with the experience. In the book, adults are not very important to the story. The book has been written from many different perspectives (sometimes it is from the dog's point of view). Reading all the different voices can be a little confusing, but when you read closely, it isn't too much of a challenge. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to other middle school students.

The book Runt is about Elizabeth and her mom, and Elizabeth helps her mom with a dog boarding kennel at their house. Elizabeth gets to see how dogs react. But she does not think sixth grade will be the same. This is just like the world we know, because sixth grade is brutal if you’ve ever been to it. Also the author Nora Baskin makes me feel like part of the setting. One setting that has been one used a lot is school. Most of the times from chapter one to ten is about school. Whether it's about was she does, what her classmates do, and sometimes what her teacher does. There were a lot of different settings in this book such as school, house, vet, etc. But on of my favorite ones is the house, because there are a lot of important events there, and it draws you in and makes you want to read more of the book. Which is one of the reasons it’s a good book because it draws in you attention. Also at home some of the thing that happen would be meeting Sadie, Winkie, Blinkie, And Nod. Lastly this was a very interesting book to read and I really liked it.

This book was less a novel than a series of vignettes showing a group of middle school kids coping with the jungle that is middle school.We have Elizabeth whose mother is a dog boarder and who always is covered in dog hair. She is also a talented writer.We have Stewart who acts like the typical bully and big basketball star but who has a handicapped older sister that he really loves.We have Matthew who is talented at basketball but doesn't quite fit in with the other kids. He's suspended from school for punching Stewart in the nose despite the fact that Stewart urinated on his shoes first.We have Maggie who decides to put up a fake web page making fun of Elizabeth and then can't take it down before others see it because a hurricane knocks out the power for a week.We have Freida who is a talented artist and self-conscious about her braces and weight and who dresses in her own unique style despite her older sister's urging to be more normal.All of these kids, and a few other two, bounce off each other as their paths cross during the course of time in a typical middle school.It was an interesting story. I did feel that the adults were mostly ineffectual and clueless about what was going on among the students though.

Runt by Nora Raleigh Baskin is a children's book about the trials that middle-aged school kids go through. I liked how the kids were portrayed and the story line. It moved along at a good pace.