Day 22 of Summer 2019 #Bookaday Challenge: A Good Kind of Trouble

Vlog Transcript Below

Slide 1: Hi, Everybody. Welcome back to the #bookaday challenge. I’m Kate Narita, author of 100 Bugs! A Counting Book and fourth grade teacher. Today I will be talking about the novel A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Remee.

Slide 2: A Good Kind of Trouble is a great book to have in your classroom because it highlight’s the power of team sports, it shines a light on the difficulty students have when friendships they’ve had their whole lives change and it explores the topic of racial injustice.

Slide 3: As I mentioned, A Good Kind of Trouble celebrates team sports, particularly track. The main character, Shay, makes new friends on the team and she finds a role model in her coach. The same is true for Ghost in Jason Reynold’s novel, Ghost. He, too, makes new friends and finds a role model in his coach. The neat thing is if you like Ghost and his friends, you can read three other books in the track series. I highly recommend these books.

Slide 4: Another book that A Good Kind of Trouble pairs well with is New Kid by Jerry Craft. In New Kid the main character also makes new friends and navigates a new school. It’s different because he doesn’t have any of his old friends from elementary school with him, but it’s still a nice opportunity to compare/contrast.

Slide 5: The novel A Good Kind of Trouble most reminds me of when taking into account friendships is Amina’s Voice. Amina goes to middle school with friends she’s had from elementary school. All of the sudden she realizes things aren’t the same as they used to be, and she has to navigate that change. Shay has to do the same things in A Good Kind of Trouble. 

Slide 6: The reason why I most recommend A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Remee is because it’s a good introduction to racial injustice in our society. Now some kids may have had firsthand experience with this while others have not. Whatever the case, A Good Kind of Trouble is an excellent whole-class introduction to this topic. If after introducing the topic of racial injustice and your students want to dig further, I highly recommend Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes. I believe it has the most powerful last page in a book that I have ever read. It’s simply stunning. It took my breath away. Ghost Boys’ last page made me really think in a way that other last pages have not. 

Slide 7: The last book I’m going to talk about in this text set is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This is a young adult book. So only for teenagers, not for younger students; however, it takes an even more in depth look at racial injustice than Ghost Boys and A Good Kind of Trouble. Also, it’s very similar in many ways to A Good Kind of Trouble. Lots of the same themes such as friendship, and it’s really an excellent read. So, if you do have an older reader you definitely want to check out this book if you haven’t already, or maybe you’ve even seen the movie. Either way, a lot of the same themes that are in A Good Kind of Trouble are also in The Hate U Give.

Slide 8: Lastly, I want to talk about one other aspect of A Good Kind of Trouble that I really enjoyed. There’s a time in the novel where Shay’s mother goes to school and sticks up for Shay’s actions. Her mother confronts the school principal. This was a very powerful moment for me. When I was in middle school there was a teacher who mistreated me, and when I told my mom, she went into school and stuck up for me. I’ll never forget that. Reading that scene in A Good Kind of Trouble made me feel as if I were twelve again.