Day 5 of Summer Goal 2019: Merci Suarez Changes Gears

The Vlog Transcript

Slide 1: Hi! My name is Kate Narita and this is day 5 of my summer 2019 #bookaday challenge. Today I'll be talking about Merci Suarez Changes Gears.

Slide 2: I like to talk about how I came to own a book. Last year I checked out Random Body Parts: Gross Anatomy Riddles in Verse by Leslie Bulion from the library. A student of mine took it home and lost it. I paid for the book. This year he found the book, returned it to me and gave me a new book-Merci Suarez Changes Gears in return.

Slide 3: That's how I came to own Merci Suarez Changes Gears. This is a fantastic book that won the Newbery. Many people know the plot of the book centers around a sixth grade whose grandfather has Alzheimer's. I will talk about that more later on. For now, I want to talk about my personal connection to this book. Merci Suarez is a spunky, strong character, and she excels at sports. She excels at soccer, beaseball and is phenomenal at kickball. Unfortunately in sixth grade none of the girls want to play sports with the boys anymore excpet for Merci. But that doesn't matter to her. She still challenges a boy to see if she can hit a ball he pitches. I won't say what happens, I'll just say I was really happy with the outcome. As a teacher who sees girls not playing sports with boys as fourth graders, I was really excited to see this issue highlighted in a book that features sixth graders.

Slide 4: I said I would return to the Alzheimer's topic. There is another great book I have in my classroom called The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. by Kate Messner and in this book the main character, Gianna, also has a grandparent who is sick with Alzheimer's. If this is a topic you think one of your students would benefit from, but you're not sure that student can read a 354-page novel, then go ahead and start with The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. It's 224 pages. The length is more friendly than the 354-page length. If they like The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z., then go to Merci Suarez Changes Gears.

Slide 5: But sometimes a 224-page novel is too much for a student, but you really think they'd benefit from discussing Alzheimer's. Well look no further than this fantastic picture book by Jessie Oliveros. I'll be talking more about this book later on this summer. But for now I want to say that if you want to discuss Alzheimer's with students and for whaterver reason they're not able to read a novel, this picture book is the way to do it.