Weekend update and a review

My son has the flu, poor thing. While I feel bad for him (luckily Tamiflu really seems to have eased the symptoms), I'm grateful for the forced downtime. I actually have time to post! (Though my cat has other ideas - he's laying across my arms and threatening to drool on the keyboard.)

I found Firegirl by Tony Abbott all in all to be a very sad book. Tom's 7th grade class is like any normal classroom until a new girl joins the class. Jessica is placed in the class while she is receiving treatments at a nearby hospital for burns that have horribly disfigured her. As is often the case when children are faced with such a student, no one in Tom's class (including Tom) knows how to react to Jessica and basically just ignore her (or shun her). Tom is the only kid to in any way accept Jessica.

This is a great book for helping kids learn how to treat a fellow student with disabilities, but it is not at all a light read.