Saturday, December 5, 2009

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree [sound recording], by Lauren Tarshis

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree [sound recording], by Lauren Tarshis. Read by Mamie Gummer. New York: Random House/Listening Library, 2007. 3 CDs/3 hrs. 4 min. ISBN-13: 9780739351222


“In fact, she believed that one was unlikely to find a finer group of young people than the 103 boys and 98 girls with whom she spent her school days. But their behavior was often irrational. And as a result, their lives were messy. Emma-Jean disliked disorder of any kind, and had thus made it her habit to keep herself separate, to observe from afar.” p. 4 (print version)

Reader's Annotation
Emma-Jean is all logic, and Colleen is all heart. When these two opposites meet by chance one day in the school bathroom, their lives will never be the same again.

About the Author
Lauren Tarshis grew up near New York City. As a child, she had a learning disability which made reading very challenging. Through approaching reading in a different way, however, she surmounted this difficulty and became a voracious reader. She has now written two “Emma-Jean” novels, the second being Emma-Jean Fell in Love. She is the editor of Storyworks, a literature magazine for 4th-6th graders. Tarshis lives in Connecticut, with her husband and four children. In her spare time she likes to bake chocolate cakes, draw, make collages, and explore new cities.

Genre
Realistic Fiction

Reading Level/Interest Age
9-11 years

Plot Summary
The protagonist of this novel is 7th-grader Emma-Jean Lazarus, who is extremely intelligent and very logical. Emma-Jean’s father passed away two years before the novel starts, and she cannot get used to the idea of her mother ever falling in love with another man. At school, Emma-Jean has remained a bit aloof from the other students, because she considers their behavior to be irrational, and does not want to be drawn into the same kinds of emotional messes in which they often find themselves. This all changes one day, however, when she happens to encounter Colleen Pomerantz crying in the bathroom. Colleen’s personality is perhaps the polar opposite to Emma-Jean’s. Colleen is too concerned with what other people think of her, and frets all the time over whether she may have mistreated someone, or whether something about her appearance doesn’t look right. When she meets Emma-Jean, her current crisis involves another girl trying to steal her best friend. But Emma-Jean believes she can use her logic to help Colleen out.

Series Note
The sequel to this novel is Emma-Jean Fell in Love (2007).

Critical Evaluation
Emma Jean is a very unique character unlike most others that tween readers will likely have encountered. And finding out some of the possible reasons for her behavior is half the fun of reading the book. Another interesting aspect about this novel is that while much of it is told from Emma-Jean’s perspective, portions are told from Colleen’s perspective. The novel is fairly slow-paced, although the girls do have some adventures surrounding Emma-Jean’s new interest in helping people solve their problems, sometimes by any means necessary. Emma-Jean’s feeling that her mother should never love another man again -- even though Emma-Jeans’s father passed away two years earlier – is very realistic. This also leads to one of the very comedic moments in the novel, as Emma-Jean finds herself writing a letter to her mother’s suitor in India. And overall, the novel is quite humorous. Mamie Gummer reads the novel very expressively in this audio version. I highly recommend this very insightful novel to tweens.

Booktalking Ideas
Give a booktalk about Emma-Jean and Colleen’s first meeting in the bathroom.

Curriculum Ideas
Literature: Students study the poet for whom Emma-Jean Lazarus is named: Emma Lazarus, who wrote the poem on the Statue of Liberty.

Potential Challenge Issues & Defense
I do not foresee any challenges to this book, but if any were to arise, the following steps could be taken in defense:
• Become familiar enough with the book’s content to promote its literary merits.
• Refer to library’s collection development policy.
• Refer to book reviews from authoritative sources such as ALA, School Library Journal, etc.
• Obtain book reviews from tweens who have read it.

Why I Chose This Book
I thought that Emma-Jean’s personality and love of order sounded so unusual for someone her age, making her an intriguing character.

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