Somethings rotten in Denmark Tennessee

Something Rotten by Alan Gratz
There's something rotten in the town of Denmark, Tennessee, and it's not the smell from the polluted Copenhagen river. Horatio is in town visiting his best friend Hamilton Prince after the death of Hamilton's father, millionaire paper-plant owner Rex Prince. On a surveillance video, Hamilton's father tells his son that he's been systematically poisoned over the course of the past few months, but the tape cuts off before he is able to name his murderer. Hamilton vows to avenge his father's murder and makes Horatio help by playing detective. Meanwhile, as Horatio pokes into the family secrets, Hamilton plays the drunk, hoping to fool everyone into thinking he's too out of it to notice what's going on. Hamilton's mother Trudy, who married her dead husband's brother, Claude, also seems to be clueless about the murder. But does she know more than she's letting on? And what about Claude? He had the most to gain, with the new wife and control of the family business. Add in one media mogul attempting a hostile takeover, one pretty evironmentalist convinced the paper plant is polluting the river and two redneck friends, and you have a cast of suspects that only Shakespeare could have bested.

I really enjoyed this modern twist on Shakespeare's Hamlet. I recognized lots of one liners from the play - but not so many that if your unfamilair with the it that it would bog you down. Hip, darkly funny, a sarcastic main character, and a mystery to boot.

Forecast - cloudy with a chance of reading

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt. I found this book to be so fun and funny, all quite unexpectedly. I had given this book out to a couple of other teacher friends, who both truly enjoyed the book, but for some reason I resisted until this weekend. What a welcome surprise it turned out to be.

This is the story of Holling Hoodhood and his crazy year of trying to hold it all together as a seventh grader in the year 1967. Now for some kids this is probably no biggie, but for Holling it's made worse by one factor - Wednesday's. Wednesday are when the rest of his class head off for religious instruction, either Jewish or Catholic. Holling being the only Presbyterian remains at school with Mrs. Baker who hates him. (He's sure of this). After a few weeks worth of Wednesdays filled with mind numbing chores like cleaning the chalk brushes, Mrs. Baker decides that Holling should begin reading and analysing Shakespeare. Unexpectedly Holling finds that he enjoys this assignment - "But her nefarious plot to bore me to death failed again, because The Tempest was even better that The Merchant of Venice. In fact, it almost beat out Treasure Island - which is saying something. It was surprising how much good stuff there was. A storm, attempted murders, witches, wizards, invisible spirits, revolutions, characters drinking until they're dead drunk, an angry monster named Caliban - can you believe it? I was amazed that Mrs. Baker was letting me read this. It's got to be censored all over the place. I figured that she hadn't read it herself, otherwise she would never have let me at it."

As the year goes on Holling discovers he's more than just a seventh grader - he's part Romeo, he's the kid who gets bullied - (for playing a fairy in the community Shakespeare play - including wearing yellow tights with feathers on the butt), he's the friend - to his sister and Mrs. Baker, he's a x-country runner, and maybe even the hero.

I'm hoping kids are going to like this, just as I did - if nothing else they'll learn some creative ways to beat the censors "Toads, beetles, bats, light on you!"

Read on...