How to choose a Christmas gift

 

While I'll buy an adult friend a book that I haven't read, as long as it's been highly recommended, I won't do the same when buying a book for a kid or a teen. I want to make sure that the book is worth reading, that it's "appropriate" (means different things for different kids), and I want to be able to talk about the book to the gift recipient after she or he has read it. (Of course, I always hope that they'll read the book but sadly. that doesn't always seem to be the case.)

This year, I decided I was going to gift each granddaughter a book. I knew exactly the book that I wanted to give the 14-year old. I loved Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. I loved the entire Sisterhood series. (And I loved the movie... but not as much as the book. The book was so much better!) But what to buy for the 12-year old? She's too grown-up for some of my favorites from when I was a 5th grade teacher. I started googling  "best books for 12-year old girls." I read list after list after list. The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty showed up on several of the lists. I was able to get the e-book out of the library and was able to read the book fairly quickly. It's a story about a girl who gets struck by lightning and causes brain damage in the form of acquired savant. In other words, after being a perfectly normal girl for the first 8 years of her life, she becomes a math genius. She's been homeschooled since the lightning strike, but as 7th grade begins, her grandmother decides it's time for Lucy (aka Lightning Girl) to attend middle school. 

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl is a pretty typical book about adjusting to middle school which would make more sense if granddaughter was first starting middle school. But considering she's halfway thru her middle school career, this book just didn't make sense for her. However, I really enjoyed McAnulty's writing style, perhaps because she used to be a correspondent for The Daily Show? Miscalculations was her first middle grade novel. I noticed she had a book called Millionaires for the Month. I read the blurb on that one and it reminded me of the Million Dollar Math project that I used to teach in fifth grade. The point of the project was  to prove to kids just how much a million dollars is. That seemed to be the point of this kids' book as well.This one was also available at the library so I took it out and started on another kids' book. I don't remember the last time I read a kids' book prior to this.

The two main characters are Felix and Benji and I worried that this might be more of a boys' book. Not the case at all. Felix is field trip partners with Benji when he finds a lost wallet on the ground in Central Park. The wallet has a drivers' license inside. It's the wallet of a famous billionaire! Benji, who was hungry and didn't have enough money for a hotdog, figures that a billionaire won't notice a missing $20 bill. Felix, the rules follower goes along, even though he disagrees. They take the $20, turn the wallet over to the police with a little note enclosed so perhaps the billionaire will reward them for returning the wallet.

When the billionaire gets her wallet back, she notices that the $20 is missing. She comes to Felix and Benji's middle school in Upstate New York and accuses them of stealing. After much discussion, she offers the boys a challenge. She'll give them the amount of money in the "penny doubled every day for 30 days" calculation. If they can spend that amount of money, in excess of $5 million, she will reward them with $10 million each! How hard can it possibly be to spend $5 million in 30 days? Except... along with the challenge come a lot of rules. Will Felix and Benji be able to spend the money in time?

The book is still al title young for a 12-year old. (The character try are 12-years old, usually a bad sign. But the way they go about trying to spend the money within the confines of the rules was so interesting. At least it was so interesting to me. So interesting, in fact, that I recommended it to one of my former 5th grade colleagues who is still teaching fifth grade. I hope my recipient enjoys this novel as much as I did.