Looking for a series to share with your students in honor of AAPI Heritage Month? Try the adventures of Pippa Park, a Korean American middle schooler and her attempts to conquer math, put her skills to work on the basketball court, and figure out the deal about boys and crushes. (See details below.) And now there is My Journal About Life - full of "awesome quizzes, listicles, and writing activities." Readers can take a quiz to determine which of the characters in Pippa's stories would probably be their BFF or which character they are the most like. Other pages offer a chance to list things readers are grateful for or to rate their favorite books. This is the perfect interactive experience for fans of Pippa.
Visit PippaPark.com for a discussion guide, anti-racism resources, a book club activity kit, and even an escape room activity!
A contemporary reimagining of Great Expectations readers will enjoy even if they have never heard of the original story. Just imagine how it would feel to be forbidden to do the one thing you excel at. That is how Pippa feels when her older sister says she cannot play on the school's basketball team because her math grade is too low. And when Pippa learns that she has to see a math tutor once a week - it's like pouring salt on the wound. As she thinks, "No amount of Choco Pies or chestnut cakes could fix this." But things don't seem so bad once she meets the tutor and find out he is really cute, even if he does live in a fancy house and have very stuffy relatives.
Then she learns that she will be attending the same school as her tutor due to an anonymous scholarship offer. Pressure mounts as Pippa struggles to fit in with the rich kids at Lakeview, keep her math grade up, and do her best on the basketball team. It is similar to what many students feel when they transfer to a new school, but since Pippa is trying hard to create an "interesting, confident, private school version" of herself, she has turned her life into a pressure cooker. The threatening messages she receives keep her constantly on edge, worried that her school life and home life will collide, adding to her already frazzled nerves.
When the big explosion happens, it throws open all the secrets Pippa had tried to hide, but it also releases all that pressure and makes it possible to start setting things straight. As her brother-in-law says, "the lower you fall, the more room you have to rise." Maybe she can meet those great expectations after all, at least those that are worth the effort.
The contemporary setting, the diverse mix of characters, the contrast between rich and working class, and the typical teen issues of friends, crushes, and deciding what sort of person one will become all mix together for an entertaining story that has something to offer a variety of readers.
Once again Pippa is trying to balance too much at once. Things are better with her teammates, although Caroline still does everything she can to make Pippa uncomfortable. When an attempt to ward off one of Caroline's snide remarks winds up with Pippa being asked to host the Christmas party, she knows it will be a challenge to pull it off. "I felt like a lowly moth being drawn toward their irresistible warmth. I knew I was headed toward danger, but I couldn't turn away from their mesmerizing light."
Besides school, homework, and team practice, Pippa's sister has volunteered her to help with the church Christmas play. Another of the volunteers is a boy Pippa's age who might just make her heart flutter the way Eliot does. "If Eliot was a solar eclipse overtaking the sky, Marvel was a pink-tinged sunset casting a rosy glow over the horizon." How will she choose between the two boys?
Add on to everything else the babysitting jobs Pippa takes to help earn money to buy a dress for the party and all her anxieties about food, decorations, and other details - and you can see she must be a nervous wreck. Now that her two best friends are dating each other she feels left out and that she has no one to talk to about her troubles. What's a girl to do? Perhaps she should follow the advice of her neighbor, Mrs. Lee. "If you don't like the way your future is taking shape - then it's up to you to fix it."
As with the first book, the contemporary setting, the diverse mix of characters, and the typical teen issues all mix together for an entertaining story that has something to offer a variety of readers.
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