Margin Notes

Margin Notes is thrilled to announce an exciting summer blog series showcasing a series of book trailers created by Megan Young-Jones’ talented grade 6 students at Hanwell Park Academy . These trailers will engage you as teachers, and we hope you will share them with your students in the future, as a means of:

•  Generating Interest: Book trailers are designed to capture the attention of viewers and create curiosity about the book. By showcasing trailers to students, teachers can create a buzz around specific books or authors, motivating students to read those titles.
• Providing Visual Representation: Book trailers provide a visual representation of the story, characters, and settings, providing background information that supports comprehension.
• Creating a Multimedia Experience: Today’s students are  accustomed to consuming multimedia content and book trailers tap into this familiarity and provide a different medium through which students can engage with literature. By presenting books through movie trailers, we can bridge the gap between traditional print reading and other forms of media that students consume.
• Promoting Critical Literacy: Book trailers can help develop and reinforce important literacy skills. Students need to analyze the trailer’s content, make inferences about the story, and assess its appeal. Additionally, book trailers can spark discussions among students, encouraging them to share their thoughts and opinions about the book.
• Presenting Models: For students choosing to create their own book trailers, these student book trailers can helpe them understand the the purpose and elements of a book trailer and can be analyzed for their effectiveness.

We hope you enjoy this viewing opportunity over the summer months. A special thank you to Megan Young-Jones, who tirelessly fosters a love of reading in her students, and who took on this project in the last wild weeks of middle school!

Four Eyes by Rex Ogle and Dave Valeza is a graphic novel dealing with the adjustments of starting middle school. The memoir focuses on when Rex begins a new year without his elementary friends due to re-drawn school catchment areas. He is faced with all the typical drama of locker combinations, height differences, trying to fit in and new academic expectations. As if that is not hard enough, Rex discovers that he needs glasses which his mother cannot afford.

This piece of Ogle’s story includes important themes around the topics of divorced families, poverty, bullying, friendships and school. Although very age-appropriate, he does not shy away from the realities of divorced parents fighting about money, the cruelness of peers and generational conflict.  At the same time, this realistic coming-of-age story encompasses the sweetness of grandparents, an accepting portrayal of stuttering and the joy of new friendships.

Ogle’s portrayal of how friendships change was powerful. People change and those who were your friends throughout elementary may not be the same as you grow up. The message that you don’t need to change to find a group of friends that show belonging, laughter and support is one that every middle grader needs to hear. This book would be a great addition to a grade 5 and 6 classroom library.

Nic Stone begins her book Chaos Theory with a beautiful letter to the reader where she shares a glimpse of her personal story and reasons for writing this book. It, along with the following page, offers several content warnings. She cautions readers about suicide and self-harm discussions as well as triggering content around “living with brain chemistry that functions in a way that occasionally obliterates your innate survival instincts.” Yet, her letter also details that these topics are exactly why she wrote the book. She hopes the story provides comfort for those who relate along with compassion and learning for those who are watching from the outside.

Chaos Theory follows Shelbi and Andy through a chance connection and weaves together their stories of struggle, friendship and love. These teens are dealt situations with alcoholism, abortion, bipolar diagnosis, divorce, and betrayal. Sounds heavy, right? It is. But it is also a positive view of seeking therapy, creating support systems, owning mistakes and taking action to live your best life.

Through a narrative mix of text messages and prose, the story shares the message that mental health is as important as physical health – and how the two are linked. The topics covered make this recommendation one for mature YA readers.

Former professional hockey player Akim Aliu tells his life-story in the graphic memoir Dreamer, co-authored with Greg Anderson Elysee and illustrated by Karen De La Vega. Aliu, who was born in Nigeria and spent his early years in Ukraine, moved to Toronto in 1997, and discovered the game of hockey. Although the game was too expensive for his immigrant parents, and, as his brother liked to remind him, “black people don’t even play hockey” his obsession with the game only grew.

Wearing a pair of $9 hockey skates purchased at at yard sale, Akim hit the ice for the first time. Like, literally hit it. He was 10 years old at the time, which, in the opinion of many, is much too old to ever dream of playing competitive hockey, let alone even dream about playing in the NHL. But Akim knew deep down that this was his game. In the book he states that finding hockey made moving to Canada make sense and felt that hockey was the thing that would “make [him] make sense”. Fast forward three years and the hockey prodigy was playing for the prestigious Toronto Marlboros Hockey Club, and then the OHL, and then the Chicago Blackhawks made Akim their second pick in the second round of the National Hockey League Draft.

Before reading this memoir, I knew nothing about Akim Aliu, but I was already rooting for the young hockey player on the front cover. I was expecting an, “overcome the obstacles” and “keep dreaming” story, but what I read was something much more important.  The overt racism, the hazing, the abuse this young hockey player endured was shocking, but Aliu’s courage to stand against it is something that may very well change the future of hockey. His current organization makes me believe this even more.

Overall, Dreamer is a raw and powerful memoir that offers a firsthand account of the experiences of a Black hockey player in a predominantly White sport. Aliu’s story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and a call to action for those who want to make sports a more inclusive and welcoming space for all athletes – which I hope is everyone.