Aaron Tucker is a young man from a broken family. He has never met his dad, and his mom has married an abusive drunk. Aaron is not athletic and does not relate to his new stepfather. In short, Aaron is defeated from the beginning, but something is about to happen to change his life; he is about to meet...Mumsket.
Monday, May 23, 2011 RadioNews, 6:22 pm Curfew? National Guard? This gave us quite a different feeling following the 2011 tornado. They are mentioned in Out of the Wind.
With all the "Snow Days" hitting areas, this year, don't you wish you had an interesting book to read? There's never a more appropriate time than a Snow Day to read this book, my story of a boy suddenly snowbound and tossed into the wilderness, where he meets...Mumsket. He had no chance to react. Before he could turn to run into the cabin or at least duck behind the van, a wall of snow was upon him like a tidal wave. It struck him like exploding concrete at ninety miles an hour, and his stinging eyes were quickly frozen. As he flew backwards with the force, snow filled his ears and the roar-rumble was muffled. Snow crammed into his nostrils and mouth. When he breathed, the frozen stuff was sucked into his lungs, and he choked. He would quickly suffocate if the phenomenon lasted much longer. His brain flashed with pink and blue pixels. Pixels that were both beautiful and sharply stinging until he felt like his head would split in two. Crumbling Spirit was the first full book I wrote. This small book (at under a hundred pages) is a fictionalized version of my experience as a teacher in Oklahoma City during the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. Our school, four miles from the blast, heard and felt the concussion of the explosion. The story is told by Julia, a student at Buchanan Elementary School, whose mother and brother were in the federal building when the bomb exploded. I have finished modifying the layout for Crumbling Spirit to make it more readable. Then I added the following to the author's note at the end, which makes an interesting connection between this book and my most recent: The last boy to write a letter to Julia in this story is Mark White. It might interest the reader to know that Mark White is a major character in another book I have written. The story, entitled Out of the Wind, is a fictionalized account of my experiences in the May 22, 2011, Joplin, Missouri, EF5 tornado. Mark White is one of the five narrators in Out of the Wind. Perhaps it is because of Julia’s correspondence with him, that 16 years later, Mark is a paramedic who has moved from his home in Catoosa to the Joplin area where he becomes spontaneously involved in the recovery work that follows such a major disaster.
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AuthorD. Ed. Hoggatt is an award-winning fourth grade teacher. Click Titles to Order Now
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RECOMMENDED READING
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea Charlotte's Web by E. B. White Chippin Cleats by D. Ed. Hoggatt Crumbling Spirit by D. Ed. Hoggatt Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan Hatchet by Gary Paulsen Holes by Louis Sachar Loser by Jerry Spinelli Mumsket by D. Ed. Hoggatt Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse Out of the Wind by D. Ed. Hoggatt Petey by Ben Mikaelsen Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls Yankee Girl by Mary Ann Rodman |