Story Geek Book Club: Turtle Boy by M. Wolkenstein ELA, English Language Arts

In addition to the Outschool classroom, this class uses:
Kahoot

This beautiful, funny, and uplifting story contains topics/themes such as serious childhood illness, parental death, and grief. 

These topics are artfully and sensitively handled without sensationalizing or romanticizing as sometimes found in other middle grade or young adult literature. The story is, ultimately, about hope, friendship, and treasuring our lives and loved ones including our environment. 

Please scroll down to the section provided by Outschool to read about my expertise with these sensitive topics/themes. Also, feel free to reach out to me with any concerns and/or information you'd like to share with me about your student's experience with these topics/themes.  

Context of illness & grief: 
We learn early on in the story that Will is terrified of hospitals ever since his father died during a routine surgery when Will was only four years old.  Will requires a surgery to repair his jaw so hoping to help him with his fear, Will's mother and his Rabbi decide to make him visit a teenager at the hospital, RJ, as part of his community service project that he needs to complete before his Bar Mitzvah. RJ has a mitochondrial disease, has been cooped up at the hospital for ages, and doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to volunteers spending time with him. Actually, he loves to drive them away. But RJ is dying and Will may be his last chance to finish all the things on his bucket list. Though the boys don’t get along at the beginning and snap at each other quite like turtles do when they feel a stranger invading their territory, their friendship blossoms as RJ helps Will come out of his shell.