Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks by Jason Reynolds
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is an interesting book to try and categorize. It’s set in the world of Latimer Middle School but each chapter is told from a different student or students’ perspective while at the same time e referencing the same teachers and previously mentioned students.
The uniqueness of the book made it a very entertaining read. On top of that each chapter isn’t just a chapter. It’s also a different street that students take to get to and from the school. So while school unites them, their journeys to and from school make the students unique.
The genre of each chapter are also varied. Some are short stories. Some are lists. Some are poetic. Some are metaphoric. As I was reading I was thinking that this would be a great way to teach students about genre or about different ways of telling stories. You could make a classroom anthology from the students’ writing about how they get to and from school, whether fiction or nonfiction.
This was nominated for the National Book Award—YA Lit and rightly so. It was a great read.
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