Nothing Rhymes with Orange by Adam Rex

Poor orange. In a rhyming picture book about fruit, he feels left out. But even when Friedrich Nietzsche gets a rhyming couplet, orange starts to feel even more excluded.

This is an absolutely hilarious picture book that will appeal to both younger and older readers. Younger readers certainly won't get the Nietzsche reference, but they will get that it's meant to juxtapose the unfairness that orange doesn't get to rhyme with anything while a long, unusual name like Friedrich Nietzsche gets a mention?

This page took the book from funny to me laughing so hard I was crying

Nothing Rhymes with Orange by Adam Rex
Published: August 1, 2017
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Pages: 48
Format/Genre: Picture Book
Audience: Primary/Middle Grade/YA/Adults
Disclosure: Library Copy

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

Finding Joy

Ever since this school year began I have been in a perpetual state of exhaustion. It's no secret that this has been a difficult school year for me. But despite being tired and overwhelmed 95% of the time, I'm trying really hard to find those small victories, moments of joy that I might miss if I'm  doing nothing but complaining all the time.

So here were some moments of joy from my school day yesterday:

Moment #1

6th graders turned in the book reviews they'd been working on all week and many of the students wanted to share them with the class. One student read her book review for one of my favorite books, The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex. After she read her review, we proceeded to have a class discussion about how we (those who have read and loved the book) wish we could have our very own J.Lo (the alien, not the singer) because he is just so adorable. Then another student attempted to explain why J.Lo's best line in the whole book, ("Can I come into the out now?") actually makes sense as he proceeded to explain why it works grammatically.



Moment #2
Due to complicated circumstances that I prefer not to spend time explaining, I lost my prep period yesterday, which normally would cause me to grumble for the rest of the day, but by the end of the period, I ended up being happier for losing my prep than if I had taken it. The short version of why I lost my prep was because I had to watch one of the 8th grade classes because they weren't able to go to their special.

I have one 8th grade class for English, but I don't see the other 8th grade class at all. The class I don't see at all is the one that I ended up watching. They were asked to bring something to work on and use that period as a study hall. Since getting my 6th graders to work independently and quietly this year is like trying to herd cats, I was pleasantly surprised when the 8th graders came in, sat down and started working on their math or social studies or other work that they had due. They were talking, but they were productive and the noise level was not detrimental to others' learning. At one point in the class period I stood up, looked around and said, "Can I just tell you how much I appreciate what you're doing right now? Everyone is working and even though you're talking, it is productive noise. I haven't been able to experience that very much this year."

At one point during the period, one of the students jokingly picked up a novel as he was perusing the books in my classroom, started to read it and said, "I'm not reading this. It has too many words in it." So I told him I have quite the selection of picture books if those were more his speed (and a cacophony of 8th grade boys proceeded to say, "Oooh! Burn!" as seems to be the 8th grade comeback of choice these days). He spent the next fifteen minutes contentedly looking through picture books when I said to him and the rest of the class, "Do you guys want me to read you a picture book?" A few said yes and gathered around the floor, but many continued their math or social studies work and the productive noise didn't transform into a hush as I had hoped. Still, I pressed on, reading both  I Want My Hat Back and This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen to the five students on the floor who legitimately wanted me to read them a picture book. But I soon discovered that as I continued to read, the students who were doing their work reduced their noise level and many of them even halted their own work to find out what happened to the bear and the fish's hats.

One student's astute/entertaining observations from the two books:

• Wait Mrs. Shaum! *Spoiler alert* Did the bear eat the squirrel too? We know he ate the rabbit, but what happened to the squirrel? (I never actually thought about that. Maybe he did eat the squirrel too!)
• Hold on! Wait! How can the hat stay on the fish? Wouldn't it just float away? (Apparently a talking fish is enough to suspend belief but the physics of a fish wearing a hat in water isn't).

After I read the two Klassen books, the student who was "burned" by my suggestion that he read some picture books wanted to read one to the class. So I gave up my chair, parked myself on the floor with the other 8th graders and listened to him read The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Hutchet Bishop. It was probably the most enjoyable class I've had all year.


Moment #3

In my homeroom yesterday, which is a class that has been a challenge to get through to this year, after finishing the last page of Wonder by RJ Palacio, one student asked, "Can we give the book a standing ovation?" And they did. 

If you've read the book, then you know why this is such a significant gesture. This was not just an appreciative response to a great book. It was also symbolic to the main character Auggie's journey throughout the story. Do I need to give them a comprehension test to see if they paid attention to the story? Nope. That moment right there told me all I need to know.

"I forgot that I might see so many beautiful things"

My students and I have been reading Wonder by RJ Palacio as our class read aloud since January. This week we came to a very pivotal moment in the story that brings out a lot of emotions, within the characters and also within the reader. Communities of readers are built on moments like these.

And despite the fact that my future in the classroom is uncertain right now, and despite my perpetual exhaustion since our Spring Forward on Sunday, it's weeks like this one that reaffirm my vocation and tug at me, reminding me why I'm here in the first place.

Besides the emotional catharsis of reading Wonder together, a couple other reaffirming moments happened in the classroom this week:

Moment #1
Earlier this week I had a dream that one of my students was single-handedly responsible for getting one of my favorite authors/illustrators, Adam Rex, to visit our school. When I told her about this dream the next day, she had this look on her face like she was blown away that she could manage to not only infiltrate my dreams, but that she was also able to carry out such an amazing feat as to get a rock star author like Adam Rex to visit our school. Her reaction to this new knowledge was, "Really? I was in your dream? And I got Adam Rex to come here? I could do that. Do you want me to do that? I'm on it."

Then the next day, this same student approached me and said, "Guess what Mrs. Shaum? You were in MY dream last night. Adam Rex did come to our school and for some reason you were wearing a big curly rainbow wig. But then you got mad because he poured caramel sauce over himself since he didn't want to repeat himself by doing chocolate syrup again, but he got it all over the carpet in the classroom so you were not very happy."

So Adam Rex, I apologize if you get a random email from a 6th grader in Michigan. My dream, accompanied by her own, apparently gave her a mission she feels the need to carry out.

Moment #2
Today the 6th grade Skyped with my friend Kellie who works for Walden Pond Press. When I finally met Kellie in person at NCTE in November, we spent a wonderful dinner together and the one thing that really struck me when she talked about WPP's books is how enthusiastic she was about the titles her imprint puts out for kids. I immediately had the idea that what better way to get kids to want to read WPP's books than to have someone directly from the publisher book talk them.

My instinct was not wrong. Kellie book talked four titles today and by the end of the day, this was the waiting list:

Notice that one of the books has a shorter waiting list than the others. Why is that? Because I was the one who book talked that one. So clearly Kellie is a rock star book talker, but also, I was able to reaffirm that it helps if teachers branch out and find other people and methods to get kids excited about books instead of doing the same thing over and over again. I mean, I've had The Fourth Stall in my classroom library all year, but it wasn't until Kellie book talked it that I had kids clamoring for it. When I talked to the kids after Kellie's Skype visit, a large number of them said, just as I did, that she was an amazing speaker and that she knew how to get kids excited about books. That was music to my ears.



*Title quote from the song "Beautiful Things" by Andain, which is also quoted in Wonder.

Holy Jim Parsons Batman! SMEKDAY's going to be a movie??!!

So I'm just mindlessly perusing Twitter this afternoon when Adam Rex tweets the following:

Here is the link to the official announcement Adam put in his tweet. If you don't want to read the whole thing, this is the gist of it: Dreamworks is producing the movie. Jim Parsons is playing the voice of J. Lo (the alien, not the singer) and Rihanna is playing the voice of Gratuity. It will be released at the end of 2014.

I have made it quite clear in every social media outlet I can as well as my own classroom that The True Meaning of Smekday is one of the funniest, most endearing books in all of children's literature. And Bahni Turpin gave probably the best performance in the history of audiobooks (that's right Harry Potter and Jim Dale lovers, you heard me). So much so that I pimp this book out to anyone looking for a good audiobook recommendation.

It was through my own persistence, and well, a small bribe from Adam Rex by way of pouring chocolate syrup over his head that my students voted it 6th grade March Book Madness champion at my school over THE HUNGER GAMES this year. That is not a small feat - especially given the fact the The Hunger Games movie came out around the time of the competition.

Back on May 1, this was the #1 book I put on my Top Ten Tuesday list for books I want to see made into a movie. So yeah, to say that I squealed with delight when I found out that not only would this book be made into a movie but that JIM freaking PARSONS was going to play the alien Boov J.Lo???? Squealing is perhaps an understatement. You see, J.Lo the

This man might already be an alien so he'll be a great voice of one :)

alien is my favorite character in all of literature. And Jim Parsons plays my favorite character in all of TV sitcom. So the fact that he's going to be the voice of my favorite book character, well, 2014 can't get here soon enough!

More so than even The Hunger Games, this is a movie I hope producers get right and they don't change the story so much that it's almost unrecognizable. I want movie-goers to see what endeared me and many of my students to Adam Rex's quirky humor and not create some heavily-produced, faux version of the original story. Jim Parsons, I know you're a comedic genius and all, but if you're reading this (because I'm sure he reads book blogs all the time, yo), please listen to the audiobook and take some notes from Bahni Turpin. Your performance will absolutely be better for it.

(As a side note, even though the character J.Lo in the story is an alien and not the actual singer, how hilarious would that be if the REAL J.Lo wrote and performed a song for the movie? Hey Dreamworks, make it happen!) 


Read my interview with Adam Rex about The True Meaning of Smekday

Be careful what you offer 6th graders...

Back in March I was hard pressed to find something to motivate my students to read. They were losing stamina quickly and I needed to do something to raise their spirits. So upon the suggestion of some other teachers on Twitter, we did a March Book Madness where they voted for books and battled it out for their favorite to be champion.

Since I follow quite a few authors on Twitter, I couldn't resist responding to a rather banal tweet of Adam Rex's that ended up turning the tide of the entire results of our March Book Madness:

Needless to say, an offer like that easily put Mr. Rex's book in the position of Champion and my students got to vote for the liquid they wanted him to pour over his head (which knowing what we know about 6th graders, was not a fun discussion for me. I had to put quite a few stipulations on what was considered acceptable to ask a grown man pour over himself). This is the result:

What was interesting about this whole affair is that Adam's offer caused a firestorm of debate among students and teachers alike:

"I'm so going to vote for him. I want to see him pour something over his head."
"That's not fair. He's bribing us. No one would vote for Smekday if it weren't for his offer."
"That's totally fair. People voted for books they never read in previous rounds just because people told them to. He's actually giving us something in return for voting for his book."
"Smekday would've never won over The Hunger Games if Adam Rex hadn't gotten involved."

This was just a sampling of the back and forth I heard in my classroom... I won't even tell you how heated it got in the teacher's lounge. :)

But I look at it this way: if we're getting passionate and invested in conversations about BOOKS, then I guess we were able to get out of our reading rut after all and that's definitely a good thing. Not to mention that yes, had Adam Rex not intervened, I'm sure The Hunger Games would have won. But just about everyone has already read The Hunger Games. What a win for The True Meaning of Smekday did was get kids who would have otherwise turned their nose up at it to actually read it now. Plus, some of the kids who have already read Smekday are feeling more compelled to read Rex's current novel Cold Cereal (which I am listening to the audiobook of right now).

So I think it was win-win. My kids got to watch an author make a fool of himself for them, and the author got more kids to read his book.

Now that you know what Adam Rex is willing to do for kids, perhaps you should go out and read one of his books too...

Reviews:
The True Meaning of Smekday
Chloe and the Lion


Interview with Adam Rex