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Title details for Dead Possums Are Fair Game by Taryn Souders - Available

Dead Possums Are Fair Game

by Taryn Souders
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available

Ella has two major phobias in life: spiders and mathematics. She firmly believes that anything with more than four legs should not exist. She also believes the world would be a better place without word problems or long division. That being said, she's fascinated by science. So when her class finds a dead opossum in the playing field one morning, she's intrigued by rigor mortis and how long it will take for the opossum to unstiffen. Science is so much more interesting than math.
Later that day, Ella is certain she must have heard wrong when her teacher announces that there will be no more math tests for the rest of the year. And she isn't wrong—it is too good to be true. Her teacher explains that instead, the class will be having its first ever math fair. Ella's group is assigned the topic of time conversions, something Ella's been struggling with for a while. This is hardly Ella's idea of fun. But Ella's mom is quick to point out that math and science aren't so very different—she suggests that Ella imagine she's doing a science experiment instead of a math project. With a little imagination and some inspiration from their friend the opossum (now named Morty, short for rigor mortis), Ella and her group come up with a project that gets them excited about math—and they might even have a chance to win at the fair!

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 5, 2019

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781634509275
      • File size: 1842 KB

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781634509275
      • File size: 1840 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • ATOS Level: 4.9
    • Lexile® Measure: 770
    • Interest Level: 4-8(MG)
    • Text Difficulty: 3-4

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 19, 2015
      Math teacher and picture book author Souder (Whole-y Cow! Fractions Are Fun), upends neatnik Ella's numerophobia and assumptions about adults in this wholesome novel. Morty, a dead opossum that manages to catch a kickball thanks to the wonders of rigor mortis, and Wacky Willa, Ella's favorite aunt who arrives to share Ella's room for several weeks, propel radical changes in this fifth-grader's life. Supported by friends Jolina and Lucille, newcomer Jonathan, her parents, and some remarkably understanding teachers, Ella not only survives Willa's dog's tendency to swallow or throw up on everything important to her, but also the last-minute destruction of an important math project, with a summer free from tutoring hanging in the balance. Willa may not be the roommate Ella hoped for, but her loving encouragement and advice lend her a special role in her niece's life. Ella's narration doesn't always sound like that of a kid (and clichéd interjections from her French classmate, Jean-Pierre, are even less so), but readers should still find her adventures appealing and entertaining. Ages 8â12. Agent: Sally Apokedak, Leslie H. Stobbe Agency.

    • Kirkus

      September 15, 2015
      A opossum in rigor mortis "catches" a dodgeball and inspires a fifth-grade math project. Narrator Ella's aversion to math and desire for order collide in a day of disasters: there's a dead, rotting opossum on the way to school, an impending visit by an eccentric aunt with her pet dog, and a math-group project that will count for two test grades. Ella's project buddies are her longtime best friends Lucille and Jolina. Souders has a pretty good feel for middle (or nearly) school academic and social interactions. The girls have an affectionate-or at least tolerant-understanding of one another's quirks and foibles. They are teamed with a new student whose only fault is his name (Ella's mother's therapy for her intense arachnophobia is to think of every spider as "Jonathan," summoning automatic shudders). The rest of the characters fade to background or are caricatures, like Ella's French-immigrant classmate, Jean-Pierre, whose clunkily stereotyped exclamations seem time-warped: "Sacre bleu!" "Zut alors!" The several occasions of people-and the dog-spitting up or spitting out are goofily gross but clearly calculated to appeal to the target audience. And the dreadful smell of the opossum seems at odds with its condition of rigor mortis. However, the satisfactory conclusion-a teacher's recognition of a hurdle cleared-is within readers' reach. Diverting and frequently funny. (Fiction. 8-11)

      COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:4.9
  • Lexile® Measure:770
  • Interest Level:4-8(MG)
  • Text Difficulty:3-4

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