My Classroom Bookshelf

This book is a story about a girl named Harriet and her trouble with empathy. The girl genuinely cannot feel this emotion. She gets into some trouble when misplaces her notebook. Within this notebook is her feelings and thoughts about everyone she comes into contact with. Which some of what is written would be considered unkind. The reason why she gets into some trouble is because her friends find her notebook and they read what she has written about them. Although she is forced to apologize and tell everyone that she did not mean what she wrote about them, her apology was completely insincere. She did not think she had done anything wrong because her thoughts and feelings are her own. She later learns that it is okay to feel and thing they way you do. However, sometimes it is best to keep it to yourself because it may cause conflicts. This book is a little controversial for me. Children learn that they have to be nice to their peers. However, they are not taught what to do if they genuinely think negative things about a particular person. They are taught to tell the truth. The controversy arises when the truth is negative towards a person. I think this book would be great to have as recreational reading for the classroom. However, it would be a great sample to read for emotions and what are appropriate ways to handle them. The lexile reading level for this book is 760L so it should be used around the 6th grade.