Today’s Tri-State Defender rests inside a special 4-page cover. On the cover’s third page, the Defender launches its youth literacy focus with 110 tasks that every young man should know how to do before the ninth grade.
We embark on this campaign with the list’s author, Tony Nichelson. Soon we will debut a regular newspaper segment that expands upon these tasks and meshes them with other critically needed skills, including cultural competency.
While we begin here with a focus on young men, our reach will be inclusive. Still, we are mindful of the special need young men in our community have to hook up with caring, conscious adults and life skills.
We will use our newspaper to facilitate that hook up. Our motto: read, learn, grow and prosper.
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What do you do when someone gives you a really weird present?
If you’re a polite kid, you smile and say “Thank you” and then put the gift away where nobody will find it. No matter what you think about it, your Mom or Dad probably taught you that you should find something nice to say to the person who gave you the gift, even if that’s hard to do.
When Lisa and Nate Zupinski get a very strange gift from their older brother, they don’t know what to think. In the new book “Supernatural Rubber Chicken: Fowl Language” by D.L. Garfinkle, illustrated by Ethan Long, “Thank you, Dave” just doesn’t seem like the right thing to say.
It was a horrible day at school. Stinky old Mrs. Crabpit was really nasty (as usual) and Lisa and Nate were just happy to be home.
At the Zupinski house, the twins’ clueless, constantly-working mother, the famous and very UNtalented children’s book writer, was hard at work. The twins’ big brother, Dave, was sleeping on the sofa with a surfing magazine over his face. When Dave woke up, he announced that he was going on a trip to surf faraway shores, Dude.
But first, he had something really important that he wanted to give to the twins.
Dave took Lisa and Nate into his bedroom. There, in the dirty room, on the unmade bed, on a stinky pair of boxer shorts, lay a filthy, rubber chicken. Dudes, Dave told the twins that it was a supernatural rubber chicken, and it could talk! He said that the chicken would give superpowers to the first person who touched it. The owners get to pick the superpower because they were immune.
Understandably, the twins were skeptical. A rubber toy that could talk?
Yeah, right.
And then the chicken started to talk.
The rubber chicken’s name was Ed and he was rude. He yelled at the twins until Nate said not to holler. He demanded to be picked up until Lisa made him say “please”. He was filthy until Lisa gave him a bubble bath. And he indeed had superpowers.
Lisa wanted her friend, Ashley (who was very shy) to have supercharm. Nate wanted his friend, Ben (who was not-so-smart) to have superbrains. The twins fought over which friend would touch the rubber chicken first.
Neither of them ever thought it would be the school bully, Hulk Paine.
Okay, so “Supernatural Rubber Chicken: Fowl Language” isn’t Fine Literature. It’s probably not going to win anything except kids’ hearts. It’s not going to sit on the shelf much, either.
This book is silly. It’s funny. It’s a quick read that’s also a gentle challenge for middle-graders. Author D.L. Garfinkle has created a trio of characters that your kids will love. And since this is the first in a series, it’s going to have kids clucking for the next book and the next.
If your 7-to-10-year-old is squawking about reading this summer, check out this book. “Supernatural Rubber Chicken: Fowl Language” will have them crowing.