November Grades 3-4 Book Club: Stef Soto, Taco Queen

For November's Book Club, we read Stef Soto, Taco Queen by Jennifer Torres. Hunter was present. Here's some of what we talked about.

Has your family ever saved up money for a special trip or project? 
-Yes

Stef thought it was easier to draw her thoughts than to write about them. How do you best express your thoughts? Do you do this easily?
-I like to keep a lot of my thoughts to myself. I sometimes find it hard to express myself to people.

Stef and Amanda are best friends. What was unusual about how they met? How did you meet one of your friends? What made you realize that you thought of each other as friends?
-Stef broke Amanda's arm! I met one of my friends at school. He helped me a lot. We keep moving away from each other. We'll always be friends. We Facetime. We will probably go back to the same class/school at some point. 

Stef felt like her parents “hovered” and never let her feel any independence. Give evidence of this. How do the grownups in your family treat you? Give an example.
-A bit. Since I'm the youngest. But they are not nearly as bad as Stef's parents.

Stef really wanted to go to the concert. How do you feel about Stef’s parents not letting her go? Have you ever wanted to go or do something that your grownups didn’t want you to do? How did you try to change their minds? Were you successful?

-Sad. They probably shouldn't have let her go, though, because concerts are crowded and they wouldn't notice if she got kidnapped. I'm sometimes successful in changing their minds. 

Stef’s family usually ate breakfast together on Sunday mornings at Suzy’s. What does your family do together every week? Explain.
-Sometimes we go to breakfast at Slice of Heaven on Sundays.

Here's where we ran out of time (we went on a few tangents) but here were other things that we could have talked about:

Stef helped Papi with the family taco truck business. How would you feel working with your family in a business? What do you think Stef liked least about working with her dad?

When Stef was in the commissary and she had time to look at all the food trucks, she thought that the trucks were just like canvases. Do you pay attention to the designs painted on trucks? Why or why not? Do you remember a favorite design?

Papi sometimes struggled to understand English. Have you lived in a country where you didn’t speak the main language? If yes, how was that? If no, would you be willing to move to a country where you had to learn a new language? Explain.

How would you respond to this writing prompt from Stef’s teacher – “Imagine that you can time travel, but your parents don’t believe you. How would you convince them?”

If you were in a club that wanted to raise money, what project or projects would you suggest? What part would you want to help with – making signs, asking for donations, or creating blurbs for morning announcements or something else? Do you have a special talent in one of these areas? Explain.

Respond to another one of Stef’s teacher’s writing prompts – “If you had to live inside a book for two weeks, which book would you choose?” Explain.

At first Stef didn’t want to talk to the City Council on behalf of the food trucks, but she did. How much do you think her speech influenced the Council’s decisions?

How do you think Stef handled the situation when her classmates assumed she knew Viviana Vega well enough to get her to perform at their school dance?

Stef describes her two friends’ anger – “Amanda boils over and cools right back down. Arthur’s different. His anger is more like a slow, steady simmer”. How does your anger compare with these two descriptions? Explain.

Julia and Stef used to be best friends but then things changed and they both blamed each other. Have you ever had a best friend who then became someone else’s best friend? What did it feel like? Was the situation like how Julia treated Stef?

How well do you think you would you fit in with Stef’s family and friends? Give examples to support your answer.

When Julia and Stef arrived at the art supplies fundraiser dance, everything was going wrong – no electricity, no power, no food. Julia tried to call her mom and then stomped off screaming. Stef stayed and devised another option. If you had been at the dance, how would you have responded to the disaster?

Stef wanted her Papi to sell his food truck and get a different job. Were you surprised then that she persuaded Julia to help her paint the truck? Why do you think she did that?

-Good food. Sometimes it was free. And she realized that they all worked very hard on buying and then keeping Tia Perla.

For December's Book Club, we will be reading Wishtree by Katherine Applegate. 

"An old red oak tree tells how he and his crow friend, Bongo, help their human neighbors get along after a threat against an immigrant family is carved into the tree's trunk."-summary

Please be sure to register for Book Club and pick up your library copy of the book at the Circulation Desk!

December Grades 3-4 Book Club Suggestions

Short by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Julia is very short for her age, but by the end of the summer run of The Wizard of Oz, she’ll realize how big she is inside, where it counts. She hasn’t ever thought of herself as a performer, but when the wonderful director of Oz casts her as a Munchkin, she begins to see herself in a new way. Soon, she doesn’t want to fade into the background—and it’s a good thing, because her director has more big plans for Julia!


Wishtree by Katherine Applegate

Trees can't tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . .
Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood "wishtree"―people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red's branches. Along with a crow named Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red's hollows, this wishtree watches over the neighborhood.
You might say Red has seen it all. 
Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red's experience as a wishtree is more important than ever.


The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes

When Billy Miller has a mishap at the statue of the Jolly Green Giant at the end of summer vacation, he ends up with a big lump on his head. What a way to start second grade, with a lump on your head! As the year goes by, though, Billy figures out how to navigate elementary school, how to appreciate his little sister, and how to be a more grown up and responsible member of the family and a help to his busy working mom and stay-at-home dad.