Because of Mr. Terupt

Buyea masterfully weaves together the voices of seven very different students in Mr. Terupt's fifth-grade class. While not all of them appreciate Mr. Terupt's sometimes unorthodox approach to engaging them, they recognize the impact he has had on their lives, both at school and at home, when an accident threatens to take him away. Never didactic, the storyline will cause students to stop and consider Buyea's message that things tend to happen for a reason. ( )

Seven 5th graders from diverse backgrounds share in alternating chapters how their engaging and enthusiastic teacher, Mr. Terupt, changes their lives. An appealing and engaging story. ( )

I really enjoyed this young adult/middle school book. It had a lot of humanity and common sense. It also managed to find me two new books to purchase. ( )

I don't even know where to start! I am in love with this book. I have read it three times and with four classes. We just finished the sequel to this and it was so hard to say goodbye to the seven characters we came to know like members of our own class (Jessica, Anna, Danielle, Lexie, Peter, Luke and Jeffrey) and their amazing teacher Mr. Terupt. I can honestly say every single one of the 42 students I read it to this year loved it.

It is simply the story of seven average, every day fifth graders and their teacher as they embark on their school year. Just as they get to know and love their teacher, tragedy strikes and their lives are forever altered.

I think part of the appeal of this story is that there are seven narrators who tell the story from their perspective, and they are all different kids. Some are shy, some are funny, some are angry and some are mean. Just yesterday, when we finished the second book, we were sharing our thoughts and one of my boys said, "I liked that there was a perspective of someone who was a bully because there are bullies in a lot of books but we never get to really know why they act that way." I was so impressed! He was absolutely right, and this book does have that, which leads to a greater insight about why bullies may act as they do.

One line we had great conversations around was "Everyone has a story." We talked round and round about what that meant and how we had prejudged Alexia (though some students predicted she had something going on in her life that made her act like a bully) and how Jeffrey was so much more complex than we originally thought. We were saddened at the guilt that we knew Peter felt after the accident. So many great discussions have ensued because of this book.

In addition, amazing new relationships have come out of this book. I used the idea of the Collaborative Classroom (where Mr. Terupt's students visited a classroom with children who had disabilities). My students now visit our two classrooms that house students with disabilities. They come back from visiting with smiles on their faces and look forward to going every week. It's been rewarding and will continue all year long. In a few months we will team up with them to create inspirational bookmarks that will be sold to help raise money for Rob Buyea to visit our school. My students cannot wait to meet the author of this wonderful book in person! ( )

This 2013 Nutmeg award nominee was a great realistic fiction book. The way that each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the students in the class is well-done and keeps the pace moving along. Also there is a lot of foreshadowing that makes the reader want to keep reading to see what happens. This book would be great for fifth grade and up and some fourth graders might enjoy it as well.