Our Books
Heartbeat, by Sharon Creech (2004)
Heartbeat is the second book by Sharon Creech to tell a story through poetry. Creech's "poems" are easy to read as they are actually beautiful prose sentences arranged in stanza form.
Heartbeat is the story of a 12-year-old girl grappling with the diversity of issues in her life: her mother is expecting a baby; her grandfather is losing his memory; she loves to run and to draw; she is stimulated by both her English class (in which she learns about footnotes and the thesaurus) and her drawing class (in which she is given a very interesting and challenging exercise); and she can't quite figure out her feelings toward her best friend, Max (with whom she likes to run).
Creech's achievement in this novel is to blend an impressive array of themes and tell a story in a brisk 180 pages - through the medium of unforgettable and accessible poetry.
Here is a link to a longer article praising the virtues of Sharon Creech's Heartbeat: http://www.senorcafe.com/archives/literature/a_christmas_plu.html
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There are eight supplementary resources for Sharon Creech's Heartbeat:
- a sample letter home to parents
- a sample reading schedule
- a trivia bank
- Daily Trivia Questions
- Daily Trivia Answer Key
- a Trivia Quiz
- Trivia Quiz Answer Key
- Suggested Activities
As a participating member of One School, One Book you may have access to all of these documents. Here are some samples: