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The Science of Breakable Things
(Adobe EPUB eBook, OverDrive Read)

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Published:
Random House Children's Books 2018
Accelerated Reader:
IL: MG - BL: 5.6 - AR Pts: 8
Lexile measure:
840L
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY • KIRKUS REVIEWS
 
The spectacular debut novel from the Newbery Award winning author of When You Trap a Tiger. This is an uplifting story about friendship, family, and the complicated science of the heart.
When Natalie’s science teacher suggests that she enter an egg drop competition, she thinks it could be the perfect solution to all of her problems. With the prize money, she can fly her botanist mother to see the miraculous Cobalt Blue Orchids—flowers with the resilience to survive against impossible odds. Her mother has been suffering from depression, and Natalie is positive that the flowers’ magic will inspire her mom to fall in love with life again.
 
But she can’t do it alone. Her friends step up to show her that talking about problems is like taking a plant out of a dark cupboard and exposing it to the sun. With their help, Natalie begins an unforgettable journey to discover the science of hope, love, and miracles.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
03/06/2018
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781524715687
Accelerated Reader:
MG
Level 5.6, 8 Points
Lexile measure:
840
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Tae Keller. (2018). The Science of Breakable Things. Random House Children's Books.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Tae Keller. 2018. The Science of Breakable Things. Random House Children's Books.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Tae Keller, The Science of Breakable Things. Random House Children's Books, 2018.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Tae Keller. The Science of Breakable Things. Random House Children's Books, 2018.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Copy Details
LibraryOwnedAvailable
Shared Digital Collection11
Staff View
Grouped Work ID:
c8531eb5-b15f-5c1a-afe7-6a880271894d
Go To Grouped Work
Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 18:08:52
Date Updated:
Jun 12, 2018 18:08:52
Last Metadata Check:
Mar 24, 2024 09:37:43
Last Metadata Change:
Jan 20, 2024 11:27:15
Last Availability Check:
Mar 24, 2024 09:37:45
Last Availability Change:
Mar 14, 2024 11:52:10
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Mar 29, 2024 05:49:51

OverDrive Product Record

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      • role: Author
      • fileAs: Keller, Tae
      • bioText: TAE KELLER was born and raised in Honolulu, where she grew up on purple rice, Spam musubi, and her halmoni’s tiger stories. She is the Newbery Medal-winning author of When You Trap a Tiger and The Science of Breakable Things. She lives in Seattle. Visit her at TaeKeller.com, follow her monthly love letters at bit.ly/lovetae, and find her on Twitter and Instagram.
      • name: Tae Keller
imprint
Random House Books for Young Readers
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title
The Science of Breakable Things
fullDescription
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY • KIRKUS REVIEWS
 
The spectacular debut novel from the Newbery Award winning author of When You Trap a Tiger. This is an uplifting story about friendship, family, and the complicated science of the heart.
When Natalie’s science teacher suggests that she enter an egg drop competition, she thinks it could be the perfect solution to all of her problems. With the prize money, she can fly her botanist mother to see the miraculous Cobalt Blue Orchids—flowers with the resilience to survive against impossible odds. Her mother has been suffering from depression, and Natalie is positive that the flowers’ magic will inspire her mom to fall in love with life again.
 
But she can’t do it alone. Her friends step up to show her that talking about problems is like taking a plant out of a dark cupboard and exposing it to the sun. With their help, Natalie begins an unforgettable journey to discover the science of hope, love, and miracles.
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      • value: Grade 4
      • value: Grade 5
reviews
      • premium: False
      • source: Publishers Weekly
      • content: "Natalie's Korean heritage is sensitively explored, as is the central issue of depression."
      • premium: True
      • source: School Library Journal
      • content:

        January 1, 2018

        Gr 4-6-Seventh-grader Natalie is sometimes annoyed, but oftentimes amused by her enthusiastic science teacher, Mr. Neely, who encourages his students to ask questions and use the scientific method to solve problems. This is all well and good for Natalie, but the only question the tween is interested in lately is why has her mother has stopped caring about her and why she cannot seem to get out of bed. Her mother is a botanist who discovered a rare cobalt blue orchid, a miracle of a flower that survives in a toxic environment in New Mexico. So Natalie is somewhat ambivalent when Mr. Neely encourages her to enter an "egg drop contest"-not exactly her top priority-until she hears about the substantial prize money. Natalie is determined to win so that she can replace the now-dead orchid and give her mother the joy she needs. As she tries to navigate the problem of keeping the fragile egg safe during a fall, she begins to feel the cracks in her own life as her mother's depression affects her more deeply. Natalie's reluctance to acknowledge her own feelings and ask painful questions keeps her from really engaging with her friends and fellow "egg drop" teammates. Natalie learns that, as with the egg, people, too, are fragile and need support and padding to break their falls. VERDICT An emotional story that explores parental depression with realism and empathy.-Patricia Feriano, Montgomery County Public Schools, MD

        Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        Starred review from December 15, 2017
        A middle school story in which parental depression manifests itself in absence.Natalie's vivacious botanist mother (who's white) has retreated from life, leaving her therapist husband (who's biracial) and daughter to fill the gaping hole she has left. With the help of an egg-drop contest and a scientific-method project, Natalie explores breakable things and the nurturing of hope. Narrating in first-person, the mixed-race seventh-grader (1/4 Korean and 3/4 white) is drawn to her mother's book, titled How to Grow A Miracle. It reminds her of when her mother was excited by science and questions and life. With a STEM-inspired chapter framework and illustrated with Neonakis' scientific drawings, Keller's debut novel uses the scientific method to unpack the complex emotions depression can cause. Momentum builds over nine months as Natalie observes, questions, researches, experiments, and analyzes clues to her mother's state of mind. Providing support and some comic relief are her two sidekicks, Dari (a smart Indian immigrant boy) and Twig (Natalie's wealthy, white best friend). The diversity of the characters provides identity and interest, not issue or plotline. Tension peaks at the egg-drop contest, as the three friends plan to use the prize winnings to bring Natalie's mother back to life with a gift of a rare cobalt blue orchid. Paralleling their scientific progress, Natalie reluctantly experiences her first visits to talk therapy, slowly opening like a tight bloom.A compassionate glimpse of mental illness accessible to a broad audience. (Fiction. 10-14)

        COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        January 8, 2018
        Natalie Napoli’s seventh-grade science class is working on a yearlong experiment, recording their findings in “Wonderings journals.” The text of Natalie’s journal comprises Keller’s moving debut novel. Natalie used to like science and spent much of her childhood in her botanist mother’s laboratory. But her mother, suffering from severe depression, has barely left her bedroom in months. Natalie and her best friend Twig collaborate with new student Dari to win an egg drop contest for their experiment, and Natalie imagines using the prize money to fly with her mother to New Mexico, home to a striking cobalt blue orchid, born out of a toxic chemical spill, that her mother had been studying. Natalie’s Korean heritage is sensitively explored, as is the central issue of depression and its impact; Keller draws thoughtful parallels between Natalie’s mother’s struggles and the fragility of orchids and eggs. Natalie’s fraught relationship with her mother, and her friendships with Twig and Dari, are the heart of the book, but science is its soul. Ages 8–12. Agent: Sarah Davies, Greenhouse Literary.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        Starred review from December 15, 2017
        Grades 4-7 *Starred Review* For fans of The Thing about Jellyfish (2015) comes a clever debut combining science with a tough topic. Natalie's hashtag-loving seventh-grade science teacher, Mr. Neely, encourages his students to tackle long-term projects using the scientific method, which is how Natalie and her BFF Twig enter the classic egg-drop contest. But Natalie is also undertaking a more personal science experiment, trying to bring her botanist mother out of depression. She's convinced the $500 prize for Operation Egg will provide the funds to fly Mom to New Mexico to see the Cobalt Blue Orchid, a flower that thrives in the harshest conditions, and everything will go back to normal again. Along with a plot that includes several experiments and diagrams, Keller crafts a winning story full of heart and action that balances the weighty subject of a child dealing with a parent's depression. Natalie is a well-rounded, complex character whose two parents, in a rarity for middle-grade fiction, have story arcs all their own. Part Korean on her father's side, Natalie yearns for a deeper connection to her Korean heritage. Aside from the obvious connection to STEM, Keller's layered, accessible story has offers beautifully crafted metaphors, a theme of mending old friendships and creating new ones, and an empowering teacher to a variety of readers. A moving story about fragility and rebirth.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

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NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY • KIRKUS REVIEWS
 
The spectacular debut novel from the Newbery Award winning author of When You Trap a Tiger. This is an uplifting story about friendship, family, and the complicated science of the heart.
When Natalie’s science teacher suggests that she enter an egg drop competition, she thinks it could be the perfect solution to all of her problems. With the prize money, she can fly her botanist mother to see the miraculous Cobalt Blue Orchids—flowers with the resilience to survive against impossible odds. Her mother has been suffering from depression, and Natalie is positive that the flowers’ magic will inspire her mom to fall in love with life again.
 
But she can’t do it alone. Her friends step up to show her that talking about problems is like taking a plant out of a dark cupboard and exposing it to the sun....
sortTitle
Science of Breakable Things
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