Publisher: ABRAMS
Honors and Awards:
Edgar Award Nominee
Summary:
This is a middle-grade book with a lot of thrilling action, parkour, graffiti, gangs, and other underground activity that leads to an action-packed story. The main character is that of a boy called Peter and his brother’s name is Randall. The story starts off with Randall taking his father’s old tag and placing it on the wall, which is broken and is missing a piece, then he disappeared. His father was an old gangster who was also into parkour and graffiti.
Peter hopes to find his brother again but seems to run into trouble – there is a gang after him with talks of them trying to find diamonds that have been smuggled and floating throughout the neighborhood. Peter thinks that the gang is after him because of his father and brother’s involvement in the gangs, in addition to thinking Peter has some knowledge on where the missing diamonds are. Peter meets a girl called Myra who he discovers has the other piece of Peter’s Dad’s missing tag. It is a fun, fast paced novel with many adventures.
Reading Level:
Lexile Measure: 590L
Guided Reading Level: Y
Page count: 320
Vocabulary
Encounter - Unexpected experience.
Thugs - a violent person, especially a criminal.
Threaten - intention to take hostile action against someone.
Engraved - cut or carve on the surface of a hard object.
Symbol - something that is used for representing something else.
Vanished - disappear suddenly and completely.
Graffiti - writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed on a wall or other surface in a public place.
Shrouded - wrap a body in a dress for burial.
Parkour - activity of moving quickly through an area by running, jumping, and climbing an urban environment.
Resources to Support Text
Sheela Chari's website
Building / activating schema
Parkour - article discussing the discipline of movement
Read the article on how Street and Graffiti Art originated
Lesson Activity
What passage or element in the story was funny, interesting, revealing, or striking in some ways for you? Share your choices with a partner and talk about the reasons why these passages made you stop and think.
Recommended grade level:
4th - 7th grade
Common Core State Standard
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.
Key words or phrases
Diamond-smuggling
Decades-old crime conspiracy
Locan gang, Fencers
Lost cache of uncut diamonds
Gang members
Necklace
Disappearance
Before reading activity
Observe and take note of the front cover prior to reading. As a class, have a discussion about what you notice in the picture, what may happen throughout the book, and how will the story end. Create a Seesaw video of what you think happens in the story, and share with the class.
During reading activity
While reading the book, identify the important locations, buildings, and landmarks in the text. Using your digital writers notbook, explain why they are significant to the story.
After reading activity
What personality traits does the author use to develop the central characters? Provide text evidence to support your ideas. Discuss how the relationship between two main characters and their siblings develop throughout the story.
Identify the events that change their relationships.
Compare and contrast the two sets of relationships.
Using a compare and contrast, character trait organizer, write down the evidence to support your thoughts. Character Chart ideas
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