Publisher: Candlewick Press
Honors and Awards:
John Newbery Medal (2019)
Book Summary:
Merci Suarez, Changing Gears is a book about Cuban immigrants, who migrated to Florida to be with their grandparents. Merci lives with her mother Ana, her father Enrique, and her brother Roli and enjoys being close to family, especially her grandpa Lolo who’s memory is declining due to and Alzheimer’s diagnosis – this diagnosis was kept from Merci. The book is filled with Meri and Lolo’s adventures but during the course of the story, she starts to notice that he is becoming forgetful. In the meantime, she is doing well at school with her focus being on academia and soccer. Her bother Roli is naturally very smart whereas Merci really needs to work on maintaining good grades and she thinks she will be able to secure a scholarship through playing soccer well but the first hurdle is actually getting into a soccer team.
Reading Level:
Lexile Measure: 700L
Guided Reading Level: V
Page count: 368
Vocabulary
Demoralize - having lost confidence or hope; disheartened.
Nemesis - a long-standing rival; an archenemy.
Malicious - intending or intended to do harm.
Awning - a sheet of canvas or other material stretched on a frame, used to keep the sun or rain off a window.
Seethe - very angry about something but do not express your feelings about it.
Papyrus - a material prepared in ancient Egypt from the pithy stem of a water plant, used in sheets throughout the ancient Mediterranean world for writing or painting on.
Veranda - a roofed platform along the outside of a house, level with the ground floor.
Resources to Support Text
Building / activating schema
Lesson Activity
Throughout the book, we discover Merci enjoying hobbies and rituals with her family members. For example, Sunday mornings, Merci an Lolo are riding their bikes to the bakery to bring back treats for the Sunday afternoon meal. Merci enjoys painting with Lolo and Pani, and she never misses an opportunity to play soccer with Papi and his friends.
Create a Canva outlining your hobbies, outlining the details, and information about your hobbies. What are things you enjoy doing with your family, or friends?
Try and make connections with your hobbies to the story, for example when Abuela helps Michael with putting together his costume, or when Merci brings in paint for the school project - pyramid, buttons for the clay map.
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
Alzheimers
Exploring the ancient world
Race, class, and pressure in independent schools
Multigenerational
Family, change
Honesty, respect
Before reading activity
Watch a video on Alzheimer's explained for kids, for students to gain a better understanding of what this is; building background schema. Write a paragraph on their understanding of what Alzheimers means.
During reading activity
While reading the book, the reader will notice that something is wrong with Lolo before Merci does. Write about what are the clues that foreshadow Lolo's Alzheimer's throughout the story and track those clues throughout the book.
After reading activity
Merci and her family appear in a short story collection called Flying Lessons, edited by Ellen Oh. Read the short story called "Sol Painting, Inc". Using a Venn diagram, compare and contrast the following ideas:
What elements of the story seems similar?
What feels different?
What other similarities and differences do you notice?
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