Chapter Book 8

A.    Author: Cynthia Lord

B.     Title: Rules

C.     Photographs:

D.    Readability: 3.9

E.     Genre: Realistic Fiction

F.      Subgenre:  

G.    Theme: Compassion, Abilities, Friendships, Understanding self and others

H.    Primary and secondary characters: Catherine, Jason, David, Kristi

I.       Award(s) date of publication:  Newbery Honor Award

J.       Publishing company: Scholastic  

K.    ISBN number:978-0-545-03640-5

L.     Brief Summary: A rainy cold day, David decides to go to school. But only with his red umbrella. Catherine fights David tooth and nail, she’s fighting a losing battle. Ryan, joins them at the bus stop. Making a joke, David doesn’t understand, he repeats Catherine, “Oh look at the time, gotta go!’ That’s the rule!” David lives his life by rules. His autism controls his life. David goes to OT, occupational therapy, where his sister Catherine, meets a non-verbal boy, Jason. She starts to draw his portrait, when he points at his communication book, and his mother asks her to stop! Catherine quickly retreats into her chair pretending to be invisible. When Catherine returns home she notices that her neighbors were moved in, waiting patiently Catherine, finally meets her neighbor Kristi. Kristi, is going to be a popular kid according to Catherine. Kristi seems stand-off like but friendly enough to start a friendship with Kristi. Catherine returns to OT with her brother, this time she is introduced to Jason, who is in a wheelchair, and cannot speak, but uses a card system communication book. As the book progresses, Catherine begins making words for Jason’s communication book, she adds colors and words that would be useful when talking to another person of the same age. Catherine gives Jason’s vocabulary a revamping, and Jason is beyond ecstatic. Jason one day asks Catherine how it feels to run, as she describes, she realizes Jason will never be able to run, he heart breaks a little. So she asks him to go outside to take a run, she pushes his wheel chair as fast as she can, Jason uses his revamped communication cards to tell her, better than awesome.  Catherine and Jason’s relationship begins to grow, she has to overcome the adversity that is caused by the looks and thoughts given to their friendship. Catherine buys Jason a guitar for his birthday, she and David are invited to the party. Catherine fears Jason will ruin it for her, he never follows rules given to him. Jason brings Catherine to his room, they open the guitar and Jason plays a few seconds of music for her on his cd player. They return to the living room and shortly Jason arrives. He doesn’t follow the rules just as Catherine fears, David opens doors and eats the cake with his hands. Catherine tears out of Jason’s  house, with David in toe.  Jason is left devastated thinking Catherine left because she was ashamed of him. As the story concludes, Catherine, decides to attend a dance, she calls Jason’s mother and tells her to please bring him. Catherine then calls her father and demands attention and for him to bring her and David to the dance. Catherine waits and waits, Jason finally arrives, and she apologizes. They move to the dance floor and the fun begins.

M.   Description of How to Use in the Classroom: I would use this in the class to help with the idea of diversity and how to overcome an obstacle that most people never have to deal with.  Since David lives off of rules, we can have our own rules based on the book. We can also discuss how the rules can change as the book concludes.