What is a great biography book for elementary and middle school kids?
The Year of the Buttered Cat by Susan & Lexi Haas is!
Imagine something that happened when you were born changed your life forever.
Our story begins with thirteen-year-old Lexi 24 hours before her second brain surgery. She is hoping that this surgery will help her body back so that she can talk and walk and do cartwheels down the beach like her big brother. While she is waiting, she knows that her story has to be told so she flashes back to her five-year-old self and the year of the buttered cat, the year she found out what happened to her.
So what does a buttered cat have to do with all of this?
When Lexi was two the family was visiting their grandparents in Georgia. That was when their dog found a kitten behind a dumpster. The dog, Luke, began licking the cat clean and the cat instantly thought that Luke was its mama. Now they have a new pet. Later in the book, you actually find out that this cat had a huge impact on the family.
The prophecy and the five gifts!
When Lexi was five her mom, dad, and her brother, Tucker, take a road trip to the beach. This is when Lexi becomes a huge Harry Potter fan – they listen to the CDs as they drove. On the way back they stopped at a Shoney’s to eat and this is when a random man in a green suit put his hand on Lexi’s head and gave a prophecy that she would have five gifts (more or less). Lexi knew right then and there that if she discovered her five gifts then she would ger her body.
Friends and French and betrayal!
Lexi loved her French class, especially because her two best friends, Anna and Ellie Trejo, were there. When Anna and Ellie started coming over to Lexi’s house to do homework, Lexi introduced them to the world of Harry Potter but it had to be in secret because the girl’s mom forbids them from reading those books (technically they were listening to it so…). Soon the girls quit coming to her house and one night Lexi’s family saw the whole French club out to dinner and she wasn’t invited. This crushed Lexi.
Countdown to surgery!
As the book goes back and forth between current day and the hours leading up to her brain surgery, Lexi continues to tell her story from her five-year-old self. It is during this year that Lexi finds out what actually happened to her when she was born. Does Lexi ever find out what her five gifts are? Will she ever find her voice and her body? Does she ever get to do a cartwheel down the beach? And what actually happened to Lexi to cause her brain damage? Read this incredible true story of Lexi Haas, her supportive family, and her incredible friends.
Why I love this book!
I tell my students all the time that I am a slow reader. I very rarely read a book, especially a 300-page book, in under a week. Susan and Lexi Haas and their family stole my heart from page one and I could not put this book down. I believe it only took me a couple of days to read this book (and thank goodness I was on spring break so the night that I stayed up until about 2 in the morning, I didn’t have to go to work the next day). This incredibly amazing true story, which is written almost like a fiction story, is told straight from Lexi. Her mom actually wrote the book but every page was dictated by Lexi. I loved every single part of this story!!
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