FeedUn-Forgettable Friday: The Secrets of The Cheese Syndicate Book Give-away!
August 22, 2009 in Elementary Educators, Making Personal Connections, Middle Grade Novel, Reading Skills, St. Cyr, Donna, Un-Forgettable Friday Tags: Donna St. Cyr, Middle-grade fantasy novel, The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate
Leave a comment by 8:00 p.m. CST on Sunday, August 23 for a chance to win a copy of The Secrets of The Cheese Syndicate!
photo by cwbuecheler www.flickr.com
*Middle-grade novel, fantasy
*13-year-old boy as main character
Rating: The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate is a wild ride through a cheesy world mixed with mythology and adventure. A perfect book for boys–it reminds me a bit of M.T. Anderson’s work.
Short, short summary: Thirteen-year-old Robert Montasio is having a bad day, which gets even worse when his annoying little sister, Janine, drinks a bottle of elixir that Robert finds on the bus. Soon, Robert realizes that Janine is starting to shrink. So, he reads the label on the elixir and is thrown into a fantasy world where cheese holds powers that he never knew it had. Robert meets Madame Gorgonzola who explains a little bit of the secret society of the Cheese Syndicate. He is willing to listen to this stranger and go on an adventure because 1. he needs a cure for his shrunken sister, who now fits in his pocket and 2. he needs to find his dad whom Robert discovers is also a syndicate agent and searching for cheese. On his quest, Robert meets Neptune and Euryale, Medusa’s sister. Along the way, he also begins to have more confidence in himself and realizes that his annoying little sister isn’t so bad after all. What will happen when or if Robert finds the Lost City of Eliki and its cheese?
So, what do I do with this book?
1. Since mythology is woven into the plot of The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate, you may want to discuss some mythology with your students or children. Neptune and Medusa are two well-known figures, and they play roles in this book. If your students know some of the myths, it may help their comprehension and enrich their reading experience. You can also discuss with students or your children why they think Donna St. Cyr included real mythological characters in her fantasy “cheese” world? How does this help or hurt the story? What is their opinion?
2. Most children will be able to relate to the sibling rivalry in the book. If you have a lot of students that are “only” children, they may have had similar experiences with a neighborhood friend or cousin. Ask students to make personal connections between the characters of Janine and Robert in the story and their families by writing about these relatonships in their reading response journals. Why is it important for Janine and Robert to work together? Why is it important for your students to work together with their siblings or friends or cousins?
3. To celebrate the book when you are finished reading it, you can have a cheese tasting and secrets party. Ask parents to donate different kinds of cheese, crackers, and fruit. Make up score sheets for students to taste and rate the different types of cheese. Ask students to make up more rhyming secrets for the Cheese Syndicate, using examples in the book to give them ideas.
4. For more information on the author and her books, check out Donna St. Cyr’s website.
This is a terrific book for middle-grade kids, especially boys, although girls will enjoy it, too! It is a perfect read-aloud book for elementary classrooms. Leave a comment or question for the author, Donna St. Cyr, and you will be entered into a drawing for a free copy of The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate. You can also leave a “pick me” comment.
August 22nd, 2009 at 3:18 am
I am always on the lookout for a good boys book. My son is in a program that has only 4 boys and 9 girls. This is their 4th year together. When one boy finds something he likes, the others follow pretty readily. Mixing fantasy and mythology sounds just like the stuff they like–as would shrinking their little sisters (3 of the 4 have one). I should have checked out your blog at the beginning of summer when I was looking for books for him to read over the break.
PICK ME. —H
August 22nd, 2009 at 4:36 am
Why wouldn’t you pick someone named maniaclibrarian? If I am maniacal abt an author’s book, then it’s ON. Send your books to me so we can get this show on the road!
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:12 am
I’m always on the lookout for boys books too. My son has two older sisters so most of our library is “girly”–he sends them over to his girl cousin. If anyone has ideas of “boy” books I’d love to hear them.
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:31 pm
PICK ME! It will be read by many…
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Margo,
Thanks for your kind words about the book. Jodi and Heidi, here are some ideas for other midgrade “boy books”. I’ve been a school librarian (kind of a maniac, I suppose) for about 15 years and it’s always a challenge to find enough to keep the boys interested.
Heart of a Shepherd by Rosanne Parry * new author
Bull Rider by Suzanne Morgan Williams * new author
Emerald Tablet by PJ Hoover *new author
When the Whistle Blows by Fran Cannon Slayton *new author
Cottonmouth Club by Lance Marcum
Redwall Series by Brian Jacques
Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer
Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan
Anything by Andrew Clements
Anything by Gary Paulsen
Anything by Roland Smith
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
And Anthony Horowitz – boys love him.
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I can’t wait to read it! Sounds fantastic!
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Wow, Donna, an MT Anderson comparison! It’s gotta be good. I’m going to win a copy if it’s the last thing I ever do…
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Brian Anderson’s Zack Proton series is also a winner for boys.
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Thanks for all the great suggestions for boys. My stepson is just starting to read chapter books and we got the Roscoe Riley series this summer. He really liked it.
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I can’t wait to read this book!! Especially after a comparison to M.T. Anderson!!!
August 22nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Donna: Congratulations on your book! I love books with a sibling team trying to solve a mystery and books that blend mythology so yours sounds like a winner. Thank you for the list of recommended reads for boys.
August 22nd, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Great review, Margo. Don’t forget about the puzzles and riddles in the book! My 9yr old is reading it, and he’s loving the mythology, humor, and the puzzles.
August 22nd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
The book sounds so interesting!!!
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:55 pm
I love the sound of this, Donna. Can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.
Another great boy series for 8-12 is the Spy Mice books by Heather Vogel Frederick. They are like James Bond for kids, and all the villains are rats named after cheeses. Fun!
Congratulations Donna!
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:45 am
Sounds like a winner! I’m always looking for a good read for my class of middle-schoolers – glad a friend tipped me off to your work!
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Looking forward to sharing this with my fifth graders.
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Donna,
I like that mythology is introduced in the book. Combine that with humor and you have the perfect recipe to draw in readers. When I taught middle school English, I always found teaching and discussing mythology to be difficult mainly because of the scope of the subject. How did you decide what mythological characters to introduce in your novel?
Thanks,
LuAnn
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
My boys are 9 and 12, and I can’t wait for them to read this book! They both loved Percy Jackson and Artemis Fowl. The Guardians of Ga’hoole has been excellent, too.
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Good question, LuAnn! I loved all the classical mythological characters when I was a child, but I have many in this book that lesser known (and I made a few up to suit my purposes). It all boiled down to alot of research. Neptune/Poseidon is probably the most famous character in the story. He got into the story because I was searching for a lost civilization to use for this mystical cheese I had created. I knew I didn’t want to use Atlantis or Shangri-la because they are pretty well known. So I hit the books – or actually the internet. What I found about Eliki was that it was an ancient city on the Greek coast that met its demise as the result of a powerful earthquake. It was rumored they had a Poseidon cult – complete with a giant statue of the god. After the earthquake, you supposedly could still see the tips of his trident in the harbor. That was all I needed to get my imagination going. For some of the other characters, I searched through a large number of mythology encyclopedias to find beasts and beings that I felt fit the role I was looking for. When I couldn’t find an existing character, I made them up. I created a methodology for naming the ones I made up, but I’m not going to say what it is yet – I’m hoping some very interested kid figures it out.
Lauren – Guardians of Ga’hoole is great – I noticed the girls like it just as much as the boys.
August 24th, 2009 at 1:39 am
Thanks to everybody for all your thoughtful comments! We have a winner. Heidi S. is the winner of the free copy. I hope everyone will check out Donna’s book. Donna, thank you so much for stopping by and answering our questions.
Margo
August 24th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
That is just like me, arriving late to the party. But I enjoyed the discussion and Donna’s suggestions for “boy books.” (When I saw Anything by Andrew Clements and then AGAIN by Gary Paulsen, I thought, that’s funny-two authors with the same title! By the third author, I got it