Reviews for Albertina the practically perfect

The average rating for Albertina the practically perfect based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-05-05 00:00:00 Josiah Grimmitt I first read this book in middle school. When I started teaching sixth grade, and heard I could set up the curriculum how I wanted, I immediately bought a class set of this book. It is beautiful and tragic. One year, I had my class write epilogues because they were so devastated by the ending and we sent them to Myron Levoy with personal letters. He actually wrote us back, thanked us for writing, and told us why he chose to end the book the way he did. It is a hard book for my kids to come to terms with, but it does introduce the ideas to young adults that life is not always easy, it is not always fair, and that there are not always happy endings.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-05-25 00:00:00 Martez Gulley I loved this book, with a caveat I mention below. It reminds me of books I read in late middle school, but a quite a bit heavier than what I got back then, and I appreciate the newer books (even one this old) for that reason. I wish that it had been published a dozen years earlier because I'd have loved it back when I was 10-12. If I was on a normal reading schedule, this is a book I could read in a day or two, and I think it would have been more satisfying to read it through in a sitting or two. That said, the ending, the way it was done, made me long for this book to be a more in depth for adults book. Funny because I love kids’ books so much I don’t often feel that way. If I was 9-12 or 13, the target age, the entire book likely would have satisfied me. The subject matter was covered very well, but I wanted more. I’d like to read a for adults novel about these characters/situation. The characters and the settings were done so well. Very evocative for me, of my childhood and books I read back then, even though the books I read and my personal experiences were wildly different than the characters and subject matter in this book. The people were done well, especially the kids, but the adults too, and many were likeable, and those who weren’t were still understandable. I like the slight mystery element, and appreciated that it’s solved fairly early on. Even though I am not buying books and should be spending zero dollars on books, I bought this and one other. I have to try to use some of my alternative libraries. More and more, my public library doesn’t have the books I want to read. That’s frustrating. Still, I cannot buy books any longer. I might make exceptions for some vegan books (to support the authors and the ethical stance) and possibly some other reference books as well, but not many and nothing else that I can think of offhand. I’m glad I read this though. I can recommend it to both/all genders ages 9-13, particularly kids who are interested in history, and/or in children who’ve had trauma, in bullying and fitting in with peers in the middle school and upper elementary years, and friendship stories.