“You’re the star on the diving board at the Innerstar U University Good Sports Center. You love to dive and be part of the team with your friends, Emmy and Riley. Emmy is the number one diver, and you’re right behind her. You practice and train on the board and on dry-land to be the best diver you can be. Your friends are always supportive and you coach each other through the easy dives and the tough ones. Your coach is pretty awesome too, always knowing when to push and when you need a break.
One day at practice your friend Megan, a very talented gymnast, comes on deck to join the team. You couldn’t be more excited to have your friend on the team and help her learn the fundamentals of diving and impress her with your skills as she learns how to dive, too. However, Megan is a natural. Her gymnastic skills help her with all the hard tricks and she is just about as good as you are without the years of hard work you’ve put into the sport. How do you handle it? Well, you get to pick your ending… 20 different ways to make tough decisions that you face on and off the deck. You might cave into your jealousness and quit the team, or you might use it to make you a better diver and teammate. You might decide to take a little break for kayaking, dance, or even more importantly school. You have some hard decisions to make, but no matter what you decide, there is a path for you. If you want to a different ending, you just have to make a different decision at the end of each section!
*Readers will enjoy the interactive component to this book. The decisions are tough, but realistic as the themes of teamwork, friendship, and responsibility are intertwined throughout the book. The decision making in the book can help students with their own personal decisions in a similar situation. It might not be diving, but maybe on another team or in a similar friend situation. This would be a great book for an upper elementary school guidance program.
*The idea of choosing your own ending is a very creative way to write a story. Students can write their own short story where they present difficult decisions and write two different outcomes based on the decision the reader makes. This will help students understand consequences to decisions and actions.
*There is even a code to access more information online about the series of Innerstar U University. Including an interactive component beyond the reading and moving online, is something students can do. They could create QR codes to their own short story that links to websites or home-made book trailers... the possibilities are endless.
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Jamie McDevitt wrote this review Wednesday, February 27, 2013.
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