Follow Doug Swieteck in the book OKAY FOR NOW

I try to read a variety of genres and authors to be able to share books and ideas with kids.  Once in while I'll run into a book that I can not put down, and I can't get it out of my head. I hope by sharing my reading on this blog and in my classes, that some of my students and readers will get that same feeling some day.  I feel bad for people that have never had the feeling of getting into a book that much.  I was not an avid reader in school. I know for a fact, that I didn't know what that was like until college. Because I could read well, I was never pushed to read more than the texts my teachers gave me, and I barely read some of them.  I don't remember any of them. I am glad that has changed for me today.  If anyone has a chance to scroll through my blog, Mr Kohl's Literacy Corner, there are a lot of  books shared in there.  Some are great. Some not so great, but I remember something about all of them. The book, OKAY FOR NOW by Gary D. Schmidt is one of those books that I will remember for a long time.



Doug Swieteck is a fourteen year old boy trying to grow up in 1968 in the shadow of New York City.  Living in poverty, surviving an abusive father, a juvenile delinquent brother, and a brother returning from Vietnam, are just some of the challenges facing Doug as he tries to settle into the stupid town of Marysville, with it's stupid houses, it's stupid schools, it's stupid library, and it's stupid people. Doug's attitude of Marysville begins to change as his interactions with the people of Marysville begin to mesh with the discovery of a famous book in the Marysville public library called, Birds of America by John James Audubon.

Doug Swietech is one of those characters that I will remember for a long time, like Maniac Magee, or Donald Zinkoff from the book Loser, both written by Jerry Spinelli. Gary Schmidt has created a character that is hard not to love.  The reader will follow Doug on his roller coaster of emotions as he is almost trapped by his dysfunctional family and a Vietnam era community. I will immediately check out Gary Schmidt's first book titled, The Wednesday Wars if only to see what life was like for Doug before his move to stupid Marysville, New York.