Customer Reviews

The Fruit Bowl Project

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4 star:		(4)
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Middle grades will relish The Fruit Bowl Project, which focuses on different ways to tell the same story when students at a hip Manhattan school in a writer's workshop receive a special surprise. A song, Nick explains, is just a bowl of fruit - one must have to figure out how to paint it, and it's up to the students to take their literary bowl and run with it. A fascinating, modern story evolves.

I enjoyed "The Fruit Bowl Project" enormously. I found the concept interesting, unique and insightful. The stories were incredibly well written. Ms Durkee really captured the voice of the 8th grader in it in a way that was surprising and delightful.
I love the premise of this book and I think the idea of story being secondary to style an interesting and not often addressed area of literature for children.
So many adult books offer form and style over story and are feted for it, "The God of Small Things" the Booker Prize winner by Arandati Roy "The Bone People" by Kerri Hulme (another Booker Prize winner) to name just two.
It is exciting to contemplate what children might do if they give some thought to style and this book compels them to do just that.
As a 7th grade English teacher I would encourage any parent interested in inspiring their child to write or any teacher looking to do the same to get this book on your reading list!

I read the Fruit Bowl Project last night in one fell swoop and it left me hungry for more. Forget that Fruit Bowl can be a great teaching and learning tool for middle schoolers and aspiring writers alike. What I liked the best is that it is laugh-out-loud funny. Don't believe me? Try getting through the "Chatty" entry without spewing drink out of your own nose. Durkee really knows how to tell a story and her feel for her middle-school audience is right on the mark. She has written a very playful book that made me feel like I was in the middle of the hubub that is an 8th grade class. Great concept well executed.

If I had read this as a young teen, I would have probably become a writer. It's funny,imaginative,and completely original. Everyone's voice counts in this classroom, and they are all as different as fingerprints. Get it for a kid you know...especially one who doesn't think writing is cool.

The Fruit Bowl Project is a book like no other. Where i live a nasty stomache flu is goin' around and i caught it! I was lying on my couch for the 2nd day in a row when my mom came and starting reading this book. We are friends with Sarah Durkee and we wanted to read her book. We know how witty and funny she is so Mom and I expected the book to lift our spirits. And it did... no suprise. This story is witty, funny, and great anyone! (just not too young) It is a unique way to get kids to write... after rerading i wanted to write a story using those elements! It was a blast reading all the stories she came up with... and the best part is they all had a different theme! Horror, a screenplay, an instant message, a fairytale! it was great to hear some styles of writing i could never think of! At the end of every great book i read/listen to, i always think the same question... how in the world did she come up with this idea! its a great, wacky, fun plot that you when you are done you ask yourself why you cannot come up with ideas as good as these! Here are a few of the stories i reccommend...
1. Chatty This story is HILARIOUS! it had me laughing and laughing! when my dad read it he couldnt get through one sentence without cracking up!
2. Instant Message This was a cute one! it made you want to read it. you didnt have to start it to know it was good like some books. It's IMing! anyone can relate to it! a great way to grab the reader's attention!
3. The Musical This was clever! it shows the theme as a broadway musical! it even has songs! to take Sarahs fun and wild idea even farther, get some friends or family, or just you, and block out some of the scenes, or try to come up with a tune for the songs it's really, really fun when you try it!
I reccommend this book to adults, children, and anyone else who enjoys a fun, good read! Hope ya like The Fruit Bowl Project! I know you will!
Your Reviewer,
Kate

This is such a cool book, I love writing and it shows you how you can write a million ways. Besides loving the book I loved the school in it so much!! One of the reviewer was wrong, it's not a private school it's a public school. The kids have so much freedom to be creative and they're really different BUT they all respect each other even more at the end because of what they write. Even the things that were bad were good because they were bad to be funny. I loved Nick Thompson the rock star. He seemed real, like if Mick Jagger came to your class :). This book is for kids who like to write AND for kids who don't! You will definitely want to do your own fruit bowl project.

Read this out loud to your high school or middle school writing students, assemble a bowl of fruit, create a set of "story bones" and turn them loose! It's a great way to prime the pump for writers of ALL ages to write and share their stories.

50 ways to weave a tale! After a breezy set up in which we meet an authentic crew of hip, hilarious, and homework-shackled eighth graders, the real storyteller behind this book doesn't take us through the looking glass as much as shoots us through the kaleidoscope of 13-year-old imagination. On the other side, the students' wildly unique interpretations of the same classroom-to-cafeteria chain of events is more like walking through a funhouse of mirrors than reading a book. Every page offers a new twist, turn, and giggle-inducing distortion. My only quibble is with the title. The Fruit Bowl Project is less bowl of fruit than chandelier with all lights blazing.

My 11 year old daughter and I read this together and loved the concept and the execution tremendously. We laughed, we talked about the characters, we read all the stories and picked favorites. It was more than a good story, it was an experience. Reading this book led us to discussions about writing styles as well as about 8th graders vs sixth graders and other middle school issues. The author captures the middle school attitudes and styles in a provocative way, fruit for thought by child and adult! The many characters in the class were colorful and we enjoyed looking back into the text to find more info on the students who wrote a particular story. In addition there were lots of fun references back in time for adults. As an educator and parent, I highly recommend this book to students, parents and teachers.

A hot afternoon in a sixth grade classroom. A room full of students taking a test. A boy nudges a girl's arm and causes her to mark the test. She goes ballistic. Later, in the cafeteria, another boy tells a joke and the first boy laughs so hard milk comes out of his nose.

How would you tell this story?

When rock star Nick Thompson comes to visit the West Side Middle School, this is the writing assignment he sets the class. Take a simple, ordinary story and make it exciting. Find your own voice, he urges them, tell the story in your own way. And they do. From first-person narratives, to screenplays, to haikus; as aliens, as a psychic, as the teacher; even in measurements, each member of the class writes the same story but tells it in a different way. The result is a collection of intriguing essays and stories that highlight voice, style, perspective and language.

THE FRUIT BOWL PROJECT by Sarah Durkee is really unique in its exploration of writing. The same story, told over and over in so many different voices, begins to take on a life of its own, as well as revealing the personalities of the characters who wrote each entry. This would be a great book to use with a writing class in order to give students an indication of the wide range of the possibilities inherent in even the most basic ideas. In fact, while I was reading the novel, I kept wishing that there was a nonfiction book out there that encompassed this idea: set a classroom of kids to write about a scene in all different kinds of ways.

For me, the framework story about the students who wrote the pieces and their encounter with the rock star was unnecessary. Both the individual stories and the project as a whole were understandable without the framework. In addition, I found the individual stories to be stronger and better written than the overall framework, which may have been too short for what it was trying to accomplish.

Overall, however, THE FRUIT BOWL PROJECT is an intriguing, original idea, and one that should offer young readers much food for thought.

--- Reviewed by Paula Jolin