Quinny & Hopper
by Adriana Brad Schanen
Scroll down to find Related Activities & Resources, Book Talk Teasers, Read Alikes, and Book Reviews.
RELATED ACTIVITIES & RESOURCES
Author’s website (Curriculum Guide, Author Bio, etc…):
Brooklyn Children’s Museum – Activities to do with your students about bones:
Free Games & Activities on Teeth:
Teacher Planet – Friendship Lessons, Worksheets and Activities:
Stomp Out Bullying:
Bullying & the Bible – Lessons on bullying using examples in the Bible:
Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention – Books, Websites and Videos on Bullying:
Writing Prompt: Both Quinny & Hopper need a friend. What types of things do you do when you want to become friends with someone? When Quinny & Hopper first meet, it’s like pulling teeth (or in this case counting teeth) to initiate a friendship. What actions do Quinny & Hopper take in order to become friends? Write a paragraph about how you have built a friendship with one of your friends. In a second paragraph, write about what actions Quinny & Hopper demonstrate in becoming each other’s friend.
Character Web: Create a character web to record and explore different relationships between the characters. Connect the characters to other characters they interact with. Can be done as a group on the attached Character Web Worksheet or as a class using a white or dry erase board.
BOOK TALK TEASERS
Read chapter 3 – 5.
Character Driven Realistic Fiction about Friendship:
Barrows, Annie. Ivy & Bean. When seven-year-old Bean plays a mean trick on her sister, she finds unexpected support for her antics from Ivy, the new neighbor, who is less boring than Bean first suspected. (NoveList Plus)
Brown, Jennifer. Life on Mars. Twelve-year-old Arcturus Betelgeuse Chambers’ quest to find life on other planets seems at an end when his parents decide to move to Las Vegas, but while they look for a house he stays with his neighbor, an astronaut who soon becomes a friend. (NoveList Plus)
Bulion, Leslie. The trouble with rules. Now that she is in fourth grade and is not supposed to be friends with boys anymore, Nadie must hide her friendship with Nick, her neighbor and lifelong best friend, but when a new girl arrives who believes that some rules need to be broken, Nadie learns a lot from her. (NoveList Plus)
Cabot, Meg. The new girl. Guided by her rules, nine-year-old Allie works to get past being just the new girl at school, eagerly awaits the arrival of her kitten, and faces turmoil when her grandmother visits while the family is still settling into their new home. (NoveList Plus)
Cleary, Beverly. Henry and Beezus. All Henry Huggins can think about is owning a bicycle, and he and his friend Beezus and Henry’s dog, Ribsy come up with various ideas to make money. (NoveList Plus)
Dahl, Elizabeth. Genie wishes. Follows fifth-grader Genie Kunkle through a tumultuous year at Hopkins Country Day School, as a new girl tries to take Genie’s place as Sarah’s best friend, and Genie learns that expressing her opinion in public can be scary when she is elected class blogger. (NoveList Plus)
Harper, Charise Mericle. Just Grace. Misnamed by her teacher, seven-year-old Just Grace prides herself on being empathetic, but when she tries to help a neighbor feel better, her good intentions backfire. (NoveList Plus)
Holt, Kimberly Willis. Piper Reed, forever friend. Ten-year-old Piper moves yet again when her father, who is a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, gets assigned to Norfolk, Virginia, and although the move takes a bit of adjustment, she soon makes friends with the girl next door and catches up with old friends too. (NoveList Plus)
Lin, Grace. The year of the dog. Frustrated at her seeming lack of talent for anything, a young Taiwanese American girl sets out to apply the lessons of the Chinese Year of the Dog, those of making best friends and finding oneself, to her own life. (NoveList Plus)
Lopez, Diana. Confetti girl. After the death of her mother, Texas sixth-grader Lina’s grades and mood drop as she watches her father lose himself more and more in books, while her best friend uses Lina as an excuse to secretly meet her boyfriend. (NoveList Plus)
Mass, Wendy. The candymakers. When four twelve-year-olds, including Logan, who has grown up never leaving his parents’ Life Is Sweet candy factory, compete in the Confectionary Association’s annual contest, they unexpectedly become friends and uncover secrets about themselves during the process. (NoveList Plus)
McGhee, Alison. Julia Gillian (and the quest for joy). Ten-year-old Julia Gillian’s best friend is keeping secrets, their beloved lunch lady was replaced by a tyrant, and trumpet lessons prove difficult, making it hard for her to follow the music teacher’s advice to “look for the joy.” (NoveList Plus)
Mills, Claudia. Fractions = trouble! While trying to decide on a science fair project, third-grader Wilson struggles with fractions and, much to his embarrassment, his parents sign him up to work with a math tutor. (NoveList Plus)
Myers, Walter Dean. Fast Sam, cool Clyde, and stuff. New to 116th Street in New York, a young boy soon makes friends and begins a year of unusual experiences. (NoveList Plus)
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Alice in Blunderland. Fourth-grader Alice tries unsuccessfully to avoid embarrassing mistakes and to establish better relations with her older brother Lester. (NoveList Plus)
Patron, Susan. Lucky breaks. Having reached the mature age of eleven in the tiny California town of Hard Pan (population 43), Lucky discovers that there is still much to learn about friendship, parental trust, and the Milky Way galaxy. (NoveList Plus)
Pennypacker, Sara. Clementine. While sorting through difficulties in her friendship with her neighbor Margaret, eight-year-old Clementine gains several unique hairstyles while also helping her father in his efforts to banish pigeons from the front of their apartment building. (NoveList Plus)
Schusterman, Michelle. I [heart] band! On her first day of seventh grade, Holly Mead learns that her new band director is surprisingly strict and that her best friend has replaced her with the new French horn player. (NoveList Plus)
Spinelli, Eileen. Lizzie Logan gets married. When Lizzie’s mother announces that she is remarrying, Heather wonders if her wild and unusual friendship with Lizzie will survive the preparations for the wedding. (NoveList Plus)
Vigilante, Danette. Saving Baby Doe. “When best friends Lionel and Anisa find and save an abandoned baby, the fallout threatens to tear their relationship apart” (NoveList Plus)
Quinny & Hopper. Schanen, Adriana Brad (author). Illustrated by Greg Swearingen. June 2014. 240p. Disney/Hyperion, hardcover, $15.99 (9781423178293); Disney/Hyperion, hardcover, $15.99 (9781484707647). Grades 2-5.
REVIEW. First published July, 2014 (Booklist).
Uprooted from her apartment in New York City, spirited Quinny and her two annoying little sisters land in the country. Quinny is not happy. The list of things she misses about the bustling city is “very, very, extra-very long” and includes tae kwon do and accordion lessons. Things look up when she spies a couple of exciting new things: a black-and-white striped chicken and a quiet boy next door named Hopper. Hopper is nothing like Quinny. He prefers low-key activities, like art, that no one in his family except his grandfather understands. Their friendship has a rough start, thanks to bullying older brothers, Quinny’s martial-arts training, and a broken vase. Soon though, they are fast friends, scheming to reunite the chicken with its former owner. But they hit another rough spell when school starts and Quinny becomes friends with a mean girl. Quinny and Hopper narrate alternating chapters, each with a strong voice, spot-on language and emotions, and charming black-and-white spot illustrations. Funny, honest, and fast paced, this book about friendship should have wide appeal.— Suzanne Harold
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books:
Schanen, Adriana Brad. Quinny & Hopper. Illustrated by Greg Swearingen. September 2014
Almost-third-grader Hopper is the kind of quiet kid who would prefer to stay in his room and build a model of a human foot than socialize. When bouncy-haired, mile-a-minute talker Quinny moves in next door and decides to befriend Hopper, however, he is basically powerless against her designs, and the two enjoy spending the summer together. When back-to-school time rolls around, Hopper abruptly ends the friendship, sure Quinny won’t want to spend time with him when she finds out what a loser he is at school. A bewildered Quinny reluctantly takes up with mean girl Victoria until a series of events lead her and Hopper to reestablish their friendship, this time stronger than ever. Quinny and Hopper take turns narrating their story, and although the maturity of their narration doesn’t quite match their young ages, the strength of their individual identities and their likability as characters override their occasional precocity. Hopper’s thoughtful and observant voice (about Victoria: “She acts like it costs her money to be nice to people, and she doesn’t think I’m worth it”) and Quinny’s lively and amusing one (“‘Didded is not a word,’ I inform my grimy little sister. ‘And put a shirt on, you chimpanzee'”), combined with the quick-paced plotting, make this an engaging page-turner. Judy Moody fans will have a ball with Quinny and Hopper, and elementary teachers or librarians looking for a spirited readaloud selection will want to pick up a copy as well.
Quinny & Hopper by Adriana Brad Schanen; illus. by Greg Swearingen
Primary, Intermediate Disney-Hyperion 234 pp.
6/14 978-1-4231-7829-3 $15.99
Quinny moves next door to Hopper in the summer before third grade, and the two couldn’t be more different. Quinny rivals Junie B. Jones in both volume and breeziness, and initially she is almost unbearable with her “smirky-smiling” and her “very, very, extra-very” cutesiness. However, the book works because Hopper, who alternates chapters with Quinny, feels the same way readers do. A quiet, analytical boy with bullying older brothers and no friends, he is initially baffled and a little appalled by Quinny’s loudness. But in battling the brothers on his behalf, she wins him over, and the two of them spend the summer trying to catch a needy chicken, until snooty new-girl Victoria barges her way between them. In this first novel, Schanen nicely balances the perspectives of Quinny and Hopper, so readers eventually begin to anticipate how each will respond and understand that both are working on the basis of the limited information they have. She also paints a comically exaggerated but essentially truthful picture of life with siblings, either on the bullied end or, as in Quinny’s case, being the one who’s sometimes mean to younger kids. Illustrator Swearingen does a great job depicting the emotions each child goes through, and the book’s ending is satisfying in itself while leaving room for sequels. SUSAN DOVE LEMPKE
(July/August 2014 Horn Book Magazine)
Reprinted from The Horn Book Magazine by permission of The Horn Book, Inc., www.hbook.com
School Library Journal:
Schanen, Adriana Brad. Quinny & Hopper. illus. by Greg Swearingen. 240p. ebook available. Hyperion. Jun. 2014. Tr $15.99. ISBN 9781423178293.
Gr 3-5–Eight-year-old Quinny reluctantly moves from New York City to the “middle of nowhere,” also known as Whisper Valley. On arrival, she decides that the new town and anything involving the new house are no fun. Longing for a new friend, she introduces herself to Hopper, the boy next store who “appears to be her size.” Hopper is a little leery about having a girl for a friend, yet he is enamored with Quinny’s big smile and “cheeks with holes.” When they get together, high jinks ensue. This likable twosome have endless adventures, such as trying to catch Freya, the chicken; climbing trees; and juggling. It isn’t until mean Victoria comes around spouting her rules for third grade that Quinny questions her friendship with Hopper. According to Victoria, boys play with boys and girls play with girls. Meanwhile, Hopper is dreading the prospect of returning to school for another friendless year. Little do the two know that school holds surprises for both of them. This is a delightful, amusing chapter book with lively, relatable characters. Black-and-white drawings add to the overall mood of the story. Fans of Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine and Judy Blume’s Super Fudge will flock to this entertaining chapter book.–Megan McGinnis, Sachem Public Library, Holbrook, NY