17: The Maze Runner

James Dashner is such a good writer!  When I began the novel The Maze Runner, I found myself annotating...and annotating...then thinking, I have to take this back to the classroom and show my students!  That's what I did, using the novel's sentences as examples of compound-complex sentences using semi-colons, absolute, participial, and appositive phrases, and parallel structure...all that we had been discussing in class   

Chosen by the students as our second novel for our high school book club, this book was one that I had meant to read for several years, remembering other teacher friends talking about how well-liked it was when first published.  This one was chosen also because we all wanted to read it before seeing it on the big screen in August. 

Main character Thomas awakes in an elevator in a world of boys who have arrived in this different environment in the same manner, all with most of their memories wiped clean, to a world in which the only escape, although no one has done so successfully, is through the maze outside the compound.   

Dashner creates an interesting mix of characters, only one of which is female.  Awry with emotions due to the survival nature of the novel, the characters are presented in extreme situations, exuding many strong emotions.    Never boring, the author brings these characters alive through the many conflicts presented throughout. 

 I so enjoyed discussing this novel with several students, two of whom checked out a copy the novel the day we discussed the above lesson.  Cool!  AND we read the novel BEFORE the book goes to the big screen in August.