EDNA IN THE DESERT  is on Carle Place High School’s English Honors 9 Summer Reading List!

(Good thing it’s a short book…)

After their cell phone-free experiment  (see report below), Carle Place High School has added Maddy Lederman’s debut

novel, EDNA IN THE DESERT, to their list of summer reads for English Honors 9 students. 

Edna is a precocious trouble-maker wreaking havoc at her Beverly Hills school.  Her therapist advocates medication, but her parents come up with an alternative cure:  Edna will spend the summer in the desert with her grandparents.  Their remote cabin is cut off from cell phone service, Internet and television.  Edna’s determined to rebel until she meets an older local boy and falls in love for the first time.  How can she get to know him from the edge of nowhere?

 See the full April 4, 2014 article/video from CBS-NY reporter Jennifer McLogan here.

Long Island High School Students Challenged To Go A Week Without Cellphones

CARLE PLACE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) (excerpts) — Students at one Long Island school went through withdrawal from Instagram, text messages, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr this week, but they learned they could actually live without their cellphones.

As CBS 2’s Jennifer McLogan reported, the unplugging experiment was held at Carle Place High School. Students in Ms. Melissa Mehling’s English class were studying Ray Bradbury’s dystopian futuristic novel “Fahrenheit 451,” about a bookless, hedonistic and illiterate society distracted and infatuated by mass media.

“I challenged the kids for one week not to use their cellphones and social media,” Mehling said.

And in taking on the challenge, some students admitted that they were distracted and infatuated by electronic devices.

“You don’t talk anymore and you don’t start conversations,” one student said.

“It’s so hard to cut back when you are already so used to it,” another said.

“Some of us are really obsessed with our phones; some couldn’t last one period when we got our phones wrapped,” a third said.

Some students went so far as to call their cellphone, iPad and Internet use an “epidemic,” and wondered whether they had the inner strength to hand over their “obsessed” possessions to their teacher.

“At first, a lot of the kids had a hard time; the shakes – as if they were a drug addict,” Mehling said. “By the third day, by Wednesday, they said, ‘You know what? I feel relieved I don’t have my phone;’ especially the girls — they said they were released from drama.”

Full article here.

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