Lakeview Choices for Caudill Award

The Lakeview results are in for the 2010 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award. If any of you have missed the 2010 nominees, here is a short description of the top three at Lakeview.

In third place -- Someone Named Eva, by Joan M. Wolf. In 1942 during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German soldiers would round up residents of a town and search through the children for those who met the Arryan ideal - blond hair, blue eyes, etc. These children, like Milada in the book, were sent to special schools where they were brainwashed to forget their families and were trained to become good German children who were then adopted by Nazi families and raised as their own. Milada struggles to remember her real family and heritage and resist the branwashing, hoping to be rescued and return to her Czech family.

In second place -- All the Lovely Bad Ones, by Mary Downing Hahn. This is a ghost story that takes place in a Vermont inn run by Travis and Corey's grandmother. There is a legend that the inn is haunted. Travis and Corey decide to bring the haunting to life by faking sightings of ghosts. Unfortunately there really are ghosts and they don't like being faked. This book really scared me as it explains the story behind the ghosts and why they never found eternal peace.

In first place -- Shark Girl, by Kelly L. Bingham. This story is taken from the headlines of sharks attacking people. Jane loses her right arm in a shark attack and has to learn to live her life with only one arm. She tells her story in poetry form as she is frustrated, angry, and feed up with people telling her that she will adjust to her new life.

In about 2 weeks we will hear which of the 20 nominated books is the official statewide winner. As you can see from these short descriptions of only 3 of the twenty nominated books, there are some great reads in this year's list. The 2010 Caudill nominees will remain on display on top of the bookcase by my desk for the rest of the school year. Please stop by and read as many as you can.

Caudill Nominees 2011

While students are deciding which book is their choice for the 2010 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award, the IMC already has the nominee list for 2011. The IMC has 5 of the 20 nominated books and 2 more are in processing. I just today ordered a complete set of all 20 nominees. We will get the books shelf-ready as soon as they arrive so students who want a head start can do so before the end of this school year.

The 2011 list looks to be another great list of books to read. I have already read 6 of these new nominees and I am looking forward to reading the rest this summer. The following is the link to the Award website where you can view the 2011 list.

http://www.rcyrba.org/

Mysteries Galore

Many of our new books during 2009 were mysteries - some in series and some individual. Blood Trail, by Nancy Springer, stirred a lot of interest today when I read the first paragraph from in the inside front cover. That paragraph included the words "last words" and "murder."

The 39 Clues series follows the adventures of a brother and sister who are trying to collect all the clues to a family treasure before other teams of family members. Since each book is written by a diferent young adult author, I have decided to give this series a generic call number FIC THI so all the books will be in the same place on the shelf.

The Samaurai Mysteries by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler show how Seikei realizes his life's dream to become a samurai warrior by helping solve mysteries with his adopted father.

The Enola Holmes Mysteries by Nancy Springer, propose a younger sister to the famous detective Sherlock Holmes who wants to make a name for herself as a detective.

There are psychic mysteries in the Gilda Joyce books by Jennifer Allison as Gilda tries to contact the spirits of dead people.

And my favorite is the Mysteries in the National Parks series by Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson. Each book takes place in a different national park. We currently have four of the series - Rage of Fire set in Hawaii, Cliff-Hanger set in Mesa Verde (and my personal favorite because I was there), Deadly Waters set in the Everglades, and Escape from Fear set in the Virgin Islands.

Remember Love That Dog

I hope many of you have read Sharon Creech's book Love That Dog. In it Jack is a high school student whose English class is studying poetry. At the beginning he claims he wants nothing to do with poetry, but over the course of the story he realizes that poetry is an interesting way to communicate. He studies various famous poems and is then able to write his own poetry based on his dog. What was unique about that book is that it is written in a series of poems, some taking the specific form of famous poems.

Now there is a sequel - Hate That Cat. A year has passed and Jack's English class is again studying poetry. He decides to write poems about his hatred of cats only to find out that his teacher loves cats. Once again famous poems appear in the story and a variety of poetry styles are used to tell Jack's story.

If you haven't read the first book, Hate That Cat may be a bit confusing. Both books are short and quick to read, so be sure to enjoy both of them. Hate That Cat is currently in the New Book section in the wall bookshelves.