This book by Barbara O'Connor caught my eye on the Anderson's Mock Newbery list for 2009. I finally found time to read it this week during lunch. The story takes place in a motel off the main highway tucked in the hills of North Carolina. Aggie who has run the motel for many years with her husband Harold now deceased is facing having to sell the motel and move in with her sister in Raleigh. Willow and her dad buy the motel but Willow hates moving there now that her mom has left the family. Kirby and his mom are now their way to a school for problem children when their car breaks down and they stay at the motel. Loretta and her parents arrive at the motel on a search for the places Loretta's birth mother may have visited in the area. These unlikely and unhappy people find new meaning for their lives at the motel. The story is told in alternating chapters by each of the four main characters so the reader has the opportunity to see the changes in each life as they occur. I hope you will have a chance to stop at the Sleepy Time Motel and meet Aggie, Willow, Kirby, and Loretta, too.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Greetings from Nowhere
This book by Barbara O'Connor caught my eye on the Anderson's Mock Newbery list for 2009. I finally found time to read it this week during lunch. The story takes place in a motel off the main highway tucked in the hills of North Carolina. Aggie who has run the motel for many years with her husband Harold now deceased is facing having to sell the motel and move in with her sister in Raleigh. Willow and her dad buy the motel but Willow hates moving there now that her mom has left the family. Kirby and his mom are now their way to a school for problem children when their car breaks down and they stay at the motel. Loretta and her parents arrive at the motel on a search for the places Loretta's birth mother may have visited in the area. These unlikely and unhappy people find new meaning for their lives at the motel. The story is told in alternating chapters by each of the four main characters so the reader has the opportunity to see the changes in each life as they occur. I hope you will have a chance to stop at the Sleepy Time Motel and meet Aggie, Willow, Kirby, and Loretta, too.
Friday, November 5, 2010
More New Books
I have some great new books for you that were added to the IMC collection this week.
First, if you liked the Richard Peck books A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder, you would probably agree that Grandma Dowdel really makes those stories funny. Now Peck has a new Grandma Dowdel story called A Season of Gifts. In this story Grandma Dowdel has new neighbors, a preacher's family, who are having a hard time adjusting to their new home, especially with Grandma Dowdel's spooky house next door.
A new addition by Andrew Clements is called No Talking. The boys and girls in Mrs. Overby's class just don't get along. AND the boys are always LOUD! Friction between the boys and girls leads to a bet to see who can be silent the longest. What will school be like with No Talking.
Competition is fierce in Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's new book Science Fair. Add in a $5,000 prize, a plot to destroy the United States, a pair of bumbling spies, and a very nervous frog and you hav
e a hilarious book with danger and suspense. 
Two books that I blogged this summer are now ready for checkout - Shannon Hale's Book of a Thousand Days about two girls walled up in a tower who have to rescue themselves and Ridley Pearson's The Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark where holographic images of five teens have to defend Disney World and the whole world against Disney villains and witches come to life.
All these new books are available in the New Book Section by the windows.
First, if you liked the Richard Peck books A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder, you would probably agree that Grandma Dowdel really makes those stories funny. Now Peck has a new Grandma Dowdel story called A Season of Gifts. In this story Grandma Dowdel has new neighbors, a preacher's family, who are having a hard time adjusting to their new home, especially with Grandma Dowdel's spooky house next door.
A new addition by Andrew Clements is called No Talking. The boys and girls in Mrs. Overby's class just don't get along. AND the boys are always LOUD! Friction between the boys and girls leads to a bet to see who can be silent the longest. What will school be like with No Talking.
Competition is fierce in Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's new book Science Fair. Add in a $5,000 prize, a plot to destroy the United States, a pair of bumbling spies, and a very nervous frog and you hav
e a hilarious book with danger and suspense. 
Two books that I blogged this summer are now ready for checkout - Shannon Hale's Book of a Thousand Days about two girls walled up in a tower who have to rescue themselves and Ridley Pearson's The Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark where holographic images of five teens have to defend Disney World and the whole world against Disney villains and witches come to life.
All these new books are available in the New Book Section by the windows.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)