A
great way to find interesting books to read is to take a look at the
bulletin board displays at the back of the IMC. Each year I pick a
theme for each board and rotate displays throughout the year. This
year the board nearest the Exit Only door is entitled Read Across the
U.S. A. Each month a different section of the United States will be
displayed with books about that region. To kick off this display I
have chosen our home state of Illinois. Books, fiction and
nonfiction, are on display. You might find a book by Richard Peck
like A Long Way from Chicago about shotgun-toting Grandma Dowdel OR
the intriguing art thief mystery Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett OR an new book,
Cold Fury by T.M. Goeglein, about a girl on the run from the Mafia
hiding in Chicago.
The
bulletin board behind my desk is entitled Fiction Based on.... Each
quarter I will choose a different concept to highlight. For first
quarter the books are based on fairy tales. They might be retellings
of favorite tales like Donna Jo Napoli's Beast (based on Beauty and
the Beast). Or they might be sequels or follow-up stories like Gary
D. Schmidt's Straw into Gold (based on Rumpelstiltskin). Or they
might be a story fairy tales are woven into the story like Penny
Blubaugh's Serendipity Market (where fairy tales told by side
characters can save the world) OR Michael Buckley's The Fairy Tale
Detectives (where fairy tale characters help to solve a crime).
Keep
your eyes on these changing displays for new ideas of books to read.
In
S. A. Bodeen's book The Raft, Robie finds herself in a terrifying
survival situation. Robie often travels from the small Pacific island
where her parents live and work to Honolulu to stay with her aunt and
enjoy the big-city life. On one of these trips Robie makes a quick
decision to return to her parents on a cargo pane without telling
anyone her plans. During the flight a storm comes up and causes the
plane to crash. The pilot is killed and Robie is pulled into a life
raft by the copilot Max. The raft has no water. There is a bag of
Skittles as the only food. And there are sharks. With no sign of help
on the way, Robie is really scared.
