SPRING BREAK

I'm looking forward to a long week of sleeping in (anything after 5 AM is great) and finishing several great books that I've started. I'm halfway through Rick Riordan's The Mark of Athena, the last book in the Lost Olympian series. I am al;o about halfway through Kat Falls's Rip Tide, the sequel to this year's Caudill nominee Dark Life. It's really exciting. I have just started a book from the Abraham Lincoln Award list - Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. It's a science fiction book about a teenage computer hacker who is detained by Homeland Security after the Bay Bridge in San Francisco is blow up by terrorists. I'll be able to tell you more about these books after spring break. I hope you will also find time to enjoy a great book over break. Let me know what you're reading.

HOLOCAUST BOOKS

As I am preparing for book talks next week to the 8th grade regular LA classes as part of their Diary of Anne Frank unit, I have realized how many excellent Holocaust books we have in our collection. Among the non-fiction books, I think my favorite is Barbara Rogasky's Smoke and Ashes; The Story of the Holocaust which is an overview beginning with the origins of Jewish persecution in the early years of Christianity and ending with the Nuremburg trials and justice.

In the fiction section the choice is more difficult. I really like Susan Campbell Bartoletti's The Boy Who Dared and Paul Dowswell's The Auslander. These books are about German boys who saw what was happening and worked to try and stop it. Michael Morpurgo's The Mozart Question and Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic give us stories about what it was like inside the concentration camps. Lois Lowry's Number the Stars tells how sympathetic families tried to protect Jews. Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed shows what life was like inside the Warsaw Ghetto. And finally, Joan M. Wolf's Someone Named Eva and Donna Jo Napoli's Stones in Water show how poorly people of Germany's allies and conquered countries were treated. The students next week will have many fine books to choose for their project.

SURVIVAL IN THE NEAR FUTURE

In Mike Mullin's new book Ashfall, the world is dramatically changed when the supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park erupts. The thick ash falls as far as Iowa and Illinois cutting off power and causing many buildings to collapse. Alex, alone for the weekend, has to deal with the changes by himself. He soon realizes that if he wants to see his family again, he will have to follow them if he can. Along his journey he finds people who want to kill him for his meager supplies and a few people who actually want to help him. This is a story of survival that could be in our future as there really is a volcano caldera under Yellowstone National Park and according to geologists, it is erupt at any time!

BOOKS I LOVE

That's the theme of one of the IMC bulletin boards this month. I have asked teachers and students to share their favorite books. On each suggested book the teacher 's or student's name is written in a heart attached to the book and then the book is added to the display. So far teachers have recommended these books:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Shexie Sherman

Cinder, by Marissa Meyer

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, by Jordan Sonnenblick

Every Soul a Star, by Wendy Mass

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler, by E. L. Konigsburg

The Giver, by Lois Lowry

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, by Wendy Mass

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle

Students have recommended these books:

Peak, by Roland Smith

The Ruins of Gorlan, by John Flanagan

The White Giraffe, by Lauren St. John

You, by Charles Benoit

There is still plenty of bulletin board space to add your favorite book to this excellent collection. See me before the end of the month with your book suggestion.