The Book Club Shelf

The Graveyard Book

So Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book" won the Newbery, and it wasn't even on my radar.  Well, I did have it on my amazon wishlist (where I put books I hear good things about but cannot find at the library or cannot afford at the time).  It turns out that he lives like 30 miles from me!  I'd go stalk him, but he's in California - strike that - New York for the Today show tomorrow.  I ordered a copy as soon as I was physically able this morning and it will arrive Wednesday.  We'll see if the copy I requested from the library arrives first.  From what I read today, it might very well be a good read-aloud with my students!  I don't know much (yet) about Mr. Gaiman, but I can only assume he's awesome after having read this, which he wrote WHILE it was being announced that he had JUST WON THE NEWBERY.

It is very interesting that our Cybil Committee did not select any of the Newbery honor books or winner.  There was a lot of love for Savvy and The Underneath, which were both nominees in our category.  My personal prediction was, apparently, WAY off.  If I am remembering correctly, (and I'm not going to go check just now) the Cybils haven't really matched up with the Newberies (Newberys?) each year.  I suppose partially because the Newbery crosses Cybil categories.  I think that just goes to show what a valuable resource the Cybils lists really are.  Sure, the Newbery book will be famous.  But there are dozens of other amazing titles each year, and the Cybils list is one really great way to find them.

I'll read TGB asap and post a review soon!

Newbery Excitement!

I've spent the morning browsing the various Newbery predictions (Fuse #8, SLJ Heavy Medal) and thought I'd log my own for the record.  I have read so many amazing books this year!  Here are my top ten:

Diamond Willow by Helen Frost (This is my personal prediction for the Newbery)
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson (Can I have two predictions?  I predict this will win every award there is including an Oscar and a Tony)
Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass
Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell
Ringside 1925: Views From the Scopes Trial by Jen Bryant
The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Grow by Juanita Havill
Clementine's Letter by Sara Pennypacker
Alvin Ho by Lenore Look
The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd

And here are the books I haven't yet read, which if they win will force me to stop what I am doing and immediately go buy a copy to read that minute:

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson
The Porcupine Year by Louise Erdrich
Octavian Nothing Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves by M.T. Anderson (actually I have a copy of this - no excuse, I need to read it.)

Cybils Finalists!

Our Middle Grade Fiction Cybils panel has decided on our finalists!  You can see all the finalists here.  It was an amazing experience - reading so many awesome books over the course of two and a half months and then trying to sort out the best among them.  I am extremely excited and proud of our final five.  They are all wonderful books I look forward to sharing with my students in the future.  I am also very proud of being part of the cybils awards.  I learned about the awards three years ago as part of an ongoing search for excellence in children's literature.  I still believe (and probably more so now) that the finalists - and all the nominees, really - are a wonderful resource for finding out about good books. 
Comparing books is obviously not an exact science.  There were dozens of great books nominated in our category!  Most of the titles were sent to us from the publishers, for which I am extremely grateful!
I present to you the Middle Grade Fiction Finalists - with my personal thoughts about them - followed by some of my other top favorites.  Please find a copy of these and enjoy!

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things by Lenore Look.  This book is hilarious from the start, and kept me laughing right through to the end.  If I were still teaching 3rd grade, I'd be already reading it aloud.  Sort of a Clementine or Just Grace for boys, kind of.

Diamond Willow by Helen Frost.  I've attempted to explain this one to a handful of people over new year's.  Every time, I end up saying, "Just trust me, it's awesome.  It's kind of hard to explain."  A girl takes her family's dog team out for the first time alone and gets in some trouble.  That's the closest I can come to a one-sentence explanation - if I try to explain more, it would take maybe twenty sentences.  Written in concrete-poetic diamond shapes with bolded sub(super?) texts.  See?  I don't even know how to explain it.

Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass. Three middle school students are brought together along with thousands of eclipse-chasers to witness a rare full solar eclipse. Told in the three voices of Ally, Bree & Jack, the alternating narrations are beautifully written and increasingly weave together. Ally (short for Alpha) and her family own the Moon Shadow campground, and have been preparing for their eclipse-chasing guests for years. Bree's parents have bought the Moon Shadow and are dragging her from city life to try running a campground. Jack is along for the ride as his science teacher's assistant in an amateur astronomy experiment they plan to run during the eclipse. Every Soul a Star offers three humorous and insightful journeys of self-discovery mixed with an intriguing dose of astronomy lessons.  Absolutely loved it.

Shooting the Moon Frances O'Roark Dowell.  I think I already posted about this, oh yeah: here.  Loved it.

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd.  Great mystery, curious characters, thrilling pace.  Two siblings work to find their missing cousin.  I really enjoyed this book, and was completely surprised by the ending.

  

Here are a few I wish we could have added to the list:

The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.  The Boy Who Dared is actually based on a true story of a Hitler Youth.  Helmuth lives in Nazi Germany and joins the Hitler youth, but is increasingly skeptical of their teachings.  He finds an illegal radio that brings in a British signal and uses it to learn about the truths of the war.  He recruits friends to help put up posters around town at night to alert people about the real war going on.  I really thought this was excellent - I am thinking about pairing it with Number the Stars when we learn about World War II in 5th grade next year.  The text includes an extended section at the back about the real boy with photos and documents about his life.

Grow by Juanita Havill, illustrated by Stanislawa Kodman.  I already posted about this book here.  I thought it was absolutely beautiful.

Clemetine's Letter by Sara Pennyacker.  I already posted about this here.  I thought this stood up brilliantly on its own, and was better than previous Clementines.  

My Dad's a Birdman by David Almond.  This was ridiculous and awesome.  You might have to be in a certain mood to appreciate the goofball humor.  It is full of British colloquialisms, which I actually found enjoyable to decipher.  Many have likened it to Roald Dahl, with good reason.  The off-the-wall humor and strange adults with mature children all match.  In addition, Polly Dunbar's illustrations are certainly reminiscent of Quentin Blake.  Possibly an aquired taste, but I enjoyed My Dad's a Birdman!

I'll add a few more later!

If you'd like to read about the short lists of my fellow panelists, click over to their weblogs!  (And may I add, it was an absolute pleasure and honor to work with such a tremendous team of readers and writers.  I learned a lot from them!)

Sarah Mulhem THE READING ZONE
Alysa Stewart EVEREAD
Mary R. Voors ACPL MOCK NEWBERY
Sherry Early SEMICOLON
Melissa Fox BOOK NUT
Kim Baccellia

Cicada Summer

Author: Andrea Beaty
Lexile Score: 840
Genre: Realistic Fiction/ Mystery/ Suspense
Maturity level: 4th grade (death of a sibling, older man chokes the main character)
Pages: 166   Chapters: 16   Pages per chapter: 10 
Theme: Death, secrets, judging other people's character
Project ideas: Research Cicadas
First Line:  Some people think Cicadas bring trouble when they come to town.
Main Character: Lily
Review in 25 words or less: The heart-pounding suspense is juxtaposed against the thoughtful intensity of the main character.  At times almost poetic; at other times, a race through gripping action!
Grade: A
Lily has witnessed her brother's death - and by describing it that way, I'm keeping the truth a secret just as she has from her father.  She has not spoken since the accident, but a new strange girl in town - Tinny - has found Lily out and threatens to disrupt her life in more ways than one.  Tinny's father has sent her to town so he can make a clean getaway after his crime spree - behavior Tinny has learned and put to no-good use as Lily watches silently and helplessly.  The pieces of the puzzle begin to come together like a Nancy Drew mystery for Lily - but will she figure it all out before Tinny's father's accomplice makes matters worse?
Cicada Summer is like a big basket of literacy fruit - some of the writing is very poetic and made me want to read and reread it:
    "The oil pulls in the moonlight and shimmers and swirls, inky and black and beautiful.  Oil on midnight water."
Other sections were pure suspense and the words raced toward an uncertain end.  Humor, too, was abounding in the words and actions of the elderly women Lily frequently visits.  All this mixed in with the absolute hatred I was feeling in empathy for Lily when Tinny would manipulate her and take advantage of her not speaking.  The book was such a mixed bag of emotions, and it made for a highly enjoyable read.
I think this would be a supremely excellent choice for book club or reader's workshop.  Students would have much to grapple with in discussion, and natural prediction points abound.  I have never lived with Cicadas, but I think knowing more about that sound would enhance the reading.

*Nominated for a 2008 Cybils Award in Middle Grade Fiction!  (The opinions shared here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my fellow panelists.)

Grow

Author: Juanita Havill
Illustrator: Stanislawa Kodman
Lexile Score: N/A
Genre: Realistic Fiction/ Verse Novel
Maturity level: 2nd grade
Pages: 159   Chapters: n/a - most poems are 1-3 pages long in about 14 point type
Theme: Gardening, growing, nature vs. industry
Project ideas: Plant a garden
First Line:  Saturday morning - Berneetha's voice booming - through the screen door - on the front porch: "I'm all fired up - and ready to go.  Who'll come with me?"
Main Character: Kate (young girl) Berneetha (older neighbor)
Review in 25 words or less: A sweet story - the tight, brimming verses fully paint the picture - although the brilliant illustrations help a lot!
Grade: A
Kate has a neighbor who is an out-of-work special education teacher.  Together, they plant a garden in an old man's vacant lot.  The garden seems to bring out the best in passers-by, until the man dies and his son decides to use the lot for a parking garage.  Together, the community finds a solution to the problem and cleans up some other ugliness along the way.  I read it in one gulp and enjoyed every second of it!  The illustrations were unbelievable.  There is one drawing in the book showing the sun looking down on a tomato plant that I had to stop and study for quite a while.  Kodman has a fascinating way of depicting images - they look like sketches at first glance, but a more careful study reveals them to be very planned out.  One interesting aspect of the writing that stood out to me is the way the darker subjects of death, family struggles, and theft are handled.  They seem to hit hard within one poem, then disappear with the start of the next poem.  It's almost like the book itself is the garden that takes your cares away and sets your mind on flowers and vegetables.

Do verse novels make a simple story feel like a much larger, deeper tale?  It doesn't seem like so much could happen in a book with only a few words per line, but this story encompasses all the happenings of an entire city block over the course of a growing season.  It reminded me a lot of Tracie Vaughn Zimmer's "Reaching for Sun" in that I could picture the summer days and the growing plants and the tangled emotions of the characters so vividly - and the fact that they are both verse novels.
I haven't read many verse novels - I'm sure less than ten.  "Out of the Dust" was my first introduction to the genre.  I haven't had a lot of experience with them as book club choices.  I do know that many struggling readers approach them as a breath of fresh air - (literally with more time and space to breathe on each page!) but I wonder how it would work in a discussion format.  Students would definitely need post-it notes on hand to mark their thoughts and pages, because events occur and change quickly.  They would need to be aware of their passing thoughts and mark them down to share later.  Where a chapter book chapter might have one main event to discuss, a verse novel could possibly have a dozen or more important thoughts over a 20 page section that could be talked about in book club.  I guess I am confessing here I have not considered the use of verse novels in the classroom.  Would a verse novel work read aloud?

*Nominated for a 2008 Cybils Award in Middle Grade Fiction!  (The opinions shared here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my fellow panelists.)

This Week's Reading List

Clementine's Letter

Author: Sara Pennypacker
Lexile Score: 600
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Maturity level: 2nd grade
Pages: 150   Chapters: 11   Average Chapter length: 14 pages (with illustrations)
Theme: Making people happy, Think before you act
Project ideas: Random acts of kindness
First Line:  "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of...ouch!"
Main Character: Clementine
Review in 25 words or less: As strong or stronger than the other titles in the series.  Unexpected in every way, an absolute delight!
Grade: A

I went into this expecting to enjoy it - as I had the original Clementine - but found out it was truly exceptional.  Yes, Sara Pennypacker has hit on a winning formula.  The magic now is, she has perfected it and used it to her advantage to truly transcend storytelling and actually create some meaning.  I don't remember the original book all that well, other than to say I remember my 3rd graders highly enjoyed it and so did I.  (I also remember the University instructor who happened to observe me reading it aloud and gave me some harsh feedback afterwards regarding the futility of read-alouds - that's another story for another post)  This latest Clementine installment sets out to accomplish more than a cute story.  There is a lesson here: our actions have consequences, and we should think that through before acting!

Clementine has a substitute teacher for a week, because her regular one is attending preperation for a possible Egypt trip - a trip Clementine can make or break with a letter of recommendation on his behalf.  (I think I remember this plot, WHEN IT WAS CALLED JUDY MOODY GOES TO COLLEGE.  OK that was harsh, but I couldn't resist.  They're actually not all that similar, other than the regular teacher is off on a teachers-only adventure) She can't figure out the rules of the sub, and gets into some mischief - this much we expect from Clementine.  Along the way, there are a few subplots involving doing nice things for her parents that go awry.  Her dad teaches her to think before she acts, and consider the consequences of what she does.  It's not as preachy as I'm making it sound, in fact, the moral sort of sneaks up on you.  I actually completely mis-guessed the ending, which was refreshing.  I should have guessed my wrong guess.  A rightful, wrongful prediction.  RIGHTFUL WRONGFUL SPOILER: I thought she would write the letter all mean, saying how he was a crummy teacher and had bad breath, and the judges would see through it, and award him the trip based on how obviously the students DIDN'T want him to go.  That would have been the cute ending Mr. W would have written.  the spoiler is that THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

I should write reviews on Very Little Sleep more often.  This was fun - but not as fun as reading Clementine's Letter - it is a treat.  (and thus, this post gets some special graphic treatment!)

*Nominated for a 2008 Cybils Award in Middle Grade Fiction!

Ringside 1925: Views from the Scopes Trial

Author: Jen Bryant
Lexile Score: n/a
Genre: Historical Fiction - Verse Novel
Maturity level: 5th grade (nothing risky here, just a bit more intellectual)
Pages: 223   Chapters: not really chapters - seven "parts"
Theme: religion vs. science
Project ideas: Draw pictures of the people telling the story (I found myself wishing these were included)
First Line:  Several quotes, and each character has his/her first poem, but it starts with Peter Sykes, who says: That morning, Jimmy and me had hiked clear to Connor's pond, halfway up the mountain, and back again.
Main Character: J.T. Scopes, William Jennings Bryan, and Clarence Darrow.  But the story is told by nince fictional characters, who really play the main roles.
Review in 25 words or less: Not since Out of the Dust have I learned so much and been so delighted with a verse novel.  Bryant teaches and entertains creatively & completely in Ringside: 1925.
Grade: A
Told in verse form, this is the story of nine fictional residents of Dayton, Tennessee who lived through the famous Scopes Monkey trial.  Each person takes turns telling his or her story as they piece together the actual events of the arrest, trial, and verdict.  We get to listen to their thoughts as they work out their own uncertainties regarding evolution and faith.  As hey dialogue with  both each other and with the historical characters of the trial, we read a more complete recounting of the event - not just of facts, but of emotions, too.
I absolutely loved this book.  It was amazingly well-thought-out, with intriguing story lines developed for each character.  It tells the historical details of the trial completely, even including (I assume) accurate quotes from the various players.  It also presents all sides of the arguments by pitting the fictional characters of Dayton against each other in thoughts and actions.  The writing is very strong, not a single poem is unnecessary or off-task.  And even though the purpose is to tell the story of the trial, the stories of the characters are also fully developed, interesting, and fun.  One example: There are two younger boys who earn money running errands for tourists, judges, and others.  Their friendship begins to erode as they rehearse their biblical and scientific beliefs with each other.  Jen Bryant has done such a wonderful job imagining how these conversations might sound at all levels of intellect and wisdom.  She has taken the scholarly rants of Bryan and Darrow, and then reconstructed them for the mouths of her characters.  The arguments were emotional then, and still get plenty of airtime today - making this book highly significant. 
It would be a wonderful book for a book club.  It would also be perfect paired with a study of evolution, or a discussion (at higher academic levels or church settings) of religion and evolution.  I wonder: there has been much debate on this topic of teaching evolution in schools.  Would there be similar debate over the teaching of the history of this trial?

Jeremy Cabbage and the Living Museum of Human Oddballs and Quadruped Delights

Author: David Elliott
Lexile Score: 830 (how are made-up words scored?)
Genre: Fantasy, Surrealism, Allegory,
Maturity level: 3rd grade
Pages: 307   Chapters: 50 Average Chapter Length: 6 pages
Theme: Redemption, Happiness, Family
Project ideas:
First Line:  "He'll do," the woman said, pointing to Jeremy.
Main Character: Jeremy Cabbage - also, to a lesser extent, the Baron's daughter's nanny
Review in 25 words or less: A real curiosity, this.  Set in a fully developed alternate world of unusual occurrences and strange names, I cheer for Jeremy as I struggled through it.
Grade: B
Jeremy Cabbage lives in an alternate world, run by a dictatorial Baron.  He is adopted bought by three succeeding families, the third being a group of clowns Cloons that finally have the capacity to love him and care for him.  The Baron tried to press his authority by sending cars through town blaring moral soundbites and ridding the city of groups he (or his wife) deem unfit - especially the Cloons.

Although orphan-beats-the-system stories are a bit cliche, This one started out strong.  You know all along that Jeremy only gets three chances for adoption, so you are really excited when, on his third try, he is brought home by two cloons.  The story of the Baron's daughter's nanny is woven throughout, helping to clearly define the line between the outcasts vs. the ruling class.  The main concept of the story is great, and works well.  There are many ideas here, making this book very complex, and discussion-rich.  While I would not put this at the top of my list, I do think it would make a good book club choice for students to help each other decipher.

*Note:  Unfortunately Read Roger brought my attention to this chart when I was about a third of the way through Jeremy Cabbage: (click to link to the original source)

 

I had trouble shaking this thought as I plowed through the many invented spellings and names throughout this book. 

*Nominated for a 2008 Cybils Award in Middle Grade Fiction!

Cybils!

Awesome.

I was selected to participate in the 3rd annual Cybils awards selection process as a panelist for middle grade fiction!  I am feeling very humble after browsing the brilliant weblogs of my fellow panelists:

Sarah Mulhern (the Reading Zone)
Alysa Stewart (Everead)
Mary R. Voors (ACPL Mock Newbery)
Sherry Early (Semicolon)
Kim Baccellia (Si, se puede! Yes we can)
Melissa Fox (Book Nut)

Together, we will sift through the nominated titles (last year's MG list was 70+?) and narrow them down to a more manageable list, from which the winner will be chosen by the second-round judges.  Rereading the list of nominees from last year was like looking at a list of some of my favorite books!  I am really looking forward to the process.  If you know of a great book, nominations open October 1st!