Wednesday, September 28, 2011

After Ever After




I can not wait to read this book, having so enjoyed Drums, Girls, & Dangerous Pie ! Below is a review of After Ever After by Jordan Sonnenblick, from the MSBA Book Buzz blog http://msbabookbuzz.wordpress.com/

With his cancer having been in remission for five years, Jeffrey enters the eighth grade assuming it’ll be like any other year for him and his best friend Tad, also a cancer survivor. Though his older brother, Stephen, who has always been his hero is off traveling around Africa, everything else seems like it’ll be more of the same: dealing with learning difficulties caused by his cancer treatment, hanging out with the bitingly sarcastic Tad and training for a bike ride he does to benefit cancer research every year.

Enter Lindsey, a new girl from California, who arrives at Jeff’s school and proceeds to begin turning his world upside down. Then add an impossible new testing requirement that Jeff has to pass to make it to high school and Tad’s sudden determination to walk across the stage at graduation (he’s been in a wheelchair for several years) and you’ve got all the makings of one crazy year for Jeff.

A lot is packed into this sequel to 2005′s Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie. Luckily, the author has created a sympathetic, thoughtful, realistic narrator and has filled this work of contemporary fiction with plenty of authentic dialogue. No doubt, there is real sadness here, the kind that leaves you thinking about the story long after it’s ended, but it’s balanced with humor and silliness that creates a life-like picture of the turbulence many people affected by a serious illness experience. -Brooke, McArthur Teen Librarian

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Books Available for Sale at MVE!

I was very happy to find five Maine Student Book Awards titles available for sale at the Mount View Elementary PTC Book Fair going on this week! Look for these displayed along with the list on the back set of bookcases:

*My Life as a Book

*We The Children (Keepers of the School)

*The Batboy

*The Red Pyramid

*The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda

*Guys Read: Funny Business

*The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester

*Spilling Ink

*Out of my Mind

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Out of My Mind


I personally can not recommend this book highly enough!

And from the School Library Journal:
Starred Review. Grade 4–6—Born with cerebral palsy, Melody, 10, has never spoken a word. She is a brilliant fifth grader trapped in an uncontrollable body. Her world is enhanced by insight and intellect, but gypped by physical limitations and misunderstandings. She will never sing or dance, talk on the phone, or whisper secrets to her friends. She's not complaining, though; she's planning and fighting the odds. In her court are family, good neighbors, and an attentive student teacher. Pitted against her is the "normal" world: schools with limited resources, cliquish girls, superficial assumptions, and her own disability. Melody's life is tragically complicated. She is mainly placed in the special-ed classroom where education means being babysat in a room with replayed cartoons and nursery tunes. Her supportive family sets her up with a computer. She learns the strength of thumbs as she taps on a special keyboard that finally lets her "talk." When she is transitioned into the regular classroom, Melody's undeniable contribution enables her class to make it to the national quiz team finals. Then something happens that causes her to miss the finals, and she is devastated by her classmates' actions. Kids will benefit from being introduced to Melody and her gutsy, candid, and compelling story. It speaks volumes and reveals the quiet strength and fortitude it takes to overcome disabilities and the misconceptions that go with them. by Alison Follos, North Country School, Lake Placid, NY Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Reviews

Remember, if you read one of the MSBA books mentioned in a post here, you can write your opinions and reviews in the "comments" section beneath!

You can also submit your review to the MSBA Book Buzz Blog by filling out their form here

Monday, August 29, 2011

Books to Borrow

Teachers, these are the books I currently have available for read-aloud or to loan out:

*The Strange Case of Origami Yoda

*We the Children (Benjamin Pratt and the Keepers of the School)

*Out of My Mind

*A Tale Dark & Grimm

*The Batboy

*The Sixty-Eight Rooms

*The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester

*Cloud Tea Monkeys

*The Red Pyramid

*Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Letter to MVE 4th & 5th Grade Teachers:

This school year, all 4th & 5th grade Mount View Elementary School students are invited to take part in the MSBA program, which will run through March 2012, with the students then voting in April for their favorite book from the list. As the school year gets underway, I expect the program to be a part of the students’ regular library time coordinated by Ms. Harrington, but I am also available to individual classrooms to schedule book discussions, read alouds, or help with students’ reading. Along the way will be several engaging activities, including a “Battle of the Books”!

Thursday, August 4, 2011

We the Children (Benjamin Pratt and the Keepers of the School)




Benjamin Pratt’s school is about to become the site of a new amusement park. It sounds like a dream come true! But lately, Ben has been wondering if he’s going to like an amusement park in the middle of his town—with all the buses and traffic and eight dollar slices of pizza. It’s going to change everything. And, Ben is not so big on all the new changes in his life, like how his dad has moved out and started living in the marina on what used to be the "family” sailboat. Maybe it would be nice if the school just stayed as it is. He likes the school. Loves it, actually. It’s over 200 years old and sits right on the harbor. The playground has ocean breezes and the classrooms have million dollar views. And after a chance—and final—run-in with the school janitor, Ben starts to discover that these million dollar views have a lot to do with the deal to sell the school property. But, as much as the town wants to believe it, the school does not belong to the local government. It belongs to the children and these children have the right to defend it!

Monday, August 1, 2011

The Search for Wondla



Written by Tony DiTerlizzi? What else needs to be said, other than I'm very anxious to read the second book of the series when it's released in the Spring of 2012!


From the School Library Journal:

Gr 5-8–Twelve-year-old Eva Nine is being raised by Muthr, a pale blue robot who is loving and maternal (she speaks in the sweet, unflappable tones of a 1950s sit-com mom), in an underground home on the planet Orbona. When a marauder destroys her home, she leaves Sanctuary in a quest to find other humans like herself. Aboveground she finds a fantastic and frightening world populated by malevolent wandering trees, a giant beast who is pursuing her, nasty sand-snipers, and more. With the aid of Rovender, a lanky blue creature with backward-bending knees, and Otto, a giant water bear with whom she can communicate telepathically, Eva faces many dangers, including capture by a taxidermist who wants to skin her in order to create a living fossil for display. This first book in the series concludes with her arrival at her destination in the ancient city of ruins. The abundant illustrations, drawn in a flat, two-tone style, are lush and enhance readers' understanding of this unique universe. In addition, augmented reality is used in three places. By holding up the page from the book to a webcam, an interactive map appears on the screen. Readers can watch as the landscape where Eva Nine is traveling unfolds. DiTerlizzi is pushing the envelope in his latest work, nearly creating a new format that combines a traditional novel with a graphic novel and with the interactivity of the computer. Yet, beneath this impressive package lies a theme readers will easily relate to: the need to belong, to connect, to figure out one's place in the world. The novel's ending is a stunning shocker that will leave kids frantically awaiting the next installment. -Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME© Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda


In this funny, uncannily wise portrait of the dynamics of a sixth-grade class and of the greatness that sometimes comes in unlikely packages, Dwight, a loser, talks to his classmates via an origami finger puppet of Yoda. If that weren’t strange enough, the puppet is uncannily wise and prescient. Origami Yoda predicts the date of a pop quiz, guesses who stole the classroom Shakespeare bust, and saves a classmate from popularity-crushing embarrassment with some well-timed advice. Dwight’s classmate Tommy wonders how Yoda can be so smart when Dwight himself is so clueless. With contributions from his puzzled classmates, he assembles the case file that forms this novel.

Friday, July 15, 2011

A Tale Dark and Grimm



Review from the School Library Journal:
Gr 3 Up–Starred Review. With disarming delicacy and unexpected good cheer, Gidwitz reweaves some of the most shocking and bloody stories that the Brothers Grimm collected into a novel that's almost addictively compelling. He gives fair warning that this is no prettified, animated version of the old stories. “Are there any small children in the room now?” he asks midway through the first tale, “If so, it would be best if we just...hurried them off to bed. Because this is where things start to get, well...awesome.” Many of humanity's least attractive, primal emotions are on display: greed, jealousy, lust, and cowardice. But, mostly it's the unspeakable betrayal by bad parents and their children's journey to maturation and forgiveness that are at the heart of the book. Anyone who's ever questioned why Hansel and Gretel's father is so readily complicit in their probable deaths and why the brother and sister, nonetheless, return home after their harrowing travails will find satisfying explanations here. Gidwitz is terrifying and funny at the same time. His storytelling is so assured that it's hard to believe this is his debut novel. And his treatment of the Grimms' tales is a whole new thing. It's equally easy to imagine parents keeping their kids up late so they can read just one more chapter aloud, kids finishing it off under the covers with a flashlight, and parents sneaking into their kids' rooms to grab it off the nightstand and finish it themselves. –Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Public Library, NYα(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.

Friday, July 1, 2011

The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester

Owen Jester has captured the biggest, greenest, slimiest, most beautiful bullfrog ever to be seen in Carter, Georgia. He has named it Tooley Graham, and he has built a swell cage for it in his bedroom. Owen is very happy. But Tooley is not. In fact, according to Owen’s snoopy, know-it-all neighbor, Viola, the frog is downright sad. But this is not Owen’s fantastic secret. That arrives the night he hears something fall off a passing train, and when he discovers what it is, he has a genuine, bona fide fantastic secret, which may not be revealed here. Suffice it to say, it launches an adventure involving Owen, his two best friends, and (shudder) Viola. O’Connor’s latest—with her signature southern setting—is diverting, though it lacks suspense, and at times the characters seem less strongly realized than in her other works. Nevertheless, the story is smoothly written, the secret is ingenious and believable, and who can resist a frog named Tooley Graham?

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Belfast Free Library

I'm sending out a big THANK YOU to the Belfast Free Library who will be loaning us the multiple copies of select titles to get us started this summer! Please do not forget that these books must be returned to me by the conclusion of the summer program, August 17th. The books will thereafter be available at the Belfast Library. And, to make it easy for you to borrow those books, or any others, as part of the summer reading program I will be sending home parental permission slips for students to register for their own cards at the Belfast Library. (these are not required to be in the program, I'm just happy to offer the opportunity!)

If it seems to be in our schedule, I would love to take a field trip to the Belfast Free Library with everyone!

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Dark Emperor





Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night



Like Sidman's Caldecott Honor Book, Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems (2005), this picture book combines lyrical poetry and compelling art with science concepts. Here, poems about the woods at night reveal exciting biology facts that are explained in long notes on each double-page spread. In a poem about crickets, lines describe “the raucous scrape / of wing against wing,” while a prose passage explains that the cricket's wing has a serrated “file,” which the cricket rubs against a hard “scraper” on its other wing to attract a mate, creating a sound called “stridulation” that can swell to deafening levels. The facts are further reinforced in the accompanying picture, which shows the small file on a cricket's wing. In an opening note, Allen explains his elaborate, linoleum-block printmaking technique, and each atmospheric image shows the creatures and the dense, dark forest with astonishing clarity. Looking closely at a picture of a snail, for example, readers will see the physical detail, described in an adjacent poem, in the small animals' moist, sluglike bodies, “riding on a cushion of slime.” The thrilling title poem captures the drama of predator and prey: a mouse in the undergrowth flees an owl's “hooked face and / hungry eye.” A final glossary concludes this excellent, cross-curricular title.


Friday, June 24, 2011

Portland Sea Dogs

Another super fun donation for the Mount View Elementary MSBA Readers Summer Program, from the Portland Sea Dogs... vouchers for tickets to select games!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Old Fort Western

The wonderful folks at Old Fort Western in Augusta have donated some visitor passes for participants in the Mount View Elementary MSBA Summer Readers program! Thank you so much!

Monday, June 20, 2011

Cloud Tea Monkeys


Cloud Tea Monkeys In this original tale, inspired by a Himalayan legend, young Tashi befriends some wild monkeys near the tea plantation where her mother picks tea leaves. When her mother becomes ill and unable to work, the monkeys come to the girl’s rescue. Vividly illustrated and beautifully written with descriptive details.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Facebook Page

Everyone has a facebook page these days (I actually have a few), so why not the Mount View Elementary MSBA Readers too?

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Summer Reading Program

To kick things off a little early, I will be leading a MSBA group during the Summer Reading Program, at the Mount View Elementary School Library. We will meet Wednesdays from 2pm-3pm, July 6th through August 17th. I have selected the following titles to have available for us to choose from at the first meetings, but you are free to pick another title from the list at any time!

Cloud Tea Monkeys (Mal Peet)
Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night (Joyce Sidman)
The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester  (Barbara O'Connor)
The Sixty-Eight Rooms (Marianne Malone) 
A Tale Dark and Grimm (Adam Gidwitz)

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Maine Student Book Awards at Mount View Elementary!

I am honored to be leading the book group at Mount View Elementary School for the 2011-2012 Maine Student Book Awards! The program will run through March 2012, with the students then voting in April for their favorite book from the list. The students in the program will be from fourth and fifth grades. I thought this blog might be a good way to keep us in touch!