2013

Hooray!! Voting is now open for the 2012-2013 Maine Student Book Award list. http://www.mainestudentbookaward.org


Please consider submitting a Book Review (using the form on the MSBA website)  to let the committee know about the great books you read!

Small as an Elephant...student review

Book Review: Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Jacobson

by msbabookbuzz

Jack and his mom go on a camping trip at Acadia National Park in Maine. When Jack wakes up...his mom is gone! He stays at the camp ground for a few days, then leaves to go back home because school has started. Along the way he plans to see his favorite of animals, the elephant. In Maine? Yes, he knows right where to find one...but will he make it? And where is his mom?

His journey is an adventurous, heart warming story. With sad parts and happy parts, it's one of my favorite books. I recommend it for the 2012 MSBA list (and to everyone else in the world).

I loved it! I loved seeing how Jack took care of himself and tried to keep everyone from finding out about his mom. I think it is geared for 4th, 5th and 6th graders, but I would recommend it to everyone.

by Maggie B., 5th Grade

Wonderstruck!

On the 2012/2013 Reading List:

Playing with the form he created in his trailblazing debut novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick once again sails into uncharted territory and takes readers on an awe-inspiring journey. Ben and Rose secretly wish their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he has never known. Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his mother's room and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out alone on desperate quests to find what they are missing. Set fifty years apart, these two independent stories...Ben's told in words, Rose's in pictures...weave back and forth with mesmerizing symmetry. How they unfold and ultimately intertwine will surprise you, challenge you, and leave you breathless with wonder. Rich, complex, affecting, and beautiful...with over 460 pages of original artwork... Wonderstruck is a stunning achievement from a uniquely gifted artist and visionary.

Lost Trail : Nine Days Alone in the Wilderness

On the 2012/2013 Reading List:

Donn Fendler's harrowing story of being lost in the Maine wilderness when he was just twelve, was made famous by the perennial best-seller, Lost on a Mountain in Maine. In Lost Trail, more than 70 years after the event, Donn tells the story of survival and rescue from his own perspective. Lost Trail is a masterfully illustrated graphic novel that tells the story of a twelve year old boyscout from a New York City suburb who climbs Maine's mile-high Mt. Katahdin and in a sudden storm is separated from his friends and family. What follows is a nine-day adventure, in which Donn, lost and alone in the Maine wilderness with bugs, bears, and only a few berries to eat, struggles for survival.

2012/2013 MSBA Reading List

2012-2013 Reading List (all books are 2011 copyright)

Aronson, Sarah. - Beyond Lucky

Barrow, Randi G. - Saving Zasha.

Bragg, Georgia - How They Croaked : The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous

Davies, Stephen - Outlaw : a Novel

Denenberg, Barry - Titanic Sinks!

Duble, Kathleen Benner - Phantoms in the Snow

Ellis, Deborah - No Ordinary Day

Fendler, Donn with Lynne Plourde - Lost Trail : Nine Days Alone in the Wilderness

Fleming, Candace - Amelia Lost : The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart

Frost, Helen - Hidden

Gantos, Jack - Dead End in Norvelt

Greenwald, Tom - Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Reading

Gutman, Dan - Mission Unstoppable (The Genius Files)

Hannigan, Katherine - True (..sort of)

Hartley, A. J. (Andrew James) - Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact

Hilmo, Tess - With a Name Like Love

Jacobson, Jennifer Richard - Small as an Elephant

Jeffrey, Mark - Max Quick : The Pocket and the Pendant

Kang, Hildi - Chengli and the Silk Road Caravan

Kessler, Liz - A Year Without Autumn

Kozlowsky, M. P. - Juniper Berry

Larson, Kirby - The Friendship Doll

Lewis, Gill - Wild Wings

Luper, Eric - Jeremy Bender vs. the Cupcake Cadets

Magoon, Kekla - Camo Girl

McMann, Lisa - The Unwanteds

Nelson, Kadir - Heart and Soul : The Story of America and African Americans

Neri, Greg - Ghetto Cowboy : A Novel

O'Dell, Kathleen - The Aviary

Oliver, Lauren - Liesl & Po

Oppel, Kenneth - This Dark Endeavor : The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein

Santat, Dan - Sidekicks

Schmatz, Pat - Bluefish

Schmidt, Gary D. - Okay For Now

Selznick, Brian - Wonderstruck : Novel in Words and Pictures

Shang, Wendy Wan Long - The Great Wall of Lucy Wu

Stanley, Diane - The Silver Bowl

Thomson, Sarah L. - Mercy : The Last New England Vampire

Van Draanen, Wendelin - The Running Dream

Weissman, Elissa Brent - Nerd Camp

MSBA 2012 Winner!

The winner is... Smile by Raina Telgemeier - 746
Second: Out of my Mind by Sharon M. Draper - 379 votes
Third: The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan - 365 votes

Voting This Week!

I'll be in the Mount View Elementray Library today and tomorrow to help Mrs. Harrington collect the MSBA votes from the 5th grades! I don't know about you, but I'm very excited!

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

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

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.

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

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

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”!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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?

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!

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.