The Mark Twain Award Nominees have held down my night stand this summer. With a goal to have them finished before school started this year, I've squeezed in the M.T. books between our summer activities, mine and Mason's reading list, the suggestions from Miss Angie in the office, my own desire to read the Book Whisperer's sequel, Reading in the Wild, and those books that I just never get around to reading during the school year.
I new without a doubt I would enjoy Moo by Sharon Creech. There isn't a book she has written that I haven't completely enjoyed. So it was finished before the first warm breeze of June. Unbound, by Ann E Burg, accidentally arrived in CD form but I was so glad it did. With it being a novel in verse, it was a delight to listen to narrator Bahni Turpin bring to life the character of 9 year old Grace.
I new without a doubt I would enjoy Moo by Sharon Creech. There isn't a book she has written that I haven't completely enjoyed. So it was finished before the first warm breeze of June. Unbound, by Ann E Burg, accidentally arrived in CD form but I was so glad it did. With it being a novel in verse, it was a delight to listen to narrator Bahni Turpin bring to life the character of 9 year old Grace.
Ghost by Jason Reynolds and Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier were my next choices and they were much more different than their titles would suggest. With differences in their genre, characters, MY interest (I'm not usually a big graphic novel fan.) and theme I probably should have chosen a different combination but it actually worked and I came out of the experience wanting to read Reynolds sequel and changing my notions about graphic novels. Both books worked for me on different levels.
Maxi's Secrets (or what you can learn from a dog) by Lynn Plourde and Counting Thyme by Melanie Conklin are sure to be fourth grade fan favorites this year. I tell my students every year, "there's always a book about a dog and always a book about sports". They also know that the dog books are usually not my favorites. They are always shocked and appalled that dog books are low on my reading interest lists. Students will love the trouble and trials of the two main characters in these books. Timminy and Thyme (what fun names) both grow and shine through the struggles that life deals them.