John Feinstein, author of Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery, has a new young adult mystery coming out this summer. What is its title and what sport does it feature?
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First Charger to submit the correct answer gets a Monical’s pizza coupon. Good luck!
Mission: Accomplished
Last week, CJHS IMC held voting for the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award. That’s the Illinois award selected by students in grades 4-8. All those who read at least 3 nominees and registered to vote in the IMC were eligible to receive an official ballot. After 25 ballots were returned, the result was a TIE!
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau is a book I wrote about in the Books about Kids in Prison post. I enjoyed that dystopian novel immensely, and I’m glad so many other people did, too. The sequel is called The People of Sparks.
Because I wasn’t living under a rock, I figured that Eragon by Christopher Paolini had an excellent chance of coming in first at CJHS. It has got to be a top contender for the most frequently checked out book this year. This high fantasy is about a boy, his dragon, and their quest to defeat a great evil that threatens their world. Need I say more?
Oh, yeah…
By the way, our votes have been submitted to the state Rebecca Caudill committee, and we will find out the award winner on March 20th!
Want to know more about The City of Ember or Eragon? Then check them out and read them yourself!
If you’ve already read them, feel free to click on “Comments?” and tell everyone what you think.
Mission: Accomplished
How many gold medals did the U.S. win at the 2006 Winter Olympics?
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Mission: Accomplished
Which baseball player’s autobiography is called I Had a Hammer?
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Mission: Accomplished
What yearly sporting event has author Gary Paulsen been involved in for many years?
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Mission: Accomplished
The dictionary tells me that “endurance” means “the power to withstand hardship or stress.” Reading about fictional characters or real people with endurance can interest, intrigue, and inspire us. Check out these endurance books…
For Freedom: The Story of a French Spy is a novel by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Set during World War II, it tells the story of 13-year-old Suzanne David a talented singer living in Cherbourg, France under German occupation. Her travels as an opera singer put her in a unique position to help her country battle Hitler–she becomes #22, a spy, and carries important messages for the French Resistance. She bravely carries tiny slips of paper tucked in her shoes, clothing, and even her hair to pass along to other spies, despite the terrible consequences should dhe be caught by German soldiers. Based on a true story about the real Suzanne David Hall, this book shows how one person can make a difference.
In Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changes America, Sharon Robinson shares the story of the courage and determination of her father, the first African American to play in the Major League Baseball. He and his family had to endure unwelcoming teammates, taunting crowds and even death threats. But Jackie’s perserverance, committment to teamwork, and great ball playing has earned him a well-deserved spot in the Hall of Fame, making him a role model for all Americans.
What would you do if your little brother disappeared from kindergarten one day? Would you let the police handle it? Woudl you try to do something about it yourself? Find out what Bonnies does when that happens to her in Abduction by Peg Kehret. At first Bonnie created “Matt is Missing” posters and helped with a neighborhood search, but when she think she sees Matt at a Mariners game, she takes action on her own. What’s cool about this story is that the reader finds out who the kidnapper is early in the novel and sees what’s happening to Matt, too. Knowing the danger Bonnie faces makes this an exciting, quick book to read.
If you’ve ever wondered how Peter Pan learned to fly and made it to Neverland, Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson is the book for you! This origin story is fully of pirates, crocodiles and swashbuckling adventures and tells what happens when the orphan (urchin) Peter meets the mysterious Molly and helps her guard a treasure that keeps the world safe from a terrible evil. This book will keep you laughing and on the edge of your seat. I wonder if they’ll turn it into a movie…
This next book is so good that I featured it for Books & Bites: Fantastic Fantasies, but Gregor endures so much that it’s worth mentioning again. Here’s what I wrote before:
When Gregor jumps to save his sister who falls down a vent in the laundry room of his New York City apartment building and comes face-to-face with a giant cockroach, that is just the beginning of his adventures in the Underland. In Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins, Gregor finds that he and his sister Boots are believed to be fulfilling an ancient prophecy that includes adventures with humans riding giant bats, huge spiders, and enormous evil rats. Although Gregor knows he isn’t the legendary Warrior they believe him to be, he goes along with the quest, hoping to find some clues to his missing father’s whereabouts and trying to find a way out of the Underland. There is a ton of battle action and clues to figure out about the prophecy along the way. Sequels are Gregor and the Prohecy of Bane and Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods.
In The Misfits by James Howe, the Gang of Five (as they like to call themselves) have endured some of the worst name-calling and harrassment middle school has to offer. This group of four friends (Skeezie, Addie, Joe, and Bobby) decides to fight back–not with teasing and taunting of their own–but by using the school election. Running for class president for the No-Name Party, Bobby bravely spreads the group’s message–that names really can hurt, especially when people start believing in the names others call them.
Want a clue as to what it was like to be a soldier storming the beach at Normandy on D-Day? Ask Walter Dean Myers. The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins, is a fictional diary of one soldier’s experiences that’s based in fact. This award-winning writer creates a riveting story about those who put their lives at risk for our country. You have to read it to believe it.
Ernest Shackleton was a guy so tough, his ship was named The Endurance. This Antarctic explorer lost the race to the South Pole, but then decided he and his crew would be the first to cross the Antarctic continent. Trial by Ice by K. M. Kostyal is a photobiography, which means the author not only tells you what happened, but shows you through the incredible original photos. The Endurance left the tip of south America on December 5, 1914 and by January 19, 1915, it got stuck in pack ice. Shackleton and his crew lived out of the ship until it sank in November 1915–with no way to contact the outside world for help! Battling temperatures as cold as 100 degrees below zero, winds of 200+ miles an hour, and barely enough food to survive, the men trudged, carrying lifeboats, to find water. When they finally did, only a single lifeboat was left, and Shackleton and five men started off on the 800 mile trip to South Georgia Island to get help. When they returned four months later, all those left behind were still alive. AMAZING!
Want to learn more about these “endurance” books? Then check them out and read them yourself.
Mission: Accomplished
