The week started of strangely as we began processing last Friday’s lockdown. Returning to the routine of the school day was remarkably helpful.
The Biggest Poutine in the World by André Poulin
Whatshisface by Gordon Korman
You Don’t know Everything, Jilly P! by Alex Gino
A Possibility of Whales by Karen Rivers
Monday, one of my favorites to share, because I have stories to tell about real kids this sort of thing happened too. The kids are shocked every time!
Tuesday, we went the chess route. I asked the kids to think about whether they think they know everything about their parents.
Wednesday, we took a trip to Vietnam.
Thursday, we thought about fresh starts.
And then we finally made it to the end of the first five-day week in a while. I celebrated with a favorite.
Today, Canada celebrates its 150th birthday.
The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) recently published a list of the top 150 bestselling Canadian books of the last decade. Many children’s and teens books made the list and I thought I would share them with you.
The #1 & #3 books were by Robert Munsch. Love You Forever was #1 and my favorite Munsch book, The Paperbag Princess, was #3.
Munsch books appear 27 more times on the list – and most of them are illustrated by the same person, Michael Martchenko!
The first non-Munsch book to appear is A Porcupine in a Pine Tree: A Canadian 12 Days of Christmas written by Helaine Becker and illustrated by Werner Zimmermann. It came in at #33.
Number 37 was Sing A Song of Mother Goose by Barbara Reid.
Number 45 was ABC of Canada by Kim Bellefontaine, illustrated by Per-Henrik Gürth.
One of my favorites came in at number 56: Scaredy Squirrel by Mélanie Watt.
You might not know what a zamboni is, but Canadian kids do. It is no surprise that written by Matt Napier and illustrated by Melanie Rose.
The most classic story is Roch Carrier’s The Hockey Sweater, illustrated by Sheldon Cohen. It was # 84.
A new one to me was #85, Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard.
Anne of Green Gables made the list at #89, the only one of L. M. Montgomery’s many books to make the list.
The team of Kim Bellefontaine and Per-Henrik Gürth make a second appearance at #101 for Canada 123.
Did you know Gordon Korman was Canadian? He made the list at #110 for One False Note, part of the 39 Clues series.
Astronaut Chris Hadfield made the list 3 times. His picture book, The Darkest Dark is lucky #113.
Number 121 is Eric Walters’ action-packed novel The Rule of Three.
Phoebe Gilman’s Something From Nothing makes the list at # 124.
The classic Red is Best by Kathy Stinson, illustrated by Robin Baird Lewis is # 144 and the final children’s book on the list.
The classroom library inventory is complete. Books are still missing, but they continue to trickle in. With no more checking out going on, I’ve taken some time to look over what was checked out. Graphic novels led the way, and my next post will be about the top 10 graphic novels. Today I will announce the top 10 novels in ascending order.
#10 Nine, Ten by Nora Raleigh Baskin
#9 Some Kind of Courage by Dan Gemeinhart
#8 Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel
#7 The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan
#6 Wonder by R. J. Palacio
#5 Restart by Gordon Korman
#4 I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest
#3 The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
#2 Zero Tolerance by Claudia Mills
#1 Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Another full five-day week. That makes two in a row! President’s Day on Monday will break this streak, but I’m willing to suffer through another day off.
I bookended this week with nofiction, too. Monday’s book was Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by John Fleischman.
Friday’s book was Blizzard by Jim Murphy.
In between, there was poetry and fiction.
Red Butterfly by A. L. Sonnichsen is novel in verse about a Chinese girl with a deformed hand raised in secret by an American woman must navigate China’s strict adoption system.
The idea of starting a mini-revolution got them excited about I kile the Mockingbird by Paul Acampora.
I explianed how advanced readers copies work on Thursday. Now, many students want to read Gordon Korman’s Restart before their peers.
After going to bed early, I woke up energetic. Go me!
The day started and ended with Macmillan. I had a 6:45 a.m. breakfast and a dinner at a seafood restaurant this evening. The breakfast was large and showcased all kinds of books and was a formal presentation. The dinner was fancier, but the books were on our tables. Macmillan editors and marketing staff sat with smaller groups of conference attendees and it was just a lovely evening of intelligent conversation.
In between, I had a hilarious presentation by Scholastic. Gordon Korman, Madelyn Rosenberg, Wendy Wan-Long Shang, and Natasha Tarpley, did live readers’ theater presentations of parts of each of their books. It was laugh out loud funny!
From there I went to a Penguin Random House luncheon where more new titles were presented.
I took some time after wards to rest up before my first 2018 Sibert Committee meeting. We mostly introduced ourselves, got to know each other and talked logistics, but it fueled my excitement for working on the committee.
It will be another early mooring so I can check out before the Youth Media Awards. I will attend the YALSA’s 2017 Morris/Nonfiction Award presentations afterwards.
I am scheduled to fly out mid afternoon but the weather is looking a bit dodgy. Please send thoughts and prayers. I’ve had lots of fun and learned a lot, but I am looking forward to getting home again. I miss my Lucy.
With only six and half weeks remaining, the school year is gearing down.There is still a lot to do to finish this one well, but my thoughts are straying to summer and the next school year. This will be the first time in 5 years I don’t have to move rooms or buildings. It is almost
Just this week, the final 2016-17 OBOB book lists were published for all three divisions. The first three quarters were published earlier, but the last four titles were just announced. I am ordering my book set and starting to think about a new Oregon Battle of the Books bulletin board. I’ve read a few of the titles already, have heard of a few of the others, but there are also a couple I’ve never heard of, making reading them exciting. I like to read the books over the summer, if I can, so I have them all done by the time OBOB season rolls around. I never know them to the degree the kids do, but I like to get the gist of the book, so I can talk intelligently about them.
Here is the 6-8 Division list:
The Apothecary by Maile Meloy
Centaur Rising by Jane Yolen
Courage for Beginners by Karen Harrington
Dark Life by Kat Falls
Death by Toilet Paper by Donna Gephart
Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick
The Great Greene Heist by Varian Johnson
The Honest Truth by Dan Gemeinhart
The Journal of Curious Letters by James Dashner
Masterminds by Gordon Korman
The Menagerie by Tui T. and Kari Sutherland
A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Stella by Starlight by Sharon M. Draper
Unfriended by Rachel Vail
The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann
Zombie Baseball Beatdown by Paolo Bacigalupi
booksandbassets 