The Girl in the Well is Me by Karen Rivers
Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet Below the Chilean Desert by Marc Aronson
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
Obsessed: A Memoir of my Life with OCD by Allison Britz
I had two days of training this week, co only did booktalks three days. I still managed to get in five books, though.
On the heels of listening to Jason Reynolds, I booktalked Ghost and Patina on Monday.
For no particular reason, except that I love it, I booktalked Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming on Wednesday.
Finally, simply because I haven’t booktalked a graphic novel in a while, I shared Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers & Saints.
Oh man!
Last night I got to hear Jason Reynolds speak.
He was the closing speaker at the Oregon Association of School Libraries conference.
Once, I was a member of OASL and even served on the conference committee. This time, I just showed up for the culminating event.
Though he said he wasn’t feeling well and he clearly sounded congested, Jason Reynolds spoke powerfully. He made us laugh and cry.
He is a storyteller and he told us his story. What he did right and, perhaps more significantly, what he did wrong.
He told us how Queen Latifah inspired him and how he learned to write poetry. At times. he spoke directly to the kids in the audience about writing past the people tells them they aren’t (good enough, white enough) or that are wrong with them (their accent, their clothes) and just be them,tell their own stories.
Because it was an encounter with Christopher Myers, author, illustrator and son of Walter Dean Myers, that helped Jason Reynolds. Meyers told him he needed to tell his own stories to put his tongue to paper.
On October 24th, Jason Reynolds’ newest book Long Way Down, a novel in verse, comes out. I already have a hold on a library copy.
Publisher’s Summary: An ode to Put the Damn Guns Down, this is National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestseller Jason Reynolds’s fiercely stunning novel that takes place in sixty potent seconds—the time it takes a kid to decide whether or not he’s going to murder the guy who killed his brother.
A cannon. A strap.
A piece. A biscuit.
A burner. A heater.
A chopper. A gat.
A hammer
A tool
for RULE
Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES.
And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.
Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.
The 2017 National Book Awards Longlist for Young People’s Literature was announced yesterday. I’ve read four already. I have a few on hold, one ARC, and there are a few that my library doesn’t have yet. And the first three weren’t even on my radar.
MY TBR pile just got longer.
Elana K. Arnold, What Girls Are Made Of
Robin Benway, Far from the Tree
Samantha Mabry, All the Wind in the World
Mitali Perkins, You Bring the Distant Near
Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down
Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Laurel Snyder, Orphan Island
Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give
Rita Williams-Garcia, Clayton Byrd Goes Underground
Ibi Zoboi, American Street
MONDAY
I picked up an ARC of Amina’s Voice by Hena Khan at the ALA Midwinter. I was thrilled to finally share it with my class.
Publisher’s Summary: A Pakistani-American Muslim girl struggles to stay true to her family’s vibrant culture while simultaneously blending in at school after tragedy strikes her community in this sweet and moving middle grade novel from the award-winning author of It’s Ramadan, Curious George and Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns.
Amina has never been comfortable in the spotlight. She is happy just hanging out with her best friend, Soojin. Except now that she’s in middle school everything feels different. Soojin is suddenly hanging out with Emily, one of the “cool” girls in the class, and even talking about changing her name to something more “American.” Does Amina need to start changing too? Or hiding who she is to fit in? While Amina grapples with these questions, she is devastated when her local mosque is vandalized.
Amina’s Voice brings to life the joys and challenges of a young Pakistani American and highlights the many ways in which one girl’s voice can help bring a diverse community together to love and support each other.
TUESDAY
Night Witches by Kathryn Lasky is a nice bit of historical fiction with a strong female lead.
Publisher’s Summary:16-year-old Valya knows what it feels like to fly.
She’s a pilot who’s always felt more at home soaring through the sky than down on earth. But since the Germans surrounded Stalingrad, Valya’s been forced to stay on the ground and watch her city crumble.
When her mother is killed during the siege, Valya is left with one burning desire: to join up with her older sister, a member of the famous and feared Night Witches-a regiment of young female pilots. Using all her wits, Valya manages to get past the German blockade and find the Night Witches’ hidden base … and that’s when the real danger starts. The pilots have been assigned a critical mission, one with the· power to inflict serious damage on the Nazis. Valya will give anything to fight for her country, but when the person she loves most goes missing, she must make a choice between duty and the deepest desires of her heart.
With her signature blend of lyrical writing and heart-racing action, historical fiction master Kathryn Lasky sheds light on the war’s unsung heroes – daredevil girls who took to the skies to take on the Nazis … and won.
WEDNESDAY
My students were excited to know that they could read Jason Reynolds’ Miles Morales before it gets published in August.
Publisher’s Summary: Miles Morales is just your average teenager. Dinner every Sunday with his parents, chilling out playing old-school video games with his best friend, Ganke, crushing on brainy, beautiful poet Alicia. He’s even got a scholarship spot at the prestigious Brooklyn Visions Academy. Oh yeah, and he’s Spider Man.
THURSDAY
I have a few readers who LOVE funny books, so, even though I don;t, I keep an eye out for laugh aloud books they might enjoy. I had a lot of kids laughing out loud when I read a bit from Pottymouth and Stoopid by James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein.
Publisher’s Summary: David and his best friend Michael were tagged with awful nicknames way back in preschool when everyone did silly things. Fast-forward to seventh grade: “Pottymouth” and “Stoopid” are still stuck with the names–and everyone in school, including the teachers and their principal, believe the labels are true.
So how do they go about changing everyone’s minds? By turning their misery into megastardom on TV, of course! And this important story delivers more than just laughs–it shows that the worst bullying doesn’t have to be physical…and that things will get better.
FINALLY, FRIDAY
It has felt like a really long week. Fortunately, I’ve been reading the book I shared today: The Lotterys Plus One by Emma Donoghue. It made me laugh and think deeply about what it means to be a family.
Publisher’s Summary:Meet the Lotterys: a unique and diverse family featuring four parents, seven kids and five pets – all living happily together in their big old house, Camelottery. Nine-year-old Sumac is the organizer of the family and is looking forward to a long summer of fun.
But when their grumpy and intolerant grandad comes to stay, everything is turned upside down. How will Sumac and her family manage with another person to add to their hectic lives?
The Lotterys Plus One, internationally bestselling author Emma Donoghue’s first novel for children, features black-and-white illustrations throughout, and is funny, charming and full of heart.
This one felt a little young for some of my students but I liked it a lot, so added it to my classroom library.
Jason Reynold’s Ghost isn’t about anything scary. At least not in the haunted house sense.
Publisher’s Summary:Ghost wants to be the fastest sprinter on his elite middle school track team, but his past is slowing him down in this first electrifying novel of a brand-new series from Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award–winning author Jason Reynolds.
Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team—a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose, but they also have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves.
Ghost has a crazy natural talent, but no formal training. If he can stay on track, literally and figuratively, he could be the best sprinter in the city. But Ghost has been running for the wrong reasons—it all starting with running away from his father, who, when Ghost was a very little boy, chased him and his mother through their apartment, then down the street, with a loaded gun, aiming to kill. Since then, Ghost has been the one causing problems—and running away from them—until he meets Coach, an ex-Olympic Medalist who blew his own shot at success by using drugs, and who is determined to keep other kids from blowing their shots at life.
Ghost makes some bad decisions and at first, I found him a little hard to like. But, just as Coach took the time to get to know him in the book, I took the time to get to know him and was glad I did. He has a lot of anger bottled up inside and it doesn’t always come out in a good way. Fortunately, he stumbles into track and it might just be the making of him.
At 181 pages it is a quick read. I don’t know when the rest of the books about the team come out, but I will be looking for them.
January 20, 2016 (New York) – The We Need Diverse Books™ Walter Award Judges Committee has confirmed selections for the inaugural Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature – Young Adult Category. One winner and two honors have been named.
The Walter Dean Myers Award, also known as “The Walter,” is named for prolific children’s and young adult author Walter Dean Myers (1937 – 2014). Myers was a National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature as well as a champion of diversity in children’s and YA books.
The winner of the first annual Walter award (2016) is the young adult novel All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely.
The judges also selected two Walter honor books: Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings by Margarita Engle
and X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon.
The Judges Panel reviewed titles published during the 2015 calendar year by diverse authors whose work featured a diverse main character or addressed diversity in a meaningful way. In the case of author pairs (or author-illustrator pairs), at least one member of the pair must be from an underrepresented community. The books covered many genres and included both fiction and nonfiction works. The award’s mission is to honor the memory of Walter Dean Myers and his literary heritage, as well as celebrate diversity in teen literature.
Walter Award Judges Panel: Rita Painter, Rafe Pose, Edi Campbell, Mindy Rhiger, Todd Krueger, Adeeba Rana, Maria Gentle, Christine Taylor-Butler, Lessa Pelayo-Lozada, Dhonielle Clayton and Kathie Weinberg.
On Friday, I talked to the kids about an unpopular opinion I hold. As much as I love getting an extra day off school, I think it is a shame that we aren’t in school on MLK Day or Veteran’s Day. Because we aren’t in school, I don’t think kids think about WHY they get the days off. If we were in school, there might be an assembly, an announcement, something I could do in class to make kids mindful of the holiday and why we celebrate it.The President has called to make MLK Day a day of service. It would be a great day to take kids out of the school to serve the community in some way.
Today, I will be doing the second of two Oregon Basset Hound Rescue home visits for new adoption applicants. We haven’t had a lot of dogs or many applicants over the last year. In fact, my last home visit was in January 2015! But , we have a couple of dogs that have generated some interest.
This is Sherman. He’s 2 and loves to chew on things he shouldn’t. He also loves to play hard.
This is Ellie. She’s 7 or 8 and her family is moving and can’t take her with them.
Other than the home visit, the day will be quiet. I started a new knitting project and a new book yesterday. The book is All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely.
It seems to be a good book to read on this day, when we should be thinking about how we treat other people.
Publisher’s Summary A 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book.
In an unforgettable new novel from award-winning authors Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, two teens—one black, one white—grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension.
A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad’s resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad’s every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement?
But there were witnesses: Quinn Collins—a varsity basketball player and Rashad’s classmate who has been raised by Paul since his own father died in Afghanistan—and a video camera. Soon the beating is all over the news and Paul is getting threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial brutality. Quinn refuses to believe that the man who has basically been his savior could possibly be guilty. But then Rashad is absent. And absent again. And again. And the basketball team—half of whom are Rashad’s best friends—start to take sides. As does the school. And the town. Simmering tensions threaten to explode as Rashad and Quinn are forced to face decisions and consequences they had never considered before.
Written in tandem by two award-winning authors, this tour de force shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn as the complications from that single violent moment, the type taken from the headlines, unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth. – See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.com/All-American-Boys/Jason-Reynolds/9781481463331#sthash.e7o6NgFG.dpuf
In addition to getting to know the members of the Morris committee, I got to know some people on other committees because we all moved in similar conference circles. Although we couldn’t tell each other details about what went on in the rooms where our decisions were made, but we could talk about some things we shared, like what we’d read now that our committee work was over.
At the end of our deliberations, we, like most other committees, talked about two things:
One person related that two members of her committee were going to spend two months reading nothing but Regency romances!
Another person said she was going to spend the next two months watching TV.
A person I met from the Great Graphics committee was going to take a break from graphic novels.
Most members of my committee expressed a real interest in the 2K16 debut authors that next year’s Morris committee will be reading.
Some people planned to catch up on all the books they missed in 2015, but most are just going to move on and not try to get “caught up”.
A lot of us, regardless of committee membership, planned to read some of the winners of other awards. few of us were able to make many predictions because it was hard to read anything that didn’t fall into our committee’s purview.
I have a two things sitting on my shelf that won awards and they will be among the first things that I read.
The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B is written by Teresa Toten . It was the Winner of the Schneider Family Teen award which honors a book for the artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely was Coretta Scott king honor book.
And that’s all I know for now. I also have some personal knitting I want to do, which will involve listening to an audiobook or two, but I am just not sure what yet. I am looking forward to whatever 2016 brings me.
At last, it is Friday. It has felt like it should have been Friday since Tuesday. I can hardly wait to do nothing tomorrow.
By nothing, of course I mean read and knit. I can’t talk about the knitting projects because they are top secret holiday gift items. Let’s just say I discovered a new yarn company, Biscotte Yarns, that I love.
This is the Morris Committees last weekend to discuss nominees and we will make our final pitches for books on Sunday. Next week, we vote to select our five finalists. They will be announced officially on December 1st, I believe. Then, the rereading begins. I need to know those five books inside out so I can articulately debate their merits when we meet in January to choose the winner.
In the meantime, I have a ton of good books on my to read pile, none of which are Morris related. This weekend, I hope to tap into a few of them.
Have a great weekend. You’ve earned it.
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