This time of year is book award season! I am so excited to read all of the wonderful books that won awards this year. I am starting with the Newbery Award winner, “Hello, Universe” written by Erin Estrada Kelly. Which book are you starting with?
I just finished reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. It won the Newbery Award in 2013, and it was the best book that I have read for a long time! I would highly recommend it for a read aloud!
My Summer Reads! Last night I finished the novel Every Day After by Laura Golden. It was so wonderful that I could not put it down! It is an uplifting story of a young girl growing up during the Great Depression. Her father leaves Lizzie and her mother because he can't face life without a job and knows they are in danger of losing their house. Lizzie's mother goes into her own depression after he leaves, and Lizzie is forced to try to take care of her mother and save their house on her own. This is the heart wrenching story of a young girl named Georgina who is living in the family car with her mother and brother after her father leaves them penniless. Desperate to improve their situation, Georgina persuades her younger brother to help her in an elaborate scheme to get money by stealing a dog. She thinks that the dog’s owner will pay a big reward to get her dog back and then her mother can use the money for a down payment on an apartment. Georgina learns a very valuable lesson along the way.
Thirteen-year-old Steven has a totally normal life: he plays drums in the All-Star Jazz band, has a crush on the hottest girl in the school, and is constantly annoyed by his five-year-old brother, Jeffrey. But when Jeffrey is diagnosed with leukemia, Steven's world is turned upside down. He is forced to deal with his brother's illness and his parents' attempts to keep the family in one piece. Awesome book! One of my favorites ever!
Another great summer read is Deep, Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn. A 13-year-old girl named Ali finds an old photograph in the attic of her house,she recognizes two of the three children as her Aunt Dulcie & her Mom,Claire. But she finds that a third girl has been torn out of the photo. Ali first asks her Mother,but she denies that there ever was a third child & insists that it was just herself & Dulcie. Ali figures she'll have time to figure out who the girl is while she's with her Aunt & younger cousin,Emma, at a small cottage in Maine,but,not long after they arrive,the girls meet Sissy. Sissy is a mean & spiteful 10-year-old girl who is a bad influence on Emma,but Ali believes that Sissy knows about an incident in which a girl named Teresa Abbot Drowned under mysterious circumstances in a lake by the cottage 30 years before on the last summer that Dulcie & Claire were there when they were children,and,strangest of all,Sissy keeps talking about that very incident. At first, Ali suspects that Sissy is trying to scare both her & Emma with a ghost story. However, she soon discovers the reason as to why Sissy is so angry.
Here are some of my favorites so far! I read Klipfish Code by Mary Casanova. Twelve year old Marit experiences the Nazi occupation of Norway in 1942. Because her parents bravely stay behind to help the Resistance, Marit and her younger brother Lars must go stay with their grandfather and aunt. Although Grandfather warns Marit to stay neutral, Marit becomes involved with a plan to help the Resistance. Can Marit complete her mission and deliver a secret code? Marit learns about responsibility, secrecy, and loyalty as she takes risks to uphold her beliefs.
I have been busy reading all summer! I have read so many awesome books so far this summer, and I hope that I have time to read many, many more!
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AuthorI am Ms. Martini and I am the media specialist at Westwood School. I love reading, and I hope that you do too! Archives
May 2015
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