'Twas the Night Before...

#ALAYMA20

I am surprised I slept so well last night. 

While dozens of librarians are coming to final decisions this weekend, I am holding my breath that the books my students have read, critiqued, passionately debated and genuinely loved are the same books as those of the committees. Considering the spinning going through my brain right now, I may not be as well rested tomorrow morning.

When I first started my months-long award predicting projects many years ago, I would be disappointed when our favorites would not align with those of the committees. How could they not make the same decisions for Newbery as my fifth graders? After my students booed one year because the winner was not at the top of any of their lists, we had to have a full on lesson on sportsmanship.  These days, I remind myself and my students that each committee is made up of a set number of librarians and those gold and silver decisions are based solely on who is "in the room where it happens." Were different people in the room, the outcome could be entirely different. Some years we may agree wholeheartedly and unanimously (ie 2015 for Newbery, 2018 for Caldecott); some years not so much. As I write this, I wonder what kind of year 2020 will be.

But does it really matter if we agree? For months my students have fallen in love with reading "Newbery books" after checking in and out what I deem to be distinguished literature. They have boisterously entered the library searching for yet another "Newbery" book, perhaps the winner or perhaps not.  They have kindly argued on behalf of their book deserving a gold medal in the classroom, the hallway, and at home. My fourth grade nonfiction fans have hugged their books and designed t-shirts with the hopes that on Monday they will be wearing a winner. First graders and their teachers have consistently given 4-5 stars to the beautiful Caldecott contenders we have read aloud this month of "Caldec-ary." If we were committee members, we might have to award ten or more honors across the board.

If you, like me, may not be able to sleep tonight, and you don't want to start another episode of ____ on Neflix, you can scroll down for some Sibert contender recommendations and 2019 middle grade/Newbery contender book trailers.  Maybe, just maybe, there's a winner or two or three in there.

SIBERT SMACKDOWN

Sibert Smackdown Day 1: November 4, 2020

We read and read, determined our favorites, recorded our persuasive paragraphs via Flipgrid and finally designed t-shirts to wear to the Youth Media Awards.  Flipgrid videos that made me ooze with pride are here 👇

Newbery

Need more distractions? Check out some of these awesome book trailers:

The Year We Fell from Space by Amy Sarig King

Ruby in the Sky by Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo






Born to Fly by Steve Sheinkin (We love this for Newbery and Sibert)




The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman (This book won our Consensus Club.)





My Jasper June by Laurel Snyder



Beverly Right Here by Kate DiCamillo (So awesome that Jess got to meet Kate this fall!)



A Time Traveler's Theory of Relativity by Nicole Valentine


Just a few other books we had lots of love for this season:

Here's the link for the awards: http://ala.unikron.com/ As I hit "publish" there are 11 hours to go.  See you on the upside!

Two Thumbs Up for The Promise of Change

The Promise of Change: One Girl's Story in the Fight for School Equality
By Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy

Fifth grader Olivia whizzed through her first book for our Mock Newbery project.  She came in first thing Tuesday morning to tell me all about it and we made a date for lunch this afternoon to blog about it. If you ask Olivia, it's a winner.  Multiple stickers perhaps? Newbery? Sibert? CSK? Here are her thoughts:

This was a perfect book for me. It's a nonfiction story, mostly made of poems.  Since I like history (so much that when I'm older I want to be an archaeologist), I loved this book. 

The year is 1956 in Clinton, Tennessee.  High school student Jo Ann and her fellow African American family and friends were separated from the whites.  The whites had better schools, better homes, better places to drink water and relax. It seemed they had a better life in their hands. Jo Ann had a dream to go to the whites-only Clinton High School. But it was all white.  Since she lived in the south, obviously she couldn't go. Then one day, Jo Ann, her best friend, Gail-Ann and ten other African Americans had a chance to go to Clinton High School.  But it didn't go well.  People had signs at the entrance and threatened them.

This might have scared or stopped some people from going to the school, but not Jo Ann. She wouldn't let this stuff get under her skin. Each day she came back to the school and the crowd of people with the signs got bigger and bigger.  Some of the African Americans left to go some place else, but not Jo Ann. Some of them just couldn't take the violence. At this point, I got emotional. I felt bad for all the kids who dreamed of getting a good education but couldn't. I also felt guilty. Even though I didn't do it, I still feel horrible that it happened. 

I recommend this book because I couldn't put it down for so many reasons! It was interesting to me and lots of books just aren't.  All the books I enjoy bring feelings to my head or mind and this one did. The lessons are so important in this book, too.  Just because someone is different from you doesn't mean that you can hurt their feelings.  Because we are all human and we're not all perfect.

***FIVE STARS!*** 

 

All the Impossible Things

 

 

It always seems impossible until it's done-Nelson Mandela

We were driving to New Jersey this morning and I was in the back reading.
The good news is that my Mom had a box of tissues on the seat where I was sitting.
The bad news is that I used so many, the box now needs to be replaced.

All the Impossible Things by Lindsay Lackey
This book.
These characters.
That giant old tortoise.
All blow together in one nearly perfect book.

I was hooked by the first chapter.  If I was in my mom's car then, there would have been a shortage of Kleenex by the end of the book.

11 year old Ruby "Red" is no stranger to foster homes.  Her mom is incarcerated and her Gamma, who had been taking care of her, died of cancer. Ruby's latest placement  is with Celine and Jackson at their "Groovy Petting Zoo."  It is there she befriends next door neighbor, young videographer Marvin, Tuck the Tortoise, many other animals and her new foster parents.

Red counts the days patiently until the day her mom is released from jail and they will be reunited. But when the letters she writes to her all get returned, Red takes a difficult journey to find out the difference between hard and impossible and realizes that maybe,

"living without something-even something you really need-isn't the end.  Maybe it's the beginning of something better."

This book tugged at my heart. It made my stomach turn. There were times I wanted to just shake Red up. I knew what I wanted for her and just hoped she would discover it, too, in spite of the pain.  "Pain is funny...Sometimes it tricks us into thinking one thing is wrong, when really it is something else."

"Every good story starts in one place and ends somewhere else."  Find yourself a good solid block of time (with a cup of hot cocoa on the side) to be there where it starts and to see how it ends. 

I love having debut authors on my Newbery contender list.  Lindsay Lackey is one of them, for sure.

September 3 find your fans of Barbara O'Connor, Nikki Loftin and Natalie Lloyd and twirl over to them with this book. Oh, and don't say I didn't warn you about the sniffles...♡

 

I met Lindsay at ALA and am sad we didn't take a leap together.  It is very POSSIBLE that I will be soliciting her for a Skype visit in early winter.  When that happens, a leap will happen.

P.S.

If you were at NerdCampMI, you might have remembered Laura Shovan's response when asked "What are you sick and tired of?" She is sick and tired of "boy vs. girl books" and "periods." This is a book for all readers, girls or boys, who love realistic fiction with a sprinkle of magic. Additionally, Red gets her period during a very intense part of the book. It happens, she deals with it and we move on.  Please don't shy away from it now. For Red, getting her period not only symbolizes coming of age but so much more. Family, independence, maturity, motherhood, and, the simple impossibility of birth.