Yeay! Yeay! Yah-ye-yah-yah Yeay!!! Jack Gantos won the Newbery Medal for his brilliant story, Dead End in Norvelt.
So well deserved
If I told you that you would love a story about a boy who who gets grounded for his entire summer and has to make amends by helping a local senior citizen write obituaries while the story goes on to explore the many facets of death, you’d say, “No way! That story doesn’t sound interesting at all.”
You said the same thing when I tried to explain the story line of Holes by Louis Sachar to you, too, and that story was phenomenal when you finally read it.
So, listen to me this time. Watch the book trailer. Watch the author interview. But read this book!
After learning that her favorite teacher will be leaving for a trip to Egypt and will be absent for the remainder of the year, Clementine writes a horrible letter to get rid of the substitute and get Mr. D’Matz to stay.–from library catalog.
I’ve got to admit that I’ve never really been a fan of Junie B. Jones nor Judy Moody (poor grammar and bad attitudes and all) but there are plenty of children who adore both of them and that is fantastic! Not everyone loves everything. So I was hesitant to try Clementine’s Letter by Sara Pennypacker but I’m glad I did. Clementine is funny and imperfect and real. And the way she navigates her world is brilliant. Anyone who loves Judy Moody, Junie B. Jones, Amber Brown, or Ivy + Bean will love Clementine.
And don’t you just love that hair? Marla Frazee is amazing!
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Don’t miss all of the other Clementine books by Sara Pennypacker, including the newest one Clementine and the Family Meeting which is now available.
Below is a author interview with Sara Pennypacker where she talks about Clementine’s Letter.
I have always loved the stories written by Jon Scieszka, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, Math Curse, Science Verse, and the Time Warp Trio series.
I also love, love, love his Guys Read web site which has fantastic reading recommendations of books that boys will want to read. (But girls should read these books, too!)
So when I saw that Jon had written an autobiography about what it was like to grow up with five brothers in the Scieszka household, I knew that he probably had some crazy stories to tell. And I was right!
Don’t miss Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Mostly True Stories about Growing Up Scieszka.
Looking for a good mystery in a great setting with genuine characters? Then you will love The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd! I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to finally read it. But better late than never.
Ted and Kat live in London and their cousin, Salim, visits. On the day that they visit the London Eye, Salim gets into the sealed pod without Ted & Kat but he never comes out. Vanished! Disappeared! Gone.
What I loved most about this book was the fact that Ted has Aspberger’s Syndrome but that wasn’t what this book was about. Sure, Ted’s ability to see things differently helped him to solve the mystery of his disappearing cousin but it wasn’t the main focus of the story.
I highly recommend listening to the audio version to hear the characters’s British accents which adds to the flavor of the London setting.
If you liked The London Eye Mystery, you may also enjoy the The Case of the Missing Marqess (book one of the Enola Holmes mysteries) by Nancy Springer or The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart.
Here’s a pretty darn good book trailer created by michyamamoto on YouTube. Hope the creator doesn’t mind my sharing!
Any kid who has ever been frustrated by parents who don’t let him/her do his own homework is going to LOVE this book. I thought it was a really cute and enjoyable story. I can see why it was nominated for the 2012 Massachusetts Children’s Book Awards.
Summary:
Afraid he will always be an outsider like ex-planet Pluto, nine-year-old Oliver finally shows his extremely overprotective parents that he is capable of doing great things without their help while his class is studying the solar system.–library catalog
If you enjoyed How Oliver Olson Changed the World, then you would also enjoy Stink: Solar System Superhero and Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things.
Well, I finally read it over summer break and I loved it (as expected)!
After celebrating their first nine same-day birthdays together, Amanda and Leo, having fallen out on their tenth and not speaking to each other for the last year, prepare to celebrate their eleventh birthday separately but peculiar things begin to happen as the day of their birthday begins to repeat itself over and over again.–library catalog
It was the winner of last year’s Massachusetts Children’s Book Awards (yeay!). Read more about it here where you can also read what some fourth and fifth graders had to say about it.
Wendy Mass is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors! You should also read Every Soul a Star and The Candymakers. But don’t forget to read the companion stories Finally, and 13 Gifts.
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
Newbery Medal, 2011
I finished reading this book two nights ago and it is still haunting me (in a good way.) Abilene Tucker is quite an extraordinary girl who is looking for stories about her Daddy and trying to find “home” in Manifest, Kansas. What she finds will change her deeply . . . as it did me.
Incredibly beautiful writing combined with complex characters and soulful storytelling. I just might have to read it again
Nominated for the 2011 Massachusetts Children’s Book Award
Miri is the only single child in the middle of a family with two sets of twins–older brothers and younger sisters. When the family moves to an old farmhouse Miri accidentally travels back in time to 1935 only to discover Molly, a girl in need of a real family to call her own. A very satisfying classic-in-the-making, with spine-tingling moments, this is a delightful family-friendly middle grade time-slip novel.
Nominated for the 2011 Massachusetts Children’s Book Award
When Sam, who can barely read, discovers an old newspaper clipping just before his eleventh birthday, it brings forth memories from his past, and, with the help of a new friend at school and the castle they are building for a school project, his questions are eventually answered.
Nominated for the 2011 Massachusetts Children’s Book Award
Even though the Pain and the Great One can hardly agree on anything, school angst is something they both have in common and so turn to one another to figure out the best way to handle their dramas, such as dealing with a bully, pulling out a baby tooth on the school bus, and locating a pet that goes missing during Show-and-Tell.
Mrs. D'Elia is the Librarian in a very purple elementary school library. She believes that every child should have at least one favorite book. If you are a child and you don't have a favorite book yet, come and visit me in the library because we need to fix that.
Yeay! Yeay! Yah-ye-yah-yah Yeay!!! Jack Gantos won the Newbery Medal for his brilliant story, Dead End in Norvelt.
