What We Read and What We Think

SLJ's Battle of the Kids' Books Contest Leader Board and (partial) Round Two Preview

2011-03-23T19:40:00.009-04:00

So eight matches completed and lots of surprises. Compared to last year’s, the judges’ decisions tended to match the majority of contestants’ guesses more often this year. Here's a look at the point totals for all the contestants. Remember first round matches were worth one point each. Round 2 matches are worth two points, so it's still anyone's game.

Leader Board

1. Paige Y. - 7

2. grrlpup - 6

2. desirous of everything - 6

2. delzey - 6

2. The Brain Lair - 6

6. jpetroroy - 5

6. Nancy W - 5

6. Hannah - 5

6. Alys - 5

6. nico - 5

6. Amanda - 5

6. AL - 5

6. Cecilia - 5

6. Mr. H - 5

6. Ceane Willis - 5

6. bsx - 5

6. LibraryLady - 5

6. Bigfoot - 5

19. goddessothestax - 4

19. mmmarci - 4

19. steven - 4

19. rewrite - 4

19. Villis - 4

19. R___ G____ - 4

19. c18gi - 4

19. maggie - 4

19. Mark Flowers - 4

19. katz library - 4

19. Sam Bloom - 4

19. Erin B - 4

19. Chris - 4

19. Rachel - 4

33. Erin FB - 3

33. alybee - 3

33. DaNae Leu - 3

33. Julia - 3

33. rgn - 3

33. Sondy - 3

33. Becky White - 3

33. Jen B. - 3

33. Doret - 3

42. Travis "Scope Notes" Jonker -2

42. eml59b - 2

42. Kevin D - 2

42. AmyC - 2

46. maryclareog - 1

46. CharsWeb - 1

As you can see Paige is currently in the lead with 7 points. Her one miss was One Crazy Summer, a mistake she and 44 others made when choosing the most decorated book of 2010 over The Odyssey.

The distribution of points looks to be fairly “bell curvy” which is nice. With round increasing in value each round everyone still has a chance. (Last year’s eventual champion only had 4 points after round one so hang in there.

Round Two Preview (part 1)

Match 1 Laura Amy Schlitz judging The Cardturner vs. Countdown

Tomorrow morning marks the beginning of round two with Judge Laura Amy Schlitz deciding between The Cardturner and Countdown. I love both of these books and would be happy to see either move on to the semifinal round. Fifteen contestants thought Countdown would move on from this round and eleven predicted it would be The Cardturner which would prove triumphant. I can't wait to see what goes into Schlitz's decision tomorrow. Will the documentary qualities of Countdown hinder or help its chances? What about Sachar's fantastical resolution to The Cardturner? Will his fellow Newbery Medal recipient find it off putting or enchanting? Does Judge Schlitz play bridge? Is there a secret Newbery Medal winners' club with its own handshake and secret rites which might oblige Schilitz to go with The Cardturner?

Match 2 Naomi Shihab Nye judging The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie vs. Keeper

I am not familiar with Judge Nye's work (please recommend a good starting point!) but according to goodreads, she is both a novelist and a poet. If one was trying to predict the winner of this matchup based on expectations and similarities to the judges own work one would undoubtedly presume that Judge Nye will side with the lyrical prose offered by Applet in Keeper. Twenty-one of the bracket challenge participants thought so as well as they advanced Keeper in their brackets. Five others, however, thought that Nye might go with team nonfiction and pick Stone's The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie. Stranger things have happened. Since Barbie won its last matchup I've been thinking more about the book. Does anyone else have a problem with Stone's use of the accounts quoted and summarized in the book which were apparently emailed to her by the subjects themselves? How acceptable/widespread is this practice when researching contemporary phenomenon? From the descriptions of the subjects provided by Stone, it seemed to me that most subjects were from very similar social situations and/or lines of work. I'm not surprised that a lot of librarians responded to Stone's call for submissions but does this type of open call really reach all the possible social strata which may have been affected by Barbie in one way or another? The other obvious problem with this type of research is how trustworthy the information Stone received this way might be. I am very intersested to hear if anyone else had issues with this while reading Barbie.

I will try to preview the final to matches on round two this weekend. Expect another leader board update at the completion of round two.

School Library Journal's Battle of the Kids' Books Round One Preview (part 2)

2011-03-17T19:01:00.008-04:00

We are 4 matches into this year’s Battle of the Kids’ Books and the excitement and upsets are already in full swing.

So far we’ve seen The Cardturner, Countdown, The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie and Keeper advance into the second round. Below I’ll preview the remaining four more matches in round 1 as well as add some thoughts on the results.

Match 5 Karen Hesse judging The Odyssey vs. One Crazy Summer

Karen Hesse must decide between a book practically every award committee honored in someway and a stunningly beautiful retelling of one of the world’s “the greatest stories.” Good luck Ms. Hesse.

Of the 47 contest participants 96% guessed that Hesse would follow the lead of the National Book Award Committee, the Scott O’Dell Committee, the Coretta Scott King Committee and the Newbery Committee by recognizing One Crazy Summer’s brilliance. I can’t help but wonder if Hesse will throw a wrench into almost everyone’s bracket like when Julius Lester chose against When You Reach Me last year or when Jon Scieszka eliminated The Graveyard Book in the first Battle of the Kids’ Books. With this in mind I would not be surprised to see Hesse go with the underdog selection.

A whopping 29 bracket challengers picked One Crazy Summer to win it’s first three matches and advance to the final match, five more think it will return from the dead and 18 believe the book has what it takes to win the whole contest. Judge Hesse can ruin a bunch of brackets tomorrow morning. She can at the same time make one Gareth Hinds very very happy. So there’s that.

Match 2 Adam Rex judging Sugar Changed the World vs. The Ring of Solomon

Adam Rex is one funny guy. What ever his decision I’m counting on it being delivered in a hilarious manner.

Could these books be any more different? Forget comparing apples and oranges. This one is like comparing artichokes and wildebeests. I’m at a total loss to see how Rex can make his decision. Personally, I was fasinated by what I learned reading Sugar Changed the World but the writing itself did not leave me feeling awestruck in the way I want great nonfiction to hit me (at least not in the way my favorite nonfiction titles We Are the Ship, American Plague, or Story of Mankind impressed me). As for Jonathan Stoud’s Ring of Solomon, I must admit that I haven’t finished it yet. I only just got it from a local library last week and it isn’t what I would call a ‘quick read’ I’ve been forcing myself to read a few chapters every night but so far the story has not become the page turner I want my fantasy fiction to be. Maybe if I was previously familiar with Bartimaeus I would be more interested but so far it’s a meh.

Rex might instantly have sided with the often humorous djinni in which case it might very well advance. The participants in the bracket challenge favored The Ring of Solomon 30 to 17 so I’m guessing Rex picks Sugar Changed the World no sense betting against contrarian judges yet.

Match 3 R.L. Stine judging A Tale Dark and Grimm vs. They Called Themselves the K.K.K.

First off, RL STINE!!!!!!!!! How cool is that! I was in fifth grade when the Goosebumps books swept across the nation and I vividly remember reading them all day long while my fifth grade teachers rattled on about whatever they were attempting to teach. A couple classmates and I would actually have contests where we would all start the same Goosebumps book right as the morning announcements ended and race to see who could finish it first (and not get caught not listening or doing whatever mindless work our teacher expected us to be doing). After lunch we would do it again with another Goosebumps title. We must have read the entire set in the span of a month. [At my most rebellious I was reading in school. Kind of sad actually.]

Anyway back to matchup. Stine gets to judge between to frightening books. One frightening in a humorous way not too unlike Stine’s own sense of humor and one a nonfiction tale that will likely give more real nightmares than all of Stine’s books put together.

For me, A Tale Dark and Grimm started off great and soon got a little hokey. The whole battle with the dragon didn't work for me. It all seemed silly compared to what had come before. To be honest I would have liked it a lot more if it was two or three chapters shorter. They Called Themselves the K.K.K. on the other hand could have been much longer. I was both frightened and fascinated by the information presented and wished it had kept going.

This is the match up that jumped out at me when the judges were revealed and for some reason I felt very strongly that Stine would go with team nonfiction. The fact that two-thirds of the bracketers went with A Tale Dark and Grimm only further cements my hunch that team nonfiction will actually get a win that I can support. (cue Jonathan Hunt's shock.)

Match 4 Mitali Perkins judging Trash vs. Will Grayson, Will Grayson

This match was the closest decision from the bracket challenge participants. Twenty-four people picked Will Grayson, Will Grayson and twenty-three chose Trash. Right away I'll say that Trash is one of my favorite books in this years competition and WG,WG is without a doubt my least favorite. I don't read to much YA because most teenage characters, like most teenagers I'd guess, annoy me to no end. They are usually written to be so self centered, so prone to stupidity, and so prone to romance that I just want to throw the books across the room and pick up a nice middle grade fiction book where the characters problems are external and don't have to involve their "feelings". I find that the YA fiction that I do enjoy feature teens in extraordinary circumstances or involve really smart teens. For example, my favorite recent YA include: Looking for Alaska (wicked smart teens), The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks (wicked smart teens), Octavian Nothing I & II (wicked smart teen in an extraordinary circumstance), Bruiser (extraordinary circumstance), and Skelling (extraordinary circumstance). Reading slice of life tales about ordinary kids (and especially upper class privileged kids) makes me want to vomit.

So while I typically enjoy John Green, WG,WG was for me an excruciatingly painful read. I wanted to quit after chapter two and kept wanting to quit more and more each and every chapter going forward. Trash on the other hand was really freaking awesome. I read the whole thing in one or two sittings and thought it was put together brilliantly. I just wish it were up against Ship Breaker instead of WG,WG.

I'm going to guess that Judge Perkins will go with Will Grayson, Will Grayson because why upset two peers (one with an incredibly loyal online following and the other an important editor) when you can upset one peer instead.

Here's an update on how the contestants are fairing after four matches.

2 participants are a perfect four for four so far.

2 participants are a 0 for four.

16 people got three correct.

20 people got half correct.

7 people are hanging in there with one correct guess.

A full leader board will be posted after the completion of all round one matches.

School Library Journal's Battle of the Kids' Books Round One Preview (part 1)

2011-03-13T20:46:00.006-04:00

A few weeks ago School Library Journal's third annual Battle of the Books kicked off with the announcement of the match ups and judges. Since then 47 people have submitted brackets to the contest I announced in a previous post. Tonight I will show what the participants are thinking for the first 4 matches of round one. As well as make some predictions of my own.

Match 1 Francisco X. Stork judging As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth vs. The Cardturner

Judge Stork has a tough decision ahead of him when deciding between two male centric young adult novels by Newbery winning authors. Since Stork writes male centric young adult novels he should have some great insights.

Of the 47 contest participants 26 bet that Stork would pick The Cardturner. If last year taught me anything it’s that the most of contestants’ guesses are usually wrong. The majority of contestants agreed with the judges decision only one time in the 15 decisions made by judges in the contest (when they overwhelmingly agreed with first round judge Anita Silvey’s decision to advance The Storm in the Barn over Sweethearts of Rhythm).

Will this contrarian trend continue or will Judge Stork go with the author of one of the most popular Newbery winning titles of all time over the author of one of the least popular Newbery winners? (For the record I really, really like Criss Cross and never understood its reception)

Match 2 Dana Reinhardt judging A Conspiracy of Kings vs. Countdown

Two titles that got a lot of Newbery buzz before coming up empty at ALA this winter. Will one of them make a run in the Battle of the Books and get the recognition some feel they were robbed of?

I am not familiar with any of Judge Dana Reinhardt’s so I would attempt to make any sense of her decision process. I just hope somewhere in her decision she mentions A Conspiracy of King’s lack of map. Turner address the issue a while back in a Q&A with Horn Book (or maybe SLJ) but I’m always looking for someone else to back me up on this particular topic.

In another close race he bracket contestants favored Countdown slightly more than A Conspiracy of Kings but 53% to 47% seems like a toss up to me. These are two books I really enjoyed but if I had to pick a favorite I would go make the homer pick and go with fellow Atlantan Deborah Wiles’ Countdown.

Match 3 Barry Lyga judging The Dreamer vs. The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie

I just finished The Good, the Bad and the Barbie this morning. I was happy to see that Stone didn’t inject her “to be ground axe” here like I felt she did in last year’s Almost Astronauts that said, I am probably no where close to the target audience for this one. The only thing that made me smile was the short reference to Todd Haynes’ Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story a short film I’ve seen a few dozen times including once in a pristine 16mm print with Haynes in attendance. Probably the funniest anorexia stories ever made and my favorite film of the eighties.

The Dreamer on the other had is a magical experience that I can’t wait to experience again. I’m not familiar with Lyga’s work but I have to assume he’s going to go with Ryan’s prose over Stone’s research.

The contest participants picked The Dreamer 27 times and 20 participants went with Barbie so I wouldn’t be too surprised if Lyga continues last year’s trend and picks Stone’s Barbie.

Match 4 Susan Patron judging Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword vs. Keeper

Judge Patron (whose upcoming Lucky for Good the finally to her “Hard Pan trilogy” is fantastic by the way) has the task of picking between two very different titles telling not so different stories. On one hand you have Appelt’s Keeper a middle grade fiction title featuring a girl trying to find her place within her family and community. On the other a visually stunning graphic novel about a girl trying to find her place within her family and community.

I enjoyed Hereville until the end when I realized the best part of Mirka’s story is yet to come. Finding a sword is all well and good but I want to see her use it. If Deutsch makes a sequel I’ll be first in line. For me though Hereville felt like only half the story. Keeper on the other hand tells a complete story and Appelt tells it with her trademark lyrical prose. While this one isn't as good as The Underneath it’s still pretty amazing.

Contest participants picked Keeper more than twice as often as Hereville, so I fully expect Patron to choose Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword.

So that's the top half of the bracket. I hope to get to the preview of the bottom half of the bracket by Thursday night, hopefully I will finish my last unread title, The Ring of Solomon, by then. Now off to fill in my NCAA brackets. Go 'Cuse!!!!

Last day to enter the BoB Bracket Contest

2011-03-11T07:24:00.003-05:00

Today is the final day to make your Battle of the Kids' Books predictions. Round 1 matches start this coming Monday so I need all contest entries by the end of today Friday March 11. To enter the contest simply fill out this google form: https://spreadsheets.google.com/formResponse?formkey=dEZrU09nbHhjMG1sZU8wOWZrN2xLLWc6MQ&ifq

Rules other explanations can be found here:
http://whatwereadandwhatwethink.blogspot.com/2011/02/school-library-journals-battle-of-kids.html

So far almost 50 brackets have been submitted. If you haven't made your predictions yet be sure to do it today before it's too late.

School Library Journal's Battle of the Kids' Books 2011 Bracket Challenge

2011-02-22T17:05:00.004-05:00

(you can find the link to the bracket contest is at the end of this post)

This is the third year School Library Journal has run a Battle of the Kids' Books. Back in 2009 final round judge Lois Lowery chose The Hunger Games over M.T. Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. II The Kingdom on the Waves. Last year final round judge Katherine Paterson choose Elizabeth Partridge's Marching to Freedom over Frances Hardinge's The Lost Conspiracy and Pamela S. Turner's The Frog Scientist. What will 2011 bring? Well today the judges for this year's contest were finally announced (titles were announced back in January) so we can start making some guesses (intelligent or otherwise).

Like last year I am running a bracket contest similar to the NCAA basketball bracket you fill out during March Madness. The rules are simple. Each contestant picks the winner of each round and receives points for correct guesses. First round matches are worth 1 point each, second round matches are worth 2 points each, third round matches are worth 4 points, and correctly guessing the winner earns you 8 points. You can also earn 5 points by guessing which book will return from the dead via the undead poll (which is open now and closes March 6). A perfect bracket can earn a total of 37 points.

Last year's Battle of the Books proved to be incredibly unpredictable as none of the 52 participants correctly predicted the winning book. Our eventual winner did however manage to earn 16 points.

Since the Battle of the Kids' Books matches will not begin until March 14, there is still plenty of time to get a hold of and read the books you haven't read. The bracket challenge will open today with the publication of this post and end on March 11 in order to give me time to check through each participant's bracket for errors and contact any participants if they need to make changes.

Bracket Challenge entry is free and there is no prize other than prideg. (unless of course someone out there wants to sponsor a prize in which case please email me!)

To enter simply fill out the googleform via the link below. You will be asked to enter your email address so that in the event of an error in your bracket (for example selecting a winner in a latter round match which you've already eliminated) I can contact you and get your true choice.

Unfortunately I am not nearly computer savvy enough to make the form resemble the actual bracket so I recommend printing the pdf from the official SLJ Battle of the Kids' Books website, filling it out, and then answering the form questions with your printed out bracket in hand.

At the end of each round of matches I will tally up the points and post the top scores. I will also post some round by round match up analysis and summary as once the battle begins so check back often.

To enter the contest click on the link below and answer each question. Please feel free to share the link with anyone who may also be interested in participating.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/formResponse?formkey=dEZrU09nbHhjMG1sZU8wOWZrN2xLLWc6MQ&ifq

2010 Cybils Awards Winners

2011-02-15T20:45:00.010-05:00

This year I had the honor to be one of the second round judges in the Easy Readers/Early Chapter Books category for the Cybils. Not only did we get to read and discuss some amazing books, but because our category is really two-in-one, we got to pick two winners!

Easy Readers

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that Mo Willems' We Are in a Book is bringing home the Cybil this year to go along with the truck load of awards it has already received. This book is my students hands down favorite book in the classroom and mine too. Mo Willems posted the following image of Piggie and Gerald celebrating their Cybil win on his blog.

Gerald's reaction is pretty much the same one I had when we came to our final decision.

(Looking for more Elephant and Piggie greatness? I Broke My Trunk was released just a few weeks ago and once again Mo has not disappointed. Run, don't walk to your local independent bookstore and pick up a copy.)

Early Chapter Books

I am equally happy to see Jacqueline Jules's Zapato Power: Freddie Ramos Takes Off win the award for early chapter books. It's a truly fantastic book that I've been pushing onto my colleagues and peers for months and everyone of them has come back to thank me. Anyone who works with first or second grade students needs to pick up a copy of this one and start putting it into the hands of your young readers. I promise you they will love it!

(the third Zapato Power book is due out March 1 of this year you should probably call your bookstore and order it)

The rest of the fantastic winners:

Fiction Picture Books: David Ezra Stein's Interrupting Chicken

I read this one to my class and after it one it Caldecott Honor and they really enjoyed it. Since then I've noticed a few less interrupting chickens during read alouds.

Graphic Novels: Meanwhile by Jason Shiga

I picked this one up last spring when it was released and loved the concept but I just don't have the patience to make very much progress through the insanely complex (in a good way) story. Maybe it's because I like vanilla so much more than chocolate.

Middle Grade Fiction: The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger

I was ecstatic to see this one get the win. Certainly the kids' pick for best middle grade fiction of the year. Its a fantastic book for reluctant readers and rabid readers alike. I for one can't wait to the upcoming sequel.

Poetry: Mirror Mirror by Marilyn Singer

Like Shiga's Meanwhile one has to admire the shear originality and brilliant execution to pull off such a unique work. Creating a whole new type of poetry cannot have been easy.

Nonfiction Picture Books: The Extraordinary Life of Mark Twain (Accorind to Susy) by Barbara Kerley

If I was blogging three years ago Kerley's 2007 middle grade novel Greetings From Planet Earth

would have been my top pick for most over looked novel of the year. I'm still waiting to get this picture book from my local library but I am eager to read it.

Check out the Cybils website for a the complete list of winners including the young adult winners that I haven't read yet.

5 Notably Overlooked Books from 2010

2011-01-30T19:45:00.015-05:00

One month into 2011 and my thoughts are already on this year's batch of excellent books. Major awards have been awarded, the Battle of the Kids' Books roster has been announced and we're just a few days away from the announcement of the CYBILS winners.

I'd like to take a moment to look back at some of my favorite 2010 titles I thought deserved mounds of praises but seemed to be overlooked in year end lists and by award committees.

Bruiser by Neal Shusterman

This was by far the best young adult novel I read this year. I enjoyed Shusterman's The Schwa was Here but this titles absolutely floored me. I thought Shusterman did an absolutely fantastic job juggling the multiple narrators. The characters and their motives all seemed so realistic that the fantastical elements that come out and shock you about 25% of the way through the novel hit that much harder. I'm not one for too much narrative summary in a review or recommendation and for this title I'll simply say that you're in for quite a big shock and it's not one that is likely to go away after finishing the book.

Can I Play Too? (An Elephant and Piggie Book) by Mo Willems

2010 was a huge year for Mr. Willems. Both City Dog, Country Frog (with illustrations from Jon Multh) and We Are In a Book! are destined to become classics. The later earned a Geisel Honor and the former was robbed of both the Caldecott and Newbery. Willems also completed his "Knuffle Bunny Trilogy" with Knuffle Bunny Free. With all the justifiable praise heaped on these three titles it seems like Can I Play Too? managed to fall through the cracks. I am not going to claim that this installment of the incredible Elephant and Piggie series is stronger than We Are In a Book! but I do think it might be the second or third best of the E&P books, which is saying quite a lot.

In this installment a small green snake hopes to join Gerald and Piggie as they play catch.

Unfortunately, the snake (like most snakes) lack the appendages essential to the game. After a ton of bonks on the head and a blizzard of falling balls, Gerald and Piggie figure out a delightful way of getting the snake into the game.

When I saw this title last summer I thought Willems had topped himself once and once again locked up the Geisel. Little did I know he would surpass this jewel of a book just a few months later. Nevertheless you don't want to miss this fantastic addition to the best early reader series since Frog and Toad. (Also next week sees the release of the next installment in the series: I Broke My Trunk )

13 Words by Lemony Snicket with illustrations by Maira Kalman

I have a confession to make. I'm not a fan of Snicket's Unfortunate Events series. I read The Bad Beginning recently and just could not work up the enthusiasm to read the next 12 books. It's not that I thought the book was bad, it just wasn't my cup of tea. I do, however, enjoy Snicket's The Composer is Dead and share it with my second graders every year.

Last week I received a review copy of 13 Words in the mail and gave it a quick read. I found myself laughing out loud. The next day I read it to my class and they too were in hysterics (even the boys, not sure that's scientifically possible so let's just say the boys were laughing a lot too). I love the concept of lampooning the idea that vocabulary learning can be done consciously. My students are almost all English language learners and are constantly encountering new words. During the their first two years of school they were most likely presented with words and corresponding pictures in a systematic/artificial manner and told to understand and remember the words. While this type of explicit instruction does not take place in my classroom my students are familiar enough with the method to take particular joy in the examples Snicket provides here. The biggest laugh of the book occurred on the eleventh word: baby. Kalman's wonderful painting of the infantile haberdashery owner sent my students over the edge.

Agent Q, or The Smell of Danger! by MT Anderson

and

The Ghostwriter Secret by Mac Barnett

Agent Q, or The Smell of Danger! is the fourth installment of the Pals in Peril (nee Thrilling Tales) series by MT Anderson. The Ghostwriter Secret is the second book in Mac Barnett's Brixton Brothers series. I've lumped these two titles together because they appeal to a similar type of funny bone which I happen to possess and clearly award committee members do not.

There was a three year gap between the Anderson's Case of the Linoleum Lederhosen (the second adventure of Jasper, Kate and Lily) and 2009's Jasper Dash and the Flame Pits of Delaware so I was surprised to see the fourth installment appear on the shelf so quickly. Agent Q might be the weakest of the four novels but that does not make any less brilliant. Anderson continues his story immediately following the events in Jasper Dash and the Flame Pits of Delaware and the reader gets the privilege of spending another novel in the strangest state in the union. (Note: between reading Jasper Dash and Agent Q I had the chance to spend a night in Delaware. I was extremely disappointed, not a single catapult or dinosaur was spotted.)

As we've come to expect with this series, Angent Q is pure adventure. We get great chase sequences, absurd villains, convoluted plotting and footnotes from the best footnote writer in the business. What's not to love?

The Ghostwriter Secret benefits greatly from being a the second in the series. Without having to spend too much time setting up the characters' back stories, action gets underway quickly and does not let up. The plot is full of enough u turns and double backs to keep you guessing the whole way. One of the things I like best about the Brixton Brothers series is the realness of the violence. There is a real sense of danger to Steve and his friend Dana's situations. Knowing that Barnett is willing to seriously hurt, kill or maim Steve or Dana sets this series apart from the cartoon violence of most middle grade adventure titles. Just check out the bullets on the cover just missing the kids! I'm not sure who the audience for this book is since so many of the jokes seem to be aimed at adult readers, but I'm not complaining.

Well those are some of my favorite but overlooked books from 2010. What are some of yours?

Thoughts from a Ten Day Weekend, or how I spent my surprise vacation

2011-01-17T17:18:00.009-05:00

Four inches of snow in Atlanta resulted in five straight snow days. Two weekends and today's MLK day help add up to a wonderful ten day respite from my classroom. I spent the welcomed break reading, reading, and reading (plus some nfl playoff viewing, orange basketball viewing and 2 brutally cold days of ultimate in athens).

Day 0 (Friday January 7)

Super early wake up the following day meant staying in Friday night and finishing the last couple chapters of Gary Schmidt's upcoming Okay for Now. I got an andriod phone over the holidays, downloaded some e-reader apps and signed up for NetGalley. I was overjoyed to discover that Schmidt's newest was available for review! I wouldn't recommend reading a 360+ page novel on the small screen of a smartphone but it certainly beats waiting until April for a title this amazing. I can't seem to talk or write about Okay for Now with out resorting to hyperbole so I simply say that I feel as strongly about this title as a did about When You Reach Me when I first read it. I can't wait to get a physical copy and read it again.

After finishing Okay for Now I reached for The Hive Detectives. Another great addition to the Houghton Mifflin's Scientists in the Field series. I wish I could put a standing hold at my local library for all the new titles in this series. Each one I've read has been great. Can't wait to pick up Kakapo Rescue and Project Seahorse this week.

Day 1 (Saturday January 8)

Ultimate in Athens, GA. Tried to read Genius Files the first installment in Dan Gutman's latest series in the car on the way to Athens but even at 6:30 AM my teammates where a bit to rowdy for any car reading. Gutman's coming to Little Shop of Stories (Decatur's independent children's bookstore) next Monday so I do need to get this ARC read asap.

Day 2 (Sunday January 9)

Snow begins to arrive in the early evening my wonderful school system keeps us in suspense until 8pm. I decide to reread some of the Cybils early readers that I've gotten my hands on so far. Also get through a few more chapters of Jane Leslie Conly's Crazy Lady (one of the 8 1990s honor books I haven't yet read).

Day 3 (Monday January 10)

Newbery Day!!!!!!!!!

Love being home to watch the live webcast. Not going to recount the award winners here but I will say that the Geisel Committee did a super job! I was thrilled to see Holm's Turtle in Paradise pick up a nice shiny Newbery Honor. Then came the worst part of Atlanta's snowpocalypse, not only had I not read or purchased Moon Over Manifest, but because of the snow no bookstores were open! I would have to wait for the ice to melt off the road in order to pick up a copy of the Newbery winner.

Snowed-in. I reread Turtle in Paradise and read some more of Crazy Lady. It being the first of a then undetermined number of snow days I spent most of the day watching bad television.

Day 4 (Tuesday January 11)

Read Eric Wright's Frankie Pickle and the Pine Run 3000 since it's a CYBILS finalist I can't tell you what I thought.

Finally read Anne Fine's The Jamie and Angus Stories knocking off the one 2000s' Horn Book Award winner I hadn't gotten around to reading yet. I liked the book. I think it is very successful and can see children really falling in love with the stories. Anyone have other Anne Fine titles they would recommend?

Day 5 (Wednesday January 12)

Bookstores are all still closed. I'm thankful I can walk/slide the a few blocks to the grocery store.

I finally finish Crazy Lady. Conly's father wrote Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH as well as Z for Zachariah (which Conly completed after her father's death) two of my favorite 1970s books. Unfortunately Crazy Lady kind of fall into the lower third of the Newbery Honor pack for me. I like the characters but I thought the story fell a little flat.

Took a break to watch the undefeated Syracuse Orange basketball team defeat St. Johns proving once again who New York's college team really is!

I also watched the entirety of the new PBS Masterpiece series Downton Abbey. It was quite good. Not up to par with Andrew Davis' recent masterpiece Bleak House but comparable in quality to his Little Dorit. Downton Abbey comes to us from Julian Fellowes who wrote the screenplay for Robert Altman's Gosford Park. If you enjoyed the Altman film you should do yourself a favor and watch Downton Abbey it's well worth the 345 minutes of your time.

Day 6 (Thursday January 13)

Ice is beginning to melt on the main roads but most side streets are still a mess. I spend the morning reading Pete Hautman's Blank Confession. I didn't think this one lived up to its concept but I liked it enough to start looking forward to reading Hautman's 2004 National Book Award winning Godless.

By the middle of the afternoon the temperature has finally risen above freezing for the first time all week and more importantly I've found a bookstore that is not only open, but has a copy of Moon Over Manifest. Needless to say quickly scrape off my car, a carefully drive to a local Barnes and Nobles to pick up this years "most distinguished contribution to children's literature".

I was happy to find the copy of Moon Over Manifest was a first printing! I also picked up Heart of a Samurai.

Started reading Moon Over Manifest immediately. Overjoyed to see that school would be once again canceled on Friday allowing me to stay up all night reading Moon Over Manifest.

Day 7 (Friday January 14)

I finish Moon Over Manifest in the early hours of the morning. I think it's a very deserving winner. Great setting. Great characters. I enjoyed Vanderpool's writing style. I have only one small reservation about the plotting. Abilene has in her possession all of Ned's letters to Jinx. The reader, however, only has a chance to read said letters when the letters' contents correlate with Miss Sadie's story. Surely Abilene read all of Ned's letters early in the story. Therefore Abilene should be able to piece together parts of Ned's story before the reader has a chance. Not a real problem with the book, just a minor quibble. I still think its a fantastic Newbery Medal winner and can't wait to reread it.

Day 8 (Saturday January 15)

Syracuse plays the early game against Cincinnati. We demolish the Cardinals. All is right in the world.

The library is open! I pick up and read another CYBILS finalist Princess Posey & the First Grade Parade. Wish I could talk about it.

Start and finish reading Audrey Couloumbis' Getting Near to Baby. This was the last of the 33 '00s newbery honor books for me. I put it off for so long because the descriptions did not encourage me to pick it up. Over the holidays I read Couloumbis' Jake and liked it alright. I felt about the same about Getting Near to Baby. Not a bad book by any means, just not my cup of tea.

NFL playoffs provide a nice break.

Day 9 (Sunday January 16)

Recover from Saturday's sports overdose with more NFL playoffs. No reading.

Day 10 (Monday January 17)

I decide to read the MT Anderson's new Pals in Peril book Agent Q, or the Smell of Danger! the fourth installment in my absolute favorite series. Lilly, Kate and Jasper Dash are still in Delaware for this adventure. Shorter in length than the third book but not quite as witty or exciting. There were still a ton of good laughs, but here Anderson is not quite up to his typical brilliance. That said, Anderson's off day still ranks above most mortals' best work.

So that's how I spent my unexpected ten days off. Next up, Heart of a Samurai can't wait!

Cybils 2010 Finalists

2011-01-01T13:39:00.004-05:00

The Cybils (Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards) finalist in all 11 categories were announced this morning. You can read about all the finalists at the Cybils website.

I will be serving as a second round judge for the Early Readers and Early Chapter book category. Below are the titles the other judges and I will be considering.

Early Readers:

Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa: Spring Babies

Fly Guy Meets Fly Girl

National Geographic Readers: Ants

The Babysitters (Cork and Fuzz)

We Are in a Book! (An Elephant and Piggie Book)

Early Chapter Books:

Anna Hibiscus

Frankie Pickle and the Pine Run 3000

Home on the Range (Down Girl and Sit)

Princess Posey and the First Grade Parade: Book 1

Zapato Power: Freddie Ramos Takes Off

Can't wait to start digging deeper into each of these titles.

Wild about Willems

2010-11-01T17:58:00.005-04:00

Been awhile since the last post and though I've been meaning to post a few different thoughts, I honestly haven't had the energy.

I've been busy doing a lot of reading and a lot of teaching so blogging has taken a backseat lately. In early October I did have the opportunity to see Mo Willems speak in Decatur as part of his Knuffle Bunny Free book tour. (Thanks to the Georgia Center for the Book and Little Shop of Stories for getting him here!) My students LOVE LOVE LOVE the Elephant & Piggie books and are big fans of everything else Willems has done as well. While my students were not able to attend the reading/signing, I was able to deliver a thick envelope full of letters, drawings and a class picture (see below) to Mr. Willems.

Below is a video I took of Willems reading We Are in a Book! (Video is quite dark and a little shaky but Willem's enthusiasm is crystal clear. [note We Are in a Book! was my nominee for the Easy Reader category for this year's Cybils, the category for which I am a judge.]

My students are wild about Willems:

Thoughts on Easy Readers (getting ready for Cybils judging)

2010-09-29T21:22:00.006-04:00

A little over a week ago I found out I was lucky enough to be selected as a judge for the Easy Readers/Early Chapter Books category of the Cybils. The Cybils awards (Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Award) are given annually to newly published children's or young adult books in a variety of categories. Nominations are made by the public after which a group of panelists narrows the nominees to a short list, at which point a separate group of judges chooses a winner. The nomination window opens up October 1st. Please take a few minutes on Friday and head over to Cybils.com to nominate your favorite books from 2010.

I am incredibly excited and honored to get a chance to participate in judging this year. Along with four other judges, I will get the opportunity to select the Cybil award winners for both Easy Reader Books and Early Chapter Books. As a second grade teacher these are the books I use with my students every day so I'm excited to get my hands on all the newest titles and test some of them out in my classroom.

Over the last week or so I've been thinking a lot about the Easy Readers. I've thought about the Easy Readers from my youth and the ones that are popular in my classroom. In this post I will summarize my thoughts on easy readers which will hopefully help me prepare for judging this category.

What is an Easy Reader?

The Cybils website defines easy readers as: "those 6"x9" books designed specifically for children learning to read."

Harper's "I Can Read" series of books helped define the easy reader starting in 1957 with the publication of Else Holmelund Minarik and Maurice Sendak's Little Bear. Through the "I Can Read" banner Harper went on to publish such classics as Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad, Syd Hoff's Danny the Dinosaur and 100s of others. Award winning authors such as Betsy Byars, Katherine Paterson and Avi have also written books for the"I Can Read" series. Sadly they have recently begun to publish books based on licensed characters from movies and television.

The other defining series of Easy Readers also debuted in 1957 with the

publication of Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat. Published by Random House and founded by Theodor Geisel (Seuss) and Phyllis Cerf. Beginner books would go on to publish titles by Seuss as well as others such as P.D. Eastman (Go, Dog, Go!) and Stan and Jan Berenstain.

Easy Readers often use a restricted number of different words, feature large text size, short sentences and simplified phrasing to help children learning to read. Good Easy Reader books work with in these restrictions without sacrificing literary quality (i.e. they are not Dick and Jane books).

The Easy Readers that made me a reader

I can vividly remember reading a number of easy readers when I was growing up. My bedroom

bookcase contained a number of Random House's Beginner Books. Some of my favorites included Al Perkin's Hands, Hands, Fingers, Thumbs and Stan and Jan Berenstain's Inside Outside Upside Down and Bears in the Night, as well as a whole slew of Dr. Seuss books. The great thing about Beginner Books is the use of repetition in the text. A title like Bears in the Night is wonderful for a new reader because the text constantly repeats itself. The illustration also serve to aid the reader when trickier words such as window or bridge appear in the text. Using the pictures is a key word attack strategy for 1st and 2nd grade readers and the Beginner Books all seem to understand this.

I also remember reading a good deal of "I Can Read" books when I was in school. I probably checked out Alvin Schwartz's In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories from my school library 2 or 3 dozen times. For me it was all about the "Green Ribbon" story. I can still see myself in my 1st grade classroom opening up the book to the last page of that story over and over again.

I was also a big fan of Peggy Parish's "I Can Read" series Amelia Bedilia. I remember struggling through the first book quite a few times. I recall loving Amelia Bedilia's Family Album in particular. The horse racing cousin was (to me at least) a joke that never got old.

I was in kindergarten when my younger brother was born and I spent many an afternoon 'reading' many of these Easy Reader books to his blank stare or cries (he was actually a pretty good listener for an infant). One title that I loved above all others was William H. Hooks' Mr. Bubble Gum which was part of the Bank Street Ready-to-Read series.

The Easy Reader titles that had the biggest effect on my development as a reader were from a series of eleven books published by Benfric Press from 1959 to 1972. Written by William Hurley the Dan Frontier series of books used controlled vocabulary, simple sentences and full color illustrations to tell the on going story of a Daniel Boone/Davey Crockett type character as he leads wagon trains, scouts for the army, befriends Native Americans, builds a farm and eventually goes to Congress. The Dan Frontier series was probably my introduction to serialized storytelling. At the young age of 6 or 7 I was enamored by the long form narrative. The idea that characters or plot events from one story could be referenced in subsequent stories was mind-blowing. I loved that there was an order in which to read the stories, it made the fictional universe Dan Frontier inhabited seem real. In contrast series like Frog and Toad seemed to have stories which could be read in any order, events from one book did not really affect later stories. While the Dan Frontier stories are all self contained, reading them in order enhanced the experience. Today Dan Frontier is understandably out of print and copies seem to have been weeded from most public and school libraries. Much of the content is politically incorrect (both the gender roles and the treatment of Native Americans show the series' 1950s roots and have dated badly). Thankfully the PC police did not arrive in full force until a few years after I left elementary school so I was able to enjoy these books again and again. I have to thank my older brother for discovering these titles in our school library. He brought the first one home when I was in first grade (he was in second) and so began our quest to read each and every title. I can still see the spot on the shelves in the school library where I would immediately go to check to see which Dan Frontier books were not checked out. I think my father must have read each title to me 25 times before I started reading them on my own but thankfully he was willing (I actually think he enjoyed them as well).

Easy Readers in my classroom

In the twenty years since I was was reading Easy Readers, the category has made some

significant progress. That said, many of the Easy Reader titles of my childhood are still enjoyed by my students today. My students love the Beginner Books, especially those by Dr. Seuss. They also read a lot of "I Can Read Books" including Frog and Toad, Little Bear and In a Dark, Dark Room. I was so excited the first time I saw one of my students discover "The Green Ribbon" story and then immediately started showing the gory image on the last page to all his friends. It's a good thing I have about 8 copies of In a Dark, Dark Room because every year at some point one of the kids finds the book and then EVERYONE wants a copy for their silent reading boxes. The most popular "I Can Read" books in my classroom are the Biscuit books by Alyssa Satin Capucilli. I often have a good number of below grade level readers and the Biscuit books are perfect for these emerging readers.

Other traditional Easy Readers that have been popular in my classroom over the years include Cynthia Rylant's Henry & Mudge and Poppleton series, Ted Arnold's Fly Guy series, James Marshall's Fox series and Kate McMullan's Fluffy series. My students also LOVE Harriet Ziefert's fairy tales published by under the Puffin Easy-to-Read banner. My students (most of which are non native speakers) are less familiar with classic fairy tales so Ziefert's simple retellings and equally simple illustrations are absolutely perfect. I found a bound collection of these stories a few years back and my students read the binding right off the book (I have since purchased a number of copies of each title).

In 2007 Mo Willems published four of the most innovative Easy Readers since the 1957 release of Cat in the Hat and Little Bear. With the publication of Today I Will Fly!, My Friend is Sad, There is a Bird on Your Head!, and I am Invited to a Party! Willems forever changed the Easy Reader model and put his permanent stamp of the genre. By incorporating word balloons and other comic book/graphic novel elements into an simple to read stories, the Elephant & Piggie books became not only wonderful tools for reading teachers, but also hilarious books that students refuse to read just once. Nine more Elephant & Piggie books have been released since 2007 and there is at least one more on the way in 2011. Each and every title is a hit with my students. I've got two or three of each title in my classroom and I can't remember the last time any of the books stayed in their basket on the shelf for more than a few minutes before another students stanches it up for their silent reading box. For a long time There is a Bird on Your Head! was my favorite but last week Willems topped himself with the release of We Are in a Book! a metatextual, fourth-wall breaking, extravaganza of excellence. My students were so excited to see the new book I read it to them so they wouldn't have to wait to read it on their own. I am not exaggerating when I say my students were rolling on the floor with laughter. Next week Mo Willems is coming to town to celebrate the publication of the newest Knuffle Bunny book but I'm thinking I need to have him sign at least one copy of all 13 of the Elephant & Piggie books.

Since the release of Willems' Elephant & Piggie books, more and more easy readers began

to incorporate comic book or graphic novel elements. First among these new comers is certainly the Toon Books published by RAW Junior and edited by New Yorker art editor Fracoise Mouly. Toon Books feature authors and artists from the world of graphic novels and cartooning. The stories are all beautifully crafted and the art is always outstanding. Some of the more popular Toon Books in my classroom are Little Mouse Gets Ready by Bone creator Jeff Smith, Jack and the Box by Maus creator Art Spiegelman and the Benny and Penny series (three titles so far) by Geoffrey Hayes. My students also love the online Toon Book Reader where they can read or listen to all the books in both English and Spanish (or Russian, or French, or Chinese). There is also a comic maker where students can use characters, props and backgrounds from the books to create their own stories. Most of my students do not have computers or internet access from home but we use these resources a lot at school and those with computers take home the website addresses for both the comic reader and the comic maker.

Right now I am busy reading all the 2009 Cybils short listed Easy Readers and Early Chapter books that I had not previously read, hopefully I'll get a post up about early chapter books in the near future. Meanwhile please mark your calenders for Friday October 1st when Cybils nominations begin. You can nominate one book per category so don't be shy. Nominate your favorites from any or all of these award categories: Easy Reader/Short Chapter books, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fiction Picture Books, Graphic Novels, Middle Grade Fiction, Non-Fiction Picture Books, Non-Fiction: Middle and YA, Poetry, and YA Fiction.

Visit Cybils.com to learn more.

You can read more about my fellow judges and the panelists selecting the short list here.

Review - Turtle in Paradise

2010-09-23T18:52:00.008-04:00

Seems like it's that time of year when everyone is making their Newbery posts. Speculating on what might win and trying to position their favorites into the discussion (well the online discussion at least). Last year When You Reach Me jumped right out, grabbed me, and never let me go. Back in 2008 I fell in love with both The Underneath and We Are the Ship and would have been equally happy to see either book go on to win the medal (I was both happy and disappointed that announcement day). I'd been waiting on the sidelines a bit this year because I didn't feel like I had found a horse in the race yet. I've read 23 Newbery type 2010 releases so far (MG fiction or nonfiction from eligible authors) and while I enjoyed many of them and even love some, none had grabbed me the way WYRM or The Underneath had. That is until yesterday when I read Jenifer L. Holm's Turtle in Paradise.

I started Turtle in Paradise with some skepticism. First off their is the main character's name. Turtle's already been taken and she's awesome. Would you write a story about a pig and name him Wilbur? A story about a king and name him Lear? Why invite such a comparison? Hommage I can understand but why so direct?

Needless to say I didn't much like Turtle before I even met her. How dare she steal the name of one of the 2 or 3 best characters in children's literature! I loved Holm's Penny from Heaven so I decided to get over the name thing and give the book a chance. I only had to read three sentences and I'm ready to give both Holm and Turtle a reprieve. Turns out Turtle's not a big fan of children, I'm starting to get hooked already.

A slight hiccup on page 8 when Turtle expresses her hatered for Shirely Temple. I flip back to see check the story's time frame. Its set in 1935 so Turtle has yet to experience the perfection that is John Ford's We Willy Winkie (1937) so I can understand not loving Temple. I will quietly assume that Turtle will change her mind when she does see this masterpiece of American cinema.

After that its clear sailing. Holm's prose reads effortlessly and before I know it the book is finished and I've found my horse! I haven't seen a lot of buzz out their for this book but I am hoping the committee will give it the chance it deserves.

Turtle's story is definitely the type of story that, in the past, has been eaten up by Newbery Committees. In short: Turtle is sent down to depression era Key West to live with her aunt (who she's never met) and cousins while her mother works a housekeeping job in New Jersey. Turtle adjusts and later flourishes in the shoeless, sandy environment dreaming of the day she and her mom can finally reunite.

All of Holm's characters are charming and well crafted. The carefree daily adventures of the (mostly all related in someway) gang of independent young Conchs brings to mind titles like The Penderwicks and The Great Brain. The only thing that didn't really work for me (other than the Turtle thing) was the way Holm shoehorned Hemingway into the story. Yes he was on the island at the time, but the kids didn't really need to run into him there. In the first encounter the character is simply referred to as a writer. I thought it would be obvious to any adult reader that the character was meant to be Hemingway. But later in the book he is introduced by name which felt a bit contrived or at least unnecessary as he doesn't add anything important to the narrative.

The Hemingway thing aside, I really love this book. Each character is both likable and well conceived. The plotting is fast and the narrative is structure in a way that should appeal to many fourth to sixth grade readers. As I stated above, stories like this have often garnered Newbery recognition in the past, most recently with The Higher Power of Lucky. The committee's job is not, however, to make comparisons to books from past years, so hopefully the 'kid separated from his/her parents' thing won't be a factor in discussions. Yes we've seen it before but if it has once again been done in such a perfect way why, one should not discount the book. I think the committee will have to hold this title up next to Appelt's Keeper and really dig into both books to find the more distinguished of the titles. I doubt both will be honored in the same year, which is unfortunate since they are both near the top of my list as of today.

For the record here's my top 5 as of now: (unless I can be convinced that Blink and Gollie somehow fits the criteria, in which case ignore this entire post, give B&G the medal and award no honors!)

1. Turtle in Paradise

2. Clementine, Friend of the Week

3. Night Fairy

4. One Crazy Summer

5. Keeper

Right now I have in hand to read: A Million Shades of Gray, The Water Seeker, Alchemy and Meggy Swann.

I'm still waiting to get my hands on: Forge, Scumble, The Ghostwriter Secret, Sugar Changed the World, Selling Hope.

Here's a list of the 2010 books I've read that aren't (right now at least) making my list: [* next to the rest of my top ten which I'll probably reread soon]

The Celestial Globe

Mockingbird

The Mysterious Howling

Out of My Mind*

Falling In

The Dreamer*

Woods Runner

The Boneshaker

As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth

The Firefly Letters*

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda*

Smells Like Dog

Countdown*

Mockingjay

Sir Charlie Chaplin

The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester

Touch Blue

Justin Fisher Declares War

Other than A Conspiracy of Kings, which I'm not planning on reading since I didn't really like The Thief and don't have the desire to catch up with the rest of the series at this point, what books am I missing? What should I read as soon as I can? How can I get Forge sooner?

Recapping the (amazing) 2010 Decatur Book Festival

2010-09-08T17:10:00.017-04:00

Below you will find a quick recap of each author talk I attended at the Decatur Book Festival. I'll include any news about future books or projects the authors might have mentioned either during the talk, the Q&A or in the signing line. By camera is having some issues so the pictures are all somewhat fuzzy. Also a few others didn't work at all. (Some Penderwick's news near the bottom of this post. Don't miss it.)

The first author I head this year was Bob Shea. He was at the Book Festival to promote his new picture book Dinosaur vs. The Potty. Fans of Dinosaur vs. Bedtime can probably guess how this one turns out. Needless to say Shea has written another winner. While he signed my book I asked him when we might see Dinosaur vs. Kindergarten (now that his son/dino-muse is 6 years old). Shea responded with a quick "Be careful what you wish for." He told me that he had only sketched out Dino vs. Kindergarten but before that we should be on the look out for Dinosaur vs. Library. I can't wait! During his talk Bob read Dinosaur vs. Potty (with some audience assistance for the roaring). He also shared his super secret jelly bean style of animal illustration in which he creates any animal imaginable from the same jelly bean shaped starting point. He made it look so easy.

Next up was Michael Buckley. Buckley drew a very large and enthusiastic crowd. The audience was split about 60-40 between fans of the Sisters

Grimm series and fans of Buckley's new N.E.R.D.S. series there was, of course, considerable overlap as well. I haven't read any of the Sisters Grimm books but after hearing Buckley talk about it I'm excited about giving the first one a read. Buckley's talk featured both series spending a lot of time answering fan questions. Sisters Grimm fans should be excited to hear that Buckley will start working on the 8th and final installment of the series at the end of the month. He also informed the audience that there would be a total of five N.E.R.D.S. books with each book focusing on a seperate member of the team. There is also a chance we might see a book focusing on Hyena (the assassin want to be for the first N.E.R.D.S. book) sometime.

Buckely was followed by the local Atlanta author (and potential 2011 Newbery winner) Deborah Wiles whose Countdown received praise by authors all weekend. Wiles shared the stage with fellow N.B.A. runner up and Coretta Scott King Honor recipient Shelia Moses to speak about writing historical fiction. Both authors did a wonderful job. During the Q&A Wiles shared a little about the rest of 'The Sixties Trilogy'. Wiles said there would a different casts of characters in each of the novels. The novels will have some overlapping characters though. Wiles also said that we will see Jo Ellen (Franny's older sister) in 1964 Mississippi (which I'm guessing will be the next book). Wiles seemed delighted to be in Decatur and sat in on many of the author talks on both Saturday and Sunday.

Quick aside: While attempting to escape the heat for a few minutes I browsed through Little Shop of Stories (the independent children's book store who was responsible for bringing all these great children's authors to town) where I ran into Scholastic editor and author David Levinthan. (he was Deborah Wiles editor for Countdown but could not attend Wiles' talk because his YA talk was at the same time) I of course first asked him about Mockingjay. He said he first read it over a year ago and had to keep everything secret for that long. I asked him if Collins is working on anything new and Levinthan said she is really busy promoting Mockingjay right now but has a few different ideas she is considering. Sounds like it will be a while before we get anything new from the Hunger Games scribe. Oh, and while I was in the bookstore, I read Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer's new picture book collaboration The Odious Orge. It is pretty awesome. Hope it's not another 49 years before they do another one together.

The last talk of the day featured Marie Rutkoski author of The Cabinet of Wonders and its sequel The Celestial Globe. Rutoski did a short reading from The Celestial Globe and then spoke about the role her professional background as a researcher plays in her writing. Rutkoski said that Jewel of the Calderosh [no doubt mutilated the spelling] scheduled to be published fall of next year will be the final book in the Kronos Chronicles. She is also working on a YA novel currently titled Me and the Shadow Society. Rutkoski also tangentially mentioned that When You Reach Me is one of her favorite recent reads and is using in the courses she teaches! I looked it up, she teachers children's lit. at Brooklyn College. I bet it's an awesome course!

Sunday I made it back to the festival just in time to hear author Tom Angleberger talk about one of my favorite books of the year, The Strange Case of Origami Yoda. Angleberger shared the stage with Star Wars illustrator and toy designer Chris Reiff. Needless to say the tent was packed with kids all eager to hear the authors speak and check out the costumed Star Wars characters who filled the stage (see the picture). After briefly discussing The Strange Case of Origami Yoda's premise Angleberger read from chapter two (the wet pants problem). Then it was time for the main event. Volunteers started passing out small green pieces of paper so that everyone in the audience (all 300+) could make their very own origami Yoda. Angelberger instructed the audience, with the help of one brave volunteer, using a giant piece of paper. The adults and kids in the crowd all had a great time. As I waited in the signing line, I mentioned to a few parents that they should also hunt down Angelberger's first novel The Qwikpick Adventure Society (published in 2007 under the pseudonym Sam Riddleburger). Like Origami Yoda it is a hilarious story (2 words: Poop Fountain) featuring a group of misfits.

Unfortunately I didn't hear any of the presumably hilarious talk by Eric Wright (Frankie Pickle series), DJ Steinberg (Adventures of Daniel Boom AKA Loud Boy series) and Josh Lewis (Super Chicken Nugget Boy). The talk also featured a life size Super Chicken Nugget. It sounded like both the kids in the audience and the authors on stage were having a great time. Laughter and chanting could be heard all the way across the square. I did manage to get a shot of Erick Wright signing some Frankie Pickle books. I'd bet the Frankie Pickle series books are the most circulated items in our school library. Our students just love them, I guess I should give them a try at some point. Both the Loud Boy series and Super Chicken NB also look like a lot of fun so I need to track them down. Can anyone vouch for them?

The next up was Newbery Honor author Ingrid Law. Law got a very warm welcome from the fans in attendance (including author Jeanne Birdsall!). She spoke about writing both Savvy and her newest book Scumble which she called a "companion not sequel" to Savvy. Talked about her writing process and how nervous she was starting Scumble. Law's love for language was easily apparent as one listened to her read from the new book and after hearing her I feel like I need to move Scumble a bit higher on my to read list! Fans will also be happy to know that Savvy film rights have been optioned by Walden Media (Holes, City of Ember, Narnia, etc.) for a major motion picture.

Next up was the event I was most excited about. I knew from watching Jarrett Krososka's hilarious video in which she plays Jarrett's agent that Jeanne Birdsall was a funny lady. The video has once again disappeared from the interwebs but you can see a deleted scene featuring Birdsall about one minute into this video. Once the discuss, which also featured local author Laurel Snyder (Any Which Wall and Up and Down the Scratchy Mountain) Birdsall's humor was impossible to miss. Both authors share an affinity for the novels of Edward Eagers and Enright, Nesbit, C.S. Lewis and Betty MacDonald. Works which take place in a magical or seemingly magical world where characters are safe to explore their own worlds. The two talked eloquently about their works and seem to be kinder spirits. At one point during their discussion about writing fantasy and how characters might deal with magic, Snyder brought up the "Susan problem", which is the idea that Susan Pevensie grew up and forsake magic for lipstick and therefore could not return to Narnia (and beyond) in the final book. Snyder mentioned that this was a problem she considered when assembling her characters for Any Which Wall and a problem she plans to confront in her next novel. I can't wait to read it.

In other news, Birdsall confirmed that there would be five Penderwicks books and gave us some much desired info regarding the third book, The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, which Birdsall said would take place in Maine. The author also said that in this story neither Rosalind nor Mr. Penderwick would be around so it's Skye's chance to be in charge. Birdsall did not spend much time talking about her new picture book Flora's Very Windy Day but I'd like to give it a mention again anyway. I have read it a number of times now and as I wrote in my review, I think it is the best picture book of the year.

Birdsall on the left, Laurel Snyder on the right.

Another Fantastic Decatur Book Festival!

2010-09-05T20:54:00.004-04:00

I had a great time at this year's book festival. It was great to hear so many wonderful authors talk about their work. Thanks to all the authors who gave up their holiday weekend to come to Atlanta. Thanks Diane and everyone else at Little Shop of Stories for once again putting on a fantastic show! (also thank you King of Pops for setting up your cart right next to the signing tent)

A full write up including a bunch of somewhat blurry pictures should be up sometime this week.

2010 Decatur Book Festival Preview

2010-09-01T17:01:00.013-04:00

The Decatur Book Festival is the largest independent book festival in the nation. Last year I finally managed to not make any plans and freed up my Labor Day weekend. Attending the Book Festival was a new experience for me and I throughly enjoyed it. I got books signed by Kate DiCamillo, Jarret Krosoczka (in the picture to the right quick drawing on demand against Dragon Breath author Ursula Vernon and Secret Science Alliance author Eleanor Davis), local favorite Elizabeth Dulemba and Jon Scieszka. The coolest moment had to be when Little Shop of Stories owner Diane pulled me aside and introduced me to DiCamillo before she went on stage. It was so great having a chance to speak to her about my students' annual reaction to Edward Tulane for a few minutes before her talk.

This year's roster of authors is equally impressive. I'm most excited about Jeanne Birdsall. She's appearing to promote Flora's Very Windy Day, her new picture book illustrated by Matt Phelan. It's my favorite picture book this year. I reviewed here. I'm expecting most of the questions during the session to be Penderwicks related. If I hear anything about the next installment I'll be sure to post it next week.

Also in attendance is Birdsall's fellow 2005 National Book Award nominee Deborah Wiles (Penderwicks won the award. Wiles' Each Little Bird Can Sing was one of the runner ups.) Wiles, who currently resides here in Georgia, released the first part of her sixties trilogy this year. Countdown is a great novel and is garnering plenty of award buzz. I read Countdown this Spring when it was released and had some mixed feelings about it. The more I reflect on the novel though, the more I like the story presented in Countdown. I am a little worried though, about how the story will continue in the two forthcoming novels. I really hope Wiles isn't going to go the Forrest Gump route and hit every cliche moment of the 60s. I really don't want to see Franny marching through Selma or buring draft notices. These were important moments in American history but do we really need our character to find herself in the middle of a History Channel 1960s recap? I'm going to try to get some answers this weekend. Hoping I manage to find the time to read Each Little Bird Can Sing before this weekend. I read Wiles' Love, Ruby Lavender last week and thought it was wonderful.

Ingrid Law will also be at the book festival promoting Scumble, the Savvy sequel. I haven't read it yet but Savvy was a fun read and I look forward to picking up a copy of Scumble this weekend.

I was really excited when I heard that The Strange Case of Origami Yoda author Tom Angleberger was going to attend the festival. Origami Yoda is one of my favorite books of 2010 and I've been recommending it bunches of kids and teachers. I was a little disappointed when I heard that Angleberger was presenting at a "Star Wars Extravaganza" panel. While I love the book, I'm not excited about anything star wars. I was hoping for some news about the chances of a Quikpick Adventure Society sequel but I don't see that happening at a star wars panel. Unfortunately this might have to be a signing line only author.

While The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is my go to 5th grade book recommendation this year, Michael Buckley's N.E.R.D.S is a close second. Thankfully Buckley is presenting here as well. I can't wait to get my hands on the newest volume. Hopefully Hyena gets to actually kill someone in this one. I was so bummed for her at the end of the first book.

Last Summer I was browsing around Little Shop of Stories searching for something new to read. Someone there recommended The Cabinet of Wonders, the begining of a new fantasy series by Marie Rutkoski . I thought the book started a little roughly but had a great second half. Reading The Celestial Globe (the second book in the Kronos Chronicles) this year I had the same feeling. The first 75 pages were not very compelling, but I couldn't but it down while reading final 200 or so pages. I really like the world Rutkoski is building and I'm looking forward to the next installment but I really hope she figures out how to pull me in from the start this time. Would it be rude to mention this while asking her to sign my copies?

I'm going to try my best to wake up early enough Saturday to make it to Bob Shea. I'd love to get a signed copy of Dinosaur vs. Bedtime for my soon to be born nephew.

I tune in next week to get a run down of how things go and for any news I hear.

If you're in the Atlanta area plan on heading over to Decatur for the chance to see some incredible authors. There are a ton of young adult and actual adult authors if you're so inclined. You can also visit booths from rare and used booksellers from all over the south east, and there lots of activities for kids (including a Lady Bug Girl parade on Sunday). You can view the full schedule here: http://www.decaturbookfestival.com/2010/schedule/print-ready.php

The Dunderheads movie in the works

2010-08-18T18:36:00.003-04:00

Paul Fleischman's 2009 picture book The Dunderheads (wonderfully illustrated by David Roberts) is apparently being brought to the big screen by Paramount Pictures. The book got quite a bit of award season buzz last year. Over at the SLJ's Heavy Medal blog Jonathan Hunt made a strong case for the book. Read his analysis here and here. His co-blogger Nina Lindsay chimed in on the book here.

While the Newbery committee didn't see to listen, someone in Hollywood did. Thanks to a leaked internal Paramount email acquired by thewrap.com we can start to speculate on what a big screen adaptation of The Dunderheads might look like. The leaked email lists 33 different film projects under consideration or early stages of preproduction. You can see the whole article and a picture of the email here.

The Dunderheads film is categorized as "Priorities/On Deck". Here's what the email has to say:

DUNDERHEADS: This is a $15m movie they're making w/Montecito later this year. Lana Williams wrote it -its a heist movie w/middle-schoolers (Oveans 11 year old"). They will likely put a commercials/video director on this.

A quick imdb search comes up blank for Lana Williams the screenwriter, so either Lana Williams the stunt safety supervisor is writing the script or Williams is a previously unproduced screenwriter.

The email mentions Montecito Pictures as the production company. They have previously released films such as: Up in the Air, The Uninvited, I Love You Man, Hotel for Dogs, Eurotrip, and Disturbia.

Can't wait to see who might be cast in the various roles. There's really only one adult role in the book but hopefully they'll get a great actress for the teacher role. Who do you think would make a good Miss Breakbone? Paramount is a Viacom company, whic also owns Nickelodeon. I am hoping synergy won't be at work here. I would hate to see any/all the kid roles assigned to Nickelodeon's TV series actors.

Exciting news. You should probably run out and get your copy of The Dunderheads now if you don't already have one, because pretty soon they'll release it with an ugly movie tie in cover.

Picture Book of the Year?

2010-08-16T21:17:00.003-04:00

Is was wondering through my local Borders yesterday as I waited for the Wholefoods next door to bake my pizza (sorry I feel the need to rationalize not being in my exceedingly wonderful and prize winning local independent bookstore). While browsing the picture book section I came across Jeanne Birdsall's new picture book Flora's Very Windy Day (illustrated by Matt Phelan, of last year's The Storm in the Barn). I was surprised to see it on the shelf as I didn't think it had been released yet. An amazon search shows the release date to by August 23, 2010 (the day before Mockingjay!). Anyway, I picked it up and gave it a thorough reading and WOW what a fantastic book. The illustrations are top notch. Phelan's figures remind me of Tricia Tusa's watercolors but with even more energy.

With relatively sparse text, Birdsall conveys the familial affection that she accomplishes in the Penderwick novels. Flora situation is one universally understood by any older brother or sister.

The story opens with Flora clearly fed up by her younger brother's bothersome mayhem (he, likely unknowingly, ruined Flora's art work). Flora's mom suggests that Flora go outside even though it's a very windy day. Flora begrudgingly takes her brother into the yard where the wind steals him away. Flora sets off to rescue her brother and discovers that though he might be a pain in the rear, he's her pain and she loves him all the same...

When I first learned that Jeanne Birdsall was coming to speak at the Decatur Book Festival in September I was super excited to get a chance to meet the author of the Penderwicks, but sort of upset that she had spent time on a picture book when there are still more volumes of the Penderwicks to be written. After reading Flora's Very Windy Day I am regret ever doubting Birdsall and cannot wait to hear her discuss this most recent masterpiece.

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On a completely unrelated note I reread The Hunger Games this weekend (while simultaneousness helping my team win the AFDC summer league end of season ultimate tournament). Tonight I'll start Catching Fire. Less than 8 days until Mockingjay, a.k.a. the best birthday present ever! I couldn't be more excited!

August 10 for 10: Picture Books I couldn't live without

2010-08-10T17:38:00.016-04:00

My list for the 10 picture books I need to survive my life as a second grade classroom teacher. I choose the ten books I find myself referring to throughout the school year. Sometimes I refer to these titles during a writing mini lesson or while making connections to other stories during a read aloud. Other times the situations and characters in these books serve as cues to inside jokes that we share as a community of readers/learners. To see more lists check out Enjoy and Embrace Learning.

1. Pierre: a Cautionary Tale by Maurice Sendak

We read this short little masterpiece all the time. My students buddy read it. They read it during SSR. They read it to their former teachers' classes, and they beg me to read and reread it during read alouds. We also watch the Carol King animated version of the Scholastic Sendak DVD anytime we eat breakfast or lunch in the classroom. Anytime anyone dares to say "I don't care" some other student is bound to throw out a line from Pierre such as "Don't pour syrup on your hair."

2. Purple, Green and Yellow by Robert Munsch

I know Munsch's infamously awful Love Me Forever stops some from exploring his other stories but I really think if you give his funny stuff a chance you'll love it. As a child I read Purple, Green and Yellow to my younger brother all of the time. Now I read it to my class at least a dozen times a year. I always read it the first day of school (I say read but at this point I have the entire thing memorized). Anytime we get a new student, which is very often at a school like mine, I read it to the class again as a way of initiating/welcoming the student to our class. By the time the fourth or fifth new kid joins our class, the rest of the students understand the importance of th book and quickly remind me that we need to reread Purple, Green and Yellow right away (sometime before the new student even finds his desk). Munsch's storytelling features repetitive language and outrageous adults. Students are often found cracking up while reading this book as well as others like Stephanie's Ponytail, David's Father and Show and Tell during silent reading. Listen to Munsch read Purple, Green and Yellow here at his website. The site is a favorite destination on our classroom computer.

3. Fortunately by Remy Charlip

I usually save this one for about midway through the school year. Inevitably the first reading is followed immediately by the second and third reading as my students can't seem to get enough of this book. We of course use it to inspire writing, but primarily this is a fun fun book made to be enjoyed for the sake of itself. A few weeks ago Elizabeth Fuse#8 Bird featured Fortunately as a storytime suggestion. See Fuse read the book read and her thoughts here.

4. Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming

I use this one every year for math. It's a wonderful story with super great illustrations by G. Brian Karas. Very interactive and very rereadable. After reading Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! I do all sorts of math with rabbits and gardens. In second grade I use it primarily for breaking apart numbers. During my year in third grade I used it with great success for area and perimeter. I was lucky enough to get Candace Fleming to sign a copy for my classroom when she was here in Atlanta for IRA a few years back. There is also a sequel titled Tippy-Tippy-Tippy, Hide! which is also wonderful. Hopefully Fleming will step away from middle grade nonfiction for long enough to give us another wonderful Mr. McGreely story soon!

5. The Signmaker's Assistant

I picked up this Tedd Arnold book at a Goodwill a couple of years ago because the illustration on the cover reminded me of Arnold's No Jumping on the Bed. I didn't read it before reading it aloud to my class and had to stop myself from laughing too much as I tried to read. This book is hilarious. Basically Norman, a sign painter in training, decides to make a bunch of ridiculous signs and hang them all over town. Surprisingly people follow all the signs including ones that tell people to "Knock Heads", detour through a house, a bring Norman presents. Norman of course see the error of his ways and repents, but the great thing about this book is Tedd Arnold great depictions of adult characters doing the stupidest things imaginable. After a few readings phrases like "knock heads" are used throughout the classroom when someone doesn't think for themselves.

6. Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

What hasn't been said about Cooney's masterpiece. I am ashamed to say that this book sat on my shelves unread for the longest time because of the less than inviting cover. Once I sat and read it however I became as big a fan as everyone else. Great and inspiring story. Students always respond so well to it too. I think Roxaboxen and Emma are better books but I couldn't imagine not reading Miss Rumphius during that first week of school, in fact I think I'll read it tomorrow!

7. Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg

My go to Earth Day book really opens my students' imaginations. I love seeing their expressions as they slowly piece together what's happening in the story. Like all Allsburg's stories the ending resonates so strongly that you want to immediately reread the story.

8. Solomon the Rusty Nail by William Steig

Frequent readers of this blog know that Steig is my hands down favorite author ever. I love all of his books completely. I would have had trouble making a list of just ten Steig books for this post so picking just one was incredibly difficult. I went with my personal favorite and the title that I most enjoy reading to my class. I save Solomon the Rusty Nail for near the end of our Steig month because this book incorporates so many of the themes and ideas found in Steigs other works. I love listening to my students as they connect Solomon's captivity to Pearl's or Roland's or Zeke Pippen's. Each year a student finds another connection or concern that ties into a Steig work I had not previously thought about in that way. They recognize the transformations we previously encountered with Sylvester as well as with The Toy Brother as well as the family reconnection at the conclusion of the story that occurs in Zeke Pippen, Sylverster, Spinky, Gorky, Pearl, Irene, etc. To see seven and eight year old students making strikingly asstute observations a teacher cannot help but want to repeat the exercise annually. Sometimes in the winter months I am looking forward to summer vacation, other times I am impatiently looking forward to the month of Steig still to come.

9. Traction Man is Here! by Mini Grey

I had never heard of or seen this book until it was featured in Fuse#8 Top 100 picture book countdown (it was #62). Once I tracked down a copy and saw my students' reactions I started pushing it into the hands of every teacher on my hall. This beautiful testament to the power of imagination is not only laugh your pants off funny (favorite line: "Traction Man is guarding some toast"), it is the BEST mentor text for young writers I know. Once students understand that playing make believe or playing with their toys is a form of storytelling they quickly embrace fiction writing. Before Traction Man student writing is often about themselves or what they did the day before. After reading Traction Man is Here! the students begin to open up and their creative juices begin to flow onto the page. For this I owe Mini Grey more thanks than I can offer. The sequel is great and in just over a month Jim, Who Ran Away from His Nurse, and Was Eaten by a Lion will be release here in America (it's going to go great with Pierre!). I might actually be more excited about this 2010 release than Mockingjay!

10. Someday a Tree by Eve Bunting

Because sometimes I like to see them cry. Most of the books on this list are funny. I don't like using books to teach lessons or character traits. Books are fun and should be used for fun. The minute we start using book to teach kids how to be better people or what ever else we risk turning kids off from books and this is unacceptable. I don't read this book to talk about pollution or about death and dying, I read it to show students that books can make us feel things deeply. Not only can they make us laugh, they can also make us incredibly sad.

Thoughts on the Start of a New School Year

2010-08-08T10:41:00.010-04:00

Monday marks the beginning of my fourth year in the classroom. Last week we had three work days to get prepared, scrutinize our class lists and most importantly come to terms with waking up before 11am again. Before getting into my plans for the new school year I'll recap my summer reading.

This summer I only managed to read 32 books (not including rereads), which is significantly fewer than last summer. Assuming the weather holds up I should finish Love, Ruby Lavender at the pool today to bump the total to 33. I did a lot more traveling for ultimate this summer and it's hard to get any reading done on those trips. Of the 32 books I did read 10 were 2010 titles. Going into the summer I had high hopes and big plans. I wanted to finally read some series I had never gotten around to such as His Dark Materials, Little House, Gregor the Overlander, and Prydain (I read High King a few years ago and loved it but for some reason I haven't read the series in its entirety). The only series I did complete was the Pullman one, which is another reason my numbers are low for this summer, those suckers were l-o-n-g. I also read the first Gregor the Overlander book and I'll probably complete the series at some point.

The best new book I read this summer was Clementine, Friend of the Week. Sapphique is next on the list of favorites.

Preparing my classroom was a pretty painless experience this year. The biggest task is always putting my classroom library back together. Every May I remove all the books from the shelves and place them inside closets and cabinets so that the janitorial staff can move the bookcases when they re-wax the floors. This year I managed to create enough space so that I could keep most of the books in their baskets when storing them so that all I had to do last week was but the baskets back in their spots on the shelves. Below are a few slightly blurry pictures of my classroom library.

On the left is the overflowing Caldecott Honor shelf.

I organize most books my reading level. A through F are in red baskets. G, H and I are in the yellow baskets with G on the top yellow shelf, H on the middle shelf and I at the bottom. Simiarly J, K and L are in blue baskets and M, N and O are in the green baskets. The top of the self holds mostly "I Can Read" and other early reader books of that size again leveled by color. The tall bookcase contains a basket for class favorites. There is a basket with all of Mo Willems' Elephant & Piggie books, a basket for all the ToonBooks and a basket with various other graphic novels like Lunch Lady, Owly, Babymouse, Bone, etc, there is an overly stuffed basket of Dr. Seuss on this shelf as well. Above that is my poetry shelf including all the thick Silverstein, Prelutsky and Lansky collections as well as stand alone poetry books and some verse picture books. The top shelf is were I store my teacher's hands only books. Hardcover jacketed favorites like Traction Man, Lion and the Mouse, Curious Garden, all the Van Allsburgs and autographed picture books. Also on the top shelf is my complete William Steig collection since I don't introduce Steig until April his books can stay out of reach (expect of some copies of Pete's a Pizza which reside in the yellow baskets).

The two left most cases on this wall contain chapter books organized by series or author. Again the blue baskets contain series that are easier than the green baskets. The middle bookcase contains baskets for our favorite authors. There are baskets for Ezra Jack Keats, Kevin Henkes, Robert Munsch (don't worry LYF is not in there!), Cynthia Rylant, two baskets for Arnold Lobel and two baskets for James Marshall. On the far right of the picture is the Caldecott Medal shelf.

Behind my guided reading table is one last book shelf that houses student book boxes. My students use these blue plastic boxes to hold store the books they want to read during Sustained Silent Reading that day. Every morning and afternoon students have a chance to swap out books always maintaining seven books in their boxes. I use the book boxes so that when it's time for SSR the students simply have to retrieve their box and they are ready to read.

The classroom library is the center of my classroom. We spend time on the mats reading, listening to others read and participating in discussions about what we read (as well as what we write). Monday I will read some of my favorite books (there is nothing I enjoy more than the first time I get to read Munsch's Purple, Green and Yellow to a class) and discuss our classroom library procedures. We will talk about how it is important to carefully return books to their proper baskets and how to choose "just right books" for our independent reading. The students will design name tags for their book boxes and begin filling them for our first SSR. I usually start with 5 minutes of SSR the first day of school and slowly build up to 20 minutes by the beginning of September. Unfortunately our schedule doesn't really allow for us to do SSR for longer than 20 minutes.

Monday we will also vote for our first chapter book read aloud. I usually preselect 3 titles and after a short book talk on each title the students vote for the book they want to hear. If the vote is close I make sure to include the runner up title in the next vote. The last couple years my class choose Patrick Catling's The Chocolate Touch (a book I remember my second grade teacher reading to me!). I like starting with novels that have very short chapters (less than 1o pages) at the beginning of the year so that students who may not have a lot of practice sitting and listening to pictureless books get a chance to get used to this kind of listening without having to sit for too long (remember they're seven year olds).

I hope to use this blog to write a little about how my class reacts to the books we read together this year. I will try to post weekly about the classes reception to both old favorites and new releases. I'm really looking forward to getting Mini Grey's Jim, Who Ran Away from His Nurse and Was Eaten By a Lion which I predict will be a big time favorite. I'm also looking forward to reading Jacqueline Jules' chapter book Zapato Power with my students. Last year's class loved making fun of my horrendous Spanish when I read Patrick Jennings Faith and the Electric Dog.

I welcome any and all read aloud suggests you may have as I am always searching for that next great book. My goal as a second grade teacher is simple. I want to create life long readers. I firmly believe that one positive reading experience (the proverbial "homerun book") is all it takes to make someone a reader. My task then, is giving my students a chance to find that book. So if you know of an amazing but little known picture book or chapter book that you think my second graders would get a kick out of please let me know. And if you're an author or publisher and want to get a galley into some potentially receptive hands I'd love to have the opportunity to help make that happen. So please leave a comment or shoot me an email.

When You Reach Me: one year later

2010-07-14T11:33:00.000-04:00

365 days ago Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me hit the shelves at bookstores across the country. Since then it has gone on to achieve universal acclaim as well as earn both the Newbery Medal and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. When You Reach Me also immediately earned a spot in my list of personal favorite books of all time.

I have read WYRM 7 or 8 times in the last year and each reading brings more and more enjoyment. Over the last year I have recommended WYRM to my fellow teachers, students, random kids and all my relatives.

To mark When You Reach Me's 1st birthday I am going to once again do a single sitting read through of the book. (My first reading was actually on the floor at the bookstore on July 13, for some reason they had it on the shelf a day early)

If you haven't read it in a while (I am assuming by now anyone reading this blog has read it at least once) I encourage you to take it off your shelf and give it another read.

If I was going to be at ALA...

2010-06-24T11:33:00.005-04:00

If I was in D.C. for ALA these are the ARCs I would be hunting down:

Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord (Scholastic)

Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson (Simon & Schuster)

Bink and Gollie by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick Press)

Guys Read: Funny Stuff by Jon Scieszka et al. (Walden Pond Press)

The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester by Barbara O'Connor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Memory Bank by Carolyn Coman (Scholastic)

Blank Confession by Pete Hautman (Simon & Schuster)

Selling Hope by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb (Feiwel & Friends)

Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter (Feiwel & Friends)

I would likely spend the rest of my time standing in line for Rebecca Stead's signature.

oh well maybe next year in the big easy.

Advanced Review: Sapphique

2010-06-17T10:19:00.004-04:00

If you haven't read Catherine Fisher's Incarceron stop reading, go to your local bookstore, buy it and give it a read.

Okay. That was great wasn't it? Didn't you love the world building? The characters? The way Fisher told the two parallel narratives by first alternating chapters and then later as the narratives came closer and closer to intersection began splitting the narrative within chapters? I think the technique makes Incarceron a book one simply can't put down.

Brilliant, mind bending ideas abound in Incarceron. But beyond the perfectly crafted "Era" dystopia, and the living, breathing, ever changing prison, there is a fundamentally sound story of two kids trying to figure out how to best survive the world(s) they live in.

I found Incarceron pretty much a perfect novel. The only weakness I found was that occasionally the descriptions of the action sequences were a little bit unclear. Everything else though, solid gold!

Thanks to Peter Sieruta's Collecting Children's Books blog I knew the Sapphique ARC was out there, so last week when I was in my favorite local independent children's book store, little shop of stories, I looked for the ARC behind the counter. To my pleasant surprise, Sapphique was indeed on the galley shelf. Diane, the owner of Little Shop, was kind enough to loan me said ARC. I imagine the smile on my face leaving the bookstore was ear to ear.

I jumped right into Sapphique and was pleased to see that the action picked up only a few months after the conclusion to Incarceron. Fisher maintains the parallel story telling technique, though now its Attia and Keiro inside the prison alternating with Finn and Claudia outside in the Realm. Fisher also continued opening each chapter with a fragment of a legend or song which serve to build up the presumably vast oral storytelling traditions that exist inside Incarceron. Its amazing how these short lines of prose can serve to build up and reveal the shared imagination of the people inside the prison.

Since the reader is already familiar with both the prison and the realm Sapphique won't blow your mind in the same way Incarceron was able to. The cat's already out of the bag, but now we get to see what it can do. Sapphique is one part quest, and one part court intrigue. Even with Finn's escape at the end of Incarceron Queen Sia is still in command of the realm and has no intention of giving up an ounce of control or protocol. On the inside, the prison is distracted, Attia and Keiro have forged an uneasy alliance and the Warden is somewhere within the prison with an agenda all his own. Again the action plays out in parallel as Jared, Finn and Claudia try to find a way to hold up Finn's promise and get Keiro and Attia out of Incarceron, while Keiro and Attia may have found their own way out.

Sapphique is an outstanding sequel to a perfect book. Completely compelling from first page last. The ending left me entirely satisfied.

Sapphique by Catherine Fisher will be released December 28, 2010 by Dial Books.

The Finish Line

2010-06-06T08:55:00.004-04:00

So, I read five complete books and a little more than a half of a sixth book. In all I read for 25 hours and 5 minutes. I also spent 1 hour and 30 minutes blogging/updating goodreads. For a grand total of 26 hours and 35 minutes, which is a only55.3% of the 48 hours. Honestly I am a little disappointed with my final number. I certainly slept way more than I needed to this weekend. I also feel that if the challenge could have begun in the middle of the week instead of the weekend I could have done significantly better, that or I could have just told my friends I couldn't go out Friday night because I was reading...

Anyway after finishing The Fire-Eaters and updating the blog I jumped into Andrew Clements' Things Not Seen. I really didn't not know what to expect from this one. I have of course read Frindle and I think one of younger Clements title but Things Not Seen is aimed toward an older audience than most of Clements books. I liked the premise here, a teenage boy wakes up one morning to find that he has gone invisible. I liked the characters and thought the story was very well plotted. The writing kept the story moving a a brisk pace and overall I really enjoyed the ride. I am much too exhausted to say much more other than that.

I started but unfortunately did not finish The Snark Boys & The Avocado of Death by Daniel Manus Pinkwater. I am a late comer to Pinkwater's stuff but would consider myself a big big fan. Loved Lizard Music, loved Wingman and had so much fun reading The Hoboken Chicken Emergency to my third graders last year. Of course his true masterpiece is The Big Orange Splot which some how I had never encountered until it showed up in Fuse#8's picture book poll last year. My students absolutely love it. We also have a special affinity towards Uncle Melvin, an unfortunately out of print picture book about a boy who spends his days cared for by his crazy (like straight from the looney bin crazy) uncle.

Anyway The Snark Boys & The Avocado of Death does not disappoint. The openning pages had me laughing out loud. I especially loved the antisemitic English teacher who freaks out each year when all her students, Jewish or not, who show up the first day of class with a Star of David around their necks. Also love the Snark movie theater which shows the most eclectic double features 24 hours a day. Great films and awful ones are mentioned throughout and all I could think about was how sad it is that cable TV killed the repertory business. At one point a character disses Visconti, well disses La terra trema at least, and this is not cool at all. I wanted to scream at her "How would any one in their right mind miss a Visconti marathon, even if you sleep through La terra trema there's still Senso and The Leopard!!!! Who misses two of the most beautiful color films ever made (Powell & Pressburger exclued of course)??? Seriously I was yelling at the book at 7:00 this morning. Still have 45 pages left so I don't know what's going to happen but like all the Pinkwater I've encountered its a laugh a minute and the plot of secondary at best. I can't wait to get some sleep and finish it!

Nitty gritty details.

Like I said above I read 5 (almost 6 books) and read & blogged for 26 hours and 35 minutes.

Complete book list: The Cardturner, Keeper, As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth, The Fire-Eaters, Things Not Seen, and 1/2 of The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death.

Total page count is 1666 pages or 1.045 pages a minute. I guess I'm a slow reader.

Okay now it's time to get some sleep, or maybe finish the Pinkwater first...

36 hour update

2010-06-05T20:42:00.002-04:00

Only 12 hours left in the 48 Hour Book Challenge and I'm still going. Last night's break lasted a little too long and made for a slow start this morning but I feel like I can stay up in to the wee hours of the morning as I approach the 9 am finish line.

So far today I read As Easy as Falling Off the Edge of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins and The Fire- Eaters by David Almond.

As Easy as Falling Off the Edge of the Earth - hmmmm....Not sure how I feel about this one. I liked so many things about it: the initial scenes were wonderful and I loved the narration. Some times the characters just did the dumbest things and once the narrator goes so far as to let the reader know that it is aware that the characters are being stupid. Perkins also leaves some threads only partially cooked. The dogs seem to be forgotten about almost entirely and the grandfathers scenes all seemed incredibly rushed. In the end I understood what Perkins was doing with coincidence and compounding randomness but for some reason it did not entirely work for me today. I may revisit this one in a few months to see if it has grown on me. There was enough worthwhile stuff in here to merit a reexamination I think.

The Fire-Eaters - Last week I read Almond's Skellig, it was my first David Almond title and I really enjoyed it. Because of this I was excited to read The Fire-Eaters. I was equally impressed here and am now looking forward to getting my hands on Kit's Wilderness. The Fire Eaters was a surprising story that places the reader in a very specific time and place and lets said reader discover the world and in leisurely and thought provoking way. As I read I was constantly making comparisons to Deborah Wiles' Countdown which places very different characters into the same historical crisis. I enjoyed seeing the working class British reaction to the missile crisis, having never thought about how people in "uninvolved" countries (i.e. not US, USSR or Cuba) must have reacted to a global situation in which they where on the sidelines. This one is too fresh in my mind to say much else other than it was an enjoyable read which makes me want to read more of Almond's works.

Today's Log so far. I did a lot of sleeping this morning/afternoon, but once the hangover was overcome I got some good work done.

8:30-9:15 Read 45m

915-1040 slept

10:40 - 1:05 read 2h25m

1:05-1:30 break

1:30- 4:00 read 2h30m

400-410 slept

4:10 - 5:20 read 1h10m

520-545 break

5:45-8:40 read 2h55m

8:40 - 9:15 blog

so far today I've read for 9 hours and 45 minutes which including yesterday's 9 hours gives me 18hours and 45 minutes plus 1 hour 25 minutes of blogging.

If I can go straight through to 9am I can break 30 hours but I'm thinking 25 is a much more likely number.

48 Book Challenge

2010-06-04T08:43:00.004-04:00

Starting this morning at 9:00 am. The plan is to read The Cardturner at home and then venture to a pool for The Keeper. However, it looks like the weather might not be so cooperative, in which case its the couch for the day. I'm thinking I can read for 15 hours today. With 1 hour for blogging and four 15 minute breaks puts my sleep time at 2am. Optimistic but attainable.

I'll probably update this post every two or three completed titles.

12 hour update.

The Cardturner by Louis Sachar - Completed in one sitting 9:00am - 1:05pm

I realized as I completed The Cardturner that this is the third Sachar book that I completed in a single go. I vividly remember being sick one day in 2nd or 3rd grade and taking Sideway Stories from Wayside School with me to my mom's work. I sat there and read it in one shot. Of course I loved it as much as every other 8 year old on the planet does. (I read it aloud to my class this spring and had so much fun watching them react to the jokes.) A few years ago I read Holes for the first time and I had to go straight through because it was simply too damn perfect to put down.

Anyway, The Cardturner. I really liked it. Mind you its no Holes. But it's really not trying to be so that's okay. Going in I was curious to see not only how Sachar worked all the bridge talk I'd heard about into the book, but also hoped I could learn a little something about bridge myself. Never having played the game I always wonder how one deciphers the bridge diagrams tat often show up next to the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. After reading The Cardturner I'm pretty sure I have enough understanding of the game to figure out those diagrams but I certainly I'm not ready to actually play the game.

The Cardturner is full to the brim with amazing characters. The supporting players like Leslie and Gloria don't get a lot of pages but are clearly drawn and incredibly likable. I also love the vibe you get from Alton's mother. From the very beginning I was hoping she wouldn't get squat in the will. Alton's parents are really the exact opposites of Stanley Yelnats' parents.

Sachar writes older teens just as well as he writes kids (no real surprise there) and I am always a fan of a first person narrator. One thing that kept sneaking into the front of my mind as I read the book however was the sneaky suspicion that Konigsburg could have done the story even better. I'm not sure what she would have done differently but I really wish I could read it. The story contains many themes or situations often seen in Konigsburg's stories, non-condescending adult/child conversations and interactions, self reliant kids, etc. Not to slight Sachar at all, I think he's one of the very best, but as I read I kept wanting The Cardturner to be somehow better. It had so much potential and achieves so much, yet I thought I could have been even better, even though I have no idea how so.

Keeper by Kathi Appelt 1:20pm - 830pm with 2+ hours of naps and breaks.

I was a huge huge huge fan of The Underneath read it twice then read it to my 3rd grades last year before Newbery announcements. I was therefore a little apprehensive about Keeper. Would it hold up to the sublime excellence of The Underneath?

A few short chapters in and I realized I had nothing to worry about. Appelt is a master storyteller and I was excited to see where the journey would take me.

I really liked Keeper but missed some of the lyricism in verse that made The Underneath so memorable. Keeper is certainly going to appeal to a certain kind of reader. The best way I can describe it is warm. A much more gentle book than the often frightening and meandering narrative of The Underneath. I really enjoyed the tiny world Appelt created here and again was struck by how much she made me care about pets and animals (which in the real world I usually detest). Appelt is able to build quite a lot of tension with her multiple perspective, tiny chapters and intermittently placed back story. This slow reveal style gives the narrative a slight mystery feel which I found quite compelling even if the "mysteries" were readily apparent.

Next up is As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins. I read and loved Criss Cross but haven't read anything else she's done so I'm excited.

Still looking for that top book of 2010 maybe this will be the one!

Below is a detailed log from my notebook.

9:00 am - 1:05 Reading 4h5m

1:05 - 1:20 break

120 - 150 read 30m

150 - 210 nap

210-250 read 40m

250-305 break

305-4:10 read 1h5m

4:10-4:20 break

420-4:30 read 10m

4:30-5:40 sleep

5:40 - 5:50 read 10m

5:50-6:10 break

6:10- 830 read 2h20m

8:30 - 9:20 Blogging

As you can see unexpected naps have been my enemy.

Total time spent reading: 9 hours

Total time spent blogging: 50 minutes

Time for a bar break after which I will either pass out or read a book. The night could go either way.

preparing for the 48 Hour Book Challenge

2010-06-03T18:20:00.008-04:00

Tomorrow mid morning I plan on beginning my 48 hours clock. This is the first year I've been able to participate because I've always had ultimate tournaments on the same weekend. So I am really happy to finally join in on the fun. MotherReader has all the rules and details here.

School's been out for almost 2 weeks and I have gotten a lot of reading done but tomorrow I plan to really ratchet up my focus and pace. Not living in an apartment with a pool has presented some challenges so far this summer but thanks to some generous friends I have secured access to others' pools so that I can be most productive.

Here's my to read pile as of tonight. I have been saving both Keeper and The Cardturner for this challenge and I am super excited to delve into them. I've got the rest of Collin's Overlander series as well if I somehow make it through this stack.

To prepare for the challenge I've done the following:

worked on an acceptable base tan (last weekend in savannah helped here) so as not to lose reading time applying aloe vera.
purchased 2 cases of high life so as not to go thirsty.
organized my food delivery menus so as to not lose reading time looking for something to eat. Cooking is of course a massive waste of time and so I will refrain from doing so until after the challenge.
unplugged television
finished all essential laundry (swim trunks and towels)
purchased poolside snacks
read all emails.
read everything that piled up in my google reader
read all unread messages in child_lit

So I think I'm ready to read read read. I'll try to post Friday night on my progress. Wish me luck!

What if the Top 100 Children's Novels Poll had....

2010-04-13T18:44:00.012-04:00

While tabulating all the data from Fuse#8's Top 100 Children's Novels Poll I was fasinated by the way some titles accrued points by earning lots of 10th, 8th and 9th place votes while others earned their spots by earning less votes of higher value. There is an argument to be made that the more votes a title recieves, regardless of the value of the vote, signifies a certain universal acknowledgment of excellence. Alternately those books which did not earn as many votes but were placed closer to first on the top tens in which they were selected signifies a deeper affection felt by those who chose to recognize them at all. For example: Wilson Rawls' Where the Red Fern Grows was placed 46th on the list with only 11 votes. Other titles with an equal number of votes ranged between 81st and 60th. What allowed Where the Red Fern Grows to surpass all of the other titles with 11 votes and many titles with votes in the high teens? Well, of Where the Red Fern Grows' 11 votes an almost half (5) were 1st place votes! Those who placed Where the Red Fern Grows on their top 10s placed it at the top or near the top in all but one instance. The vote tally was: 5 firsts, 1 second, 2 thirds, 2 fourths and 1 tenth place vote. 91% of the title's votes were in the top 5 and 73% were in the top 3. Where the Red Fern Grows earned 90 points from its 11 votes. (5*10)+(1*9)+(2*8)+(2*7)+(1*1) = 90

I use a measure I termed 'Average Vote Rank' to assign a measure to a books "belovedness" regardless to how many votes it received. A book which only receives first place votes will have an average vote rank of 1, and a book with only tenth place votes (regardless of how many 10th place votes) will have an average vote rank of 10. Where the Red Fern Grows has an Average Vote Rank of 2.82 which is the lowest of any book in the top 100. Charlotte's Web the #1 book has an Average Vote Rank of 3.56 (the 7th best average rank on the list).

Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me (#39) serves as a great counterexample. Here is a title with 24 votes but no first or second place votes, not surprising when you consider its newness (in ten years I'm betting it's recognized along side of Holes as the very best and most loved of the modern Newberys). When You Reach Me was the first book to appear in the countdown with over 20 votes but because so many of the votes (50% of WYRM's votes where 10th-7th place votes) had little value, the title only earned 107 points. Wizard of Oz also earn 107 points but did so with nine less votes. When You Reach Me's average vote rank is 6.54 while Wizard of Oz's average vote rank is 3.87.

Average Vote Rank is a valuable metric but because a book with one feverish supporter can place higher than a book with over 100 only slightly less feverish supporters the value is not useful in creating an entire ranking.

I played around with a number of different methods and ended up creating 5 alternative rankings plus a ranking in which I average all 5 alternates and the official/actual ranking.

Below I will explain each ranking methodology and highlight some of the titles which benefited and those which lost the most ground with each method.

The first modified ranking is also the simplest. In Total Votes Ranking I simply gave each title one point for each vote regardless of the value of the vote. With this method titles 1-11 were unaffected, The Hobbit and Bridge to Terabithia swapped spots and Hatchet jumped all the way from 26st to 18th. Where the Red Fern Grows suffered greatly dropping down to 61st but When You Reach Me gained some ground and just squeaked into the top 25.

Total Votes Ranking

Rank Points Title

1 101 Charlotte's Web

2 87 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

3 87 A Wrinkle in Time

4 72 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

5 70 From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

6 68 Holes

7 59 The Giver

8 58 The Secret Garden

9 55 Anne of Green Gables

10 54 The Phantom Tollbooth

11 41 The Westing Game

12 38 Bridge to Terabithia

13 33 The Hobbit

14 32 Harriet the Spy

15 31 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

16 31 Because of Winn-Dixie

17 31 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

18 28 Hatchet

19 27 Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

20 26 James and the Giant Peach

21 26 The Tale of Despereaux

22 26 Tuck Everlasting

23 26 Matilda

24 26 Maniac Magee

25 24 When You Reach Me

The total votes method igonores the value of vote placement completely. In my second reranking method I go to the opposite end of the spectrum. In this ranking I ask the question "What if Fuse#8 only allowed voters to select 3 titles instead of 10?" Here I ignored any votes that weren't 1st, 2nd or 3rd place votes. I then used the traditional values; 1st place votes earned a title 10 points, 2nd place - 9 points and 3rd place - 8 points. When I re-tabulated the points I go the following new top 25 (26 actually as Winnie-the-Pooh and James and the Giant Peach tied for 25th place).

Top 3 only Ranking

Rank Points Title

1 577 Charlotte's Web

2 386 A Wrinkle in Time

3 242 Anne of Green Gables

4 225 The Giver

5 213 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

6 209 Holes

7 208 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

8 202 The Secret Garden

9 190 From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

10 163 The Westing Game

11 137 The Hobbit

12 115 The Phantom Tollbooth

13 112 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

14 105 Bridge to Terabithia

16 101 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

15 101 Maniac Magee

17 96 Harriet the Spy

18 85 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass

19 84 Matilda

20 83 Because of Winn-Dixie

21 79 Little Women

22 77 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

23 75 Where the Red Fern Grows

24 73 Little House in the Big Woods

25 71 Winnie-the-Pooh

25 71 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

As you can see Anne of Green Gables benefits tremendously from this re-ranking. You will also notice that Tuck Everlasting, The Tale of Despereaux and Percy Jackson have fallen out of the top 25. They are replaced with Where the Red Fern Grows, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It's interesting that two recent kid favorites (Despereaux and Percy Jackson) are push out in favor of some all time classics.

The next method is almost identical to the top 3 votes method except that here I imagine Fuse#8 requiring voters to submit a top 5. So I only ignore votes for 10th-6th place, thus the Top 5 votes method.

Here is the top 25 generated from this method

Top 5 only Ranking

Rank Points Title
1 668 Charlotte's Web
2 491 A Wrinkle in Time
3 443 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
4 357 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
5 321 Anne of Green Gables
6 315 From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
7 304 The Giver
8 300 The Secret Garden
9 294 Holes
10 202 The Westing Game
11 200 The Phantom Tollbooth
12 175 The Hobbit
13 165 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
14 145 Bridge to Terabithia
15 136 Because of Winn-Dixie
16 135 Harriet the Spy
17 132 Maniac Magee
18 121 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
19 113 Little Women
20 110 Matilda
21 105 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
22 104 Little House in the Big Woods
23 98 The Tale of Despereaux
24 98 Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
25 98 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Not too different from the Top 3 only ranking except that Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH now makes the top 25 instead of Where the Red Fern Grows.

Not totally satisfied with ignoring votes but also wanting to give greater weight to books the voters placed indicated they thought more highly of, I began researching different voting methodologies. Thanks to Nate Silver's wonderful politics blog, I discovered a method of vote counting that gives significantly more weight to votes closer to the top pick. In this method I look at all the votes cast but instead of giving 10 points to first place votes, 9 place to second, 8 to third, etc, I assigned 1 point to first place votes, 0.5 points to 2nd place votes, .33 to third place votes etc. In this method a second place vote is worth 1/2 a first place vote. See the chart below for a full points breakdown:

Vote points as fraction points as decimal

1st 1/1 1.0
2nd 1/2 0.5
3rd 1/3 0.333
4th 1/4 0.25
5th 1/5 0.20
6th 1/6 0.167
7th 1/7 0.143
8th 1/8 0.125
9th 1/9 0.111
1oth 1/10 0.1

The advantage of this method is that each point value is in relation to a first place vote's value. A title would need 8 eighth place votes to equal the same as a single first place vote (0.125 x 8 = 1.0) Mathematicians might call this the N^-1 or inverse function point value system. When scores are re-tabulated with this method no votes are ignored but 1st place votes are given premium importance. Notice there is a huge difference between 1st and 2nd place vote values but very little difference between 9th and 10th place values. Below is the Top 25 using this scoring method.

N^-1 point system Ranking

Rank Points Title
1 50.9742084 Charlotte's Web
2 36.24579455 A Wrinkle in Time
3 29.98006477 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
4 24.90144611 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
5 23.23439811 The Giver
6 23.14139644 Anne of Green Gables
7 21.9169221 From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
8 21.57674688 Holes
9 21.54171433 The Secret Garden
10 14.91163544 The Westing Game
11 13.80227022 The Phantom Tollbooth
12 12.92379355 The Hobbit
13 10.39182644 Bridge to Terabithia
14 9.93138233 Because of Winn-Dixie
15 9.44330211 Maniac Magee
16 9.40441322 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
17 8.99268344 Matilda
18 8.88727055 Harriet the Spy
19 8.84079322 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
20 7.75771533 Tuck Everlasting
21 7.72801744 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
22 7.715857 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
23 7.62996911 A Little Princess
24 7.56474722 Little House in the Big Woods
25 7.23316044 Hatchet

As you can see the top 10 is not changed much in this method either, though Westing Game does sneak in front of The Phantom Tollbooth. Westing game had 13 less votes than Tollbooth but 4 more 1st place votes, in the N^-1
calculation The Westing Game's 1st place votes were worth more than the sum total of Tollbooth's lesser valued votes. In the original/standard ranking Tollbooth earned 43 more points than The Westing Game but Westing Games average vote ranking (5.0) was better than Tollbooth's (5.4) the N^-1
method therefore accounts for both the number of votes and the average vote ranking. I really like this method!

The final ranking system I employed combined two of the above systems. In this method I used only 1st - 5th place votes and then scored the votes with the N^-1
method. Below are the results of the rescoring.

N^-1 point system Top 5 Only Ranking

Rank Points Title
1 47.61 Charlotte's Web
2 32.28 A Wrinkle in Time
3 25.95 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
4 21.15 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
5 21.07 Anne of Green Gables
6 20.24 The Giver
7 18.71 The Secret Garden
8 17.99 From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
9 17.43 Holes
10 12.83 The Westing Game
11 11.45 The Hobbit
12 10.1 The Phantom Tollbooth
13 8.21 Maniac Magee
14 8.19 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
15 8.16 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
16 8.01 Because of Winn-Dixie
17 7.88 Bridge to Terabithia
18 7.25 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
19 7.23 Matilda
20 7 Harriet the Spy
21 6.66 Where the Red Fern Grows
22 6.33 A Little Princess
23 6.21 Little House in the Big Woods
24 6.02 Little Women
25 5.88 Tuck Everlasting

Again not too much variation in this method but what you don't see is that with this scoring Percy Jackson falls all the way to number 41! Not to anger Percy Jackson fans, but can we all agree its not one of the top 25 children's novels? Also of note is the way Harry Potters 3 & 7 find themselves side by side in with this scoring. In the original results Azkaban was 14 and Deathly Hollows was 24.

Finally I averaged all the above rankings as well as the original/standard rankings to create one additional ranking method that encompasses all the methods. The resulting top 25 is below. The title's original rank is in parentheses. Titles in green improved, titles in red dropped and titles in black remained constant.

Avg Rank Title
1 Charlotte's Web (1)
2 A Wrinkle in Time (2)
3 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (3)
4 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (4)
5 The Giver (7)
6 Anne of Green Gables (9)
7 From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (5)
8 Holes (6)
9 The Secret Garden (8)
10 The Westing Game (11)
11 The Phantom Tollbooth (10)
12 The Hobbit (12)
13 Bridge to Terabithia (13)
14 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (14)
15 Because of Winn-Dixie (15)
16 Maniac Magee (17)
17 Harriet the Spy (16)
18 Matilda (18)
19 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (24)
20 Little House in the Big Woods (23)
21 Tuck Everlasting (20)
22 Little Women (25)
23 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (19)
24 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass (27)
25 A Little Princess (28)

When I examined all the titles and how their rankings changed with the different methods I noticed that some titles remained fairly constant regardless of the method and some titles moved up and down the rankings quite dramatically.

Only two titles maintained their spots regardless of the system, Charlotte's Web and A Wrinkle in Time. The title with the greatest variance is When You Reach Me, which climbed all the way to 25th when only counting votes and dropped as low as 77th when only scoring with top 3 votes. When You Reach Me's average was 46th place. Other highly variable titles included Island of the Blue Dolphin, The High King, On the Banks of Plum Creek and All-of-a-Kind Family. The average variance for the titles in the top 100 is 20 spots. The average variance for top 25 titles is 6.24 spots. The average variance for titles in the top 10 is a mere 2.5 spots.

For 12 titles the lowest
[closest to #1] ranking the title achieved was its actually ranking. Meaning these titles either stayed at their original spot or dropped spots with every modification.
These titles were: Charlotte's Web, A Wrinkle in Time, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Phantom Tollbooth, Holes, Harry Potter #1, From the Mixed Up, Dark Rising, Harry Potter #2, Tuck Everlasting, Despereaux, and Ramona Quimby, Age 8.

Twelve titles also achieved their highest [closest to #100] ranking with the original ranking. Meaning these titles either stayed at their original spot or improved with every modification. These titles were: Charlotte's Web, A Wrinkle in Time, The Westing Game, The Giver, Anne of Green Gables, Are You There God? It's Me Margret, The Graveyard Book, Edward Tulane, Children of Green Knowe, Sideway Stories, The Egypt Game, and The Witches

Below is an embedded google spreadsheet that shows all 100 titles and all the different rankings.

Enjoy!

Breaking down the completed top 100

2010-04-12T16:49:00.018-04:00

This morning Fuse#8 announced to no one's surprise that E.B. White's Charlotte's Web was indeed the #1 children's novel. With this announcement, the top 100 is finally complete. There is no longer a need to make predictions so this post will focus on breaking down the top 100 titles in a variety of ways.

When all was said and done, 73 of the titles were originally published in the United States (this includes Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was published on this side of the Atlantic before it was published in the UK). Twenty four of the titles on the list were first published in the United Kingdom. The remaining three titles came from: Germany (Inkheart), Sweden (Pippi Longstocking) and Canada (Anne of Green Gables). These percentages where pretty steady throughout the countdown. The final top ten included 7 American titles, 2 British titles and one Canadian title.

Series books accounted for 61 of the titles in the top 100. While titles 100-61 held at a steady 70% series books. The numbers began fluctuating pretty wildly for the rest of the countdown. Interestingly enough, titles 10-1 feature 6 series books, right on the average for the whole list. The bar graph below how the series numbers fluctuated.

Throughout the countdown the 1990s and 2000s lead in number of titles. The 1990s ended up with 19 titles and the 2000s had 17 titles. The 1960s picked up steam at towards the end of the countdown end finished with 13 titles. The bar graph below shows the full distribution of titles. The right hand side of the graph shows a dirth of older titles. Only 7 titles from the decades prior to the creation of the Newbery Medal.

Which single year had the most titles? It was a tie actually. Both 1997 and 2003 had four titles in the top 100. 1997 titles are: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (#3), Out of the Dust (#76), The Thief (#83) and Ella Enchanted (#92). 2003 titles are: The Tale of Despereaux (#22), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (#38), Inkheart (#59) and The City of Ember (#77).

Number of titles however is only half the story. When we examine the distribution of points, votes and 1st place votes by decade, the 00s drops to fourth place behind 1990s, 1960s and 1950s. The chart below shows the points, votes, and 1st place votes as a percentage of all points or votes counted by decade.

(click on the graphs to see a larger/clearer copy)

While their are 6 more titles from the 2000s than the 1970s, the 1970s actually earned one more 1st place vote than the first decade of this century. Thanks to Charlotte's Web's 31 first place votes, the 1950s had one more first place vote (51) than the 1960s (50) and 1990s (50).

Another statistic which has remained pretty constant over the course of the countdown is the age of the author at time of publication. It seems as though an author's 40s really are his or her most productive years. 43% of the top 100 were published when the author was between the ages of 40-49. If we expand this range a mere two years in both directions we end up with nine more titles - 52 titles written by authors between the ages of 38 and 51. The pie chart below shows the entire breakdown by age decade. Louis Sachar remained the youngest author on the list. He was 24 when Sideway Stories from Wayside School was first published (he was 42 when title #6 Holes was published). Roald Dahl is our oldest author. He published Matilda at the age of 72, Matilda was also Dahl's highest ranking title (17th).

When we breakdown the titles by gender we can see that 62 titles where written by a female. The graph below shows the percentage of titles written by females by ranking group (quintile in this case).

Fifteen authors have more than one title in the top 100. J.K. Rowling led the way with 6 titles, followed by Roald Dahl with 5, and Beverly Cleary with 4.

Here's a list of all the multiple title authors: (arranged by number of titles followed by total points accumulated)

J.K. Rowling

Roald Dahl

Beverly Cleary

Kate DiCamillo

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Francis Hodgson Burnett

E.L. Konigsburg

Lois Lowry

Louis Sachar

Katherine Paterson

Jerry Spinelli

Judy Blume

Christopher Paul Curtis

Elizabeth Enright

Sharon Creech

Lloyd Alexander

This is a veritable pantheon of children's literature greatness. The tonnage of medals, honors and lifetime achievement awards encompassed by these fifteen authors is quite staggering when you stop and think about it.

Votes, first place votes and total points really skyrocketed with the top ten. Below is a graph showing the points earned by each titles.

As you can see the trend is very linear until #16 and then starting at #11 really starts increasing rapidly. Titles 9 - 5 (Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, The Giver, Holes, From the Mixed Up Files...) were all quite close and then titles 4 - 1 again showed lots of separation.

751 points for Charlotte's Web is really quite astonishing. As I mentioned in the comment section of Fuse8's post, Charlotte's Web not only earned an incredible amount of points, but did so with lots of top votes. 31 of Charlotte's Web's 101 votes were 1st place votes and 75.2% were top 5 votes. Only 83 of Charlotte's Web's 751 points came from 10th - 6th place votes. In other words Charlotte's Web would have still come in 1st place even if all the 1oth-6th place votes were ignored. That's a whole lot of love for Charlotte's Web!

Looking at the bar graph below, which shows the total votes and first place votes by ranking group, you can really appreciate the remarkable amount of consensus reached by all the voters.

Well over twice as many votes were seen in titles 1-10 than 11-20!

Below is the distribution of all the votes counted in the top 100 titles. 263 1st place votes were counted. We know somewhere between 300-400 people submitted top 10s so there are lots of books that received 1st place votes but failed to make the list. Can't wait to see all the titles that didn't make the cut.

Unfortunately googledoc's spreadsheet application cannot execute all the formulas I had to employ to get my spreadsheet to work properly so I can't just post it as a viewable spreadsheet, but I will email it to anyone you would like to see all the data I've compiled. Just send me an email and I'll send it right off to you.

Tomorrow I will post some alternate Top 100s found by using different scoring methods. Check back tomorrow to see how Anne of Green Gables can make it into the top 5 and how Percy Jackson can get booted all the way down to #41!

Questions, comments and corrections are always appreciated. I will get to a breakdown by publisher eventually but that one is quite time consuming.

BoB Bracket winner (a week late)

2010-04-12T16:43:00.002-04:00

I want to apologize for posting this so late. Spring Break is too sacred to do any blogging. Sorry.

The winner of the Battle of the Books Bracket Contest is ALYS!!!

Not a single contestant picked The Frog Scientist as the zombie choice. And no one picked Marching for Freedom as the Battle of the Books Champion. Thanks all for participating. Maybe next year we will be luckier or the judges will be less insane.

Congrats to Alys, and huge congrats to Elizabeth Partridge and her book Marching for Freedom the SLJ's Battle of the Books Champion!

post semis Battle of the Books Leader Board

2010-04-01T16:27:00.003-04:00

Quarterfinal and Semifinal rounds are over. The Leader Board is updated! Five points are up for grabs tomorrow when the zombie title is announced. Eight points will be awarded to those who chose the winner.

Leader Board

1. Alys - 16 points

2. Jen Baker - 15

2. Steven - 15

4. maggie - 14

4. LaughingAlegra - 14

6. DaNae - 13

7. MelodyP - 12

7. Scope Notes - 12

7. March Madness - 12

10. Erin Broderick - 10

10. Chris Spitzel - 10

10. rpsmedia - 10

13. Selin Rahawk - 9

14. Sam - 8

15. Adam G - 7

16. Norman Bee - 7

I am so glad The Lost Conspiracy was able to survive three tough battles and reach the finals! Nine contestants correctly guessed Judge Megan Whalen Turner's decision. While I'm still bitter over When You Reach Me's early exit, I do agree with Judge Walter Dean Myer's choice of Marching for Freedom which I thought was the 3rd best book on the bottom half of the bracket (behind WYRM and Marcelo). I was really hoping to see "Mr. Walter Dean Myers" opinion on WYRM since like many of his own novels, NYC plays such an important role. For the record seven contestants had Marching to Freedom reaching the finals via Judge Myers' decision, yet no one picked Marching for Freedom as the champion book, and only 4 people picked Lost Conspiracy winning it all.

Tomorrow's zombie reveal should be interesting. I hope the interwebs didn't allow the entirety of the Percy Jackson fan base to find out about the voting and use their numbers to outweigh more informed voters' picks. The bracket challenge participants' most chosen zombie title was When You Reach Me with 12 picks. Four titles: Calpurnia Tate, Fire, Marcelo and Tales of Outer Suburbia were all chosen by 6 contestants.

Battle of the Books Round 1 Leader Board

2010-03-24T15:57:00.005-04:00

So eight matches completed and lots of surprises. Some pleasant and some (like today's) infuriating.
Here's a look at the point totals for all the contestants. Remember first round matches were worth one point each. Round 2 matches are worth two points, so it's still anyone's game.

Leader Board

1. batgirl2004 - 6

1. LaughingAlegra - 6

1. maggie - 6

1. March Madness - 6

1. MelogyP - 6

6. hmlibrarian - 5

6. Agent J - 5

6. DaNae - 5

6. Adam G - 5

10. akalkowski - 4

10. Genevieve - 4

10. Scope Notes - 4

10. Mmmarci - 4

10. Mr. Mendez - 4

10. Carolyn - 4

10. Sam - 4

10. rpsmedia - 4

10. Miriam - 4

10. Erin Broderick - 4

10. Alys - 4

10. MBSTUMPE - 4

10. Sara - 4

10. Nancy W. - 4

24. Sandy D. - 3

24. grrlpup - 3

24. Laner007 - 3

24. jpetroroy - 3

24. Karin Rezendes - 3

24. LibraryLover - 3

24. Norman Bee - 3

24. The Brain Lair - 3

24. Jen Baker - 3

24. Steven - 3

24. Senlin Rahawk - 3

35. AmyC - 2

35. Erin Fitzpatrick-Bjorn - 2

35. Maggi - 2

35. Jenn - 2

35. amylou - 2

35. kmaurer - 2

35. bread - 2

35. Jacob - 2

35. Dreadful Penny - 2

35. Chris Spitzel - 2

35. Emily T. - 2

46. rlbook5 - 1

46. Alyson - 1

46. R Bartlett - 1

46. maryclareog - 1

46. Sondy Eklund - 1

46. Amanda Snow - 1

52. Melissa - 0

Tomorrow marks the beginning of round 2 featuring Judge M.T. Anderson. I've been looking forward to reading Anderson's decision since his name appeared on the list of judges. I've said before that I would read anything Mr. Anderson writes and can only hope tomorrow's decision is full of hilarious footnotes a la the Thrilling Tales/Pals in Peril books or incredibly insightful observations a la last years conciliatory remarks on The Hunger Games.

If the round 1 matches taught us anything it's that judges find it easier to find faults in titles more like their own than in unfamiliar genres or styles. I'd say that this gives the edge to nonfiction title Charles and Emma in the first match of round two. Angela Johnson has an easy decision facing her, all she need to do is advance the best remaining book in the battle out of the match 2 . Christopher Paul Curtis writes hilarious fiction centering on the family, which of course means A Season of Gifts (being a hilarious work of fiction centering on family dynamics) has no chance at all of surviving match 3. Shannon Hale, Newbery Honor winning novelist turned graphic novel writer, is in line to judge match 4 between the two graphiciest titles in the battle. Since Storm in the Barn is the closest thing to a true graphic novel one can only assume that Judge Hale will choose Tales from Outer Suburbia.

I do hope that round 2 judges will take a moment in their decision statements and comment on the departed titles that they may have read in preparing for the contest. I would love to hear what this round's judges have to say about the books which were knocked out before their time.

BoB Bracket leader board and second half preview

2010-03-18T18:10:00.017-04:00

Four matches in the books and the best of the eight books is still alive (thank you Ms. Frost!!!) so I'm happy. Only four contestants are still perfect and nine have yet to earn a point. Here's the leader board:

batgirl2004 4

LaughingAlegra 4

akalkowski 4

maggie 4

hmlibrarian 3

Genevieve 3

Scope Notes 3

Agent J 3

Mmmarci 3

Mr. Mendez 3

March Madness 3

MelodyP 3

Carolyn 3

The top half of the bracket featured 4 close matches which the Battle of the Books Bracket Contest participants were relatively split. The bottom half of the bracket however features 4 matches for which a consensus was much more pronounced. Below is a preview of rounds 5-8.

Round 5 - Gary Schmidt judging Marcelo in the Real World v. Marching for Freedom

Apples vs. Oranges here. The most heralded young adult novel of 2009 is up against Elizabeth Partridge's children's eye view of one powerful moment in the civil rights movement. You have to feel for Judge Schmidt's dilemma. Two equally outstanding titles, each trying to do two very different things. The bracket challengers appeared to have no trouble with this match up. 79% chose Marcelo over Marching, the biggest landslide of the contest. Unfortunately, so far the judges have yet to agree with the majority of the voters.

In each of the previous decisions the judges have chosen the title least like their own work. Is it that authors can more easily see the flaws in works that have more in common with their own genres or formats. In round 1, Jim Murphy went against Claudette a large format nonfiction not unlike his own titles (in appearance at least). In round 2 Nancy Farmer went against the sci-fi/fantasy title and instead advanced the character driven middle grade novel. In round 3, Fleming chose the fantasy over the nonfiction and today Judge Frost went with the long fantasy over the allegedly more lyrical grouping of short stories (this one is a pit of a stretch on my part but Lips Touch seems more poetic than Lost Conspiracy, right?).

So if this strange trend continues, might we see a big upset and Judge Schmidt going with fellow Printz Honoree Partridge over Printz robbed Stork?

I really liked both these books and don't have a single negative thing to say about either (which is unusual for me). I devoured Marcelo and have since recommended it to a number of non kidlit reading friends. Marching for Freedom was a wonderful surprise. I thought the pictures were unbelievable and the writing perfectly unobtrusive. Living in Atlanta, I drive down Hosea Williams Drive and on the Ralph Abernathy Freeway; I had a vague idea of who these leaders and am grateful to Partridge for writing an accessible account of the sacrifices they made and the charge they led.

My guess is Marcelo but would be happy either way.

Round 6 - Cynthia Kadohata judging Peace, Locomotion v. A Season of Gifts

Two wonderful books that got lost in the shuffle around awards time. I am happy to see these two titles matched up with each other, ensuring at least one of these overlooked titles will get at least one more round of attention.

The contestants in the bracket challenge went with Peace, Locomotion almost 2 to 1 but only 10 people had either Peace or Season moving on past the next round and no one had either title winning the whole thing.

I read Peace, Locomotion during a full on Woodson binge last fall and thought it was was as impressed with her newest as much as I was with all the rest which is to say very impressed. It seems unfair that prolific authors must continually outdo themselves to receive more recognition. Shouldn't maintaining an absurdly high level of excellence be recognized? Peace, Locomotion was the equal to Woodson's previously awarded works, and much better than Homer P. Figg, yet was overlooked all year long (other than some starred reviews).

Its interesting that Woodson was matched up with Peck whose title was equally ignored during award season, possibly for the same reasons. I read Season of Gifts this summer and enjoyed it as much as the previous Grandma Dowel books, which is to say "A lot". I laughed while reading Season of Gifts and I don't know how many other titles in this year's battle you can say that about.

I don't know much about Judge Kadohata other than she proved her ability to make me reach for the tissues while reading Kira-Kira. I can't wait to read her decision and hope that it entices readers to pick up both worthy books.

Match 7 - Anita Silvey judging The Storm in the Barn v. Sweethearts of Rhythm

The contestants leaned heavily towards Phelan's The Storm in the Barn here. 39 contestants picked Storm and only 13 went with Sweethearts.

Anita Silvey is a children's literature authority of the highest order. I love that she is dealt to very untraditional titles to judge. Sweethearts of Rhythm and The Storm in the Barn are both beautiful books. Pinkney's work here is just as strong is it always is (its really as great as The Lion and the Mouse) and probably should have pulled the Caldecot version of a Konigsburg (can Konigsburg be a verb?) this year and taken Medal and Honor.

Honestly Marilyn Nelson's verse was beyond me. Not enough of a narrative to keep me going but I kept turning the pages to see what Pinkney would do next. I'm sure Silvey is much more capable of appreciating the poetry.

When I saw this trailer for The Storm in the Barn I immediately ran out to get my hands on the book. It delivered just what the trailer suggest. It's a great story well told and beautifully drawn. This is probably my fourth favorite book in battle. That said it wasn't even the best graphic novel of the year (Stitches duh!) so don't feel like it should be the battle champion.

I'm hoping The Storm in the Barn advances because I'm interested to see how Judge Shannon Hale's judgment is affected by her recent delve into the world of graphic novels. Though if the first four matches of this round are any indication this might not favor Storm's chances in to make round 3.

Match 8 - Julius Lester judging Tales from Outer Suburbia v. When You Reach Me

(disclaimer: I have no vested interest in WYRM other than complete and total admiration for the book)

Judge Lester don't screw this up! I am so looking forward to hearing both Walter Dean Myers and Katherine Paterson's reasons for choosing When You Reach Me so don't rob us of that. The best part of last year's battle was M.T. Anderson's comment* where he shared his thoughts about The Hunger Games. I'm really looking forward to hearing what Frances Hardinge thinks about When You Reach Me, so please please Mr. Lester don't mess this up!

39 of the 52 of the bracket contenders (75%) picked When You Reach Me to advance on to round 2. Eleven picked it to be crowned the champion which is one more than Marcelo, making When You Reach Me the favorite!

In Fuse#8's top 100 children's novels poll, When You Reach Me came in at an astonishing 39th place with 24 voters placing it in their top ten! Obviously When You Reach Me doesn't need any more attention, but thankfully that isn't the point of the battle. If the judges are serious about finding the best book of 2009 they need look no further.

This is a perfect book that rewards multiple rereads. I hope Lester was able to go through WYRM at least four times (Tales could easily be given an equal number of reads). Have you seen the cover for the Australian edition? Text Publishing (Melbourne, Australia) took Sophie Blackall's cover imagery and made it even more beautiful. They also alternated the small key, bread bag and shoe drawings on each chapter. (see pictures below).

I wonder if Random House will use this for the US paperback

The Spine:

All the chapter pages alternate between these three images.

I ordered this from Australia a few weeks ago and it arrived earlier this week. When I opened it up I was so happy to see quotations from both Fuse#8 and Monica's reviews make it into the book. They were early champions of the title and the reason I bought it on its first day of publication.

Tales from Outer Suburbia was a good book but I wonder if its uniqueness and form are being praised more than its story. Its got some nice stories. I did enjoy the crazy wedding scavenger hut, but on the whole I found book uneven and not consistently compelling. This one shouldn't be close. Judge Lester please do the right thing.

After rounds 6 and 8 I will post updated leader boards. But until then it's basketball time...Let's go 'Cuse!

*sadly it appears that MT Anderson's consolatory comments on last year's battle of the books blog were lost in the migration to the new Battle of the Books website. Fortunately I sent a fragment of the comments in an email to my brother. You can find it below if you're so inclined

....he reason I think this book deserves the attention it's getting -- beyond the pacing, beyond the pleasing dissonance of the unresolved love triangle (very delicately done, for a book that wades in so much gore) -- is that in it, a central and real and deeply troubling question -- to what extent is compassion merely a weakness -- and kindness merely an evolutionary flaw? -- that question is played out quite directly through the action, embodied directly in the plot in scene after scene. We deeply care about Katniss in part because we deeply want some shred of what we think of as humanity to survive. When I read it, I thought that it was remarkable that Ms. Collins took this terrifying question and really explored it. She didn't back out or soften the investigation. This book deserves its laurels....

Battle of the Books leader board and preview of Matches 3 & 4

2010-03-16T20:42:00.008-04:00

Monday morning Judge Jim Murphy's choice of Charles and Emma over Claudette Colvin kicked off the 2010 Battle of the Books. That choice was followed this morning by Nancy Farmer's decision to advance The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate past Fire in match number two.

Before I get into my thoughts on matches three and four, lets look at how the participants in Battle of the Books Bracket contest have faired after two matches.

Fifty 52 people submitted their choices for the contest. Of those fifty two, 19 correctly guessed Jim Murphy's pick. So in the first match the judge's decision reflected the minority opinion. In match two there were a slightly better 23 correct guesses, again the judge went with the minority opinion. After tallying the points (remember you get 1 point for correct guesses in the first round, 2 in the second, 4 in the third, etc) ten contestants share the lead with 2 points (i.e. they managed to correctly pick both titles). Without further ado here are the names/aliases of the ten current leaders:

Sam
Genevieve
AmyC
batgirl2004
Sandy D.
LaughingAlegra
grrlpup
akalkowski
hmlibrarian
maggie

There are 22 additional contestants with a single correct guess (1 point) and 20 contestants with zero correct guesses.

While it didn't sound like it was a close call for Nancy Farmer, match two featured the closest voting by the contestants in the bracket challenge. Matches three and four, with identical vote splits, were the next closest. The Frog Scientist was picked to move on by 30 contestants while 22 favored Last Olympian. Lips Touch was favored by 30 contestant while 22 chose The Lost Conspiracy. This half of the bracket actually contained the four closest match ups as the contestants seemed to agree much more in the bottom four matches.

So far the battle judges have not agreed with the bracket contestants will tomorrow's match continue the trend?

Match 3 - Candace Fleming judging The Frog Scientist vs. The Last Olympian

This match features an hugely popular fantasy series and an award winning informational text. On the face of things you would guess conclusion of the Percy Jackson's series might run away with the match, but judge Candace Fleming a supremely talented nonfiction writer might will surely give sufficient time and energy to appreciating the subtle genius of The Frog Scientist.

Fleming's Lincolns biography won a few matches last year against formidable opponents and I am guessing she'll lean towards team nonfiction with her pick.

I really enjoyed reading the first couple Percy Jackson books but as the series progressed they seemed more and more derivative. I loved that my proficiency at the mythology categories in Jeopardy! had all of a sudden become much easier, but is tricking middle school students into wanting to learn more about mythology enough to warrant the first book the 21st spot in fuse#8's top 100 children's novels poll?

For me the final Percy Jackson book is the weakest of the series. I felt like Riordan had set up so many plot lines in books 1-4 and book 5 served mostly as an exercise in satisfying all of those plots and loose ends. The plotting became so functional there was almost no room for the character's to breath. Everything in The Last Olympian so obvious and overdue, it stopped being interesting. When a page turner doesn't compel you to turn the page, what exactly is it?

In my opinion The Frog Scientist is the best nonfiction title of the year. I have never been so excited reading a science book as I was reading Pamela Turner's story of a scientist and his experiments into the mysterious disappearance of frog populations. I loved how the book places proper focus on the experimental design and how real laboratory research works. After reading The Frog Scientist I immediately started telling my middle school science teacher friends that this is a must own title for their classrooms. Whether they teach biology or not, the emphasis on the scientific method makes this a universally useful text for science teachers who want to show their students how science really works. I found the book to be nearly flawless. The only issue I have was the hideously ugly capital 'e's in the books type face. Not only were they ugly, they were distracting! Every time a sentence started with an E, I was pulled out off the text. Why choose a distracting font? That said, the book's only flaw is a single letter in it's typeface and I'm sure Judge Fleming will see past this small design error and see The Frog Scientist as the winner it is.

I only hope she didn't spend too much time weighing her decision, I'm still hoping she's putting some of her time into another Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! sequel. Seriously these are great books, my students LOVE them and G. Brian Karas needs another platform to earn that long deserved Caldecott Medal.

In case your wondering of the 10 contestants batting 100%, five choose The Frog Scientist and five choose The Last Olympian. It should also be pointed out that no contestants had either the Frog Scientist or The Last Olympian as the eventual champion, though three think The Last Olympian will be the zombie book (well if the same kids who voted in fuse#8's poll found the link to the BoB undead poll that might actually happen).

Match 4 - Helen Frost judging Lips Touch v. The Lost Conspiracy

Poet extrodinaire Helen Frost's matchup pits the second best book of 2009 against the ugliest cover since the mass market paperback of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Why Scopesnotes hasn't featured Lips Touch in his an Unfortunate Covers feature is beyond me. Sometimes people say that "if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all," well I've never subscribed to that truism, I say if you don't point out flaws they are doomed to be repeated.

I have read 15 of the contending titles but I haven't read Lips Touch nor do I plan to, so I cannot comment on the text itself. I did skim through it in December while I waited for the incredible staff at the worlds greatest independent children's bookstore to do my holiday gift wrapping for me. I almost got through a page but was not compelled to go any further. Since I have nothing to say about the contents of Lips Touch you can go to the read some lavish praise being given to this title, which certainly does have its share of fans (the majority of the contestants in the contest actually) you can read Jonathan Hunt's praise for the book on the Heavy Medal Blog.

The Lost Conspiracy on the other hand I could write about all day long. With its immaculate world creation, impeccable plotting, inspiring prose and incomparable characters, Frances Hardinge's novel shocked me page after page. I picked up a copy of The Lost Conspiracy with some trepidation as I usually don't go for super long fantasy novels, but Fuse#8's review was so enthusiastic I wiled myself to start it. Ten pages in I knew there was no way I was going to stop reading for anything other than food, sleep, and work (thank goodness for SSR - 20 minutes a day were I get paid for pleasure reading!).

Now I know there are lots of page turners that we cannot put down and that isn't always a feature of a book that marks it for particular distinction (Hunger Games, Potter, the first couple Percy Jackson titles, etc) Roger Sutton wrote about this sometime last year but I don't have the energy to find the link. I think The Lost Conspiracy is more than a gripping yarn, more than an exciting adventure with compelling character. The Lost Conspiracy has all the markings of a classic. I love that its a self contained story; 676 pages but self contained none the less.

I really hope that Judge Frost makes the right decision here nothing would make me happier than seeing The Lost Conspiracy and When You Reach Me face off in the finals. Since none of Frost's books have ever disappointed me I don't expect her decision to do so either!

Surprisingly the contestants at the top of the leader board also split evenly on match 4. Interestingly enough 4 of the 5 leaders who choose The Last Olympian also choose The Lost Conspiracy, while 4 of the 5 who chose The Frog Scientist also choose Lips Touch.

Five people think Lips Touch will emerge as the champion and four believe Judge Paterson will crown The Lost Conspiracy the winner. Lips Touch has two who believe it might be the zombie while The Lost Conspiracy has 4.

Well that's all for tonight. Check back after the completion of the next two matches for an updated leader board as well as some comments on matches five and six. (Can you guess which of these had the most lopsided split?)

Notes on Novels 100-21

2010-03-15T20:48:00.015-04:00

On the eve of entering the top 20 I will recap and update some of the data previously analyzed in earlier posts. You can of course see all of the titles and read all of Fuse#8's thoughts plus lots of great commentary on each title at her blog here: #100 - 91, #90-86, #85-81, #80-76, #75-71, #70-66, #65-61, #60-56, #55-51, #50-46, #45-41, #40-36, #35-31, #30-26, #25-21.

Since the last full stat post thirty more titles have been added to the list. In some areas early trends have remained pretty much constant while in others we are beginning to see shifts as we get closer to the more universally acclaimed titles. This post will have decidedly less predicting than the previous breakdowns as at this point there are probably very few surprises remaining, just a matter of order and that is a puzzle I don't think I have any chance of cracking. So instead I'll just show the data.

One area which has remained pretty much steady is the country of publication. The percentage of titles in the published in the United States remains almost the same it did in the last post. With 80 titles accounted for, 59 were first published in the United States, 19 were published in the United Kingdom, 1 was originally published in Sweden and 1 in Germany.

Will we see a non-USA/UK title in the top 20? If the top 20 follows the existing trend, about 15 of the remaining titles come from the United States. That only leaves 5 spots for Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Sorcerer's Stone, Prisoner of Azkaban, Hobbit, Secret Garden, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Anne of Green Gables.

Percentage of books belonging to a series is still at the same spot with 64% of the books on the list belonging to a series. However if you group the titles in sets of ten, you see that the middle rankings (60-30) has significantly fewer series titles than the bottom and top groupings see graph below. I expect the top twenty will have less than the 13 series titles the trends would indicate.

Older titles have begun to appear more frequently on the list with two of the expected pre 1900 titles showing up in the top 30. Below is the distribution of titles by decade. The 2000s have now taken over the lead with 16 titles with help from three Potter titles and a certain 2009 instant classic (can we all just agree to ignore title #21?). With two Potter titles, Holes, Maniac Magee and The Giver still to come, it looks like the 1990s will indeed prevail as the top decade.

Age of author has also shown little change with the forty year olds still dominating the competition with 45% of the titles.

Gender on the other hand is beginning to trend slightly less female. 68% of the authors of titles 100-51 are female, for titles 50-21 only 53% are female. So as we approach the completion of the countdown male authors are appearing with more frequency. Below is a breakdown of female authorship by ranking group.

It would take the remaining 20 titles to all be male authored in order to create a 50-50 split but the the percentages may drop slightly more with the completion of the list

It probably does not come to a surprise when I tell you that J.K. Rowling is now the leading author in points and votes (she is currently in a tie with Beverly Cleary for number of titles as each has 4 on the list though she'll certainly pass Cleary very soon). The Potter scribe has amassed 405 points from 60 votes including a whopping 11 first place votes! Dahl and Enright each have 6 first place votes and while Dahl will likely get some more votes when Charlie appears, he won't be passing Ms. Rowling.

I was surprised to see that more first place votes were accounted for in titles 40-31 than in titles 30-21. The chart below shows the distribution of both votes and first place votes by ranking groups. The total votes bars (in green) are still steadily rising though I expect a sharper increase with the top ten. The first place votes bar however has been very unpredictable. Surprisingly books are still making the list with one, two or even zero in the case of first place votes. Can a book be a top twenty or even top ten book without being anyone's top pick? We shall see... (in case you were wondering, Millions of Cats made the top ten last year with out a single first place vote).

In terms of total points I believe the model below is still undershooting the total points the number one book will earn. When we looked at the same graph for just titles 100-51 we saw the trend line predicting approximately 270 points for the top title. As you can see below the model now shows about 360 points for the winner. I keep expecting to see the big jump in votes we saw with the picture book poll but so far other than a small jump at title 41 (Witch of Blackbird Pond) the points have been raising very slowly. Maybe tomorrow. My current guess is that the winner will have somewhere between 430-475 points and at least 15 first place votes.

Distribution of votes is also beginning to even out. Fourth place votes went from almost the lowest represented vote in titles 100-51 to the most represented vote in titles 100-21. See below.

So far 6008 points have been awarded from 1084 votes (97 of which were first place votes). Not knowing how many voters participated its hard to make sense of these number but I believe the number of voters is well over 250 so there are still lots of votes out there (of course many votes won't be accounted for at all). Using 275 as the number of voters we get 15125 total points. Which means only about 40% of the points have been accounted for so far. By comparison ~60% of the points in last year's picture book poll were accounted for in the top 100 though only 27% of the points were accounted for in the titles 100-21. In that poll, the number won titles accounted for an amazing 10% of all the available points. For the top title in this years poll would need around 600 points to match Where the Wild Things Are's feat, doubtful to say the least.

That's all for now, tomorrow I will post the first Battle of the Books leader board and as well as some thoughts on matches 3 and 4.

SLJ Battle of the Books Bracket Preview

2010-03-14T21:06:00.007-04:00

Two weeks ago the School Library Journal's second annual Battle of the Books kicked off with the announcement of the match ups and judges. Since then 52 people have submitted brackets to the contest I announced in a previous post. Tonight I will show what the participants are thinking for the first 2 matches of round one. As well as make some predictions of my own.

Match 1 - Jim Murphy judging Charles and Emma vs. Claudette Colvin

Two time Newbery Honor winning author Jim Murphy has to decide between two nonfiction titles. This is a great match. Regardless of his decision, I can't wait to read Murphy's thoughts on both these titles. Murphy's honor winning titles (2004's American Plague and 1996's The Great Fire) more closely resemble Claudette Colvin (in form at least). Will this push Murphy's towards Claudette? Does Murphy have any of the same concerns about Claudette that Colleen brought up at Chasing Ray?

Personally I enjoyed Claudette Colvin slightly more than Charles and Emma but I was more fascinated by what I learned in Charles and Emma (if that makes any sense). I have know idea how to pick a winner here.

Of the 52 contestants 63% chose Claudette Colvin as the winner of match 1. Will Mr. Murphy follow suit?

Match 2 Nancy Farmer judging The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate vs. Fire

This match features two titles that recieved a lot of love all year. Judge Nancy Farmer (a three time Newbery Honor and one time Printz Honor recipient) has her hands full with two longish ficition titles. On one hand there's Calpurnia, Kelly's character driven coming of age story; on the other is Fire, Cashore's world building fantasy. Farmer will have to decide between a wonderfully executed middle grade title and an equally well executed YA title. While not the apples and oranges of fiction v. nonfiction but the distinction does present some challenges. Will Judge Farmer's recent experience in wrapping up her own fantasy trilogy weigh in her appreciation of Fire?

Personally I liked Calpurnia when I read it this summer, but I do not remember enough of it to want to read it again. I have about 100 pages left to go in Fire and while I wish it wasn't the case I'm ready for it to be over. I thought Graceling was fantastic and Katsa was a supremely awesome character. The world of the seven kingdoms was amazingly realized and I looked forward to Fire with great anticipation. I was intrigued by the first 100 pages of Fire and then the character began to annoy me to no end. I wanted another Katsa but Fire just bugged me page after page. That said I am amazed at the way Cashore was able to expand the world she began building in Graceling to encompass so much more. Love the world, hate the girl. Maybe the final 100 pages will turn me around, I hope that they do and either way I'll be reading Bitterblue the day it is released. Any title that I can enjoy while simultaneously disliking the protagonist is a winner in my book (just not something I need to read again any time soon) I think Fire is going to win this match and reservations aside, I kind of hope it does.

In the closest of the first round matches, 56% of the 52 contestants chose Fire to move on to the next round.

Hopefully tomorrow I will post about matches 3 and 4.

Over on the Battle of the Books website I mentioned that if I received at least 50 participants by tonight I would send the arc of Smells Like Dog to which ever participant wins the bracket contest. As we are at 52 entries, the lucky winner will indeed receive said arc.

Okay, now to start filling out some ncaa brackets! Go 'cuse!