I <3 summer! Yesterday was my first day of summer break and it was awesome! I had a few house things to do and a VBS planning meeting at church but other than that I was a total bum and I loved it. In fact I even read an entire book. OK, so the book was one of this year's SSYRA books and only about 150 pages but I was able to sit down and read it from cover to cover. That's what I call vacation. (If you are not yet on vacay hold on I can see it coming on your horizon and before you know you too will be able to read a whole book.)
OK, on to the real reason for this post. The SSYRA, Sunshine State Young Reader's Award, books for the 2013-2014 school year have been selected and I wanted to put the titles and authors "out there" in case anyone has any insight on any of them. The list includes: Fake Mustache by Tom Angleberger, One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, Mousenet by Prudence Breitrose, Floors by Patrick Carmen, The Year of the Book by Andrea Cheng, Thomas and the Dragon Queen by Shutta Crum, Double Dog Dare by Lisa Graff, Melonhead by Katie Kelly, Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord, Waiting for the Magic by Patricia MacLachlan, The Candymakers by Wendy Mass, The Five Lives of our Cat Zook by Joanna Rocklin, Glory Be by Augusta Scattergood, The Wish Stealers by Tracy Trivas, and Janitors by Taylor Whitesides.
I have already read Waiting for the Magic, that was yesterday's book. More on that tomorrow as I plan on linking up with Amanda and The Teaching Thief's Fiction Fridays. I am super excited to see that Lisa Graff has another book this year. I really like her as a children's author. She wrote Umbrella Summer and Sophie Simon Solves them all, books from this and last year's lists. Some of the titles sound intriguing, especially The Wish Stealers, The Year of the Book, and of course Fake Mustache. My goal is to read all fifteen books this summer, but if you have any tips on the books I should read first please do share!
Three of those titles are on my list this year too. I read Waiting for the Magic yesterday (and will be posting about it tomorrow). We will be in perfect unison. Love it! I also have Glory Be on my list and One and Only Ivan. Maybe we could coordinate on those too. :)
ReplyDeleteAmanda
The Teaching Thief
That is too funny about Waiting for the Magic. I do not have copies of The One and Only Ivan or Glory Be yet. I have a few others so for me those two will be later in the summer reads. I hope that they are good books. So far I think that books have been OK. Better than last year's list but not as good as two years ago-at least not yet.
DeleteI haven't been wowed by my books either. They are all just sort of okay. Of course maybe that means the kids will LOVE them. Who knows?!
DeleteI am planning to read The One and Only Ivan this summer.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Melonhead is over-rated. It was on the KC3 (our city award list) last year. My students found the story line hard to follow.
I will have to look into Double Dog Dare.
EmilyK
Thanks for the heads up on Melonhead. For some reason I was thinking that it might not be that great but I couldn't put my finger on it. I already purchased it from Barnes and Noble but it is on the bottom of my "to read" stack. Now a warning for you. I heard from our librarian that The One and Only Ivan was wonderful BUT make sure that you have tissues handy.
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