Birch Grove Reads!

Have you ever watched Little People, Big World on television? Georgie is a little person, just like Zach Roloff. He has his challenges but he just wants to figure out how to fix things with his best friend, Andy, and make the new baby that’s due in May, go away! The Thing About Georgie by Lisa Graff may make you wonder about the things about you!

I finally read The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. What? You thought I read that a long time ago? Nope, but I sure laughed at Greg. In fact, he reminds me a little of Georgie. I bet they’d be good friends if their books met someday.

I’m leaving for Chicago tomorrow for the American Library Association conference. I’m hoping to get some great ideas for some brand new books to order and to meet some of my favorite authors while I’m there. I’ll post photos when I get back.

What are you doing to keep busy this summer?

I’ve been reading some good books. Have you? Tell me about them!

I read Peak by Roland Smith. It’s one of the new Maud Hart Lovelace books about a boy named Peak who gets in big trouble for climbing on the outside of skyscapers and tagging them. He moves to Nepal with his famous climber dad, who he barely knows, to climb Mount Everest and become the world’s youngest climber to reach the peak. It’s a fast-paced story and I learned so much about all it takes to be an extreme climber. 

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker is a fun story about a girl who could be Junie B Jones’ sister! She seems to get into trouble no matter how hard she tries to fix things.

I’ll be camping next week so I’ll be reading a lot of books. I hope you are too! What are you doing for fun this summer?

Have those words ever slipped through your lips? If your mom is like my mom, you’ll hear a response that goes something like, “If you can’t find something to do, I’ll find something for you to do.” which usually involved cleaning or weeding the garden.

So, with summer right around the corner, let’s start a list of things to do. I did this with some younger kids during “National Turn Off the TV Week” and they got very creative.

I’ll start the list. I’ll add to it as you leave comments.

• paint a picture
• write a story
• READ a book
• listen to a book on tape or CD from the library
• watch the clouds and see what pictures you can find in them
• play a board game
• draw with chalk on the driveway or sidewalk
• perform a play
• cook something
• use recycled things to create a sculpture
• plant some flowers or vegetables. Water them and watch them grow
• go to a free concert in a park. There are a LOT of them in the summer
• YOUR TURN!

The new Maud Hart Lovelace books have been announced. Here’s the list so you can get started reading them right away. You can find the books on the shelf next to this post. Put your cursor over a book and you can read a description of the book.

Let me know what you think of the new books! I’ve read six of them already and I can highly recommend Home of the Brave, Schooled, Rules and Princess Academy.

Division I
Champ by Marcia Jones
Clementine by Sara Pennypacker
Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat byLynne Jonell
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate
Homework Machine by Dan Gutman
Leepike Ridge by Nathan Wilson
Liberation of Gabriel King by K. L. Going
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
Rules by Cynthia Lord
Star Jumper: Journal of a Cardboard Genius Frank Asch
The Thing about Georgie by Lisa Graff
Year of the Dog by Grace Lin

Division II
Cracker!: the Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadahota
Fire From the Rock by Sharon Draper
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate
I’d Tell You I Love You, but then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter
La Linea by Ann Jaramillo
Leepike Ridge by Nathan Wilson
Life as we Knew It by Susan Pfeffer
Peak by Roland Smith
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
Rules by Cynthia Lord
Schooled by Gordon Korman

Wow- I love hearing about the books that you’re reading. I’m going to check some of those out that we don’t have in the library. Thanks for your entries- I love to read them.

I order all the books for the library here at school. There are many ways that I choose books. In addition to ordering non-fiction books for research and things that go along with what you’re learning in school, I read journals that have reviews of good books like School Library Journal. I also use your recommendations. The books need to have good reviews and be appropriate for the age level of our students.

Here’s a challenge for you. Go to the School Library Journal book review link for books intended for grades 5 and up. Each link is one month of book reviews. Read the reviews and make some recommendations to me…what would you like to see in the library? Remember it needs to be well- reviewed, be appropriate for sixth graders and be very interesting to you!

It’s good to read more than one review. You can also check Amazon.com for book reviews. They frequently include reviews from Horn Book, School Library Journal and other book reviewers, as well as people like you who are reading the books.

I still have a little book money left this year so I will be looking carefully at your recommendations.

Did you know you can see what the 10 most checked out books are by clicking on Top 10 in the catalog search window?

Right now our top 10 are….

1. Three Good Deeds
2. Bone- Old Man’s Cave
3. Gossamer
4. Lunch Money
5. Project Mulberry
6. Abby Takes a Stand
7. Bone- The Great Cow Race
8. Flush
9. Out of Boneville
10. Diary of a Wimpy Kid

What would be on your top 3 list?

On my top 3 list are (today anyway)
1. City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
2. Rules by Cynthia Lord
3. Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie by Jordon Sonnenblick

The voting for Maud Hart Lovelace is just over a month away! Have you read at least three books so you can vote? Which books have you read? Which book would you recommend the most? Did you read one that didn’t capture your interest? Which book surprised you?

Welcome to our new blog website where we can talk about books and the reading programs here at school.

Did you know that tomorrow is RIF day at BG? That means EVERYONE gets a FREE book! And right before a four-day weekend. What could be better than that?