Summer Reading!

Sorry to be posting so late but I have been soooo busy reading great books! I am part of the "book-a-day" (hashtag #bookaday) challenge on Twitter where I have committed to reading one book every day during summer vacation with a community of teachers and librarians. Happily, I report that I am keeping up! I am posting a picture of the books I have read so far and will give you some brief comments on each books. Weekly updates of the books I am reading will be posted every Thursday so stay tuned.

Now a word about Miller's Summer Reading Club. Read S'More Books packets went home with children on the last week of school. In order to keep up their reading abilities throughout the summer, we are asking students to read either 9 books or 9 hours during the summer-that should be a breeze! Students can fill out the Summer Reading Log that went home or keep track on a sheet of paper (if it accidentally got thrown out or recycled). All students who bring back their log in the fall will be invited to attend our s'more picnic party in September. This is an event that is always enjoyed by our readers.

Media Center Alert!!! Please come in and visit me on Tuesday, July 10 and/or Tuesday, August 7 from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. when I open the media summer for students to check out books. I really enjoy this time to meet with students and parents and help them to choose some really great "just right books". Hopefully, I'll see many of my Miller Mustangs on those dates:)

Now about those books! I have taken summaries from www.goodreads.com and have added my age/grade recommendations. Enjoy.

Love, Aubrey by Suzane LaFleur

A tragic accident has turned eleven-year-old Aubrey’s world upside down. Starting a new life all alone, Aubrey has everything she thinks she needs: SpaghettiOs and Sammy, her new pet fish. She cannot talk about what happened to her. Writing letters is the only thing that feels right to Aubrey, even if no one ever reads them.
With the aid of her loving grandmother and new friends, Aubrey learns that she is not alone, and gradually, she finds the words to express feelings that once seemed impossible to describe. The healing powers of friendship, love, and memory help Aubrey take her first steps toward the future. Mrs. Larson recommends to 4th and 5th grade students who like relationship books.

In this funny, uncannily wise portrait of the dynamics of a sixth-grade class and of the greatness that sometimes comes in unlikely packages, Dwight, a loser, talks to his classmates via an origami finger puppet of Yoda. If that weren’t strange enough, the puppet is uncannily wise and prescient. Origami Yoda predicts the date of a pop quiz, guesses who stole the classroom Shakespeare bust, and saves a classmate from popularity-crushing embarrassment with some well-timed advice. Dwight’s classmate Tommy wonders how Yoda can be so smart when Dwight himself is so clueless. With contributions from his puzzled classmates, he assembles the case file that forms this novel. Mrs. Larson recommends to fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Big Nate!

A unique story of separated twins and the unexpected consequences of their reunion. Sunny Skyland longs to be reunited with her twin sister, Starr. With only an old photograph, taken a few days before the girls were separated at age three, to guide her, Sunny begins the cross-country journey that she has dreamed of during her ten years in various foster homes. Sunny manages to locate her twin, only to be faced with a whole new challenge. Mrs. Larson recommends to students who enjoy books about relationships and family with a big dose of adventure/survival!

Janie Gorman wants to be normal. The problem with that: she’s not. She’s smart and creative and a little bit funky. She’s also an unwilling player in her parents’ modern-hippy, let’s-live-on-a-goat-farm experiment (regretfully, instigated by a younger, much more enthusiastic Janie). This, to put it simply, is not helping Janie reach that “normal target.” She has to milk goats every day…and endure her mother’s pseudo celebrity in the homemade-life, crunchy mom blogosphere. Goodbye the days of frozen lasagna and suburban living, hello crazy long bus ride to high school and total isolation--and hovering embarrassments of all kinds. Mrs. Larson recommends for 5th - high school girls looking for a book about fitting in when you don't quite fit the mold!

While staying with her aunt, Elizabeth finds something remarkable: a drawing. It hangs on the wall, a portrait of her ancestor, Eliza, known as Zee. She looks like Elizabeth.
The girls’ lives intertwine as Elizabeth’s present-day story alternates with Zee’s, which takes place during the American Revolution. Zee is dreamy, and hopeful for the future—until the Revolution tears apart her family and her community in upstate New York. Left on her own, she struggles to survive and to follow her father and brother into battle. Mrs. Larson recommends to historical fiction lovers; especially of the revolutionary war period. This is one of my favorite authors!

The amazing and hilarious Casson family is back in this all-new novel from award-winning author Hilary McKay.Cadmium Casson is twelve years old the summer that everything changes. Not only are her closest friendships in jeopardy, but her mom is expecting a baby. And when the baby arrives early, Caddy’s world turns upside down. Her mother spends all her time at the hospital, and her father takes over the household, which of course turns into one chaotic (though hilarious) crisis after the next. Mrs. Larson recommends to fans of the Casson family series--This is one of my favorite series and I was thrilled to see that Hillary McKay had added another book! If you haven't read any of this series, start with Saffy's Angel--they are a treat.

In eight days, Coke and Pepsi McDonald are going to turn thirteen.



Before then, they'll jump off a cliff, get trapped in the locked basement of their burning school, chased cross-country by murderous lunatics, left for dead in the pit of a sand dune, forced to decipher mysterious coded messages, thrown into a giant vat of SPAM, and visit the world's largest . . . ball of twine!



There's more, but if we told you here, we'd have to kill you. Mrs. Larson recommends to 3rd - 5th graders who love adventure, mystery and travel! I followed the twins cross country travel on mapquest.com--this book was great fun and I look forward to reading the second in the series titled, "The Genius Files #2: Never Say Genius".

The Worst Vacation Ever! Thirteen year old Kyle thought spending a vacation on the Oregon coast with his family would be great. Kyle's perfect vacation becomes a nightmare while he's babysitting his sister, BeeBee. An earthquake hits the coast and starts a fire in their hotel. Can Kyle and BeeBee out wit and outrun nature's fury to save themselves from tsunami terror? Mrs. Larson recommends to middle grade students (3rd-5th) who love non-stop adventure and survival stories.

It's a new school year in Cabin Creek and the cousins have a new mystery. When a girl's face appears, then disappears, outside a window of their spooky old schoolhouse, the cousings think they've seen a ghost. More strange clues--piano music lilting through empty halls, a secret passageway, and an old portrait that looks like the girl from the window--make Jeff, David, and Claire begin to wonder: Is their school just spooky, or could it be ....haunted? Mrs. Larson recommends to fans of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and A-Z Mysteries. Enough adventure and clues to encourage kids to help solve the mystery.

Maxwell Unger has always loved the night. He used to do brave things like go tramping through the forest with his gran after dark. He loved the stories she told him about the world before the Destruction—about nature, and books, and the silver owls. His favorite story, though, was about the Owl Keeper.

According to Max’s gran, in times of darkness the Owl Keeper would appear to unite owls and sages against the powers of the dark. Gran is gone now, and so are her stories of how the world used to be. Max is no longer brave. The forest is dangerous, the books Gran had saved have been destroyed, and the silver owls are extinct. At least that’s what the High Echelon says. But Max knows better. Mrs. Larson recommends to students who enjoy dystopian novels like The Giver as well as fantasy stories. This is a more advanced read for a high level 4th or 5th grade student. Very well written and engaging.

Shirley Temple Wong sails from China to America with a heart full of dreams.Her new home is Brooklyn, New York. America is indeed a land full of wonders, but Shirley doesn't know any English, so it's hard to make friends. Then a miracle-baseball-happens. It is 1947, and Jackie Robinson, star of the Brooklyn Dodgers, is everyone's hero. Jackie Robinson is proving that a black man, the grandson of a slave, can make a difference in America and for Shirley as well, on the ball field and off, America becomes the land of opportunity. Mrs. Larson recommends this classic story to children who enjoy historical fiction, baseball, and Chinese characters and culture.

Visit me next week to read about 7 more stories--wish me luck!