The Book Search

 Summer time is awesome.  Somehow, last summer didn't feel quite as awesome, so I'm trying hard to make up for lost time.  So yesterday, I had a couple of appointments (one of the REALLY fun parts of summer-going to all those doctor's appointments you can't schedule during school because taking a whole day off to go see a doctor??!!!) and in between, I had time to read.  I TORE through this book because I couldn't stop reading it!  I was sorry when it was over too, so maybe I'll have to go back and re-read it.  It was that good!  It's called Hollow Chest and it's Brita Sandstrom's debut novel.   The main character is 12 year old Charlie.  Charlie lives with his mom and his grandfather.  His grandfather is a veteran of World War 1 and is missing his left arm.  His mom works hard and provides the income for the family.  Charlie's dad was killed in a bombing and his brother, Theo, has been serving in the war.  But Theo is on ...

My students are super excited about dragons.  They love Tui Sutherland's series Dragonwings but these two new ones are going to thrill them! The first one is by one of my favorite authors, Sarah Beth Durst.  If you missed it, she wrote an amazing magical story called "The Girl Who Could Not Dream" that had one of the best characters (Monster) that I've read in a long time.  Her newest one, Spark, is about a girl named Mina who is quiet and lives with her very noisy family in a country called Aloria.  Aloria is special because they always have perfect weather, thanks to storm beasts and their guardians.  There are different kinds of storm beasts, wind, rain, sun, snow, and lightning that each provide things that their country needs. The guardians spend two years bonding with their storm beast while it's still inside the egg, but they don't know what kind it will be until it hatches.  Everyone is very surprised then, when Mina's egg hatches and it is a lig...

This has been a super busy week.  We had our state librarians conference called FAME in Orlando this past week.  There were lots of workshops, authors to meet, vendors to talk to and most of all friends from all over our wonderful state.  It was a great conference but I'm exhausted and exhilarated at the same time!  I'm also still whittling away at the CYBILS speculative middle grade fiction.  I'm sure you're not shocked to hear that I barely had time to open a book this past week, much less read one.  But I finished one today that is not to be missed.  It's called "Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth" by Frank Cottrell Boyce.  The last sentence in the completely irresistible first chapter is this "I probably shouldn't have written it all down.  It might get me into trouble.   We broke a lot of laws, including some of the laws of physics.  But I wrote everything down anyway, because I didn't want to forget any of it."  I sincerely...

Big news!  I got picked to be on the CYBILS panel to judge middle grade fiction! So excited and I'm getting to work with some awesome other bloggers!  I can't wait to get started.  In the meantime, I'm trying to polish off my Netgalley list and wow, did I find some good ones. My new favorite book is called "The Girl Who Could Not Dream" by Sarah Beth Durst.  It starts with a seminal event, Sophie is 6 and she decides to take a dream and dream it herself.  She dreams a monster (6 tentacles, 4 scaly claws, black iridescent fur, 3 rows of razor sharp teeth) but the monster turns out to be friendly and smart and hilarious.  The story flashes forward to when Sophie is 12.  You then find out that her parents have a book store and they also distill and sell dreams.  Sophie does not dream and really, really wants to.  Monster has become her friend and protector but a complete secret from everyone except her mom and dad, which limits her opportu...