Let the Reading Season Begin!

So as I tie shoes, sign papers, make lunches and send my daughters off to school with a kiss and an I LOVE YOU, I begin to switch back into my reading mode. My mind starts making lists that my fingers have to write down about which books I want to read. Back to school time is the kickoff season for our family to start really reading again.

Summer is great. There is so much to do and my soul yearns to be outside enjoying the fresh air and warm sun. My family is constantly on the go, enjoying trips to amusement parks, water parks, the zoo, walks on trails and anything else that gets us out of the house. Summer is release for us Missourians. Most of our winters are long affairs with bitter cold and various types of wet cold precipitation. So when the warm winds come and the sun stays around longer we embrace it with a passion.

Then school starts and we start getting into a more academic mode. This means reading, writing and critical thinking of various types. Our minds start wandering to books, libraries and bookstores. We begin discussing books we want to read and need to read. My husband looks forward to kickoff time for the NFL and his daughters and wife looks forward to quiet Sundays, curled under the warm blankets reading a enthralling book.

So this book season I have two main goals. The first goal is to read all the Mark Twain and Truman Reader nominee books. These lists are read by my two older children as well. I have been pleasantly surprised by some books on both of these lists in the past so I cannot wait to see what I'm in store for this year. I will post the list of nominee books at the end of this post.

My second goal is one I plan on writing more about in the near future. I am on a mission to discover the very best Post-Apocalypse/End of Earth type of book for both adults and young adults. I must admit this has been a while in the making. I have been wanting to do this for a while now, but those sneaky vampires and weres just got a hold of me and wouldn't let go. While I still love them both, I'm feeling a need to be prepared for 2012-so I must read about the end of earth as I now it. Of course getting addicted to TNT's new show Falling Skies didn't help in this need. It only made it worse.

So any suggestions for me? I would love to hear them!

Mark Twain Award 2011-2012 Nominees:

The Potato Chip Puzzles by Eric Berlin
Secret of Zoom by Lynne Jonell
Runaway Twin by Peg Kehret
Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur
Million Dollar Throw by Mike Lupica
11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass
Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z by Kate Messner
Faith, Hope and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Heart of a Shepherd by Rosanne Parry
Captain Nobody by Dean Pitchford
Storm Chaser by Chris Platt
Mudville by Kurtis Scaletta

Truman Reader Award 2011-2012 Nominees:

Invisible Lines by Mary Amato
Double Eagle by Snead B. Collard III
If the Witness Lied by Caroline Cooney
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Adventurers Wanted: Slathbog's Gold by M.L. Forman
The Shifter by Janice Hardy
The Cupcake Queen by Heather Hepler
The Last Thing I Remember by Andrew Klavan
Pop by Gordon Korman
Jane in Bloom by Deborah Lytton
The Farwalker's Quest by Joni Sensel
Bull Rider by Suzanne Morgan Williams

The Value of Awards

The Mark Twain Award is given annually to a book written targeting children in grades four through eight by the Missouri Association of School Librarians (MASL). In my daughter's school the children are awarded with a trip to a children's/young adult book festival for reading the books that are nominated for this award. They have read wonderful books through this program and come home with suggestions for me. It has led me to some wonderful books that I may not have ever known even existed.

One such book I just finished is Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio by Peg Kehret. This is a true story about the author's childhood experience with Polio and how it affected her and those around her. The book was easily written, which as any writer will tell you, meant it took a lot of hard work to achieve. While reading, you can almost feel the dread and fear that any child must have felt with this disease. You can also understand the paranoia that accompanied polio. Although this is a past nominee I had somehow missed it and am thoroughly happy to have read it.

I was pleased that not only do my children love the Percy Jackson books of the world but they also love the non-fictional tales of real people and their real life experiences. This will help ensure that they become well-read and informed as they grow into adults. The great thing about the Nominees for the Mark Twain Award is that they represent so many different types of books. Blown Away by Joan Hiatt Harlow is a story of a unannounced hurricane ripping through a community in the mid-1930's. A great ghost story is represented in Mary Downing Hahn's Deep and Dark and Dangerous.

Award programs such as the Mark Twain Award, the Newberry Award, the Caldecott Award, etc., are essential to exposing our children to experiences outside their circles of life. They are also vital for authors in terms of getting their work out to a larger audience of readers.

My children and I have enjoyed the 2009-2010 Mark Twain Award Nominees. We are now gearing up for a summer of reading the recently released list of the 2010-2011 nominees. I have included both lists of nominees below. Thank you MASL for another wonderful year of books.

2009-2010 Nominees:

The Story of Jonas by Maurine Dahlberg

Bravo Zulu, Samantha by Kathleen Benner Duble

Garden Of Eve by K.L. Going

Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn

Blown Away by Joan Hiatt Harlow

Gabriel's Horses by Alison Hart

Friendship for Today by Patricia McKissack

The Big One-Oh by Dean Pitchford

Paint the Wind by Pam Munoz Ryan

Night of the Howling Dogs by Graham Salisbury

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Way Down Deep by Ruth White

This year's winner was Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn.


2010-2011 Nominees:

Seer of Shadows by Avi

The Magic Half by Annie Barrows

Margret and Flynn by Kathleen Duey

Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs

Stolen Children by Peg Kehret

School Spirit by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

Safe at Home by Mike Lupica

The Totally Made up Civil War Diary of Amanda MacLeish by Claudia Mills

Bringing the Boy Home by N.A. Nelson

The Leanin' Dog by K.A. Nuzum

The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy by Diane Stanley

Happy Reading!!!