Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers

"I hope you mess this up! I hope you blow it bigtime! You're supposed to be smart. You think you're smart, right?"

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Summary: Teenage Reese, serving time at a juvenile detention facility, gets a lesson in making it through hard times from an unlikely friend with a harrowing past.


Amistad; 247 pages

First Reading List for 2011 Newbery Discussion

This is the first of the "short lists" we will prepare for this year's Mock Newbery Program at the Allen County Public Library. Basically, this means that while we will continue to highlight and discuss a wide variety of children's books on our blog -- and we encourage comments on all of them -- the books on this first list are destined to be 'brought to the table' to be discussed in more depth at our Mock Newbery Discussion and Election on December 11, 2010.

1. Alchemy and Meggy Swann by Karen Cushman
2. Best Friends Forever by Beverly Patt
3. Countdown by Deborah Wiles
4. Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan and Peter Sis
5. Keeper by Kathi Appelt
6. Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata
7. Mirror Mirror - A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer
8. Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
9. Nest for Celeste by Henry Cole
10. One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
11. Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
12. Water Seeker by Kimberly Willis Holt
13. Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen
    

We welcome continued online discussion through this blog and invite you to register for our "in person" discussion to be held on December 11, 2010 at our Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Borrowed Names by Jeannine Atkins

Poems about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madam C. J. Walker, Marie Curie, and Their Daughters

Subject: As a child, Laura Ingalls Wilder traveled across the prairie in a covered wagon. Her daughter, Rose, thought those stories might make a good book, and the two created the beloved Little House series. Sarah Breedlove, the daughter of former slaves, wanted everything to be different for her own daughter, A'Lelia. Together they built a million-dollar beauty empire for women of color. Marie Curie became the first person in history to win two Nobel prizes in science. Inspired by her mother, Irene too became a scientist and Nobel prize winner. Borrowed Names is the story of these extraordinary mothers and daughters.

Henry Holt; 209 pages

As Simple as It Seems by Sarah Weeks

"My Grandpa Colty died on the same day I was born."

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Summary: Eleven-year-old Verbena Polter gets through a difficult summer of turbulent emotions and the revelation of a disturbing family secret with an odd new friend who believes she is the ghost of a girl who drowned many years before.

Harper Collins; 181 pages