Laurie Halse Anderson

Here I am with Laurie Halse Anderson. She has written kids books, like the Vet Volunteer series, and young adult books, like Chains and Fever 1793.

Below is the link to her website.

http://www.writerlady.com/

Cornelia Funke and I

Here I am with my friend Cornelia Funke at ALA. In my hand is a pre-release of Reckless.

This is one of Cornelia Funke's websites. It is managed by her sister. I hope it comes up in english for you.

http://www.corneliafunke.de/en.html

Battle of the Books

Battle of the Books (BOB) is a program at the school I go to. We are given a list of 15 books and we have to read all of them. We do a bunch of practice questions, then we are quizzed to see who knows the books the best. The children with the best knowledge of the books are put on the team. We do even more practice questions, but this time it is with the team. Finally it is competition time. We travel to one of the other middle schools in our district to compete for the title of Battle of the Books Champion. We are put in a room with a team from a different school. They alternate between asking our team questions and the other team questions. The four teams with the most correct questions move on to the next level. The top two teams out of the teams left move on to the final round. The competition to become the winner is intense. Last year the champion only won by one or two questions. The winning team receives a banner and a trophy.

Below is a list of the 2010-2011 BOB books:

Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen

Code Orange by Caroline Cooney

Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Yancy

Peak by Roland Smith

Schooled by Gordan Korman

Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Downsiders by Neal Shusterman

Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer Armstrong

Wreckers by Ian Lawrence

Black Duck by Janet Taylor Lisle

Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson

Cracker: the Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick

Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikelson

Compound by Stephanie Bodeen

Virginia Readers' Choice

In Virginia we do a program called Virginia Readers' Choice. The Virginia State Reading Association picks out ten good books that have something to do with Virginia. Kids in schools all across Virginia then read those ten books. The kids then vote on their favorite book. All the schools votes are added together and the book with the most votes becomes a Virginia Readers' Choice.

At the school I go to we have to have read and taken AR (Accelerated Reader) tests on at least 5 of the books. We go to a pizza party and vote there.

Bellow I am posting the 2010-2011 middle school Virginia Readers' Choice book list. They also have a list for elementary school kids that has a few picture books on it, but that list isn't in my possession.

After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson

All of the Above by Shelly Pearsall

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine

Breathe: A Ghost Story by Cliff McNish

The Girl Who could Fly by Victoria Forester

Little Audrey by Ruth White

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd

Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell

T4 a novel by Ann Clare Lezotte

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt

My Life as a Book by Janet Tashjian

In My Life as a Book by Janet Tashjian school is out and picky reader Derek is ready to have the time of his life until he is assigned a summer reading list and project. He has to read three books by the end of the summer! On top of that he is sent to Learning Camp. While searching his attic in the little free time he has he finds a newspaper article that discusses a death at Martha's Vineyard. He bugs his mom to tell him why she was keeping the excerpt but once he learns he wishes he had never asked. To unravel the family secret and learn how Derek save his summer than you should read My Life as a Book.

★★★(out of five)

American Library Association Conference

Every year the American Library Association (ALA) holds a huge conference. This year from June 24-29 the conference was held in Washington, D.C. I was privileged enough to go and meet many fabulous authors. Cornelia Funke was there was there with galleys of Reckless. John Green was there with Will Grayson and Lauren Numeroff was there with If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. There were so many other nice authors that I couldn't name them all. They also had free books that they would just set out. I bought two sets of bookmarks that smell like maple syrup and fresh laundry. On the last day of the conference I bought some books for $2.50. In a bookstore they are almost all $10. I was sad to leave but happy to get home and read all of the 100 or so books I brought home.

Smile by Raina Telgemeier

Smile by Raina Telgemeier is a comic style book that tells the true tale of Raina and her teeth. When she was in 6th grade she lost her two of her permanent teeth. It took four and a half years before her teeth looked normal again. Smile tells about the different procedures Raina went through and the way her friends treated her. It talks about how we live in a society that revolves around looks and that kids get put down for looking different.

★★★ (out of five)

Reckless by Cornelia Funke

Reckless by Cornelia Funke is about a boy named Jacob Reckless who takes trips through a mirror to a fairy tale world. One day his brother, Will, follows him into the alternate universe and gets attacked by a Goyl (a Goyl is a human whose skin has turned to stone). The Goyl's claws swipe Will's arm and poison his blood. Will is turning into a Goyl. Jacob is racing against time to save his brother from becoming a complete Goyl in this dark but action packed adventure.

Anyone who wants to get there hands on this amazing book will have to wait until September 14, 2010, which is when this book is officially released.

★★★★(out of five)

Hello!

This is what I'm reading now and my opinions.