Check Out the 2011-2012 Georgia Peach Book Award Nominees

So here are next year’s Georgia Peach Book Award Nominees. You may have noticed that we already own several: Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher, Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia, The Maze Runner by James Dashner, and Shift by Jennifer Bradbury. Oh, and in case you were wondering about the winner of the 2011-2011 Georgia Peach Book Award: it’s Dean Rusk favorite Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. Honor books were If I Stay by Gayle Forman and The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan.

More About the Georgia Children’s Book Award Nominees 2011-2012

Need more info about next year’s Georgia Children’s Book Award Nominees? Then check out this slide show. You’ll want to read them all! Feel free to borrow this slide show and post to your own blog or website.

Georgia Children’s Book Award Nominees 2011-2012

While we are still anxiously awaiting the announcement of this year’s winner of the Georgia Children’s Book Award, the Georgia Children’s Book Award Nominees for next year (2011-2012) have been released by the Georgia Conference on Children’s Literature. Here’s the list of nominees:

• Alvarez, Julia (2009). Return to sender.
• Anderson, Laurie Halse (2008). Chains.
• Angleberger, Tom (2010). The strange case of Origami Yoda.
• Baskin, Nora Raleigh (2009). Anything but typical.
• Burg, Ann (2009). All the broken pieces.
• Clements, Andrew (2009). Extra credit.
• Collins, Suzanne (2008). The hunger games.
• Connor, Leslie (2008). Waiting for normal.
• Draper, Sharon (2010). Out of my mind.
• Erskine, Kathryn (2010). Mockingbird.
• Hiaasen, Carl (2009). Scat.
• Klise, Kate (2009). Dying to meet you: 43 old cemetery road.
• Korman, Gordon 2008). Swindle.
• Lin, Grace (2009). Where the mountain meets the moon.
• O’Connor, Barbara (2010). The fantastic secret of Owen Jester.
• Pearsall, Shelley (2008). All shook up.
• Philbrick, Rodman (2009). The mostly true adventures of Homer P. Figg.
• Sonnenblick, Jordan (2010). After ever after.
• Wiles, Deborah (2010). Countdown.
• Williams-Garcia, Rita (2010). One crazy summer.

The Dean Rusk Media Center already has some of these titles available if you want to get a head start on reading the books for next year’s Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl competition, or if you just want a suggestion for some great reading. Below is a list of the books we already have on hand. The number to the right indicates the number of copies available, if we currently have more than one copy. The author’s name is also indicated so you know where to look on the shelves for the book. We will have multiple copies of these books available for next year.

• Anything But Typical (Baskin)
• Waiting For Normal (2)(Connor)
• Out of My Mind (Draper)
• Scat (3)(Hiaasen)
• Swindle (Korman)
• All Shook Up (Pearsall)
• Extra Credit (Clements)
• The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg (Philbrick)
• Chains (Anderson)
• All the Broken Pieces (Burg)
• Origami Yoda (3) Angleberger
• The Hunger Games (billions and billions served) (Collins)

Time to Get Back to Reading!

Welcome back! School started back yesterday, guys, and we have already had 7 classes today to check out books! Thanks to Mrs. Castrillon, Mrs. Burn, and Mrs. Herrera for visiting the media center on our first day of circulation for the 2010-2011 school year. Stop by soon to check out some books by these favorite DRMS authors!

Download Some Free Audiobooks This Summer!

Some of you may know that I am an audiophile. If you know what an audiophile is. It means that I love to listen–to audiobooks. This can be an expensive habit, but this summer, beginning July 1 and continuing through September 1, Sync, aka AudioFileMagazine, is making two young adult audiobooks available for free each week! All you do is go to AudioBookCommunity and join the Sync group. You just have to give them your email address and be 13 or older (so be 13 or older!). Don’t worry; it’s free.

One book each week is a contemporary teen favorite, and the other is a classic with a similar theme. For example, the first week they are offering The Angel Experiment by James Patterson, and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. In case you have been living on another planet, The Angel Experiment is the first volume of the Maximum Ride series, and it just so happens to have been our most requested title during the last weeks of school. So get a jump on next year by downloading it to your iPod before you go on vacation with your family this summer, and listening to it in the car on the way. Then try out Frankenstein as well! Sure beats listening to your annoying sibs! Here’s a review of Sync’s recording of  The Angel Experiment from the Sync website:

“James Patterson’s facile writing and Evan Rachel Wood’s expressive, wide-eyed reading make this entrée for the teen audience a remarkable success. A group of bird-kids, genetically altered with avian DNA, and led by Max, have escaped from the experimental “school” and must survive the perils of other mutants as they save the youngest member of their flock. Wood has all the slang and colloquial pacing down pat. Teens will love the chaotic chases and frantic action–Wood in Max’s first-person narrative has the aura of a comic book superhero. The abridgment is smartly done, and Wood keeps listeners’ attention. ” R.F.W. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

Here’s the complete list of available titles:

Available July 1 – July 7
The Angel Experiment by James Patterson
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Available July 8 – July 14
Over the End Line by Alfred C. Martino
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

Available July 15 – July 21
Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Available July 22 – July 28
The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Available July 29 – August 4
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Available August 5 – August 11
Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Available August 12 – August 18
Beastly by Alex Flinn
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Available August 19 – August 25
Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Available August 26 – September 1
Handbook for Boys by Walter Dean Myers
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

You can click on the titles that appear to be links (they are!) to see the reviews. And yes, you saw correctly. DRMS favorite The Hunger Games is also included. Can’t wait for volume three, Mockingjay,  to be released in August! And The Power of One from the July 8 selections? One of Mrs. Bullen’s alltime favorites! So whattya say? Are you in?

2010-2011 Georgia Children’s Book Award Nominees Announced

The word is out! The Georgia Children’s Book Award Nominees for 2010-2011 have been announced. These books will be the topic of next year’s Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl competition.

Interested in joining the Dean Rusk Reading Bowl team? See Mrs. Fleet, Mrs. Preston, or Mrs. Conway. We meet every weekto pra tice for the competition and enjoy fun and snacks. If you are an avid reader, we need you!

This year’s winner will be announced at the Georgia Children’s Literature Conference March 19-20. Here’s a list of next year’s nominees; titles in bold are already available in the media center, and we are currently ordering multiple copies of all titles:

• Hummingbird by Kimberly Green Angle
• The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman
• The Year the Swallows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice
• Diamond Willow by Helen Frost
• A Tugging String by David Greenberg
• Chase by Jessie Haas
• All the Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Haan
• Bird Lake Moon by Kevin Henkes
• Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs
• Seekers: The Quest Begins by Erin Hunter
• We Can’t All Be Rattlesnakes by Patrick Jennings
• House of Dance by Beth Kephart
• The Last Girls of Pompeii by Kathryn lasky
• Savvy by Ingrid Law
• Storyteller by Edward Myers
• Child of Dandelions by Shenaaz Nanji
• Bringing the Boy Home by N.A. Nelson
• Darkwing by Kenneth Oppel
• The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas
• Dragon’s Egg by Sarah L. Thomson

Dean Rusk Hosts Charles J. Shields, Author of I Am Scout

Wow! How cool are we? This morning Dean Rusk eighth graders had the honor of hearing author Charles J. Shields tell us about how he was inspired to become a writer. When Mr. Shields was a sophomore in high school, the sponsor of his high school newspaper invited him to join the school newspaper staff. Even though he was not a “joiner,” Mr. Shields went to a meeting and was assigned an article about the upcoming Homecoming game at his school. The article was a huge success, and Mr. Shields was hooked on writing.

Mr. Shields also shared the story of how he wrote his book I Am Scout, the story of Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, and how Ms. Lee wrote her famous book. Ms. Lee, like many great authors,  was inspired by her upbringing in Alabama and by the people who influenced her childhood. (I kind of made it sound like all great authors come from Alabama, didn’t I?) Mr. Shields told us that the central characters in the book, Scout and Atticus Finch, are based largely on Ms. Lee and her father.

When asked who he admired most, Mr. Shields told us that he most admired his wife. Mr. Shields admires his wife, Guadalupe, because she overcame adversity and achieved success. She was born to Mexican-American parents and was a migrant worker in southern Texas and Michigan. Later, Mrs. Shields became a middle school principal. Is it true that all great Americans become middle school educators? Probably.

Mr. Shields is a former English teacher who spent four years writing Mockingbird, the adult version of I Am Scout. He has also written numerous other nonfiction books for middle school students, including several we have in the media center. In writing Mockingbird, Mr. Shields interviewed over 600 of Ms. Lee’s neighbors and friends and researched the papers of her good friend, author Truman Capote. Did you hear that, students? He researched his topic! Shocking! Even adults do research!

Mr. Shields has a B.A. in English and an M.A. in American history from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He is a resident of Virginia. You can learn more about Mr. Shields, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Mr. Shield’s other books at Mr. Shields’ website by clicking here.

Special thanks to the Towne Lake Arts Center and the National Endowment for the Arts for providing Mr. Shields’ appearance and for sponsoring The Big Read and events surrounding the Towne Lake Arts Center’s presentation of To Kill a Mockingbird. The play will be presented March 9-27, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 PM. You can check out signed copies of I Am Scout and other books by Mr. Shields in the DR Library. We also have copies of To Kill a Mockingbird available.