What Are They Reading for Fun?
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compiled by Marlene Charnizon -- School Library Journal, 01/27/2009
Kids Agree—Ingrid Law’s Savvy is an Honor Book.
Nancy Baumann, Indian Paintbrush Elementary School, Laramie, WY:
Last Thursday was an exciting time for the Mock Newbery participants at Laramie Junior High. The vote revealed Helen Frost’s Diamond Willow (Farrar) as the winner; Ingrid Law’s Savvy (Dial) and Cynthia Kadohata's Outside Beauty (S & S, 2008) were selected as Honor books. Discussion was intense as students in fifth through seventh grade remembered other favorites that earned points, such as Linda Sue Park’s Keeping Score (Clarion, 2008), Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath (S & S, 2008), and Avi’s The Seer of Shadows (HarperCollins, 2008). Students have discovered that Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw (Abrams, 2009) is out in stores. It is being read and passed around classrooms. Scary books are read all year long, with Sarah Parvis’s Ghost Towns and Creepy Castles (both Bearport, 2008) in high demand. With the Super Bowl coming up, sports biographies like Michael Sandler’s Ben Roethlisberger and Brett Favre (Bearport, 2009) are also popular.
Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA:
Students at our independent school are big readers and are always in search of the next great book. They talk to the librarians and, more importantly, to each other about what’s good and what’s not, and they have strong opinions. Some of the middle schoolers’ favorites at the moment include Jeff Kinney’s "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books (Abrams), John Flanagan’s "The Ranger’s Apprentice" series (Philomel), Wendy Mass’s A Mango-Shaped Space (Little, Brown, 2003), Kate Klise’s "Regarding the…" books (Harcourt), Betty Ren Wright’s The Dollhouse Murders (Holiday House, 2008), and Dan Gutman’s several novels subtitled A Baseball Card Adventure (HarperCollins). Graphic novels are always being sought, and right now Emmanuel Guibert’s Sardine in Outer Space (Roaring Brook), Jimmy Gownley’s Amelia Rules! (Renaissance Pr.), and Susan Schade’s “The Fog Mound” series (S & S) all rank high on the reading lists.
Evelyn Novins, The Lab School, Washington, DC:
Our K–12 day school tailors its programs and activities to meet the individualized needs of intelligent, often gifted, children with learning disabilities. This teaching model allows for much diversity in the curriculum, and the books read by our students reflect that diversity both in content and level. Young teens are reading Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (2008) and several of her Gregor… titles (all Scholastic). In addition, Melissa J. Morgan’s “Camp Confidential” books (Grosset & Dunlap) and John Feinstein’s Cover-up: Mystery at the Super Bowl (Knopf, 2007) are popular. The junior high students here have always been fans of Mary Downing Hahn, and several have raved about her more recent Deep and Dark and Dangerous (Clarion, 2007). In addition, several students continue to be intrigued by Eoin Colfer’s “Artemis Fowl” series (Hyperion).
