This year’s winner is Dead End in Norvelt  by Jack Gantos,  author of the Rotten Ralph series for young readers. His other works include Hole in My Life, a memoir that won the Michael L. Printz and Robert F. Sibert Honors, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, a National Book Award Finalist, and Joey Pigza Loses Control, a Newbery Honor book. 

 

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

(Through a series of poems, a young girl chronicles the life-changing year of 1975, when she, her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam and resettle in Alabama.)

Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin

(In the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union, ten-year-old Sasha idolizes his father, a devoted Communist, but when police take his father away and leave Sasha homeless, he is forced to examine his own perceptions, values, and beliefs.

Michael J. Rosen and Robert Sabuda won for Chanukah Lights (Younger Readers Award). Sabuda is well known for his intricate paper cut pop-up art.

In the Older Readers category, Susan Goldman Rubin won for Music Was It: Young Leonard Bernstein. This is an inspiring biography of the young musician and his commitment to succeed despite opposition from his family.

Robert Sharenow will receive the award for Teen Readers for his book The Berlin Boxing Club.  In 1936 Berlin, fourteen year old Karl Stern, considered Jewish despite a non-religious upbringing, learn to box from the legendary Max Schmeling while struggling with the realities of the Holocaust.

We are also hosting a visit with Chicago Wolves’ Matt Clackson on Tuesday February 21st at 7pm.  He’ll talk about the importance of reading and explain how reading and education play a part in his life as a professional athlete. One child will be selected to try on his hockey equipment! Also, he will be signing autographs for the kids. Then both children & adults can stick around to try our sockey hockey shoot-out just for fun! Register EVERYONE who is attending.

In Roald Dahl’s classic, The BFG, Sophie meets the BFG, they begin a great friendship and an adventure in saving England from evil giants.

Meet Mole, Rat, Badger and the infamous Toad in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. Stories full of danger, humor, adventure and friendship are found in Toad Hall, a jail, the river bank in the air and on the ground.

Are you a child that won’t brush your teeth? Or do you have a child that won’t go to bed? Betty MacDonald’s Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle may have just the cure. Whether the cures are silly, magical or sometimes gross, they usually do the trick. What makes especially great for read alouds, each chapter is it’s own story. There are many Mrs Piggle-Wiggle books!

In Gary Paulsen’s Lawn Boy, all a twelve year-old boy wants to do is raise some money  for some bike repairs. As a result, a huge enterprise is formed with management, accountants and even a sponsorship of a boxer. It’s a hilarious adventure with characters you will love. If you enjoy this book, check out it’s sequel, Lawn Boy Returns.

In Louis Sachar’s Sideways Stories From Wayside School, school is beyond different, it’s just plain strange.  For example, most schools have one or two floors with many classes. This school has thirty floors with one classrooms each. Many hilarious tales are found within that classroom.

For more ideas about read-alouds, check out Jim Trelease’s The Read-Aloud Handbook and his website.

Brett stayed true to the classic story and managed to fit it into 32 pages! Of course,  the story has a happy ending when Beauty looks beyond the Beast’s outward appearance and agrees to marry him, thus breaking the spell and returning him to his handsome prince status once again. And they lived happily ever after.

For the superhero in your family try A Superhero Cookbook with recipes for Captain Egg Heads, Gamma Rays (like kabobs), Crime-fighting Carrots and ZAM! POW! Punch. 

Any princesses in the family?  Then try the royal recipes in A Princess Cookbook. Selections include making edible Magic Pretzel Wands, Fairy-Tale Floats, a Princess and the Pea Salad, Castle Crunch (trail mix), Slipper Sandwiches topped off with a Princess Parfait.  

The kids might go for A Pirate Cookbook, which has recipes for Gangplank Dippers, Sea Swords (pictured on the cover), Scurvy Soup, Peg-Leg Pickles and Blackbeard’s Breakfast.  The instructions remind the pirates to clean up after themselves because “even pirates had to swab the deck!”

Around the World by Matt Phelan

Amulet Book 4: The Last Council by Kazu Kibuishi

Mal and Chad: The Biggest, Bestest Time Ever! by Stephen McCranie

Nursery Rhyme Comics: 50 Timeless Rhymes from 50 Celebrated Cartoonists edited by Chris Duffy

Zita the Spacegirl Book One: Far from Home by Ben Hatke