Iowa Children’s Choice Nominees 2011-2012 I have encouraged my students to read at least one Iowa Teen Award book as an independent read in years past, but I have never done much with Iowa Children’s Choice Award nominees. Last year was the first year that I taught 6th grade, and after teaching that level for a year, I realize that the Children’s Choice books are very appropriate for many of my 6th grade readers. I want to make it a point next year to introduce these books to my students at the beginning of the school-year so they can have plenty of time to find a book they are interested in and read it during the year. To make this easy for students, I created a Keynote presentation that I will use to booktalk the books to my classes. I will also put the presentation link on my class wiki for students to have access to throughout the year, and will hopefully add more links and resources as I come across them.
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Transcript
Iowa Children’s Choice Nominees
2011-2012I have encouraged my students to read at least one Iowa Teen Award book as
an independent read in years past, but I have never done much with Iowa Children’s Choice Award nominees. Last year was the first year that I taught 6th grade, and after teaching that level for a year, I realize that the Children’s
Choice books are very appropriate for many of my 6th grade readers. I want to make it a point next year to introduce these books to my students at the
beginning of the school-year so they can have plenty of time to find a book they are interested in and read it during the year. To make this easy for
students, I created a Keynote presentation that I will use to booktalk the books to my classes. I will also put the presentation link on my class wiki for students
to have access to throughout the year, and will hopefully add more links and resources as I come across them.
Masterpieceby Elise Broach
In this book, eleven year old James gets a pen and ink set for his birthday. While he is sleeping,
however, a young beetle named Marvin decides he would like to give the art set a try. Marvin creates
a beautiful, delicate piece of art that Jame’s mother mistakenly thinks he drew. That is where
the craziness begins and James and Marvin embark on an adventure that includes art galleries,
thieves, and a mystery to be solved. If you are not careful, you might accidentally learn something
Abbie is smart enough, but she just doesn’t like to do homework. At the end of her 6th
grade year, however, this becomes a problem, and she is in danger of having to do
6th grade all over again. Her only hope...extra credit. She gets assigned a pen pal to correspond with from Afghanistan and they end up becoming friends in spite of the cultural differences. Not everyone is happy with their friendship, though, and this makes
them both face some tough realizations. Reading Leve 5.2
If you like Charlie and the Choolate Factory, you will like this book! Gil Goodson is
participating in the Golly Toy and Game Company’s ultimate competition, the
Gollywhopper Games. If he wins, that could be the answer to getting his family out of the town that has been nothing but nasty to Gil and his family since “the incident” with his
father. Gil prepares relentlessly for the games, but he will have some tough
competition and not everybody plays fair. Reading Level 3.0
Piper seemed like a normal girl to everybody in her town until she got a little excited one day at a ball game, and now everybody for miles around knows she can fly, or at least
hover. So, what else can her parents do but send her away to INSANE, a top-secret school for “special” kids just like her. At first, Piper
thinks it’s pretty cool to be around kids like her, but it doesn’t take long for her to realize that something is not right at the school and
she, of course, is going to figure it out.Reading Level 5.9
There is a lot going on in this story about Evie, a 10 year old girl who just lost her mother, and then is uprooted from her home in Michigan to a dying apple orchard in Beaumont, NY. Her
father thinks it is for the best but Evie is not so sure, especially when she meets the ghost boy
in the cemetery by her house. Did I also mention the magic seed (that is supposedly from the Garden of Eden) she receives as a
birthday present from her eccentric neighbor? Lots of twists and turns in this one!
Annie’s brother Jared died, and ever since then, Annie has not been the same happy-go-lucky girl she once was. She starts to worry about bike rides, she worries about diseases, she worries about food poisoning, she worries
about everything! She is so busy worrying something bad will happen that she can’t
truly enjoy anything, until her neighbor with her “healing” teas helps Annie begin to
realize maybe her worrying is not the answer after all.
Did you ever read the Lucy Rose series? If so, you might remember Lucy’s friend, Adam Melon. Well, Melonhead now has his own
series in which he provides his readers with lots of antics of his own. Melonhead has always thought of himself as a first-class
inventor, and when his class is entering an inventing fair, what could be better than that?
Unfortunately for Melonhead, things don’t always turn out the way he thinks them up in his head. Fortunately for us, his escapades with snakes, diapers, head-lice essays, and many others are quite entertaining for the
Eleven year old Charlotte will be the first person to tell you she is NOT a dog person, but
when her father comes home with a St. Bernard pup because it was another “great deal” that he couldn’t pass up, guess who
ends up taking care of it? Yep, Charlotte feels bad for the pup and ends up spending a lot of time on Beauregard and actually trying to find him a better home. She also ends up dealing with her new baby brother and her mother’s
postpartum depression along the journey.Reading Level 8-11
Thirteen year old Cap has been home-schooled by his Grandma Rain since forever on a wacky 60’s type commune, but that all
changes when Rain falls out of a tree and gets seriously injured. Now, Cap is thrown into the nightmare of public middle school! He goes to live with the guidance counselor and does
his best to blend in--yeah right! His new classmates do not waste time in making fun
of Cap, and the guidance counselor’s daughter can’t stand him, but things just may find a way of working out for Cap in the end.
Mississipi (Mibs) Beaumont is about to turn 13, and in her family, that is a bit more interesting
than a normal birthday. When a member of Mibs’s family reaches that milestone they
receive their “savvy” or special supernatural power. With powers like controlling electrical currents, creating storms, and just the ability to do things perfectly in her family already, Mibs doesn’t know what to expect. To make
things even more scary, her father is seriously injured in a car accident right before her birthday. Her only wish is that her savvy, when it shows up, will be able to help him.
Franny’s life so far has been happy, normal, and completely safe, so she expects this
summer to be exactly the same. Two things are making sure that doesn’t happen: the
worst drought in a long time, and Lucas and his mother moving in next door. The drought is affecting everything, especially the animals that Franny takes it upon herself to nurse back to health, but it is Lucas that Franny realizes
really needs help. When Lucas’s alcoholic and abusive father finds Lucas and his mother,
Franny is faced with some harsh life-lessons she has never even thought of before.
Emma-Jean does not fit in with her classmates. She has this detached,
analytical way of looking at things that most kids her age cannot relate to, so she ends up spending a lot of time with adults who seem to understand her better. However, when a fellow middle schooler comes to her for help and she actually does, a whole sequence of new events in Emma-Jeans life has begun.
Oggie Cooder is kind of a goofball, and one of his goofiest traits is his ability to “charve” (a combo of chewing and carving) cheese slices into state shapes. He certainly has his own way of doing things, which his parents think
makes him the greatest kid in the world. The other kids in his class are not necessarily in agreement however, especially one Donnica
Perfecto. Donnica is quite sure she is the greatest thing in the world and is destined to be in Hollywood, but things get interesting when she thinks that the way for her to get
there is to take “charving” lessons from Oggie.Reading Level 8-11
Lexile 880
100 Cupboardsby Nathan D. Wilson
Henry York is your average 12 year old boy until he wakes up one night in his bedroom in
his aunt and uncle’s house (formerly his grandpa’s house) to discover some strange knobs suddenly protruding from the wall.
Soon he discovers more, 100 cupboards to be exact, and they all seem to lead to something
completely different and completely crazy. Things start to get really interesting when
Henry’s cousin Henrietta disappears into one of the cupboards. Of course, Henry must try
to find her by going into the cupboards himself and having all kinds of adventures. This is the