From: Mary Stoiber <MSTOIBE>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 16:00:41 -0600

Like many others we had an Award Book Club this year. We called it "award" and not Newbery thinking maybe we could add a few YA books for the Printz award. Many of the titles I had been reading about for YA just didn't fit our school population
(middle school) so we really did look for a Newbery winner.

We had 5 of the 6 winner/honor books on our to read list. The only one missing was Applewhites but after reading what the book was about the kids wanted to read that also.

The winner for our club was House of the Scorpion. Pictures of Hollis Woods was a close second. It actually received more first place votes from those who read it. There was an interesting reaction when we announced the actual winner. Crispin was on everyone's want to read list at the beginning mainly because many enjoyed Avi's previous books. So Crispin was read early on and when it came to voting many students said they forgot about it although they did like it. As others have said, this book has a nice voice about history without pulling down the story or trying to teach a history lesson. Students are able to enjoy the story and learn something without realizing it!!

My personal favorite was Hollis Wood although House of Scorpion was very good ( I wasn't sure I wanted to read it at first, sounded too horrible yet couldn't put it down once I started it).

You can see our list of books and some of the student reviews on our webpage at http://www.cedarburg.k12.wi.us/webster/brown_bag_awards.html

Mary Stoiber IMC Director Webster Transitional School Cedarburg, WI 262.376.6575 mstoibe at cedarburg.k12.wi.us http://www.cedarburg.k12.wi.us/webster

http://www.cedarburg.k12.wi.us/webster
Received on Mon 17 Feb 2003 04:00:41 PM CST