From: Brian, Jen, Megan, & Ethan <Brewcheese>
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 19:31:34 -0600

We have a mock Newbery Group at our school where the kids select the books they want to read from a list of notable titles for the year. The did select Al Capone, but when the voting came it barely registered a blip and therefore didn't get much discussion. The biggest complaint was simply that not much happened. They really liked the note in the shirt pocket at the end, however.

Kira-Kira and Lizzie Bright were on our list from the start, but the students, in their research online of reviews and summaries, didn't see them as interesting enough to choose as a book we would buy and read. When the winners were announced we got copies to a few kids immediately. Here's some reactions:

One girl read Kira-Kira apart from our group. She said, "When I read it earlier in the year I thought it was pretty good, but after reading the other books we chose, I realized I liked others a lot better." And one of my most trusted readers in class simply said, "It's stupid." We talked about many of the things that have been mentioned on the list already, but she just couldn't get beyond her opinion that it was just another book where the sister/mother/father/brother dies tragically and everyone gets incredibly sad. I teach sixth grade, and the mother of one of our boys died from a 5 year battle with cancer in January. Living through that was hard enough for all of us - they don't (and she didn't) want to relive it through a book.

Marion Anderson - "I though it was just going to be a boring nonfiction book about an opera singer, but I ended up liking it more than I thought I would." Not exactly glowing, but honest.

Every year I love to read the opinions of all the adults, but every year the children seem to have some very different opinions of "their" literature.

Brian http://users.tznet.com/~bookswi/newberychoices.html
Received on Fri 18 Feb 2005 07:31:34 PM CST