• From the Mixed-Up Files... > The Great Library Giveaway Spotlight #7
  • OhMG News!


    March 28, 2013: Big at Bologna

     

     

    This year at the Bologna Children's Book Fair, the focus has shifted to middle-grade.  “A lot of foreign publishers are cutting back on YA and are looking for middle-grade,” said agent Laura Langlie, according to Publisher's Weekly.  Lighly illustrated or stand-alone contemporary middle-grade fiction is getting the most attention.  Read more...

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    March 10, 2013: Marching to New Titles

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Check out these titles releasing in March...

     

     

     

     

     

    March 5, 2013: Catch the BEA Buzz

     

    Titles for BEA's Editor Buzz panels have been announced.  The middle-grade titles selected are:

     

     

    A Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates #1: Magic Marks the Spot by Caroline Carlson

     

     

    Counting By 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

     

     

    The Fantastic Family Whipple by Matthew Ward

     

     

    Nick and Tesla's High-Voltages Danger Lab by Bob Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith

     

     

    The Tie Fetch by Amy Herrick

     

    For more Buzz books in other categories, read more...

     

     

     

    February 20, 2013: Lunching at the MG Roundtable 

     

    Earlier this month, MG authors Jeanne Birdsall, Rebecca Stead, and N.D. Wilson shared insight about writing for the middle grades at an informal luncheon with librarians held in conjunction with the New York Public Library's Children's Literary Salon "Middle Grade: Surviving the Onslaught." 

     

     

    Read about their thoughts...

     

    February 10, 2013: New Books to Love

     

     

     

     

     

    Check out these new titles releasing in February...

     

     

     

    January 28, 2013: Ivan Tops List of Winners 

    The American Library Association today honored the best of the best from 2012, announcing the winners of the Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz awards, along with a host of other prestigious youth media awards, at their annual winter meeting in Seattle.

    The Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature went to The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. Honor books were: Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz; Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin; and Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage. 

    The Coretta Scott King Book Award went to Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America written by Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrated by Brian Pinkney.

    The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, which honors an author for his or her long-standing contributions to children’s literature, was presented to Katherine Paterson.  

    The Pura Belpre Author Award, which honors a Latino author, went to Benjamin Alire Saenz for his novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which was also named a Printz Honor book and won the Stonewall Book Award for its portrayal of the GLBT experience.

    For a complete list of winners…

     

    January 22, 2013: Biography Wins Sydney Taylor

    Louise Borden's His Name Was Raoul Wallenberg, a verse biography of the Swedish humanitarian, has won the Sydney Taylor Award in the middle-grade category. The award is given annually to books of the highest literary merit that highlight the Jewish experience. Aimee Lurie, chair of the awards committee, writes, "Louise Borden's well-researched biography will, without a doubt, inspire children to perform acts of kindness and speak out against oppression."

    For more...

     

    January 17, 2013: Erdrich Wins Second O'Dell

    Louise Erdrich is recipient of the 2013 Scott O'Dell Award for her historical novel Chickadee, the fourth book in her Birchbark House series. Roger Sutton, Horn Book editor and chair of the awards committee, says of Chickadee, "The book has humor and suspense (and disarmingly simple pencil illustrations by the author), providing a picture of 1860s Anishinabe life that is never didactic or exotic and is briskly detailed with the kind of information young readers enjoy." Erdrich also won the O'Dell Award in 2006 for The Game of Silence, the second book in the Birchbark series. 

    For more...

     

    January 15, 2013: After the Call

    Past Newbery winners Jack Gantos, Clare Vanderpool, Neil Gaiman, Rebecca Stead, and Laura Amy Schlitz talk about how winning the Newbery changed (or didn't change) their lives in this piece from Publishers Weekly...

     

    January 2, 2013: On the Big Screen

    One of our Mixed-up Files members may be headed to the movies! Jennifer Nielsen's fantasy adventure novel The False Prince is being adapted for Paramount Pictures by Bryan Cogman, story editor for HBO's Game of Thrones. For more...

     


  • Subscribe!

    Get email updates:

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

The Great Library Giveaway Spotlight #7

Uncategorized

Thank you to everyone who has donated a book for our giveaway.  If you are interested in participating, there is still time to send books – check here for details.  And if you haven’t nominated a library, please do by entering a comment here.  We are only open for nominations open until October 16th so hurry, hurry, hurry!

Three lucky libraries will be chosen at random on October 20th.  Then you will have a chance to determine library will receive a big stack of books!  Here are ten more titles that will be included in the pile:

Bad Kitty for President by Nick Bruel

The votes are in–it’s a Bad Kitty landslide! It’s time to elect a new president of the Neighborhood Cat Coalition! Who will win the election? The candidate chosen by the kitties on the right side of the street or the candidate chosed by the kitties on the left side of the street? When election time rolls around, one candidate (guess who?) will discover that she never bothered to register to vote and the entire election will be decided by a surprise, last minute absentee ballot sent by Old Kitty.

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

“Hope is the thing with feathers” starts the poem Frannie is reading in school. Frannie hasn’t thought much about hope. There are so many other things to think about. Each day, her friend Samantha seems a bit more “holy.” There is a new boy in class everyone is calling the Jesus Boy. And although the new boy looks like a white kid, he says he’s not white. Who is he?

During a winter full of surprises, good and bad, Frannie starts seeing a lot of things in a new light—her brother Sean’s deafness, her mother’s fear, the class bully’s anger, her best friend’s faith and her own desire for “the thing with feathers.”

Imitate the Tiger by Jan Cheripko

Chris Serbo loves to play football. “I’ve played football so many years, it’s instinct to me. . . . I know the rules and I know the chaos. . . . There is nothing more satisfying than hitting someone with all your force. . . . When all else fails, I “know “how to play football.” But Chris Serbo has some problems–and one of them is that he drinks to hide from the other problems. In this powerful story of a high school senior trying to find some hope and meaning in his life, author Jan Cheripko gives us a look at the personal struggles of Chris Serbo as he battles against those trying most to help him: his aunt, his coach, his history teacher, his friends, and even a few enemies.

Louisiana’s Song by Kerry Madden

Livy Two is happy that Daddy is finally out of his coma, but the befuddled man who comes home is not the daddy the Weems family once knew. He forgets their names, he wanders off—he won’t even touch his beloved banjo. Set in Appalachia in 1963, this heartwarming, and heart-wrenching, follow-up to Gentle’s Holler is narrated by the irrepressible Livy Two, and traces the ups and downs of her large mountain family. Shy and awkward 11-year-old Louise (Louisiana) becomes the reluctant hero as she develops a talent for painting, takes care of Daddy, and shows a surprised Livy Two that sometimes the quietest sibling turns out to be the strongest.

Love Puppies and Corner Kicks by R.W. Krech

What?s a girl to do when Mom and Dad announce that the whole family is moving to Scotland for a yearlong teacher exchange? Can you spell d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r? When Andrea gets there, she finds she and her family are living with the principal and she is being pestered by the ultraweird Jasmin. But then she finds an amazing girls? soccer league and a cute boy named Stewart. Will Andrea?s new tough soccer girls accept that she is crushing on a boy from a rival team and not totally devoted to winning a championship? Perfect for fans of Lauren Myracle.

Neversink by Barry Wolverton

Along the Arctic Circle lies a small island called Neversink, whose jagged cliffs and ice-gouged rocks are home to a colony of odd-looking seabirds called auks, including one Lockley J. Puffin. With their oceanfront views and plentiful supply of fish, the auks have few concerns–few, save for Lockley’s two best friends, Egbert and Ruby, a know-it-all walrus and a sharp-tongued hummingbird.

But all of this is about to change. Rozbell, the newly crowned king of the Owl Parliament, is dealing with a famine on the mainland of Tytonia–and he has long had his scheming eyes on the small colony to the north. Now Neversink’s independence hangs in the balance. An insurgence of owls will inevitably destroy life as the auks know it–unless Lockley can do something about it.

Palace Beautiful by Sarah DeFord Williams

When sisters Sadie and Zuzu Brooks move to Salt Lake City, they discover a secret room in the attic of their new house, with a sign that reads ?Palace Beautiful? and containing an old journal. Along with their neighbor, dramatic Belladonna Desolation (real name: Kristin Smith), they take turns reading the story of a girl named Helen living during the flu epidemic of 1918. The journal ends with a tragedy that has a scary parallel to Sadie and Zuzu?s lives, and the girls become obsessed with finding out what happened to Helen after the journal ends. Did she survive the flu? Is she still alive somewhere? Or could her ghost be lurking in the nearby graveyard?

Samantha Hansen Has Rocks in Her Head by Nancy Viau

Ten-year-old Samantha Hansen is a mad scientist. But not the crazy kind—she doesn’t blow stuff up or mix potions or dissect bugs. She just loves science—especially rocks—and figuring out how the world around her works. But there are some things there just isn’t a scientific answer for. Like, why can’t her bossy big sister keep her hands off Sam’s rock collection? And why can’t Sam control her temper? There are some bigger questions, too, like why did her father have to die? And why won’t her mom talk about him anymore?

When Sam’s mom announces a family trip to the Grand Canyon, it’s a dream come true. But it’s also a challenge: If Sam can’t learn to calm down and ignore her irritating sister, she’s going to miss her chance to see one of the world’s biggest rocks and maybe find the answers to some of her questions.

The Crossroads by Chris Grabenstein

Zack, his dad, and new stepmother have just moved back to his father’s hometown, not knowing that their new house has a dark history. Fifty years ago, a crazed killer caused an accident at the nearby crossroads that took 40 innocent lives. He died when his car hit a tree in a fiery crash, and his malevolent spirit has inhabited the tree ever since. During a huge storm, lightning hits the tree, releasing the spirit, who decides his evil spree isn’t over . . . and Zack is directly in his sights.

The Lucky Place by Zu Vincent

Cassie finds her inner strength through experiencing heartbreaking events. “The Lucky Place “begins at a horse racetrack, where Cassie, age three, and her brother Jamie, age five, accompany their father on a drinking and betting spree. As she goes with him to make yet another bet, her hand slips out of his and she loses him. When Cassie has been delivered safely home, Cassie’s mother is angry and Cassie vows never to lose Daddy again. But before long, Mama has had enough of Cassie’s father. She introduces Cassie and Jamie to Ellis. Cassie’s father slowly exits from her life as Ellis enters it, eventually becoming her stepfather. Her father continues to pop in and out of her life unexpectedly, while Ellis provides a stable, loving home. Just when life seems pretty wonderful, Ellis is diagnosed with cancer. He takes the family on a summer-long camping trip where he spends time with Cassie. From early childhood to early adolescence, her experiences with both fathers generate conflict and loss and help Cassie discover that her true lucky place is within herself.

*All summaries are from IndieBound

 

Comments Off