Get ready, get set, READ!!!

Gather your friends in teams of three and get ready to read for the annual BOB (battle of the books)

This years titles are:

• Dogsong by Gary Paulsen

In Paulsen's Newbery Honor novel, 14-year-old Russel Susskit leads a dog team on an arduous trek across the frozen Alaskan wilderness on a life-altering journey haunted by dreams of an ancient warrior whose life oddly parallels his own.

• Bloomability by Sharon Creech
  

When her aunt and uncle take her from New Mexico to Lugano, Switzerland, to attend an international school, thirteen-year-old Dinnie discovers an expanding world and her place within it.

• Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
  

Esperanza thought she'd always live with her family on their ranch in Mexico--she'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home, and servants. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California during the Great Depression, and to settle in a camp for Mexican farm workers. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard labor, financial struggles, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--Mama's life, and her own, depend on it.

• Freedom Crossing by Margaret Goff Clark
  

Although she lives in the North, Laura's ties to the South and what it stands for are strong. And she is firm in her conviction that the Southern states have the right to maintain their own laws and beliefs, even those concerning slavery. But Laura will soon find out that she is alone in that belief in her very own family. After a lengthy stay with a beloved aunt in Virginia, she quickly discovers that her own home in western New York is a stop on the hated Underground Railroad. Worse, her own brother, Bert, and a childhood friend, have become conductors, helping slaves escape into Canada. Even so, she will not waver from her belief that anyone helping a fugitive is breaking the law. That is until she meets Martin Paige, a 12-year-old runaway slave who would rather die than be sent back to the South and into bondage. Tension and intrigue illuminate the dim passages and secret hiding places throughout Margaret Goff Clark's page-turner. Themes of home, family, and friendship are woven with a story of courage and suspicion.

·         Escape Under the Forever Sky by Eve Yohalem
An American teen living in contemporary Ethiopia relies on raw courage and her knowledge of the local ecology when she’s kidnapped in this debut novel based on a real-life event. Ethiopia should be the perfect place for 13-year-old Lucy, who devours books about African mammals. But she lives in the American embassy in Addis Ababa with her overly protective, workaholic mother, the U.S. Ambassador, who insists Lucy stay within the embassy compound. Bored and frustrated, Lucy sneaks out, is kidnapped and held prisoner in the countryside. After sizing up her captors, Lucy knows she must get away, even if it means heading out on her own without water into unknown territory inhabited by lions and hyenas. Lucy tells her story in the first person, alternating between events as she experienced them and flashbacks to her life before the kidnapping. Yohalem effectively conveys the immediacy of Lucy’s terror and fear as well as her deep love for the natural beauty around her. How stalwart Lucy escapes and survives makes this an engrossing journey from innocence to experience.
·         Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
Today I moved to a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. I'm not the only kid who lives here. There's my sister, Natalie, except she doesn't count. And there are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cook's or doctors or electricians for the prison, like my dad does. Plus, there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it. The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don't want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you're me. I came here because my mother said I had to.

The battles will take place on March, 21st from 3:30-5:00 at the middle school, so save the date. A pizza party for all involved will take place after the battles.

So gather your friends and get reading!!!!!

If you have any questions or would like to register a team, please contact Mrs. Healy during study hall.


(This event is for  5-8 grade students only.)