Tales from a Loud Librarian

Motto for Mock BOB: May the Best Book Win! It did:  Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell We started the Mock BOB at PFTSTA on March 10th. It took a month to get through 15 battles in four rounds. In Round 1 , there were eight battles that were fought live during lunch in the commons area. Students stood up to speak as a champion for their book. For Round 2 and 3, the students picked their selections online. In Round 2 , the champions wrote a brief pitch for their book, but in Round 3 , the champions created a brief video. The events brought some excitement to the library and with multiple copies of the original sixteen books, students eager to read the books that their friends were defending could check them out and read throughout the month of battles. Championing Far Far Away Going to Bat for The Thing about Luck Middle School Students Listen Attentively More Words for Far Far Away Since this was the end of a long process, we decided tha...

The week began with our final battles in Round 1. Since Monday is the day for the weekly scheduled meeting of the high school book group (Bookmarked), everyone was there for these battles. Up first, was one of my favorites of 2013, Rose Under Fire . I know that historical fiction is a hard sell to my students, but Alexandra and Kayla who read this work seemed to love it as much as I did. The strong female characters and the different picture that the book paints of the Holocaust resonated with them. Unfortunately, it could not manage to defeat The Thing about Luck . Darla stepped up with a script in hand so she wouldn't forget anything and described the story about a girl of Japanese descent working as a migrant farm worker with her family  That the protagonist feels good luck just seems to evade their family time and time again spoke to the students. I guess they could feel her pain. Twice as many students selected Kadohata's work over Wein's. Author judge...