We could not keep the display stocked with books. No sooner did we get a cart back to refill the display that the books were seemingly gone again. It was, by far, the most successful display we've put up in the last year.
Most of the time, I totally agree with the awards committees. I may not like a book, but I can usually appreciate that the writing was amazing even when I don't enjoy the story line. I try to read all of the Printz nominees each year and I haven't read one yet that I thought was a bad book.
Two of my favorites from our reading list:
Over the last two years, I have basically become a Maggie Stiefvater fangirl. The first book I ever read that she'd written was Shiver, which is a paranormal romance, and I thought it was so good. She goes to a whole new level in The Scorpio Races, though, which makes me love her even more.
This story is set on the fictional island of Thisby and mainly has two main characters: Puck and Sean.
Every year on this island, the capaill uisce, or water horses, begin coming up onto the land. This generally happens in the fall. The water horses are typically extremely dangerous and kill pets and people each year. A few people will capture the water horses and attempt to train them leading up to November 1, the day which the Scorpio Races are held. Someone dies every year, without fail, but many people consider it worth it due to the large financial prize. This is also the island's main source of income as rich people from all over the world come to watch and bet on the races.
Puck's parents were killed several years prior when they went out fishing and met a water horse out on the ocean. Since then it has just been her and her two brothers, one older and one younger, trying to eek out a living doing this or that. Her oldest brother is the only one who has graduated from school and, as such, is the only stable money earner in the household. One day, he approaches Puck and says he cannot live island life anymore; he's moving to the mainland and he's doing it alone. Puck, of course, is terrified by this news. It only becomes compounded when the island's wealthy stable owner, Mr. Malvern, comes to their home to evict them because they haven't been paying the mortgage. The only way Puck sees to save her home and make a life for herself and her younger brother is to enter the Scorpio Races. But when she tries to see about riding a water horse, she just can't do it. She's the first girl to ever enter the race and she just cannot find a good horse that she feels stable on, so she decides to ride her own trusty horse, Dove. It is a first on lots of grounds.
Sean is all alone in this world and the best stable hand that Mr. Malvern has. Sean has won the last two Scorpio Races on his water horse, Corr. He loves Corr desperately and wants to buy her from Mr. Malvern but, being the greedy man he is, Mr. Malvern always refuses. As Sean prepares for this year's Scorpio Races, he is not only trying to figure out how much money, exactly, it'll take to buy Corr, but he gets to know Puck and is intrigued by her as well.
Both Puck and Sean need the money and, as their friendship blossoms, they both realize they cannot both win it.
This story is full of suspense and is written in such a way that, even if you aren't a "horse person" you can understand the love that Sean and Puck feel for Corr and Dove. And I also think it has the best first line of any book I've read. Ever.
I love The Beatles, so selecting this book to read for this module was a no-brainer.
At its core, this book is just a biography of John Lennon's life. I didn't know much about Lennon before reading this book; he was murdered several years before I was born. There was a special quality about this book, though. The fact that it was practically covered in pictures from Lennon's birth to death really added to the depth of Lennon's life story. I also loved all of the quotes from interviews that the author did and letters that she quoted.
The author was able to portray Lennon, I think, very truthfully. I always had this image in my head of The Beatles being a very clean cut, squeaky clean type group and this was a long way from the truth.
Lennon spent a lot of his youth feeling kind of lost and, by the time he seemed to get things figured out, he was murdered. By the end of this book, I was a weepy mess. I actually got online and listened to some of his solo works and was so moved. This book was truly moving.
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