We were fortunate enough to have Newbery-winning author, Linda Sue Park, visit our school recently. We could never afford to have her so we want to publicly thank the Memorial West Merchant’s Association for arranging it. Our 4th and 5th graders enjoyed her presentation about all of her books but especially her newest title, Keeping Score. It was clear how much research she had to do in order to write this book. She knows baseball! I’m pleased to say that her books have been flying off the shelf ever since! We started a blog, Parking It Here, about the themes in her books to help prepare for her visit. Please check out the Activities (use the sidebar to navigate to them) and comment on your own thoughts.

Each year, on a Monday in January, the American Library Association bestows the Newbery Medal, the Caldecott Medal and other awards on different books and authors. The Newbery Medal is awarded for story while the Caldecott Medal is awarded for a book’s illustrations. Each Medal has a winner and a few Honor books but we don’t always own every book named for the awards. This year, the announcements were made this morning, we already own the Caldecott Medal winner (The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick) and two of the honor books (Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine, illustrated by Kadir Nelson and Knuffle Bunny Too by Mo Willems.)  We do not currently own any of the Newbery Medal books but I will look into whether any are appropriate for our school. Happy Reading!