Division I: ( grades 3 – 5 )

First: Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn(WINNER!)
Second: Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Third: Someone Named Eva by Joan M. Wolf

Congrats to Mary Downing Hahn for writing the winning story in Division I!

Division II: ( grades 6 – 8 )

First: Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn(WINNER!)
Second: Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Third: Someone Named Eva by Joan M. Wolf

Congrats to Mary Downing Hahn for writing the winning story in Division II!

Two years ago Flush by Carl Hiaasen won in both divisions but last year the race was wide open as there were no duplicates. This year the top two finishers were the same in both age divisions.

I hope everyone had a fun time this year reading all of these great, deserving books. Keep your eye out for the 2011-2012 nominees and think about getting an early start reading this summer. Have fun!

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2010-2011 Winners Announced!

Division I: ( grades 3 – 5 )
The Coastwatcher by Elise Weston
A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban
Deep and Dark and Dangerousby Mary Downing Hahn
Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff
Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix
The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy, Book 1: The Hero Revealed by William Boniface
How to Save Your Tail: If You are a Rat by Mary Elizabeth Hanson
How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor
The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies
No Talking by Andrew Clements
One-Handed Catchby Mary Jane Auch
The Sloppy Copy Slipup by DyAnne DiSalvo

Division II: ( grades 6 – 8 )
Alabama Moon by Watt Key
All of the Above by Shelley Pearsall
Black Duck by Janet Taylor Lisle
Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn
Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff
Every Soul A Star by Wendy Mass
Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix
How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor
* If a Tree Falls at Lunch Periodby Gennifer Choldenko
Night of the Howling Dogsby Graham Salisbury
Saturday Night Dirt by Will Weaver
Someone Named Eva by Joan M. Wolf

Just like last year nominations there were four books on both lists.

The Maud Hart Lovelace Award is a children’s book award designed to encourage recreational reading among school age children. Click on the links to learn more about each book as well as information on where they can be easily purchased.

Note: * An asterisk indicates titles for mature readers.

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Maud Hart Lovelace Awards – Complete 2010-2011 Nominee List

Division I: ( grades 3 – 5 )

First: Champ by Marcia Thornton Jones (WINNER!)
Second: Home of the Brave by K. A. Applegate
Third: Clementine by Sara Pennypacker

Congrats to Marcia Thornton Jones for writing the winning story in Division I!

Division II: ( grades 6 – 8 )

First: I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter (WINNER!)
Second: Peak by Roland Smith
Third: Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata

Congrats to Ally Carter for writing the winning story in Division II!

Last year Flush by Carl Hiaasen won in both divisions but the race was wide open this year – no duplicates!

I hope everyone had a fun time this year reading all of these great, deserving books. Keep your eye out for the 2010-2011 nominees and think about getting an early start reading this summer. Have fun!

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2009-2010 Winners Announced!

Division I: ( grades 3 – 5 )
Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate
Star Jumper: Journal of a Cardboard Genius by Frank Asch
The Liberation of Gabriel King by K.L. Going
The Thing About Georgie by Lisa Graff
The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat by Lynne Jonell
Champ by Marcia Thornton Jones
The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin
Rules by Cynthia Lord
Clementine by Sara Pennypacker
Leepike Ridge by N.D. Wilson

Division II: ( grades 6 – 8 )

Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate
I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You (Gallagher Girls) by Ally Carter
Fire from the Rock by Sharon Draper
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
La Linea by Ann Jaramillo
Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata
Schooled by Gordon Korman
Rules by Cynthia Lord
Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Peak by Roland Smith
Notes From The Midnight Driver by Jordan Sonnenblick
Leepike Ridge by N.D. Wilson

The Maud Hart Lovelace Award is a children’s book award designed to encourage recreational reading among school age children. Click on the links to learn more about each book as well as information on where they can be easily purchased.

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Maud Hart Lovelace Awards – Complete 2009-2010 Nominee List

Division I: ( grades 3 – 5 )

First: Flush by Carl Hiaasen (WINNER!)
Second: Lunch Money by Andrew Clements
Third: Three Good Deeds by Vivian Vande Velde

Everyone I have talked with agreed that Flush is a great book and deserved to be chosen #1. Congrats to Carl Hiaasen!

Division II: ( grades 6 – 8 )

First: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (WINNER!)
Second: So B. It by Sarah Weeks
Third: Flush by Carl Hiaasen

Flush was even popular with the older kids. But congrats to Rick Riordan for winning with The Lightning Thief!

I hope everyone had a fun time this year reading all of these great, deserving books. Keep your eye out for the 2009-2010 nominees and think about getting an early start reading this summer. Have fun!

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2008-2009 Winners Announced!

SCRAPS OF TIME 1960: ABBY TAKES A STAND is the first of a series of juvenile novels by Patricia McKissack. A group of kids help their grandmother explore the contents of her attic and find scraps of memories. As each scrap is found, the grandmother, Gee, tells a story from her childhood and from the childhoods of other family members that exposes how differently today’s world is from the one she grew up in.

McKissack is the author of several novels for young readers. Besides chapter books, she’s also written several picture books. Her subject matter ranges from serious to humorous, from realistic to historical to fantasy.

This first book of the three-book series is on the 2008 Children’s Sequoyah Masterlist. The story details the sit-ins the black community had to stage in Nashville, Tennessee to end segregation in the city. Although the story is deliberately kept small, I read the story to my son and he had no problem seeing the bigger picture as well as all the problems the black families faced while striving for equality.

McKissack’s language is simple, direct, easy-to-read, and emotional. Through just a handful of family members, the fear and outrage is quickly and efficiently shown to the reader.

Abby’s story is compelling to any parent or child. When she mistakenly ends up in a WHITES ONLY restaurant called the Monkey Bar, she’s treated horribly by the white people there. Parents can easily know what it must have felt like by imagining how their child would have felt under similar circumstances. And kids can instantly identify with Abby at being left out of something and told she wasn’t allowed to do something.

The book is only 100 pages long, with big print and illustrations by Gordon James that are equally emotional. We read it in a couple sittings without straining ourselves. I grew up in this time period in Southern Oklahoma, so a lot of what McKissack writes about was familiar to me. It’s amazing to think how much things have changed in that time period, and that our children will never really know what those times were like.

It is a 2008 Maud Hart Lovelace Award Nominated book.

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Abby Takes a Stand by Patricia McKissack

Tangerine by Edward Bloor (WINNER!)
Tornado by Betsy Byars
Flight #116 Is Down by Caroline Cooney
Deep Doo-Doo by Michael Delany
Alien Game by Catherine Dexter
Marrying Malcolm Murgatroyd by Meme Farrell
Danger In The Desert by T. S. Fields (WINNER!)
Dinosaur Habitat by Helen Griffith
The Million Dollar Shot by Dan Gutman
Child of the Wolves by Elizabeth Hall
Just Juice by Karen Hesse
The Original Freddie Ackerman by Hadley Irwin
Danger Zone by David Klass
Mischief, Mad Mary, and Me (An Avon Camelot Book) by Dawn Knight
The Chicken Doesn’t Skate by Gordon Korman
Seven Spiders Spinning (The Hamlet Chronicles) by Gregory Maguire
Music from a Place Called Half Moon by Jerrie Oughton
White Water by P. J. Petersen
Riding Freedom by Pam Munoz Ryan
Gooseberry Park by Cynthia Rylant
Thunder Cave by Roland Smith
Dangerous Skies by Suzanne Fisher Staples
The Junkyard Dog by Erika Tamar
Belle Prater’s Boy by Ruth White

The Maud Hart Lovelace Award is a children’s book award designed to encourage recreational reading among school age children. Click on the links to learn more about each book as well as information on where they can be easily purchased.

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Maud Hart Lovelace Awards – Complete 2000-2001 Nominee List

Tracks in the Snow by Lucy Bledsoe
Williwaw! by Tom Bodett
The Door in the Lake by Nancy Butts
P.S. Longer Letter Later by Paula Danziger
A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt by C. Coco De Young
Alien for Rent by Betsy Duffey
Whirligig by Paul Fleischman
A Year with Butch and Spike by Gail Gautheir
Sun & Spoon by Kevin Henkes
Slump by Dave Jarzyna
Stones in Water by Donna Jo Napoli
Silverwing by Kenneth Oppel (WINNER!)
When the Soldiers Were Gone by Vera Propp
The Kidnappers : A Mystery by Willo Roberts
Alias by Mary Elizabeth Ryan
Trapped Between the Lash and the Gun: A Boy’s Journey by Arvella Whitmore (WINNER!)
Old People, Frogs, and Albert by Nancy Hope Wilson
Armageddon Summer by Jane Yolen

The Maud Hart Lovelace Award is a children’s book award designed to encourage recreational reading among school age children. Click on the links to learn more about each book as well as information on where they can be easily purchased.

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Maud Hart Lovelace Awards – Complete 2001-2002 Nominee List

Rules of the Road by Joan Bauer
Ruthie’s Gift by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Blackwater by Eve Bunting
Stealing Thunder by Mary Casanova
The Janitor’s Boy by Andrew Clements
The Ghost of Fossil Glen by Cynthia DeFelice (WINNER!)
Dovey Coe by Frances O’Roark Dowell (WINNER!)
Cougar by Helen Griffith
Jason’s Gold by Will Hobbs
When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt
The Girls by Amy Goldman Koss
Morgy Makes His Move by Maggie Lewis
Nothing Wrong with a Three-Legged Dog by Graham McNamee
The Dark Side of Nowhere by Neal Shusterman
Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser
Smart Dog by Vivian Vande Velde
Eye of the Great Bear by Bill Wallace
Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan

The Maud Hart Lovelace Award is a children’s book award designed to encourage recreational reading among school age children. Click on the links to learn more about each book as well as information on where they can be easily purchased.

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Maud Hart Lovelace Awards – Complete 2002-2003 Nominee List

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
Winners Take All by Fred Bowen
Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis
Power Of Un by Nancy Etchemendy
The King of Dragons by Carol Fenner
The Girl With 500 Middle Names by Margaret Haddix
Kissing Doorknobs by Terry Hesser
The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill
In the Stone Circle by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel (WINNER!)
Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen (WINNER!)
The Graduation of Jake Moon by Barbara Park
The Last Book In The Universe by Rodman Philbrick
The Dragon of Lonely Island by Rebecca Rupp
Esperanza Risingg by Pam Munoz Ryan
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Memory Boy by Will Weaver
Love, Ruby Lavender by Deborah Wiles

The Maud Hart Lovelace Award is a children’s book award designed to encourage recreational reading among school age children. Click on the links to learn more about each book as well as information on where they can be easily purchased.

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Maud Hart Lovelace Awards – Complete 2003-2004 Nominee List

Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer
The Jacket by Andrew Clements
A Week in the Woods by Andrew Clements
Nowhere to Call Home by Cynthia DeFelice
Birchbark House, The by Louise Erdrich
Crossing Jordan by Adrian Fogelin
Dork in Disguise by Carol Gorman
The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn by Dorothy Hoobler
No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman
The Doll People by Ann Martin (WINNER!)
Ties That Bind, Ties That Break by Lensey Namioka
Big Mouth & Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
Doing Time Online by Jan Siebold
Zach’s Lie by Roland Smith (WINNER!)
The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine by Diane Stanley
Never Trust a Dead Man by Vivian Vande Velde
Flipped by Wendelin VanDraanen
Hush by Jacqueline Woodson

The Maud Hart Lovelace Award is a children’s book award designed to encourage recreational reading among school age children. Click on the links to learn more about each book as well as information on where they can be easily purchased.

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Maud Hart Lovelace Awards – Complete 2004-2005 Nominee List

How Tia Lola Came to (Visit) Stay by Julia Alvarez
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Tyler on Prime Time by Steve Atinsky
Runt by Marion Dane Bauer (WINNER!)
Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac
The Summer of Riley by Eve Bunting
The Beloved Dearly by Doug Cooney
Granny Torrelli Makes Soup by Sharon Creech
Mississippi Trial, 1955 by Chris Crowe
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
The Transmogrification of Roscoe Wizzle by David Elliott
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris
Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Giff
Hoot by Carl Hiassen (WINNER!)
Lumber Camp Library by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock
Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry
A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor by Harry Mazer
Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman
Niagara Falls, Or Does It? by Henry Winkler

The Maud Hart Lovelace Award is a children’s book award designed to encourage recreational reading among school age children. Click on the links to learn more about each book as well as information on where they can be easily purchased.

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Maud Hart Lovelace Awards – Complete 2005-2006 Nominee List

The Word Eater by Mary Amato
Hawksong by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
The Good Dog by Avi
The World According to Humphrey by Betty Birney
Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements (WINNER!)
Gregor The Overlanderby Suzanne Collins
Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes
Escaping the Giant Wave by Peg Kehret (WINNER!)
Buddha Boy by Kathe Koja
The Gold-Threaded Dress by Carolyn Marsden
Blizzard’s Wake by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
Rising Water by P. J. Peterson
Grover G. Graham and Me by Mary Quattlebaum
The Boy Who Saved Baseball by John Ritter
Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan
Donuthead by Sue Stauffacher
Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde
Soldier X by Don Wulffson
When the Circus Came to Town by Lawrence Yep

The Maud Hart Lovelace Award is a children’s book award designed to encourage recreational reading among school age children. Click on the links to learn more about each book as well as information on where they can be easily purchased.

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Maud Hart Lovelace Awards – Complete 2006-2007 Nominee List

A Bear Named Trouble by Marion Dane Bauer
Halfway to the Sky by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two by Joseph Bruchac
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
The Magician’s Boy by Susan Cooper
Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech (WINNER!)
Red Kayak by Priscilla Cummings
Blackwater Ben by William Durbin
The Last Dog on Earth by Daniel Ehrenhaft
Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery by John Feinstein
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
Ida B: . . . and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World by Katherine Hannigan
Made You Look by Diane Roberts
The Schwa was Here by Neal Shusterman
Drums, Girls, And Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick (WINNER!)
Shredderman: Secret Identity by Draanen Van
Emako Blue by Brenda Woods
Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee

The Maud Hart Lovelace Award is a children’s book award designed to encourage recreational reading among school age children. Click on the links to learn more about each book as well as information on where they can be easily purchased.

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Maud Hart Lovelace Awards – Complete 2007-2008 Nominee List

Logan and his friend Benedict run into the wrong guy at the library-literally. When Logan slams into the reference guy in the basement and gives him a little lip, Logan gets punished, really and truly punished. He has three days to complete three tasks before Professor Wordsworth Mr. Will lift the magical punishment that keeps getting Logan in even more trouble.

Here is a review from 10 year old Ahmed:

Many fun things happen. First of all when a boy named Logan was going to the Library with his friend, Benedict he bumped into a professor in the reference section but this professor had magical powers. So he made Logan talk weirdly splatting out these puns That made every one furious. In addition to that Logan had to solve three cases which are that he had to find 7 oxymorons, 7 palindromes, 7 anagrams and he had a limited time to solve these cases. He worked with his Benedict. They went to many places trying to find all they can. Finally when Logan found all he was assigned the professor made him normal. Now his teacher, parents, friends were all happy. Soon Benedict bumped into the professor again and Logan thought here it goes again. That’s why the book was very exciting.

This is a good Amazon review:

Punished! tells the story of a boy named Logan who accidently collides with the mysterious Professor Wordsworth in the reference section of the library. After saying he is sorry, Wordsworth states that words are not always enough. Wordsworth decides that Logan needs to be “punished” and blows dust on him from an old book.

Immediately after his encounter with Professor Wordsworth, Logan realizes something is definitely wrong… everyone groans after he talks. Analyzing his speech, Logan now realizes he is speaking in puns. He tracks down Wordsworth a the library and asks how he can undo his “punishment”. The professor then sets Logan to three separate tasks. First he has to gather oxymorons, then anagrams, and finally palindromes and bring them back to the professor in time, or Logan can’t be cured.

I know of David Lubar from his short story collections In The Land of the Lawn Weenies and The Invasion of the Road Weenies. Those stories are somewhat twisted and mildly creepy, but appeal to a lot of my fourth grade students. Punished! doesn’t play up the creepiness found in Lubar’s short stories, but has some similar mysterious elements. The novel’s action moves along and is quite predictable, but this book would appeal to third through fifth graders who enjoy wordplay. Recommended, but not essential.

“Punished is the best book I have read this year, at least until I read The Edge Chronicles.”
– David, age 10

It is a 2008 Maud Hart Lovelace Award Nominated book.

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Punished by David Lubar

Where do dreams come from? What stealthy nighttime messengers are the guardians of our most deeply hidden hopes and our half-forgotten fears? Drawing on her rich imagination, two-time Newbery winner Lois Lowry confronts these questions and explores the conflicts between the gentle bits and pieces of the past that come to life in dream, and the darker horrors that find their form in nightmare. In a haunting story that tiptoes between reality and imagination, two people—a lonely, sensitive woman and a damaged, angry boy—face their own histories and discover what they can be to one another, renewed by the strength that comes from a tiny, caring creature they will never see.

I found a couple of reviews that I really liked about the book:

There are dream-givers, who haunt our homes each night, collecting scraps of memories from our belongings and then bestowing them on us as dreams. There are Sinisteeds, who are former dream givers turned dark, who inflict nightmares, and sometimes attack in Hordes.

And there is an angry boy, taken from an abusive home and placed in foster care with a lonely old woman. The old woman needs the strength to help the boy, his mother needs to pull her life together to get him back, and the boy has become the focus of a Horde. The only help available to any of them are a very young dream-giver-in-training and her elderly mentor.

Without a doubt, Lois Lowry’s books stand out when compared with some of the other fare on contemporary bookshelves — and thankfully Lowry has been recognized for it. In 1990, she won her first Newbery Medal for NUMBER THE STARS, a fictionalized account based on the true story of how a group of Christians in Denmark saved their Jewish neighbors from persecution during World War II. She received her second Newbery Medal in 1994 for THE GIVER, probably her most well-known book to date. Now comes another book that is so beautifully written and so poignant in message that its sure-to-be glowing reception just might give new meaning to the expression “three time’s the charm.”

GOSSAMER tells the story of a group of mythical creatures (for lack of a better expression to describe them) who are responsible for the creation and distribution of dreams. After being assigned to various households by their leader, Most Ancient, the creatures settle into their roles as dreamweavers by acquainting themselves with objects in the house (photographs, articles of clothing, trinkets on a bureau) that contain significance and memories of the owners. After they have gathered enough meaningful fragments, the dream-givers combine them to create a story, or dream, to bestow onto the sleeping inhabitants. This process is, in fact, how dreams are born.
…..
Lowry’s latest offering is simply magical. It is clear that she has taken great care to write a narrative that will both teach and touch its readers. A book full of gentle spirit and pure beauty, GOSSAMER is definitely award-winning material.

It is a 2008 Maud Hart Lovelace Award Nominated book.

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Gossamer by Lois Lowry

Shannon and her little brother, Cody, are off to Washington state in the summer of 2002 for some amazing and occasionally reckless adventures with their Uncle Neal. Uncle Neal is an ambulance driver for a wildlife rescue center called Jackie’s Wild Seattle. Initially, neither Shannon nor Cody is particularly excited. Their mother and father, both doctors, are in Pakistan working for Doctors Without Borders. The children are filled with trepidation at leaving their home in New Jersey, being separated from their parents and dealing with the emotional fallout of the events of September 11th. But as they grow closer to their uncle and the staff of the rescue center and become animal rescuers themselves, Shannon and Cody discover that they each have more strength and courage than they ever imagined.

Favorite review:

I really liked this book because it had different kinds of animals and different kinds of people in the story. The story had a lot of different emotions. Happy, sad, angry, anxious…what ever the emotion, I was right there reading it and just couldn’t put it down! The last reason I liked it was it was by one of my most favorette authors, Will Hobbs.
The best part of the book was when they were in Pioneer Square. They went down to “old seattle” to help catch a raccoon and saw a toilet about 5ft up on a platform. Man when I read that my friend was looking at me like I was crazy(Which I don’t think I’m crazy).

The story elements that were the most vivid were one character. His name was Tyler. Will Hobbs described him with wild-looking hair and intense dark eyes. Later he described Tyler “as though he slept in his clothes or not sleot at all. The second element is the setting. There are many different settings in this book, Park, van, airport, woods and Pioneer Square are just a few. Jackies Wild Seattle(wild life center for animal that are sick) is the setting I’m going to describe. It’s in the woods set backm from the road alittle and is a center which volunteers help with the caring of lots of sick or disabled animals. Now if you read the whole book you will probally find out that Will Hobbs got the idea of Jackies Wild Seattle from a “real life” situation.( But with different people) but it’s in the same area(Seattle Washinton).

It is a 2008 Maud Hart Lovelace Award Nominated book.

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Jackie’s Wild Seattle by Will Hobbs

Noah and Abbey’s father is in jail for sinking a casino boat that he claims has been dumping raw sewage into the waters near their home in the Florida keys. He has no proof, the owner of the boat denies it, and everyone in town thinks he’s a crackpot. Their mother is going to divorce him unless he shapes up and gets his anger and impulsive behavior under control. So it’s up to Noah and Abbey to prove that their father was right.

But with everyone mad at their father, hired goons guarding the refloated boat, members of local law enforcement paid off by the owner, and the owner’s son beating up on Noah, getting that proof looks well-nigh impossible. That is, until Noah comes up with a plan that involves a tattooed barmaid, a stolen motorboat, and thirty-four bottles of fuschia food coloring.

Best review I’ve seen:

If I summarise this book, it will sound like something the Children’s Film Foundation might come up with if Greenpeace had gone to them for some agitprop: a gambling mogul saves money by discharging toilet waste from his floating casino on to an unspoilt beach in Florida. And he woulda gotten away with it too if it hadn’t been for them pesky kids (and a cistern full of food dye). When you read it, though – which you definitely should – Flush is convincing, urgent, tense, funny and, well, pretty much perfect really.

You don’t come across many political novels these days and when you do, you’re often glad that there aren’t more of them. But Hiaasen has somehow pulled it off, and I’ve been enviously trying to figure out his secret. The plot is tight and nippy, with a couple of good twists at the end. All of the characters are beguilingly convincing.

When the hero’s little sister, Abbey, goes missing in the middle of the night – unleashing panic in the family – it turns out she’s been trying to video the wrongdoers. She is found walking the lonesome roads in her special reflective trainers, her bare legs covered in insect repellent. That mixture of heroic recklessness and fastidious caution is funny because it’s so real. The story starts when Abbey’s father – Paine – realises what’s going on at the floating casino and, on impulse, rams the boat and sinks it. He’s arrested and electronically tagged and loses his fishing licence. Paine Underwood may be an ecological hero but to his family he’s “Paine-in-the butt” – a man with anger management issues. He’s wayward and impulsive, a likeable liability who is annoyingly proud of his own wrecking ability. “That’s a seventy-three-footer. You’ve got to know what you’re doing to sink one of those pigs. You ought to go and look.” His son Noah, the one who is left to pick up the pieces and save his dad’s neck and marriage, says: “Maybe later.”

Paine Underwood is angry because he loves the Florida Keys. And so does Hiaasen. I’ve rarely read a book with such a casually persuasive sense of place, and of the beauty of a place. It has moments of genuine poetry, as when Noah, desperately trying to escape some heavies at night, accidentally swims into a sleeping manatee, “a wall of blubber … mossy and slick.”

Maybe part of Hiaasen’s secret is that he doesn’t care about “The Environment” as much as he does about Thunder Beach. This is a book that thinks local and acts global. It’s also a great book about boats. Noah’s dialogue is shot through with fishing metaphors and jargon. It’s as though Arthur Ransome had suddenly got into direct action. Hiaasen’s enthusiasm for the place and its ways gives the book a background warmth which is unusual in a thriller. In a lot of ways it’s an angry book but it’s the anger of a fierce, protective love. And I suppose that’s his real secret – that he really means it.

It is a 2008 Maud Hart Lovelace Award Nominated book.

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Flush by Carl Hiaasen

Here’s what you need to know about Phineas L. MacGuire, Boy-Scientist Extraordinaire, AKA Mac:

1. He’s allergic to purple, telephone calls, and girls, and can prove it.

2. He’s probably the world’s expert on mold, including which has the highest stink potential.

3. He does not have a best friend. He does, however, have an un-best friend, who he does not — repeat, not — want to upgrade to best-friend status.

But disaster strikes when his teacher pairs Mac and his un-best friend together for the upcoming science fair. Worse, this un-best friend wants the project to be on dinosaurs, which is so third grade. Worse still, it seems as though everyone else in his class finds the un-best friend as unlikable as Mac does. But, being a boy-scientist, once Mac notices this, he just might have to do some investigating.

This very funny young middle-grade novel includes tantalizingly grue-some experiments for exploding your own volcanoes and imploding marshmallows.

Best review I’ve seen to date:

Children’s librarians must find books to add to their collections from a wide variety of different sources. They read professional serials like Horn Book and School Library Journal. They receive Advanced Readers Copies and read clever blogs that always discuss new titles (cough). Far less professional but no less important, however, is the regular trip to the large corporate bookstore with the wide children’s book selection. Recently I was on such a “research” trip and was attempting to find some kids books to read in the store’s cafe. I plucked up the usual suspects with their shiny covers and titles when my eye was caught by an unassuming little title. First off, I’d like to point out that “Phineas L. MacGuire Erupts!”, does not have the most striking cover in the world. It’s nice, but something about the color scheme and the position of the font causes the eye to slip right over it to the flashier books inevitably stacked around it. However, I couldn’t help but notice that this was an early chapter book. To my mind, early chapter books are THE most difficult books to write. So I snatched it up without any particularly high hopes and later flipped through for a read. What I discovered was a book so funny, so succinct, and so intelligent that I’m shocked that professional review sources haven’t been bandying it about with louder fanfare. This is a great great GREAT book. A keeper and a clever beastie. If you know of any child at all that is just now getting into reading chapter books on their own, THIS is the book to buy them. Now. Forthwith. Without hesitation.

This has not turned out to be a good year for Phineas L. MacGuire, otherwise known as Mac. For one thing, his best friend Marcus has just moved out of town, and the timing couldn’t be worse. Mac and Marcus always planned to enter the fourth grade science fair together (that’s the first time you’re allowed to enter) and now that plan is gone. Worse still, there’s a new kid in class who is ALSO named Mac and he’s a serious jerk. He tells everyone right from the start that his own school was much better than this one. He trips the shortest kid in class right off the bat. And worst of all, he seems like he really really wants to be friends with our hero. Our Mac is edgy about this, especially when the two are paired together for the science fair. But after visiting with his new partner and seeing what a nice and incredibly artistic guy he really is, the two need to come up with some new plans. #1: Win the science fair. #2: Make the class like Mac #2 (who’s real name is Ben). Both goals are difficult, but when you’re dealing with a hero as scientific and smart as Mac, you know you’re in safe hands.

To be blunt, when I first started reading this story, it sounded mighty familiar. Mac likes to point out that he is allergic to fifteen things including anything purple, all girls, and moist towelettes in foil packs. His mother only acknowledges his allergies towards peanuts and cat hair, of course. All this felt very similar to Sue Stauffacher’s character Donuthead in the book of the self-same title. This was my first reaction towards Mac. I mean, both he and Donuthead have impatient mothers and don’t care for girls at all. But that’s pretty much where the similarities stop. Mac is his own man with his own obsessions and rules. He’s a scientist after all, and if the course of his investigations means that he’s overly enthused by mold or the patterns blood makes when it splatters from his nose during a nosebleed, well so be it.

It’s actually the subtlety of Dowell’s writing that really struck me with this book. There are a million things inferred here or left unsaid that a reader can figure out on their own without being told. For example, when we learn that Mac’s fourth grade teacher Mrs. Tuttle used to be a first grade teacher, some of her goofier tendencies begin to make a lot more sense. The writing in and of itself is superb, of course. We’re dealing with an author who is used to older children’s fiction like, “Dovey Coe” or “Chicken Boy”. But sometimes authors of full-length chapter books have a hard time adapting their style to younger readers. Not Dowell. Somehow she manages to balance things that kids would find funny (like opening an old can of beans and stinking up your house or dealing with a fourth grader who still thinks that dinosaurs are cool) with incredibly spot on bits of adult humor. The fact that Mac’s mother is continually buying healthy food, which is always stuffed to the back of the fridge (where it inevitably goes through a long protracted death) sounded a little too spot on. Dowell apparently lives with two young sons at this time. I suspect I may know from whence some of the inspiration for this title sprouted.

Now there are two distinct reasons why you should buy this book: It’s humor and it’s science. Humor first. Consider the following sentences. “We dug through the trash together. It was kind of a mess down there, since a lot of the paper had paint on it. I checked my shirt. It was a halfway-nice, almost-new striped T-shirt. I predicted five minutes of yelling from my mom if I got paint on it. For my mom five minutes of yelling really isn’t that much. I kept digging”. I love that. Fourth grade logic at its best. But it’s the science that really sets this book apart. Kids interested in the scientific method will find much to love in the character of Mac. In the back of the book you can even find experiments mentioned in the story like “A very simple volcano”, “Microwave marshmallow roast”, and “Exploding film canisters”. Each experiment explains its own science. Now try to think of early chapter books in which science plays a huge part. The closest thing I could think of were Encyclopedia Brown mysteries. As you can see, it’s not a huge genre, making Phineas L. MacGuire a necessary addition.

The illustrations in this book, rendered in pencil, are rather nice complements to the text. Drawn by one Preston McDaniels, they add a spot of character to the book. I was particularly taken with McDaniels’ picture of Mrs. Tuttle in all her goofy glory, or smart girl Aretha. All in all, “Phineas L. MacGuire Erupts!”, is a must-have addition to any collection. If you hold the book up, you can see that at the top of the cover are the words, “From the HIGHLY scientific notebooks of Phineas L. MacGuire”. That has “series” written all over it, no? I hope so. Dowell has set herself up for all kinds of future adventures involving Mac. I just hope enough people buy this first title so as to encourage Ms. Dowell to write a few hundred more. A remarkable little book.

It is a 2008 Maud Hart Lovelace Award Nominated book.

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Phineas L. MacGuire Erupts by Frances O’Roark Dowell

Greg Kenton, a twelve-year-old boy is the main character in this book and has always had an interest in money. Greg realizes that school is a good place to make money. Over the summer before going into sixth grade, after a lot of attempts at selling things like candy and toys, he begins making a comic book business called Chunky Comics to sell to kids at school.

When he begins selling them, he soon finds out that someone is copying his idea, his longtime rival and neighbor, Maura Shaw. After an argument between them about it being his idea, she accidentally slugs him in the face, causing a bloody nose and giving Greg a black eye. Maura indirectly likes Greg, and tries showing him all her improvements in her own comic. Greg is amazed at her new sketches, and knows that she could make a ton of money on her comics. But when they begin to get teased about having a “relationship”, Greg tries avoiding her, saddening and angering Maura.

Later, Greg apologizes and says that she can work for his comic book business, and helps her make her comic better. The principal at their school(Ashworth Intermediate School), Mrs. Davenport, dislikes comics and prohibits selling and bringing comics to school. Maura finds out that only the School Committee can approve or reject ideas for the school.

With the help of their math teacher, Mr. Zenotopoulous, at the School Committee they manage to get the approval for their comic book club, and the book ends listing all their successes, including having their comic books nationally distributed.

It is a 2008 Maud Hart Lovelace Award Nominated book.

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Lunch Money by Andrew Clements