The Maud Hart Lovelace award is Minnesota's student choice book award, sponsored by MYRA (Minnesota Youth Reading Awards). Each year, there are 12 books nominated for Division I (Grades 3-5) and 12 books nominated for Division II (Grades 6-8). At the end of March, NDA students who have read at least three nominees in a division may vote on their favorite. Our school's votes will then be submitted and counted amongst the votes of students throughout the state. This week I presented five of the twelve Division I titles to the third, fourth, and fifth graders and many students were interested in checking them out. Any of these five nominees (listed below) would make a great gift this Christmas! Josephine-Kathryn, the main character of Stephanie Barden’s book Cinderella Smith, is having problems. Lots of problems. For starters, she loses shoes all the time. Not both shoes in the pair, just one. That’s how she got the nickname Cinderella. And that’s another problem. Her new fourth grade teacher, the first male teacher she has ever had, laughs at her name. Then there’s the fact that her former best friend has started ignoring her. To top it all off, she has lost one of her ruby red tap shoes that she is supposed to wear in the big fall recital. Read this book to find out how Cinderella Smith deals with these and other problems! Mike Stellar, the main character of K.A. Holt’s book, Mike Stellar: Nerves of Steel, is also having lots of problems, including teacher trouble. As you might have guessed by the cover, this story takes place in the future. 2174 to be exact. The story takes off with a surprise announcement from Mike’s parents: The family is moving to Mars! But they are moving quite suddenly, and Mike begins to suspect that his parents might be involved in something suspicious. Add to this an annoying girl in his spaceship class, a missing sister, and gross food and you get this fun and action-packed science fiction book! Little Flory from The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz has an entirely different set of troubles - she has lost her wings due to an encounter with a bat. This means she is stuck on the ground and she ends up becoming a Day Fairy. Little Flory is not at all pleased with her new situation and she ends up venting her unhappiness by being rude and demanding to other woodland creatures. Only Skuggle the Squirrel will put up with her demands because she helps him find food (and he LOVES to eat!). He, in turn, becomes her new mode of transportation. Can Little Flory ever be happy again? Can she learn how to be a friend? Moving from fairies to football players, we have Matt, the star of Fred Bowen’s book Quarterback Season. Matt is entering 8th grade and is excited to be the starting quarterback on his school’s football team. Then a new student, Devro, shows up and proves to be an impressive quarterback as well. To make matters worse, Devro is a grade younger that Matt. Will Matt’s dreams of being quarterback crumble? To find out if he gets the starting position, and what his English class journal entries have to do with it all, you'll have to read Quarterback Season. If you are looking for a laugh, think about reading The Trouble With Chickens, by Doreen Cronin. This is the first book in a new series written by the author of Click Clack Moo and Diary of a Worm (and many others). In this book we have JJ Tully, a dog who has retired to a farm after a career as a search and rescue dog. Soon after he arrives at the farm, Millicent the Chicken and and two of her chicks start insisting that he help find the other chicks in the family, who have gone missing. Motivated by the promise of a cheeseburger, JJ decides to help track down Poppy and Sweetie. Can he solve the mystery and find the missing chicks?
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