24 Hours in Nowhere by Dusti Bowling, author of Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus (a 2020 Bluestem nominee), takes place exactly as the title states - over 24 hours in the very small rural town of Nowhere, Arizona. In Nowhere, our hero and narrator is Gus, a 12 year old who looks more like a third grader and is often bullied for his size. He is smart and funny though and determined to get out of Nowhere some day using his brain. In the meantime, his story begins as the major bully in his grade, Bo, has threatened to make him eat a jumping Cholla cactus. Enter Rossi, the new girl, a Tohono O'odham Indian American and also a champion dirt biker who has beaten Bo on the local track. She deals her prized dirt bike to Bo to get him to release Gus. To get back her bike will cost a nugget of gold from the local abandoned gold mine. Crazy! But Gus is determined to get Rossi her bike back and so begins their odyssey in an abandoned gold mine, and its underground network of caves that is the stuff of local legends, dead cowboys and an assortment of bats, snakes and scorpions. Accompanying Gus and Rossi is Matthew, one of Bo's minions and Jessie, Gus former best friend. Together the four navigate the unknown, learning much about friendship, cooperation and themselves. Grade 4-5 Adventure. Sisterland by Salla Simukka, is an epic modern fairly tale. Like in Alice in Wonderland, or The Wizard of Oz, Alice falls into another world, and has a great adventure trying to get back home and save her homeland. In the world Alice has left, snow and cold are threatening to drown her town and everyone is so cold that a dark depression is taking over. When Alice falls into a deep snow drift and lands in Sisterland she finds fantastical creatures, beauty, warm sunny days, and no troubles. And at first she loves being there, especially when she meets Marissa a girl her own age who has also fallen into Sisterland and is like her soul sister and perfect best friend. But both girls worry when their memories of their families begin to fade. Then they discover they are in Sisterland to complete a mission that will allow them to save their home from forever being cold. They must defeat Queen Lilli who has taken all the warmth for her own, and to do so Alice and Marissa face unusual oceans, disappearing islands, abandoned amusement parks and even dragons. Can they succeed? And if they do, will they still be friends in their regular world? Fantasy grades 3-5. The Forgotten Girl by India Hill Brown is a unique mix of realistic fiction, historical fiction and ghost story. The story takes place in Eesaw, North Carolina where Iris, her younger sister and parents live across the street from Daniel, her best friend and his mother and grandmother. Iris and Daniel, are African American in a predominately white middle school and while potential leaders in their grade, they feel they are often ignored. When Iris and Daniel sneak out to play during the first snowy evening they discover an abandoned grown over grave in the forest clearing near their houses. They can only read the name Avery Brown and the years which show she was about their age when she died. They research to learn this grave may have been part of an abandoned African American graveyard from the time that cemeteries in the South were segregated. When they are allowed to partner on a historical project for Social Studies, Iris and Daniel decide to focus on this type of segregation and bring light to these sadly abandoned and often unmarked graves. But when Iris begins to see a ghostlike Avery, the story turns darker. What could this ghostly Avery want from Iris? Or is Iris just imagining this "forgotten girl"? Fantasy grades 3-6. COG by Greg Van Eekhout. COG is a robot who looks like an average 12 year old boy. But since COG is short for "cognitive development" which is the process of learning how to think and understand, COG is a very smart robot. When the story unfolds, he is living happily with his creator, Gina, who treats him like her buddy, in a bedroom of her house, decorated with the books and astronomy posters he has chosen. His days are full of educational activities and learning and that is what COG is programmed to do - learn, and then he loves to share what he has learned. Until one day when COG has an accident outside of the house and is taken away. He wakes up in the building of UniMind, a company that makes robots, full of many robots who are all treated like unfeeling machines. COG knows he must get out of UniMind and find Gina and with the help of three other robots he escapes! Join COG, ADA (his sister), a "Trash"bot and an "Arf"bot on an incredible journey. Grade 3-5 Science Fiction. Shine by J.J. and Chris Grabenstein is an inspiring school story told by Piper, who has to start a new school in the middle of her 7th grade year. And not just any new school, but the best and most expensive private school in the area, Chumley Prep. Her father, a choir director at the local public school is hired by Chumley Prep after his acapella group wins the state competition. Chumley gives Piper a scholarship to attend and so begins a lot of new experiences for Piper. She believes the students will all be snobby and there is no way she can fit in but soon finds a great group of friends. Then when the school offers a new special prize, everyone is interested in trying to win, even Piper, though she considers herself not particularly talented at anything except science which she loves. But with kindness and an understanding of what friendship truly means, could this be a great year after all? Realistic fiction, grades 3-5.
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Here's an overview of our busy LMC: Kindergarten spend some time examining the difference between fiction and nonfiction. We discussed and compared books that provide you true information (facts) and those that tell you a story from the author's imagination. Students paired a nonfiction information book with a fiction story about the same subject. In both Kindergarten and First Grade we have been reading our Monarch nominated books including Alfie: (The Turtle that Disappeared), A Big Mooncake for Little Star, We Don't Eat our Classmates and The Truth About Bears. We compared these books to information books about dinosaurs, turtles or the moon. We also read information books and stories about the first Thanksgiving feast long ago and compared it to our holiday today. In Second Grade we read a few Who Would Win? books to examine how the author proved that one animal would prevail over the other with evidence from the animal's physical features and how it hunts and get its prey. Then students chose an animal to research using two resources, Pebblego and Facts4Me or World Book. After they wrote facts about the animal's body, habitat and prey, they drew it and wrote their notes into a script for a battle. We paired the animals and partner students used the Explain Everything app on the iPad to choose a habitat photo, put their animal drawings on it and record their battle, with two good reasons (evidence) why one animal wins. Watch their "battles" on the 2nd Grade Student Projects page. In 3rd grade students researched one weather disaster: Hurricane, Tornado, Drought, Wildfire, Blizzard or Flood in connection with their science unit on weather. They used an Epic book and the World Book to take notes on how, when and where the disaster occurs, a disaster in history and how you prepare or stay safe. Pairs of students then created a Brainpop video about their disaster using Moby and images from Brainpop. You can view and learn from their awesome videos on the 3rd Grade Student Projects page. In 4th grade classes read two nonfiction texts What if There Were No Gray Wolves by Suzanne Slade and The Wolves are Back by Jean Craighead George to examine and compare "reference nonfiction" and "literary nonfiction", two different ways of reading true information. In 4th grade, students also studied the geology of a National Park in connection with their science unit on earth's changing surface. In pairs, students took notes on the processes that formed the land in one National park: volcanic eruption, tectonic plate movement, deposition, erosion and/or glaciation. Then each pair wrote a script for a "geology show" and in front of the green screen, with the National Park behind them, students recorded their explanation of the landforms in the Park. Watch and learn from the student videos on the 4th grade Student Projects page. A National Park Ranger skyped with each class and students asked geology questions to try to figure out what National Park the ranger was located in. Students found her in Yellowstone National Park! Great "landform" detective work by our students. In 5th grade, classes joined a SDG Sustainable Develpment Goals project on Sea Turtles with a focus on the problem of plastics in the ocean. First students read about the United Nations goals for 2030 and then focused on different aspects of the plastics problem including how plastic garbage gets to the ocean, the problems it causes, the single use issue and microplastics. Finally we brainstormed actions we can take to help this problem in our school, community and the state of Illinois. Students are writing letters and creating petitions and slideshows to educate our student body, district administration and support bills in the Illinois Senate. Stay tuned for more! November also brought two authors to Patton. Deb Skog visited K, first and second graders with her super fun The Pumpkin Eating Dinosaur. The Arlington Heights Memorial Library brought Laurie Wallmark to Patton to present to 3rd, 4th and 5th grade classes on Women in Computing in connection with her book about Grace Hopper, Queen of Computer Code, a Bluestem nominated title this year.
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AuthorI am the Library Media Center director at Patton School in Arlington Heights where I help students from kindergarten through 5th grade find terrific independent reading for enjoyment and information, and teach students the skills to use information and technology safely and productively and to connect, communicate and share with others. I have four grown children, a large black dog, (flat coat retriever) and a small striped cat. I am an obessive Chicago Cubs fan and I love to run. Patton LMC Summer Reading Blog |