Assembly Member O’Donnell & The New York Public Library present

The 12th Annual Community Reading Challenge Spring 2015 Dear Families, Welcome to my Twelfth Annual Community Reading Challenge! This year’s theme was taken from one of my favorite childhood Let’s Get Started! books, The Three Musketeers, a story of adventure and friendship. Living by the motto, “All for One, One for All,” the Estimadas familias: characters demonstrate the true meaning of ¡Bienvenidos a mi Duodécimo Reto Anual de Lecturas de la Comunidad! El tema friendship by supporting each other as as a del reto de este año fue tomado de uno de mis libros infantiles favoritos, Los tres group and as individuals. As a community, I mosqueteros, una historia de aventura y amistad. Viviendo bajo la consigna, “Todos hope we can strive to live by this motto as well. In order to create a para uno y uno para todos,” los personajes demuestran el verdadero significado de la stronger community as one, we need to foster the qualities that make amistad apoyándose el uno al otro en equipo y como individuos. Como comunidad, us unique, because each and every one of us has so much to offer. espero que nosotros también nos esforcemos por vivir bajo esta consigna. Para poder Among the books in this reading list, you will find a variety of crear una comunidad más fuerte y unida, necesitamos celebrar las cualidades que nos stories about characters coming to understand and value their unique hacen a todos personas únicas, porque cada uno de nosotros tiene mucho que ofrecer. qualities, in addition to the remarkable friendships that are formed En los libros de esta lista de lecturas, encontrarán una variedad de historias sobre when differences are set aside. I hope that with this list, you will have personajes que logran entender y valorar sus cualidades únicas, además de las the chance to experience the stories of characters who are dealing grandes amistades que establecen al hacer las diferencias a un lado. Espero que with some familiar difficulties that face most of us, and some more con esta lista de lecturas, tengan la oportunidad de experimentar las historias unfamiliar troubles. We all experience challenges in life, and by de personajes que están enfrentando dificultades similares a las que la mayoría learning more about the challenges that others face, we can gain de nosotros enfrentamos, y algunos otros problemas menos comunes. Todos strength to confront our own problems and understanding that will experimentamos retos en la vida, y al aprender más sobre los retos que otras personas help forge us into a more unified and welcoming community. enfrentan, podemos obtener fortaleza para afrontar nuestros propios problemas y un In this booklet, in addition to the reading list, you will find a reading log, entendimiento que nos ayudará a formar una comunidad más unida y acogedora. suggested activities, and tips for parents and guardians to encourage Además de la lista de lecturas, en este folleto encontrarán una página para anotar los reading at home. The book list includes recommendations for Pre-K libros leídos, actividades y eventos sugeridos, y consejos para padres y guardianes through eighth grade reading levels, along with some suggestions for para estimular la lectura en el hogar. La lista de libros incluye recomendaciones para readers at a more advanced level. I like to think there are great books los niveles de lectura de prekínder a octavo grado, junto con algunas sugerencias at every level, so I hope you’ll check out the books that look intriguing para los lectores de un nivel muy avanzado. Considero que hay excelentes libros to you, regardless of reading level! Book Festivals will mark the end para todos los niveles de lectura, así que espero que les den un vistazo a los libros of the Community Reading Challenge, and give you an opportunity que les parezcan interesantes, independientemente de su nivel de lectura. Los to celebrate your involvement—information about the parties can be Festivales de Libros marcarán el final del Reto de Lecturas de la Comunidad y les found at the bottom of this page. The Festivals will feature guest author ofrecerán una oportunidad para celebrar su participación –la información sobre las readings, activities, free books, food, prizes, and certificates for readers fiestas está disponible en la parte inferior de esta página. ¡Los Festivales incluirán from the New York State Assembly! tiempo de lectura con autores invitados, actividades, libros gratis, comida, premios I am kicking off my Community Reading Challenge on May 6th and y certificados de la Asamblea del Estado de Nueva York para los lectores! the Book Festivals will run from May 21st–June 12th. If you have Iniciaré el Reto de Lecturas de la Comunidad el 6 de mayo y los Festivales any questions about this year’s Challenge or any other community de Libros se celebrarán del 21 de mayo al 12 de junio. Si tienen alguna issue, please don’t hesitate to visit any of the participating libraries pregunta sobre el Reto de Lecturas de este año o sobre cualquier otro asunto or call my Community Office at (212) 866-3970. de la comunidad, por favor no dejen de visitar cualquiera de las bibliotecas Very truly yours, participantes o llamen a mi oficina de la comunidad al (212) 866-3970. Cordialmente,

Daniel O’Donnell Daniel O’Donnell Assembly Member Miembro de la Asamblea

Book Festivals Fechas de los Festivales de Libros

Thursday, May 21st Thursday, June 4th Friday, June 12th Jueves 21 de mayo de 2015 Jueves 4 de junio de 2015 Viernes 12 de junio de 2015 4:00 p.m. 2:30 p.m. 3:30 p.m. George Bruce Library Morningside Heights Library Bloomingdale Library Biblioteca George Bruce Biblioteca de Morningside Heights Biblioteca de Bloomingdale Suggested Reading Lists New York State Assembly

*Bilingual – English and Spanish *Bilingüe – inglés y español **Also available in Spanish **También disponible en español ✝Great for reluctant readers Pre-K - Kindergarten ✝Excelente para los lectores renuentes

J PIC B J PIC M ✝Virgil & Owen By Paulette Bogan Insects Are My Life When Virgil the penguin finds a polar bear, he wants All New Book Ideas By Megan McDonald him all to himself. But Owen wants to play with No one at home or school understands Amanda everyone! Can Virgil learn that things are a lot more Frankenstein’s devotion to insects until she fun when you share your friends? J PIC B meets Maggie. J PIC M Howard B. Wigglebottom J PIC M A Perfectly Messed-Up Story Listens to His Heart The Three Little Aliens and the By Patrick McDonnell By Howard Binkow Big Bad Robot Louie becomes angry when the story in which he When the children at school laugh at him, Howard By Margaret McNamara appears is ruined by messes from jelly, peanut the rabbit decides to stop dancing even though he Three aliens set off to find a new planet for butter, and other things that do not belong in books. loves it, until he realizes his dancing is what makes themselves but soon Bork and Gork have J PIC S him unique. forgotten all of their mother’s good advice and only Beautiful Oops! By Barney Saltzberg J PIC H / J-Spa PIC H Nklxwcyz builds a home safe enough to withstand A little alligator demonstrates the many ways that ** the Big Bad Robot in this story reminiscent of “The Chrysanthemum By Kevin Hinkes Three Little Pigs.” torn, crinkled, and smudged bits of paper can be Chrysanthemum loves her name, until she starts transformed into various shapes and images. going to school and the other children make fun of it. J PIC H Not Yet, Rose J PIC W J PIC F / J-Spa PIC F ** By Susanna Leonard Hill Susan Laughs By Jeanne Willis Corduroy By Don Freeman While impatiently waiting for the birth of a new Teddy Bear is on a journey to find his missing button. Rhyming couplets describe a wide range of baby brother or sister, Rose imagines the things common emotions and activities experienced by a J PIC R they will do together and how her life will change. little girl who uses a wheelchair. The Complete Adventures of J PIC KANTOROVITZ J PIC C / J-Spa PIC C Curious George By Margret Rey Zig and the Magic Umbrella ** The Very Hungry Caterpillar A monkey named George takes an adventure with By Sylvie Kantorovitz By Eric Carle a man in a yellow hat. Zig, a small, blue creature who lives in a rainy, Due to constant eating, caterpillar gets sick and J PIC C / J-Spa PIC C gray world, grabs hold of a red umbrella and is then becomes a butterfly. **I Like Me By Nancy Carlson carried away to a colorful forest where he becomes J PIC K By admiring her finer points and showing that she a hero—and a friend. The Carrot Seed By Ruth Krauss can take care of herself and have fun even when J PIC W A little boy plants a carrot seed and waits patiently there’s no one else around, a charming pig proves Harry & Hopper By Margaret Wild for the carrot he knows will grow. the best friend you can have is yourself. One day when Harry comes home from school, J PIC J J PIC T his faithful companion Hopper isn’t there to greet Harold and the Purple Crayon The Crown on Your Head him. This is a touching story about the process of By Crockett Johnson By Nancy Tillman healing after losing a beloved pet. Harold creates a world of his own by using a A story in rhyme lovingly expresses that every child J PIC H purple crayon. is born with a crown of features that gives them Titch By Pat Hutchins unique value as they grow. J PIC R Titch feels left out because he is so much smaller Bear Flies High By Michael Rosen J PIC H than his brother and sister until he gets a little seed Bear dreams of flying high. Ellie Bean the Drama Queen that grows bigger than anything they have. By Jennie Harding J PIC R J PIC K Ellie Bean’s “dramatic” behaviors—including her Red Ted and the Lost Things Whose Mouse Are You? sensitivity to noise and displeasure over simple By Robert Kraus By Michael Rosen activities—lead her mother to bring Ellie to a Bear is lost and gets placed in various places, A lonely little mouse has to be resourceful in order specialist, who determines Ellie has sensory issues to bring his family back together. determined to find his owner. and teaches her family how to care for them.

Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List 1 Pre-K - Kindergarten Suggested Reading Lists Continued

J PIC B when Little Critter reads to her. She cries when he Luckily, Blue has made a pack of farm animal A Splendid Friend, Indeed makes silly faces. And she can’t understand the friends along his route. And they’re willing to do By Suzanne Bloom jokes he tells. It’s seems like an impossible task, but whatever it takes to get their pal back on the road. Bear wants to read and write and think. Goose Little Critter finally figures out what you CAN do Filled with truck sounds and animals noises, here is wants to talk and talk and talk. Can Bear and with a new baby—and becomes a very good brother. a rollicking homage to the power of friendship and Goose be friends? J PIC P the rewards of helping others. J PIC M I Don’t Want to Be A Frog J PIC B **The Paper Bag Princess By Dev Petty Happy Hippo, Angry Duck By Robert Munsch A frog who yearns to be any animal that’s cute and By Sandra Boynton The Princess Elizabeth is slated to marry Prince warm discovers that being wet, slimy, and full of In a book about moods, clever animals exemplify a Ronald when a dragon attacks the castle and bugs has its advantages. wide range of emotions in this hilarious story about kidnaps Ronald. In resourceful and humorous J PIC A different feelings. fashion, Elizabeth finds the dragon, outsmarts him, Giraffes Can’t Dance J PIC G and rescues Ronald—who is less than pleased at By Giles Andreae Fish Had A Wish By Michael Garland her un-princess-like appearance. Gerald the giraffe wants nothing more than Fish wishes to be all sorts of animals because each J PIC M to dance. With crooked knees and thin legs, one is special, then realizes there is something good Just For You By Mercer Mayer it’s harder for a giraffe than you would think. about being a fish, too. Little Critter tries very hard to be a good helper. Gerald is finally able to dance to his own tune J PIC B But when he tries to dry dishes for his mother, when he gets some encouraging words from an unlikely friend. Just A Duck? By Carin Bramsen they grow slippery. When he makes an effort not An innocent little duck wants to be a cat, just to splash water out of the tub, a storm comes up. J PIC D like his new feline friend. Emulating his friend’s Something always seems to get in his way! The Pout-Pout Fish slinking ability and hoping to grow ears and claws, J PIC S By Deborah Diesen he realizes that he can’t do anything Cat can. Duck on a Bike By David Shannon The pout-pout fish believes he only knows how to When Duck comes to Cat’s rescue, Cat thinks A duck decides to ride a bike and soon influences frown, even though many of his friends suggest Duck is a real hero, and Duck decides that it’s all the other animals on the farm to ride bikes too. ways to change his expression, until one day a fish perfectly OK to be “just a duck.” comes along that shows him otherwise. J PIC L/ J-Spa PIC L J PIC K ** By Leo Lionni J PIC S You Be You By Linda Kranz A Color of His Own ** A little chameleon is distressed that he doesn’t have The Little Blue Truck After exploring his ocean home and seeing many his own color like other animals. By Alice Schertle different types of sea life, a young fish named Adri Meet Blue. A muddy country road is no match talks to his parents and learns that differences J PIC M for this little pick up—that is, until he gets stuck make the world colorful and beautiful. The New Baby By Mercer Mayer while pushing a dump truck out of the muck. Little Critter has to get used to a new baby sister. What a problem. The baby doesn’t pay attention

*Bilingual – English and Spanish *Bilingüe – inglés y español **Also available in Spanish **También disponible en español ✝Great for reluctant readers Grades 1 - 2 ✝Excelente para los lectores renuentes

PIC B J PIC B Rosie Revere, Engineer My Three Best Friends and By Andrea Beaty All New Book Ideas Me, Zulay By Cari Best A young aspiring engineer must first conquer her Zulay and her three best friends are all in the same fear of failure. first grade class and study the same things, even J PIC S though Zulay is blind. When their teacher asks her J YR FIC L The Quiet Place By Sarah Stewart students what activity they want to do on Field A little girl moves to the United States from Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything Day, Zulay surprises everyone when she says she Mexico with her family and writes letters to her By Lenore Look wants to run a race. With the help of a special aide After Ruby Lu’s deaf cousin, Flying Duck, and her aunt in Mexico about her new life. and the support of her friends, Zulay does just that. parents come from China to live with her, Ruby J HOLIDAY PIC V J YR FIC P / J-Spa FIC P finds life challenging as she adjusts to her new **Amelia Bedelia By Peggy Parish family, tries to mend her rocky relationship with The Polar Express By Chris Van Allsburg A housekeeper, who doesn’t know how to follow her friend Emma, and faces various adventures in A young boy takes a journey through the polar express, directions, ends up taking her instructions literally. summer school. learning that anything is possible if you just believe.

2 Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List Grades 1 - 2 Suggested Reading Lists Continued

J PIC R J PIC P J PIC B/J-Spa PIC B Two of a Kind The Junkyard Wonders **Madeline By Ludwig Bemelmans By Jacqui Robbins and Matt Phelan By Patricia Polacco Madeline, a young girl who lives in a home with When Anna abandons her best friend, Julisa, to Inspired by a teacher who believes each of them is eleven other girls in Paris, France is not afraid of spend time with popular girls Kayla and Melanie, a genius, a class of special-needs students invents anything. However, when she needs to go to the she soon learns that she has little in common with something that could convince the whole school they hospital to get her appendix removed, she may find her new friends. are justifiably proud to be “Junkyard Wonders.” there’s something she is afraid of after all. J PIC R J PIC S J FIC S I’m Here By Peter Reynolds A Bad Case of Stripes Loser By Jerry Spinelli In a crowded park, a boy makes an airplane out of By David Shannon Even though his classmates from first grade on a piece of paper carried to him by a gentle breeze, In order to ensure her popularity, Camilla Cream have considered him strange and a loser, Daniel sends it on its way, and watches a new friend bring always does what is expected of her, until the day Zinkoff’s optimism and exuberance and the support it back to him. arrives when she no longer recognizes herself. of his loving family do not allow him to feel that JJ PIC W J PIC K way about himself. Each Kindness By Jacqueline Woodson Big Mean Mike By Michelle Knudsen J PIC S When Ms. Albert teaches a lesson on kindness, Mike is proud to be the biggest, toughest dog in Henny By Elizabeth Rose Stanton Chloe realizes that she and her friends have been the neighborhood, so when tiny, fuzzy bunnies Henny is a chick who’s just a little different from wrong in making fun of new student Maya’s start showing up in his big, mean car he sees them everyone else in the barn. Henny doesn’t look like shabby clothes and refusing to play with her. only as a threat to his reputation, no matter how any other chicken she knows. Instead of wings, she J PIC E adorable they are. has arms! Sometimes Henny likes being different, J PIC K but sometimes she just wants to do things the Just Because By Rebecca Elliot same way as the other chickens. However, doing A younger brother describes all the fun he Argus By Michelle Knudsen the same things as everyone else is overrated and has with the big sister he loves so much—just Sallie’s class is supposed to be raising chicks as a science Henny comes to realize in this warmhearted story, because, in this heartwarming picture book about project. Although Argus, the large, green, scaly celebrating the individuality in everyone. being perfectly loved, no matter what. Only as creature that hatches from her egg, causes all sorts of his tale unfolds does the reader begin to realize trouble she worries about him when he disappears. J PIC B that his sister has special needs—and by then the J PIC H Not Your Typical Dragon reader just accepts, as he does, all the wonderful By Dan Bar-el things about her. April Fool, Phyllis! Everybody knows your typical dragon breathes By Susanna Leonard Hill J PIC B fire. But when Crispin tries to breathe fire on his When Punxsutawney Phyllis forecasts a blizzard seventh birthday, fire doesn’t come out, just a host We’ll Paint the Octopus Red on April Fools’ Day—the same day as the of unusual things! Crispin wonders if he’ll ever By S.A. Bodeen Spring Treasure Hunt—the other groundhogs are find his inner fire. But when a family emergency Emma and her father discuss what they will do convinced that Phyllis is pulling a prank. Includes breaks out, it takes a little dragon with not-so- when the new baby arrives, both before and after information of the origins of April Fools’ Day and typical abilities to save the day. they learn he has been born with Down Syndrome. how it is celebrated around the world. J PIC M J FIC D / J-Spa FIC D J PIC K ** Freckleface Strawberry Matilda By Roald Dahl The Very Tiny Baby By Julianne Moore Six-year-old sweetheart, Matilda, is sent to a By Sylvie Kantorovitz Freckleface Strawberry is just like everyone else, school run by the evil Miss Trunchbull. Her A very young boy tells his teddy bear about his except that she has red hair and freckles. When parents and principal might not appreciate her, but mixed feelings over the premature birth of his new she tries to hide who she is, she learns about true her new teacher Miss Honey does, and helps her sibling, and his guilty resentment at the adult’s friendship and accepting yourself just as you are. discover her unique abilities. preoccupation with the tiny baby. J PIC C J GRAPHIC GN FIC H J YR FIC ✝ The Patch By Justina Chen Squish By Jennifer & Matthew Holm Heidi Heckelbeck Gets Glasses At first upset about having to wear glasses and Squish, a meek amoeba who loves the comic book By Wanda Coven an eye patch to correct her lazy eye, five-year-old exploits of his favorite hero, “Super Amoeba,” tries to When her friend Lucy Lancaster gets glasses, Heidi Becca soon discovers that her new accessories emulate him when his best friend is threatened by a bully. notices all the attention Lucy gets and decides allow her to take on such roles as a ballerina-pirate J PIC P / J-Spa PIC P that she, too, needs a new look. In order to get and a private eye. ** glasses, Heidi pretends that she has trouble seeing. Thank You, Mr. Falker All goes as planned and Heidi gets a cool pair of J E L By Patricia Polacco glasses—but when she puts them on there’s just Frog and Toad are Friends At first, Trisha loves school, but her difficulty one problem: She can’t see a thing! Heidi walks By Arnold Lobel learning to read makes her feel dumb, until, in the around with fuzzy vision and makes many messes From writing letters to going swimming, telling stories fifth grade, a new teacher helps her understand and until she realizes that she doesn’t need a pair of to finding lost buttons, Frog and Toad are always overcome her problem. glasses to make her special. there for each other—just as best friends should be.

Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List 3 *Bilingual – English and Spanish *Bilingüe – inglés y español **Also available in Spanish **También disponible en español ✝Great for reluctant readers Grades 3 - 4 ✝Excelente para los lectores renuentes

J FIC G of her mother, friendships with a homeless man and The Thing About Georgie a disabled boy, and a huge dog ensure that she still By Lisa Graff All New Book Ideas communicates. Georgie’s dwarfism causes problems, but he could J FIC W always rely on his parents, his best friend, and Hank Zipzer: classmate Jeanie the Meanie’s teasing, until a Niagara Falls, or Does It? surprising announcement, a new boy in school, J FIC D / J-Spa FIC D ✝ and a class project shake things up. ** By Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver The Tale of Despereaux Hank loves science, but he hates writing reports. J PIC M By Kate DiCamillo The words don’t come easily to him. So instead My Name is Bilal The adventures of Desperaux Tilling, a small mouse of writing a five-paragraph essay on his summer By Asma Mobin-Uddin of unusual talents, the princess that he loves, the vacation, he decides to build a model of Niagara servant girl who longs to be a princess and a devious When Bilal and his sister transfer to a school where Falls to bring into the classroom! Which works rat determined to bring them all to ruin. they are the only Muslims, they must learn how to great until it springs a leak… fit in while staying true to their beliefs and heritage. J FIC W J GRAPHIC GN FIC H J FIC D A Brand-New Me! By Henry Winkler ✝Babymouse: Queen of the World! Dovey Coe As he is preparing to attend middle school, By Jennifer Holm and Matthew Holm By Francis O’Roark Dowell Hank, who has learning differences and Babymouse dreams of big things, the biggest academic difficulties, gets an unexpected When accused of murder in her North Carolina thing, being queen of the world! But she’ll settle opportunity to audition for a performing arts mountain town in 1928, Dovey Coe, a strong- for an invitation to the most popular mouse’s school where his creativity and humor will willed twelve-year-old girl, comes to a new slumber party. be appreciated. understanding of others, including her deaf brother. J FIC O J FIC G J FIC C ✝My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish Temple Grandin, How the Girl A Nest for Celeste By Henry Cole By Mo O’Hara Celeste, a mouse longing for a real home, becomes Tom’s big brother is an evil scientist. When he does Who Loved Cows Embraced a source of inspiration to teenaged Joseph, assistant Autism and Changed the World an experiment on Tom’s goldfish Frank, dropping to the artist and naturalist John James Audubon, him into a pile of toxic sludge, Tom jolts him with By Sy Montgomery at a New Orleans, Louisiana, plantation in 1821. An authorized portrait about Grandin’s life with a battery to bring him back to life! But Frank is a autism and her groundbreaking work as a scientist J FIC L little different now than he was before... and designer of cruelty-free livestock facilities Rules By Cynthia Lord J FIC G describes how she overcame key disabilities through Frustrated at life with an autistic brother, twelve- The Honest Truth By Dan Gemeinhart education and the support of her mother. year-old Catherine longs for a normal existence A boy named Mark, tired of being sick with but her world is further complicated by a friendship cancer, conceives a plan to climb Mount Rainier, J FIC L with a young paraplegic. Drita, My Homegirl and runs away from home with his dog, Beau— By Jenny Lombard J FIC C but with over two hundred miles between him and When ten-year-old Drita and her family, refugees McKenna By Mary Casanova his goal, and only anger at his situation to drive from Kosovo, move to New York, Drita is teased Seattle fourth-grader McKenna Brooks, who lives him on, nothing will be easy, and only his best about not speaking English well, but after a popular for gymnastics, struggles with school work until friend, Jessie, suspects where he is heading. student named Maxie is forced to learn about Josie, a tutor confined to a wheelchair, helps her J GRAPHIC GN FIC B Kosovo as a punishment for teasing Drita, the two with reading comprehension and much more. ✝El Deafo By Cece Bell girls soon bond. J FIC G Going to school and making new friends is already J FIC J What Would Joey Do? tough, even without wearing a bulky hearing aid Odd, Weird, & Little By Jack Gantos strapped to your chest. In this funny memoir, By Patrick Jennings Joey tries to keep his life from degenerating into author/illustrator Cece Bell chronicles her hearing Befriending a very strange new student, Toulouse, total chaos when his mother sends him to be loss at a young age and her subsequent experiences helps outsider Woodrow stand up to the class home-schooled with a hostile blind girl, his divorced with the Phonic Ear, a very powerful—and very bullies who have been picking on them both. parents cannot stop fighting, and his grandmother awkward—hearing aid. is dying of emphysema. J PIC R / J-Spa FIC S J PIC S ** By Louis Sachar J FIC L / J-Spa FIC L Oliver By Birgitta Sif Holes ** Stanley Yelnats is sent to a juvenile detention A Dog Called Homeless Using his rich imagination while playing with center named Camp Green Lake after being By Sarah Lean favorite toys, Oliver, a little boy who does not accused of stealing a pair of shoes. Fifth-grader Cally Louise Fisher stops talking, quite fit in with other children, enjoys creative partly because her father and brother never speak adventures before wondering if he needs another of her mother who died a year earlier, but visions kind of companion.

4 Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List Grades 3 - 4 Suggested Reading Lists Continued

J YR FIC L J PIC L railway, making many new friends, and generally My Happy Life By Rose Lagercrantz The Invisible Boy By Trudy Ludwig learning a good deal about themselves. Dani is happy to be starting school and she is even Meet Brian, the invisible boy. Nobody ever seems J FIC A happier when she meets a girl named Ella who to notice him or think to include him in their group, The One and Only Ivan becomes her best friend. All of a sudden when Ella game, or birthday party...until, that is, a new kid By Katherine Applegate has to move away with her family, Dani who is no comes to class. When Justin, the new boy, arrives, Having spent twenty-seven years behind the glass stranger to loss, succumbs to depression. While new Brian is the first to make him feel welcome. And walls of his enclosure in a shopping mall, Ivan friends help a little, she awaits the promise of a visit. when Brian and Justin team up to work on a class has grown accustomed to humans watching him. J FIC S project together, Brian finds a way to shine. He hardly ever thinks about his life in the jungle. ✝Maniac Magee By Jerry Spinelli J FIC W Instead, Ivan occupies himself with television, his Jeffrey Lionel “Maniac” Magee might have lived a ✝Stuart Little By E.B. White friends Stella and Bob, and painting. But when he normal life if a freak accident hadn’t made him an Stuart Little is no ordinary mouse. Born to a meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from the wild, orphan. After living with his unhappy and uptight family of humans, he lives in New York City with he is forced to see their home, and his art, through aunt and uncle for eight years, he decides to run— his parents, his older brother George, and Snowbell new eyes, and strives to find her a new home. and not just run away, but run. This is where the cat. Though he’s shy and thoughtful, he’s also a J FIC F the myth of Maniac Magee begins, as he changes true lover of adventure. Stuart’s greatest adventure The Man in the Ceiling the lives of a racially divided small town with his comes when his best friend, a beautiful little bird By Jules Feiffer amazing and legendary feats. named Margalo, disappears from her nest. Although not very good at sports or in his J FIC W / J-Spa FIC W J FIC N schoolwork, Jimmy can draw and dreams of being **Charlotte’s Web By E.B. White The Railway Children By E. Nesbit a great cartoonist; that dream seems within reach A young girl named Fern Arable cares for a When their father is sent away to prison, three when star athlete Charley Beemer suggests they piglet after finding out the pig was in jeopardy of London children move to the country where they create comics together. being slaughtered. keep busy preventing accidents on the nearby

*Bilingual – English and Spanish *Bilingüe – inglés y español **Also available in Spanish **También disponible en español ✝Great for reluctant readers Grades 5 - 6 ✝Excelente para los lectores renuentes

J FIC M J FIC V ✝Rain Reign By Ann M. Martin The Running Dream Struggling with Asperger’s, Rose shares a bond All New Book Ideas By Wendelin van Draanen with her beloved dog. When the dog goes missing When a school bus accident leaves sixteen-year-old during a storm, Rose is forced to confront the limits Jessica an amputee, she returns to school with a of her comfort levels, even if it means leaving her prosthetic limb, and her track team finds a way to routines in order to search for her pet. help rekindle her dream of running again. J FIC B One copy of Rain Reign will be J FIC K raffled off at each Book Festival! Tangerine By Edward Bloor Out of My Mind By Sharon Draper J FIC L Twelve-year-old Paul, who lives in the shadow Considered by many to be mentally retarded, a Mirror, Mirror By Gregory Maguire of his football hero brother Erik, fights for the brilliant, impatient fifth-grader with cerebral palsy A retelling of “Snow White” set in Renaissance right to play soccer despite his near blindness, discovers a technological device that will allow her Italy draws a link between the original fairy tale and slowly begins to remember the incident that to speak for the first time. and the Borgia family’s infamous practice of damaged his eyesight. J FIC B poisoning its enemies. J FIC B Because of Mr. Terupt J FIC L The War That Saved My Life By Rob Buyea Million-Dollar Throw By Kimberly Bradley Seven fifth-graders at Snow Hill School in By Mike Lupica A young disabled girl and her brother are Connecticut relate how their lives are changed for Eighth-grade star quarterback Nate Brodie’s family evacuated from London to the English the better by “rookie teacher” Mr. Terupt. is feeling the stress of the troubled economy, and countryside during World War II, where they J FIC K Nate is frantic because his best friend Abby is find life to be much sweeter away from their Ungifted By Gordon Korman going blind, so when he gets a chance to win a abusive mother. Due to an administrative mix-up, troublemaker million dollars if he can complete a pass during the Donovan Curtis is sent to the Academy of halftime of a New England Patriot’s game, he is Scholastic Distinction, a special program for gifted nearly overwhelmed by the pressure to succeed. and talented students, after pulling a major prank at his middle school.

Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List 5 Grades 5 - 6 Suggested Reading Lists Continued

J FIC L FIC G J FIC M Love, Aubrey By Suzanne LaFleur A Thunderous Whisper Camo Girl By Kekla Magoon While living with her Gram in Vermont, By Christina Gonzalez Ella, a biracial girl with a patchy and uneven skin eleven-year-old Aubrey writes letters as a way of Ani, a twelve-year-old Basque girl, and Mathias, tone, and her friend Z, a boy who is very different, dealing with losing her father and sister in a car a fourteen-year-old German Jew, become friends have been on the bottom of the social order at accident, and then being abandoned by her and then spies in the weeks leading up to the Caldera Junior High School in Las Vegas, but grief-stricken mother. bombing of Guernica in April 1937. when the only other African-American student J FIC L / Spa FIC L J FIC R enters their sixth grade class, Ella longs to be ** ** friends with him and join the popular group, but The Giver By Lois Lowry Riding Freedom/ does not want to leave Z all alone. A young boy named Jonas grows up in a society Un caballo llamado Libertad where everything is planned so that life would By Pam Muñoz Ryan J FIC R / J-Spa FIC R ** remain as pleasant as possible. A fictionalized account of Charley (Charlotte) The Red Pyramid/ J FIC S Parkhurst who ran away from an orphanage, La pirámide roja By Rick Riordan ✝Wonderstruck By Brian Selznick posed as a boy, moved to California, and fooled After their father’s research experiment at the everyone by her appearance. Having lost his mother and his hearing in a short British Museum unleashes the Egyptian god Set, time, twelve-year-old Ben leaves his Minnesota J FIC B Carter and Sadie Kane embark on a dangerous home in 1977 to seek the father he never knew in ** journey across the globe—a quest which brings The Secret Garden/ them ever closer to the truth about their family, New York City, and meets there Rose, who is also El jardín secreto longing for something missing from her life. Ben’s and their links to a secret order that has existed By Frances Hodgson Burnett since the time of the pharaohs. story is told in words; Rose’s in pictures. Ten-year-old Mary comes to live in a lonely house J FIC D / J-Spa FIC D on the Yorkshire moors and discovers an invalid J FIC E **Because of Winn-Dixie/ cousin and the mysteries of a locked garden. The Absolute Value of Mike By Kathryn Erskine Gracias a Winn-Dixie J FIC P/Spa FIC P Mike wants to please his father, but the only ✝ By Kate DiCamillo Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were language his dad seems to speak is calculus. Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni describes her first Made/ De Sastre & Total Mike’s math learning disability makes this even summer in the town of Naomi, Florida, and all the Agencia de detectives No. 1 more difficult. When he’s sent to live with good things that happen to her because of a big ugly relatives in rural Pennsylvania for the summer dog Winn-Dixie. By Stephan Pastis Meet Timmy Failure and his friend, the and work on an engineering project, Mike is J FIC L 1500-pound polar bear Total. They are starting a desperate to prove himself. But both the project Touch Blue By Cynthia Lord detective agency in this funny graphic novel. and the town are not what he expected. The state of Maine plans to shut down her island’s J FIC F J FIC W schoolhouse, which would force Tess’s family to ✝The Girl Who Could Fly So B. It By Sarah Weeks move to the mainland—and Tess to leave the Heidi lives an unconventional lifestyle with her only home she has ever known. Fortunately, the By Victoria Forester When Piper McCloud reveals she can fly, she mentally disabled mother and their doting neighbor, islanders have a plan too: increase the numbers of can’t stay on her small farm in her small farm Bernadette, but Heidi has a lucky streak that has a students by having several families take in foster town anymore. She is quickly whisked off to a way of pointing her in the right direction. When a children. So now Tess and her family are taking government school where children with exceptional mysterious word in her mother’s vocabulary begins a chance on Aaron, a thirteen-year-old trumpet talents are trained. But is that really what they’re to haunt her, Heidi’s thirst for the truth leads player who has been bounced from home to home. doing at this school? her on a cross-country journey in search of the J FIC P / J-Spa FIC P secrets of her past. J FIC P **Wonder By R.J Palacio Slob By Ellen Potter J FIC C August Pullman was born with a facial difference ** Picked on, overweight genius Owen tries to invent Al Capone Does My Shirts that, up until now, has prevented him from going a television that can see the past to find out what By Gennifer Choldenko to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at happened the day his parents were killed. A twelve-year-old boy named Moose moves to Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be Alcatraz Island in 1935 when guards’ families treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates J FIC M were housed there, and has to contend with his can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z extraordinary new environment in addition to life J FIC S / J-Spa FIC S By Kate Messner with his autistic sister. ✝**The Invention of Hugo Cabret Gianna has less than one week to complete her leaf project if she wants to compete in the J FIC F By Brian Selznick upcoming cross-country sectionals, but issues Flying Solo By Ralph Fletcher Part picture book, part novel; orphan living and like procrastination, disorganization—and her Rachel White has chosen to become mute after learning repairing clocks within the walls of a Paris train grandmother’s declining health—seem destined to of the sudden death of a class mate. Six months later, station in 1931, meets a mysterious toyseller and keep her from finishing. Rachel and her classmates find themselves without a his goddaughter, his undercover life and his biggest teacher and decide to run the class. By the end of the secret are jeopardized.

6 Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List Grades 5 - 6 Suggested Reading Lists Continued day, the students have learned much about themselves causes them and their mother to move from place and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights and one another. to place and stay in hiding. movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is J FIC H J FIC N both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her The Fourteenth Goldfish The Agony of Alice place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also By Jennifer Holm By Phyllis Reynolds Naylor reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing Eleven-year-old Ellie has never liked change. She Eleven-year-old, motherless Alice decides she stories, despite the fact that she struggled with misses fifth grade. She misses her old best friend. needs a gorgeous role model who does everything reading as a child. She even misses her dearly departed goldfish. Then right; and when placed in homely Mrs. Plotkins’s one day a strange boy shows up. He’s bossy. He’s class she is greatly disappointed until she discovers J FIC G cranky. And weirdly enough...he looks a lot like it is what people are inside that counts. The Honest Truth Ellie’s grandfather, a scientist who’s always been J FIC N By Dan Gemeinhart slightly obsessed with immortality. Could this ✝ In all the ways that matter, Mark is a normal kid. pimply boy really be Grandpa Melvin? Has he Fish in a Tree He’s got a dog named Beau and a best friend, finally found the secret to eternal youth? By Lynda Mullaly Hunt Jessie. He likes to take photos and write haiku Ally has been smart enough to fool a lot of FIC M poems in his notebook. He dreams of climbing a smart people. Every time she lands in a new mountain one day. But in one important way, Rogue By Lynn Miller-Lachmann school, she is able to hide her inability to read by Mark is not like other kids at all. Mark is sick. The Kiara has Asperger’s syndrome, and it’s hard for creating clever yet disruptive distractions. She kind of sick that means hospitals. And treatments. her to make friends. So whenever her world doesn’t is afraid to ask for help; after all, how can you The kind of sick some people never get better from. make sense—which is often—she relies on Mr. cure dumb? However, her newest teacher Mr. So Mark runs away. He leaves home with his Internet for answers. But there are some questions Daniels sees the bright, creative kid underneath camera, his notebook, his dog, and a plan to reach he can’t answer, like how do kids with Asperger’s the trouble maker. the top of Mount Rainier--even if it’s the last thing syndrome make friends? Having been kicked out J FIC W he ever does. of school for fighting the kids who taunt her, she ✝ wishes she could be like her hero Rogue. Brown Girl Dreaming By Jacqueline Woodson J FIC R Raised in South Carolina and New York, Clay By Colby Rodowsky Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. After their parent’s divorce, eleven-year-old Elsie In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to and her younger brother Tommy, who is mentally grow up as an African American in the 1960s “different,” must deal with a terrible secret that and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow

*Bilingual – English and Spanish *Bilingüe – inglés y español **Also available in Spanish **También disponible en español ✝Great for reluctant readers Grades 7 - 8 ✝Excelente para los lectores renuentes

FIC F FIC D Sea Change By Aimee Friedman Missing Sisters By Gregory Maguire When her estranged grandmother dies and leaves her All New Book Ideas Twelve-year-old Alice, an orphan who has never mother the family home on Selkie Island, seventeen- been adopted because of her physical handicap and year-old Miranda meets her mother on the Georgia difficult personality, is shocked to discover she has island, where she discovers mysterious family secrets an identical twin sister living nearby. J FIC R and another side to her logical, science-loving self. FIC S / Spa FIC S J FIC T The Schwa Was Here **Marcelo in the Real World/ By Neal Shusterman King of the Mound By Wes Tooke A Brooklyn eighth-grader nicknamed Antsy Marcelo en el mundo real Twelve-year-old Nick loves baseball so after a year befriends the Schwa, an “invisible-ish” boy who is By Francisco Stork in the hospital fighting polio and with a brace on tired of blending into his surroundings and going Marcelo Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old boy on the one leg, Nick takes a job with the team for which unnoticed by nearly everyone. high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, faces his father is catcher and gets to see the great pitcher, new challenges, including romance. Satchel Paige, play during the 1935 season. J FIC D J B FRANK F / J-Spa B Frank F J FIC P The Door in the Wall ** By Marguerite De Angeli The Diary of A Young Girl Freak the Mighty By W.R. Philbrick A boy in fourteenth-century England proves his By Anne Frank At the beginning of eighth grade, learning disabled courage and earns recognition from the King. The Autobiography of Anne Frank and her experience Max and his new friend Freak, whose birth defect has hiding from the Nazis during the Holocaust. affected his body but not his brilliant mind, find that when they combine forces they make a powerful team.

Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List 7 Grades 7 - 8 Suggested Reading Lists Continued

FIC G Vietnam. Schmidt expertly weaves multiple themes of the rebel group, Kudzu, to fight the tyranny of ✝An Abundance of Katherines loss and recovery in a story teeming with distinctive, Eden’s government, she is in for some By John Green unusual characters and invaluable lessons about love, big surprises. Having been recently dumped for the nineteenth creativity, and survival. Spa FIC A time by a girl named Katherine, recent high school FIC S Antes de ser libres graduate and former child prodigy Colin sets off on ✝Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie Por Julia Álvarez a road trip with his best friend to try to find some By Jordan Sonnenblick En la República Dominicana en los años sesenta, new direction in life while also trying to create a When his younger brother is diagnosed with Anita de la Torre, una niña de 12 años, descubre mathematical formula to explain his relationships. leukemia, thirteen-year-old Stephen turns to que su familia está involucrada en la resistencia FIC G drumming to deal with his complicated feelings. contra el dictador Trujillo. Like No Other By Una LaMarche J FIC D/ Spa FIC D FIC TOTEN Though their relationship is strictly forbidden, Devorah **The City of Ember/ The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B and Jax arrange secret meetings and risk everything La ciudad de la oscuridad By Teresa Toten to be together. But how far can they possibly go? Just Adam not only is trying to understand his OCD, how much are they willing to give up? By Jeanne DuPrau Doon and Lina live in the underground city that while trying to balance his relationship with his J FIC V was built as a last refuge for the human race. divorced parents, but he’s also trying to navigate Paperboy By Vance Vawter For over 200 years the storerooms have been full through the issues that teenagers normally face, Little Man throws the meanest fastball in town. and the lamps have come on every day for twelve namely the perils of young love. But talking is a whole different ball game. He can hours, and no one has had any reason to leave the FIC S barely say a word without stuttering—not even his city and venture into the dark Unknown Regions. Positively By Courtney Sheinmel own name. So when he takes over his best friend’s But the storerooms are emptying, the lights are Thirteen-year-old Emmy, grieving over her mother paper route for the month of July, he’s not exactly flickering, and only Doon and Lina seem to care. who died of AIDS, resentful of having to live with looking forward to interacting with the customers. J FIC F her father and pregnant stepmother, and despairing But it’s the neighborhood junkman, a bully and about her future, finds hope at a summer camp for thief, who stirs up real trouble in Little Man’s life. Hidden By Helen Frost When eight-year-old Darra’s father steals a van, HIV-positive girls like herself. J FIC S he doesn’t know that Wren is hiding in the back. ✝ J FIC D Counting by 7s By Holly Sloan When they are both fourteen, Darra and Wren meet Livvie Owen Lived Here Gifted twelve-year-old Willow has never fit in. at summer camp, and have to choose whether to By Sarah Dooley When her adopted parents are killed in a car confront the difficult past they share. This book is told Fourteen-year-old Livvie Owen, who has autism, accident and she becomes an orphan again, she is in poems from both young women’s perspectives. and her family have been forced to move frequently taken in by a Vietnamese-American family and FIC S because of her outbursts, but when they face surprised to find herself becoming more than just eviction again, Livvie is convinced she has a way to an “outside observer” to them. The Riverman By Aaron Starmer Alistair is good at keeping secrets. When Fiona get back to a house where they were all happy, once. FIC H/Spa FIC H comes to him and asks him to help write her FIC S ** The Outsiders/Rebeldes memoir, he thinks he’ll be able to keep hers too. Unwind By Neil Shusterman By S.E Hinton But then she begins to tell him about the dangerous In a future world where those between the ages Rivalry between rich and poor gangs in 1960s Riverman in Aquavania, a parallel universe of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives Oklahoma leads to the deaths of three teenagers and where stories are born and children’s souls are “unwound” and their body parts harvested for intense soul-searching for one of the kids involved, a being stolen. Is Fiona in danger? Is she crazy? use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to sensitive fourteen-year-old writer named Ponyboy. What should Alistair do? In this dark story about survive until they turn eighteen. FIC A nightmares and human nature, there are no easy answers. FIC W Thirteen Reasons Why FIC A Uglies By Scott Westerfeld By Jay Asher Just before their sixteenth birthdays, when they When Clay Jenkins receives a box containing Tunnel Vision By Susan Adrian will be transformed into beauties whose only job is thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate When Jake Lukin, eighteen, reveals his psychic to have a great time, Tally’s best friend runs away Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends the ability, he’s forced to become a government asset and Tally must find her and turn her in, or never night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah’s in order to keep his mother and sister safe, but become pretty at all. voice recounting the events leading up to her death. Rachel, the girl he likes, tries to help him live his own life instead of tunneling through others. FIC D/ Spa-FIC D J FIC S **The Maze Runner/Correr o By Gary Schmidt FIC C Okay for Now morir By James Dashner Doug struggles to be more than the “skinny thug” that By Georgia Clark Parched Sixteen-year-old Thomas wakes up with no some people think him to be. He finds an unlikely ally Feeling guilty after her mother’s accidental death, memory in the middle of a maze and realizes he in Lil Spicer, who gives him the strength to endure sixteen-year-old Tessendra Rockwood leaves the must work with the community in which he finds an abusive father, the suspicions of a town, and the abundance of Eden to fight for survival in the himself if he is to escape. return of his oldest brother, forever scarred, from drought-devastated Badlands, but when she joins

8 Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List Grades 7 - 8 Suggested Reading Lists Continued

J FIC B or worse. Despite the risks, Grayson’s true self confrontations with a school bully bring out issues Anything but Typical itches to break free. Will new strength from an in the boys’ friendship that have been simmering By Nora Raleigh Baskin unexpected friendship and a caring teacher’s below the surface. Jason Blake is an autistic 12-year-old living in a wisdom be enough to help Grayson step into the FIC P spotlight she was born to inhabit? neurotypical world. Jason, who aspires to become The Bees By Laline Paull a writer, finds a glimmer of understanding when he FIC P Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the comes across PhoenixBird, who posts stories to the Huge By Sasha Paley lowest caste in her orchard hive where work and same online site as he does. Jason can be himself When Wilhelmina and April find themselves sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the when he writes and he thinks that PhoneixBird-her roommates at a fat camp, both with very different beloved Queen the only religion. But Flora is not name is Rebecca-could be his first real friend. But goals, they find they have very little in common like other bees. With circumstances threatening as desperate as Jason is to meet her, he’s terrified until they are both humiliated by the same person. the hive’s survival, her curiosity is regarded as a that if they do meet, Rebecca will only see his FIC M dangerous flaw but her courage and strength are autism and not who Jason really is. an asset. Daring to challenge the Queen’s fertility J FIC P Marco Impossible and therefore the strict social hierarchy, her By Hannah Mosckowitz deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now Gracefully Grayson Eighth-graders Stephen and Marco, who came out By Ami Polonsky overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce in the seventh grade, have been best friends and maternal love that will bring her into conflict with Grayson Sender has been holding onto a secret co-schemers in elaborate “heists” since elementary for what seems like forever: “he” is a girl on the her conscience, her heart, her society—and lead school. As they inch toward high school, when her to unthinkable deeds. inside, stuck in the wrong gender’s body. The Marco will take off for a private school, a new weight of this secret is crushing, but sharing it weight is placed on their friendship. An imperfect would mean facing ridicule, scorn, rejection, plan for one last heist and some tense and very real

*Bilingual – English and Spanish *Bilingüe – inglés y español **Also available in Spanish **También disponible en español ✝Great for reluctant readers Advanced Readers ✝Excelente para los lectores renuentes

FIC G FIC S Blind By Rachel DeWoskin Hungry By Heather Swain After a horrific accident leaves her blind, fifteen- All New Book Ideas In Thalia’s world there is no more food and no year-old Emma, one of seven children, eagerly starts need for food, as everyone takes medication to high school as a sophomore, and finds that nearly ward off hunger. But when she meets a boy who everything has changed—sometimes for the better. FIC M is part of an underground movement to bring food back, she realizes that the meds are not working. FIC G Say What You Will The Beginning of Everything By Cammie McGovern B Lawson L By Robyn Schneider Born with cerebral palsy, Amy can’t walk without ✝Let’s Pretend This Never An engrossing romance in which tragedy brings two a walker, talk without a voice box, or even fully Happened By Jenny Lawson teens together, then threatens to tear them apart. control her facial expressions. Plagued by obsessive- A memoir about growing up poor in rural Texas FIC R compulsive disorder, Matthew is consumed with and learning to live with mental illness doesn’t Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets repeated thoughts, neurotic rituals, and crippling sound like a laugh-out-loud read, but Lawson, By Evan Roskos fear. Both in desperate need of someone to help them better known online as The Bloggess, has a way A sixteen-year-old boy wrestling with depression reach out to the world, Amy and Matthew are more with gallows humor and a knack for providing and anxiety tries to cope by writing poems, reciting alike than either ever realized. nontreacly support to anyone struggling with Walt Whitman, hugging trees, and figuring out CLASSICS FIC O/ Spa FIC O loneliness, anxiety, chronic pain, or depression. why his sister has been kicked out of the house. **1984 By George Orwell 814 Sedaris FIC W Big Brother is always watching in this early Me Talk Pretty One Day Where Things Come Back dystopian novel about a totalitarian government By David Sedaris By John Whaley and the one London man who wants to resist. In a collection of essays, observations, and Seventeen-year-old Cullen’s summer in Lily, FIC D commentaries, the humorist describes his recent Arkansas, is marked by his cousin’s death by Big Girl Small By Rachel DeWoskin move to Paris, life as an American in Paris, his struggle to learn French, his family, and overdose, an alleged spotting of a woodpecker Sixteen-year-old Judy Lohden finds her three feet nine restaurant meals. thought to be extinct, failed romances, and his inches tall, incredibly talented self in the middle of a younger brother’s sudden disappearance. scandal, with the national media on her trail and the students at Darcy Academy, a local performing arts high school, involved in the mayhem.

Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List 9 Advanced Readers Suggested Reading Lists Continued

941.084 L FIC D FIC S The King’s Speech I’ll Meet You There A Thousand Acres By Mark Logue By Heather Demetrios By Jane Smiley Presents the life of the Australian speech therapist Skylar Evans, seventeen, yearns to escape Creek On a prosperous Iowa farm in the 1970s, wealthy who helped the English king, George VI, overcome View by attending art school, but after her mother’s farmer Lawrence Cook announces his intentions a lifelong speech disorder and become an eloquent job loss puts her dream at risk, a rekindled friendship to divide the farm among his daughters, setting off a leader of his people during the difficult days of with Josh, who joined the Marines to get away then family crisis reminiscent of Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” World War II. lost a leg in Afghanistan, and her job at the Paradise FIC B motel lead her to appreciate her home town. FIC T Perfect Escape Joy Luck Club By Amy Tan FIC G By Jennifer Brown In 1949, four Chinese women—drawn together ✝Girls Like Us By Gail Giles Seventeen-year-old Kendra, living in the shadow of by the shadows of their pasts—begin meeting in Graduating from their school’s special education her brother’s obsessive-compulsive disorder, takes a San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks program, Quincy and Biddy are placed together life-changing road trip with him. and “say” stories. They call their gathering the Joy in their first independent apartment and discover FIC S Luck Club—and forge a relationship that binds unexpected things they have in common in the face them for more than three decades. of past challenges and a harrowing trauma. Stick By Andrew Smith Thirteen-year-old Stark “Stick” McClellan’s FIC Z / Spa FIC Z SCI-FI A brother has always defended him against those who **The Book Thief/ Half a King By Joe Abercrombie tease him for his thinness and facial deformity, La ladrona de libros Prince Yarvi has vowed to regain a throne he never so when Bosten, having admitted he is gay, must By Markus Zusak wanted. But first he must survive cruelty, chains, leave home and their abusive parents, Stick sets Trying to make sense of the horrors of World and the bitter waters of the Shattered Sea. And he out to find him. War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young must do it all with only one good hand. He cannot FIC H grip a shield or swing an axe, so he must sharpen German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling The Curious Incident of the talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man his mind to a deadly edge. Gathering a strange they are hiding, as well as their neighbors fellowship of the outcast and the lost, he finds they Dog in the Night-time can do more to help him become the man he needs By Mark Hadon FIC N / Spa FIC N to be than any court of nobles could. Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the ** The Sky is Everywhere/ countries of the world and their capitals and FIC H El cielo está en cualquier lugar every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well By Jandy Nelson Girl Stolen By April Henry to animals but has no understanding of human In the months after her sister dies, seventeen-year- When an impulsive carjacking turns into a kidnapping, emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And old Lennie falls into a love triangle and Griffin, a high school dropout, finds himself more in he detests the color yellow. This improbable story discovers the strength to follow her dream of sympathy with his wealthy, blind victim, sixteen-year- of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious becoming a musician. old Cheyenne, than with his greedy father. death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the FIC C FIC V most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years. The Perks of Being a Wallflower Find Me By Laura van den Berg By Stephen Chbosky When a sickness that begins with memory loss FIC D A haunting coming of age novel told in a series of and ends with death sweeps the country, Joy ✝Room By Emma Donoghue letters to an unknown correspondent reveals the finds herself immune. Determined to find her A 5-year-old narrates a riveting story about his life of Charlie, shy and intelligent freshman in high birth mother, the woman who abandoned her, she life growing up in a single room where his mother school as he navigates new friends, family drama, embarks on a mysterious journey, forcing her to aims to protect him from the man who has held her and growing up. confront her own damaged memory and the secrets prisoner for seven years since she was a teenager. she has been keeping from herself. FIC V It’s Kind of a Funny Story By Ned Vizzini Determined to become successful in life and get Suggested Authors for… Advanced Readers into the right college, he soon crumbles under the stress of this highly demanding school. Due to all the stress, he almost commits suicide. After Edwidge Danticat Tananarive Due Jamaica Kincaid checking into a psychiatric ward, there he meets Tennessee Wiliams Kazuo Ishiguro Abraham Verghese an array of different people, some of which he Tom Wolfe Joan Didion Truman Capote becomes friends with and some he even develops Octavia Butler Celeste Ng Albert Camus feelings for. Over time, he learns to deal with his Vladimir Nabokov Agatha Christie Ray Bradbury anxiety, and must also deal with his problems Ian McEwan Jane Smiley outside the ward: his family, friends, and the rumors going around school.

10 Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List Reading Log New York State Assembly

Name:______

Title Author Minutes Read 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List 11 Beyond Reading Más allá de la lectura Draw a picture, take a photo, Haz un dibujo, toma una foto, write about your life… escribe sobre tu vida… Draw an idea, event, character, or action from a Dibuja una idea, evento, personaje o acción de uno de los book you read. libros que hayas leído. Take a photo or draw a picture of yourself in Toma una foto o haz un dibujo de ti mismo(a) en un a setting from your favorite book or depicting escenario de tu libro favorito, o crea una representación experiences you had similar to those of your de experiencias que hayas tenido similares a las de tu favorite character. personaje favorito. Write about your favorite book, scene, or Escribe sobre tu libro, escena o personaje favorito, o character, or tell us about an experience you had cuéntanos de alguna experiencia que hayas tenido that relates to the Challenge theme of relacionada al tema del Reto de este año “All for One, One for All.” “Todos para uno y uno para todos”. Talk to your Habla con tus amigos y friends and family… familiares… Have a conversation about a character, idea, or Conversen sobre un personaje, idea o escenario de alguno setting from a book you read. de los libros que hayas leído. Many of the suggested books discuss a problem Muchos de los libros sugeridos discuten algún problema or hardship the characters faced. How would o dificultad enfrentada por los personajes. ¿Cómo te you behave in their place? hubieses comportado si estuvieses en su lugar? Write down ideas you have or decisions you Escribe ideas que tengas o decisiones que tomas basado en make based on your conversations. tus conversaciones. Take action… Toma acción... Sign up to do volunteer projects with your Inscríbete para realizar trabajo voluntario con tu familia family at www.newyorkcares.org. en www.newyorkcares.org. Find resources to be involved in/lead your own Encuentra recursos en los que te puedas involucrar/ lidera local, national or global service program at tu propio programa de servicio local, nacional o global en http://www.generationon.org/kids. http://www.generationon.org/kids. After completing your project, turn it in at Después de completar tu proyecto, entrégalo en tu your local library or at Assembly Member biblioteca local o llévalo personalmente a la oficina de O’Donnell’s Community Office la comunidad del asambleísta O’Donnell (localizada (245 W. 104th Street). With your permission, en el 245 W. 104th Street). ¡Con tu autorización, we’ll post it on the web! publicaremos tu proyecto en nuestra página Web!

What book will you read next? ¿Cuál será tu próximo libro?

12 Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List Tips for helping children develop Consejos para ayudar a los niños a a life-long love of reading: desarrollar el amor por la lectura:

Excerpted from various lists on the Extractos literarios de varias listas encontradas en Reading Is Fundamental website. el sitio Web Reading is Fundamental. 1. Begin reading to your children as soon as they can 1. Empiecen a leerles a sus hijos tan pronto se puedan sentar sit up in your lap and continue reading to and with en sus faldas y continúen leyendo con ellos después de them even after they enter school; que empiecen la escuela; 2. Books with bright, attractive pictures with only a few 2. Los libros con dibujos llamativos con pocas palabras y los words as well as nursery rhyme and song books are libros de canciones infantiles son los más apropiados para most appropriate for babies and toddlers; los bebés y los niños más pequeños; 3. Board books, which are made for little hands to hold 3. Los libros para niños, construidos de material de cartón, and are almost indestructible, are suitable for babies que están hechos para manos pequeñas, son prácticamente and toddlers. The New York Public Library has a indestructibles, y son apropiados para bebés y niños pequeños. collection of board books to read with your child; La Biblioteca Pública de Nueva York cuenta con una colección de estos libros infantiles que ustedes pueden leer con sus hijos; 4. Attend toddler and preschool programs at your local branch library that include reading and singing; 4. Asistan a programas para niños pequeños y de edad preescolar en su biblioteca local que incluyan actividades 5. Set aside a regular time for reading with your para leer y cantar; children every day. Twenty minutes before bed time is a good practice but the important thing is that 5. Destinen una hora del día para leer con sus hijos. Veinte reading becomes a daily, joyful experience; minutos antes de dormir es una buena práctica, pero lo más importante es que la lectura se convierta en una 6. Give your children books as gifts; experiencia diaria y divertida; 7. Have your children choose their own books as soon 6. Obséquienles libros a sus hijos como regalos; as they start to show an interest in one type of book or author; 7. Permitan que sus hijos escojan sus propios libros tan pronto empiecen a demostrar un interés en algún tipo de libro o autor; 8. Encourage your children to get their own library 8. Animen a sus hijos a que obtengan sus propias tarjetas de cards; la biblioteca; 9. Try a book swap. Ask friends, family, and teachers 9. Traten de hacer un intercambio de libros. Pregúntenles a sus what books their children have enjoyed; amigos, familiares y maestros cuáles libros han disfrutado; 10. Encourage your child to create bookmarks to include 10. Estimulen a sus hijos a crear marcadores de páginas para with a gift book or to mark the place in your own obsequiarlos junto con algún libro o para marcar el lugar book where you leave off during read-aloud time; por donde van leyendo en sus propios libros; 11. Incorporate reading with your children into daily 11. Incorporen la lectura en actividades diarias con sus hijos, activities such as reading recipes while you cook/ como leer las recetas de cocina mientras preparan la cena bake or reading instructions together; u hornean, o al leer instrucciones juntos; 12. See a play, a movie or visit a location based on a 12. Vean una obra de teatro, una película o visiten algún lugar book that your child has read; mencionado en uno de los libros que sus hijos hayan leído; 13. Model good reading behavior and let your child see 13. Sean un buen ejemplo para sus hijos demostrándoles que you reading for pleasure; ustedes leen porque disfrutan de la lectura; 14. Have fun! Show your children the joy of reading and 14. ¡Diviértanse! Demuéstrenles a sus hijos lo entretenido how it can open up a brand new world! que es la lectura y cómo puede abrirles las puertas a un mundo nuevo.

Community Reading Challenge 2015 Book List 13 Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell

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