I wasn’t familiar with this award though I do know about the Simon Wissenthal Museum from living in Los Angeles. My art teacher had a piece exhibited there and he said that it was the highlight of his career. I went through the past winner list and I haven’t read all the books, but the ones I have read (Though My Eyes, The Year of Miss Agnes, So Far from the Sea) are OUTSTANDING so it makes me want to read the entire list of winners, both past and present.
Category: Reading Lists: Middle Grade
Middle grade chapter books for kids ages 9 through 14 and including 3rd grade books, 4th grade books, 5th grade books, 6th grade books, and 7th grade books.
What Are Your Kids Reading This Summer? Win Prizes by Sharing!
My going-into-fourth-grade middle child has a summer reading assignment. She must read five books and do a book report project by the first day of class. Even though we read year round, she is protesting and slightly stressed about this homework. To select these books, I consulted My Best Book Lists and came up with these five.
Wonderful Comprehensive Pop Up Mythology Book: Encyclopedia Mythologica (for ages 5-15)
Encylopedia Mythologica covers Ancient Egyptian gods as well as the more famous Greek and Roman gods. The book also covers Norse, Middle Eastern and Native American gods. Like the other books in the series, the pop ups are magnificent and there are pop up pages-within-pages chock full of interesting stories and factoids.
What I love about this book series (and I think I own them all) is that it entertains at many levels — younger kids will love the pop ups and may only want to read selectively, and older kids can absorb a lot of information by exploring all the smaller pop up pages. This is a great non fiction book for reluctant readers and Middle School kids since 6th grade typically covers Greek Mythology.
The Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan: Book Club for Kids
My 5th grade daughter’s book club got invited to the 5th grade boys’ book club because they had a special guest, William Maliul, an articulate and engaging Lost Boy of Sudan, who came to speak about his experiences in Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the United States. Brothers in Hope was the book club selection and though it is a picture book, the content is suitable for a 4th or 5th grader.
Top 10: Best Books for Young Artists (ages 2-18)
A quirky selection of books for budding artists of ages that includes picture book through young adult fiction. No book is actually instructional in nature, rather the list serves to stir the creative juices for reading and creating art!
Guatemala: kids books, recipes, weavings and more
I landed in Guatemala because I actually had no idea of what to post on but I keep an email folder of “books that I want to read” from all the blogs that I read and Libertad came up and that was it for me. I don’t know much about Guatemala though my oldest just did a unit on the ancient civilizations of South and Central America but I always get the Aztecs mixed up with the Mayans. I think she had the Mayans, though.
Books for Reluctant Boy Readers
I wanted to spend this week covering books and strategies for reluctant boy readers and I had all these great posts that I found during the past year stored up, so here they are! This was a great post by The Hate Mongering Tart about writer Andy Sherrod who gives book suggestions and tips for getting boys to read: