Newberry Winner - a real winner!!

I am currently subbing at my old school - hope to get 5 or 6 jobs a month - and just started last week and had 3 jobs and turned down one - and have another one this week - and had to turn down one this week.  So much for worrying about not getting jobs!  (I only do pre-arranged at Clifton, so I was concerned that maybe there would not be enough calls!)

But one of the assignments required me to take the classes to the library for the students to pick up their latest "mandated read" and check them out.  Then they were supposed to sit and read for 20 minutes.  Except for the 2 Honors classes, I had to really work hard to get the kids to read.  In one class, about a half dozen kids hunkered down and literally refused to read - wouldn't even stare at the pages and pretend to read!  I was flabbergasted.  

I taught Special Education for 18 years, and actually didn't have much mandated reading time - unless I was reading to them while they followed along.  I did have some students who expressed disdain for reading, but never had  students who didn't enjoy having me read to them.  I did choose carefully, and tried to use emotion and expression in my reading.  I did a lot of explaining too - I know that helped kids get more meaning, and I'm convinced those who don't read well appreciate the help at understanding the story and the details!

But I would have thought I'd died and gone to heaven if a teacher said, "Okay, I want everyone to read for 20 minutes!!"  Perhaps I should have offered to read to the students - but they all had different books based on their individual reading levels.  If I'm going to keep subbing, and mandated reading is a part of it, I will have to come up with some solutions!

At any rate, Mrs. Gray, the librarian, saw me looking at the above book and told me it was great - she'd listened to it on tape last summer as she was traveling.

And she was right!  What a great story.  It's a first novel, too, and won the Newbery Award in 2011.  If you haven't read it - read it!  And if you have kids who love to read, have them read it too!!  It goes back and forth between 1917/18 and 1936 in rural Kansas.  And there are issues with mining and moonshine too!

The story is part history, part mystery,  part "story-telling" at its finest!

Let me know what you think!!