Battle of the Books is a reading incentive program that is organized by the Alaska Association of School Librarians, that has been taking place in Alaska since 1981! More information on the history of the program, how books are chosen, and the dates and times of the statewide battles can be found on the official website at: http://www.akla.org/akasl/bb/bbhome.html
We had our first Battle meeting on Wednesday the 3rd but it is not too late to join! Everyone checked out one of the titles on this year's list and we decided that we would start with meeting just once a week, on Wednesday's in the library. Students CAN bring their food with them to the meeting. 8th graders will meet with Mrs. James and 7th graders will meet with Mrs. Fleming. Don't forget to bring the signed copy of the titles and summaries.
Mears will also have a staff team that will compete with the students at the Mears Battle on Feb. 4th. Members of the staff team are: Mr. Armentrout, Mrs. Arend, Mrs. Peckham, and Mrs. Stanley!
Timeline for 07-08
Mears Battle |
District Battle |
State Battle |
4 February 2008 |
12 February 2008 |
19 February 2008 |
Here is a list of this year's books and their official summaries:
A printable .pdf format of this list is available from the Library Curriculum Coordinator, Ann Morgester's home page. Copies are also available from the main office and the library at Mears.
Blizzard's Wake by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Summary: In March of 1941, when a severe blizzard suddenly hits Bismarck, North Dakota, a girl trying to save her stranded father and brother inadvertently helps the man who killed her mother four years before. |
Boy at War by Harry Mazer Summary: While fishing with his friends off Honolulu on December 7, 1941, teenaged Adam is caught in the midst of the Japanese attack and through the chaos of the subsequent days tries to find his father, a naval officer who was serving on the U.S.S. Arizona when the bombs fell. |
Chasing Redbird by Sharon Creech Summary: Thirteen-year-old Zinnia Taylor uncovers family secrets and self truths while clearing a mysterious settler trail that begins on her family's farm in Kentucky. |
Click Here by Denise Vega Summary: Seventh-grader Erin Swift writes about her friends and classmates in her private blog, but when it accidentally gets posted on the school Intranet site, she learns some important lessons about friendship. |
Deliver Us from Normal by Kate Klise Summary: With a mother who buys Christmas cards in August and a younger brother who describes the Trinity as a toasted marshmallow on a graham cracker, life for eleven-year-old Charles Harrisong is anything but normal in Normal, Illinois. |
Kids at Work by Russell Freedman Summary: This photo-essay describes child labor in the United States at the beginning of the century and how Lewis Hine fought for reforms. A profile of the investigative photographer & how he used his camera to expose the horrors of forced child labor in the United States during the early 20th century.
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Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan Summary: After learning that he is the son of a mortal woman and Poseidon, god of the sea, twelve-year-old Percy is sent to a summer camp for demigods like himself, and joins his new friends on a quest to prevent a war between the gods. |
Montmorency by Eleanor Updale Summary: In Victorian London, after his life is saved by a young physician, a thief utilizes the knowledge he gains in prison and from the scientific lectures he attends as the physician's case study exhibit to create a new, highly successful, double life for himself.
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Schwa was Here by Neal Shusterman Summary: A Brooklyn eighth-grader nicknamed Antsy befriends the Schwa, an "invisible-ish" boy who is tired of blending into his surroundings and going unnoticed by nearly everyone. |
Tisha by Robert Specht Summary: Anne Hobbs is a prim and proper 19-year-old schoolteacher who yearns for adventure. She finds this and much more in a town with the unlikely name of Chicken, located deep in the Alaskan interior.
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Transall Saga by Gary Paulsen Summary: While backpacking in the desert, thirteen-year-old Mark falls into a tube of blue light and is transported into a more primitive world, where he must use his knowledge and skills to survive. |
Z for Zachariah by Scott Westerfield Summary: Seemingly the only person left alive after a nuclear war, a sixteen-year-old girl is relieved to see a man arrive in her valley until she realizes that he is a tyrant and she must somehow escape.
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