2017 OTTER Award Nominees Announced!

Our inaugural committee has officially announced our inaugural list of nominees for the 2017 OTTER Award for Washington State!



Stay tuned to the OTTER website at otteraward.wikispaces.com for some outstanding resources, such as bookmarks, presentations, book talks, and more!

Share our list with any and all librarians in Washington and elsewhere.  We are excited to promote these early chapter books for students all over.

Thank you to WLMA and WLA for supporting the creation of this award!

What about that OTTER Award?

The Washington Library Media Association, or WLMA, is sponsoring a new Washington State award - The OTTER Award.  As a member of the newly formed committee, I have been reading transitional chapter books from the last two years as often as possible.  Also, I have been working on our new website - https://otteraward.wikispaces.com/ - where you will be able to find information about the award and list of the nominees for 2017 after April 23.

Here are a few more possible titles:



In this quiet story, Eleanor deals with new friends, stage fright, dog discipline, and honesty issues.  A new girl moves to her class, and Eleanor's best friend, Pearl, becomes Ainsley's new friend.  Eleanor has a difficult time sharing her best friend, and takes it out on everyone from Ainsley to her own family.  To make matters worse, Eleanor's dog is sent off to Doggy Boot Camp, which may be Eleanor's fault.  Matthew Cordell's illustrations are wonderful and add just enough to the story to help the transitional reader make connections to the text.



This is the first in a fast moving, magical series set in the Kingdom of Bracken.  Drake is a simple farm boy, who is one day picking onions and the next training a dragon.  He did not know that dragons, wizards, or magical stones existed until he is taken to King Roland's dungeon and sees all of these unbelievable sights for himself.  Then he finds out that he has been chosen to train a dragon, along with three other chosen children.  Together they are the Dragon Masters, and their adventures begin.  Illustrations and text spacing make this an easy to read and follow story, and I believe that the story will be appealing to many students.

Check out these books at your library or find them at your local bookseller.

OTTER Award for transitional readers

As we get close to choosing the first official OTTER Award nominees, I have been looking for more books that fit our criteria.  We have about 25 books on our short list, and here are a couple more that I liked.



Cornelia Funke is one of my favorite authors for older readers, so I was excited to read this newer book for younger readers.   Emma finds a mysterious bottle floating in the ocean and then is taken away to a magical Arabian-like place with flying carpets, caliphs, and dromedaries. She must save her new friend, the Blue Genie, and retrieve his nose ring, the source of his power.  The vocabulary is a little out of reach for most students in first or second grade, but the story is fun and full of adventure, so they may be able to use the context to figure out the meanings.



I enjoyed this story of Kaz, a young ghost, who gets blown out of the only house he has ever known, and Claire, an inquisitive young girl, who is living with her grandmother while her parents leave for extended periods of time to do their jobs. Claire happens to live in the library where Kaz finds himself once the wind has stopped.  Claire can also talk to ghosts, only she is not supposed to tell anyone that.  Kaz and Claire become friends and find that they enjoy solving mysteries together, which leads to the other books in this humorous and fun series.

You can find these books and many others at your local library or independent bookseller.

More OTTER Award Reading

I am getting very excited about the OTTER Award for Washington State.  I hope that we can put together a great list that is both worthy of reading and kid-friendly.

Here are a few more titles that I read this week with the transitional chapter book reader in mind.



Haggis and Tank are a couple of dog buddies up for adventure.  They use their imaginations to create a pirate adventure that is a lot of fun.  The author works in a few homophones, like tale and tail, to create humor.  I thought the jokes were clever, but I worry that my students will not grasp the meaning.  Yet, at the end, the author includes questions for the reader about the homophones and explains what they are - nice teaching resource.



Mo Willems and Tony DiTerlizzi, two greats in children's literature, get together to tell the story of the unusual friendship that develops between Flea, a professional flanuer, and Diva, a professional homebody. Flea wanders the streets of Paris in search of whatever is around the corner, and Diva is afraid to even look around the corner, but when Flea happens by Diva's courtyard, they learn to appreciate each other and become friends.



Have you ever wondered where all those cryptids live, and why we never see them?  In this book we find out that they work very hard to stay hidden from humans.  We would ruin their way of life and make a spectacle of them, so Blizz (the yeti) and the other Bigfeet are working hard to stop George Vanquist from getting proof that they exist.

My students have been checking out these books like crazy.  If you want to read them, please visit your library or shop at your local bookstore.

OTTER Award Reading

Here are a few of the transitional chapter books that I have been reading for possible nominees for the 2017 OTTER Award.



The Hound Hotel is a dog grooming and day care center, and Alfie is the kid who gets to live there.  When Molly shows up, she really needs a grooming for her owners' wedding, but she is not going anywhere near a bath, a brush, or even a hose if she has anything to do with it. It becomes Alfie's job to get her clean or he will have to be the flower girl!  A romping story with just enough characters and fun to keep kids interested and reading.



Archie wakes up at midnight thinking that he is finally going to ride along the streets of his town with his father in his old broken-down taxi, a kind of "Take Your Kid to Work" night.  He is eight years, eight months, and eight days old, which is the day that he can finally ride along with his dad.  Archie has no idea what adventures he is going to have, including worm holes, aliens, talking cats, spy rings and an invitation to fight crime! The action doesn't stop in this fun ride along into space.  With a easy to follow story line and interesting characters, I think that students will want to follow Archie in to space on another adventure when they are done.



Meet Mo and Jo, two silly cave boys who just can't seem to figure out what is making some horrible smell in their cave.  Together they try to solve their problems through two to three word sentences, spoken like real cave people, while a narrator uses easy sentences to tell the reader about the action in the story.  The book is very easy to read, almost too easy for the OTTER Award, but would be perfect for those students wanting an introduction to the chapter book or graphic novel format.

Happy Reading!!

Western Washington University Children's Literature Conference

One of my favorite events of the year is coming up at the end of February - the WWU Children's Literature Conference!  Last year was a sell out, and I know quite a few teachers and librarians who were sad they did not sign up early enough to be a part of this wonderful day that celebrates books and authors.

This year will feature four outstanding authors and illustrators:



The people who work on this conference every year put a whole lot of heart and soul into getting top-notch authors and illustrators to come to our little corner of the country.  I appreciate all of their hard work, and I have been fortunate to attend for so many years.  I believe that the conference may be a little different from other author appearances because we all love books and stories so much.  The audience, made up of mainly educators, librarians, and students, is there for the knowledge, wit, and wisdom that are shared.  We come away with ideas for our classrooms, but more than that, I have always gained a greater understanding of these people who create books for us to enjoy. They tell about their personal challenges and triumphs, as well as divulge part of their personalities for me to share with students and other educators.  The conference is well worth it, and I encourage you to sign up if you have not already.

You can learn more using this link:


Hope to see you there!

Up to This Pointe by Jennifer Longo

Welcome to another stop on the blog tour for Up to this Pointe by Jennifer Longo, author of Six Feet Over It.

The book follows the sometimes heart-breaking path of Harper Scott (of the Antarctic Scotts) from insanely hard-working ballerina student in San Francisco to Antarctica for Winter Over.  Harper is in her senior year of high school still following The Plan that she and her best friend Kate created as very young ballet students - Ballet class, graduate early, ballet class, no boys, ballet class, eat almost nothing fun, more ballet class, audition for the San Francisco Ballet Company, become professional ballerinas, live together in their tiny apartment.  Harper and Kate have lived and breathed this plan for ten years, never veering off course, until, of course, the course, the plan, and all the hard work becomes meaningless.  Harper has to discover how to deal with loss and change, and maybe running away to Antarctica will be her answer.

Even though I know very little about ballet, and even less about Antarctica, I was mesmerized by the descriptions of Harper's Nutcracker and of the adelie penguins in their natural habitat. I found myself tearful as I read end of the book while sitting in the middle seat of an airplane, trying hard not to sniffle too loud for my neighbors a foot and a half away.

I heartily recommend this book for teens and older readers, yet I am an elementary librarian, so I decided to look through my own library for books about Antarctica for my students.
Here are a few of my favorites:
            
I picked a few of these up as I was reading this book because I now have great respect for those who choose to live in Antarctica for the sake of research and discovery, and I wanted to know more about those who feel the need to pursue a dream against all odds.

Thank you to Net Galley for letting me read the preview copy of Up to this Pointe. I am happy to be part of the promotion for this book!  I hope I can make it to Village Books in Bellingham on February 6 for Jen Longo's signing.

Happy reading!