Award Picks (Newbery 2014 Version)

Spring Story Time starts up the week of February 24, but until then, we'll be updating the blog with some recommended reading lists.  Be sure to keep your eyes peeled: if you see a blue asterisk next to a suggested book, that means that that title is a patron favorite! Would you like to suggest a book for our recommended reading lists?  Just shoot us an email in the Youth Department!  We'd love to hear from you!

Check out these recommended books from the Newbery Award list (Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures was the 2014 winner!), soon to be on the shelves at Ozark Regional Library!

Cover images and summaries from Goodreads.

Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo- A cynic meets an unlikely superhero in a genre-breaking new novel by master storyteller Kate DiCamillo. It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!, is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry—and that Flora will be changed too, as she discovers the possibility of hope and the promise of a capacious heart. From #1 New York Times best-selling author Kate DiCamillo comes a laugh-out-loud story filled with eccentric, endearing characters and featuring an exciting new format—a novel interspersed with comic-style graphic sequences and full-page illustrations, all rendered in black-and-white by up-and-coming artist K.G. Campbell.

The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes- When Billy Miller has a mishap at the statue of the Jolly Green Giant at the end of summer vacation, he ends up with a big lump on his head. What a way to start second grade, with a lump on your head! As the year goes by, though, Billy figures out how to navigate elementary school, how to appreciate his little sister, and how to be a more grown up and responsible member of the family and a help to his busy working mom and stay-at-home dad. Newbery Honor author and Caldecott Medalist Kevin Henkes delivers a short, satisfying, laugh-out-loud-funny school and family story that features a diorama homework assignment, a school poetry slam, cancelled sleepovers, and epic sibling temper tantrums. Illustrated throughout with black-and-white art by the author, this is a perfect short novel for the early elementary grades.
  

Keep reading!

Shaen