Monday, September 30, 2013

Semi-Final Reading List 2013: Rachael Edition

We have now reached that point in the year when it's time to start narrowing down our choices. To that end, Sam and I have each "nominated" four books for the other party to read. Sam has tasked me with reading: 

The Water Castle, by Megan Frazer Blakemore
Zebra Forest, Adina Rishe Gewirtz
The Real Boy, by Anne Ursu
Courage Has No Color, by Tanya Lee Stone

Then we each chose two additional books from the other person's reading list, so I will also be reading: 

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, by Kathi Appelt
Navigating Early, by Clare Vanderpool

Sometime in November, when we've each read and discussed all twelve of these books, we will announce the final reading list of five books for the Maryland Mock Newbery (in Denton on January 6 - save the date!). If any of you Marylanders would like to get a head start, you can go on the assumption that the final list will be taken from among these twelve books (the six above, plus the six titles Sam is about to reveal).

And.... go!

6 comments:

  1. Great list of books, you guys - but I don't think I understand the two book choice thing. Didn't Sam hate True Blue Scouts and Navigating Early?

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    1. I don't want to speak for Rachael, but we did have a discussion where we thought maybe we should look at a few books that whichever of us reviewed first didn't care for, but that are getting lots of good words in the larger kidlit community. That way we have a better sense of whether I'm just a curmudgeon for disliking TBS and Navigating Early, or whether we can agree on larger issues. That's also why Thing Called Luck ended up on my list.

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    2. Yeah, that's kind of the point of the two book thing. It gives each of us the opportunity to give a second chance to books the other person didn't like.

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    3. Okay, that makes sense. Thanks (both of you) for the clarification!

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    1. But you've read a bunch of YA, from the looks of it! I'm always way behind the curve on that.

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