The MASL Award Nominees

As a Missouri teacher, and a co-founder of a St Louis based Area Wide Book Battle, the Missouri Association of School Librarian is one source that I go to for books. Each year the MASL takes recommendations from students, teachers, librarians, and parents to compile a list of books that follow certain guidelines. These guidelines include age appropriateness, author eligibility, literary value, and consideration of a variety of other goals including genre, political, social, and gender diversity. The awards that affect the age group that I teach and blog about are the Twain Award, given to books that represent grade four through six, the Truman Award, which represents grades six through eight, and the Gateway Award, which represents grades nine through twelve. The 2010-2011 book list for the Twain, Truman, and Gateway nominees came out a couple weeks ago and can be view on the MASL web site.

So what, you might well ask? Well, as I look forward to winter break, I am also looking forward to doing a bit more reading than I normally have time for, and since I am still a newbie at the book blog scene and have yet to garner any soon to be released titles from publishers, I read the books that I either buy from the bookstores, or can borrow from the library.  With so many books out there, I figure if I use a list complied by students, teachers, librarians, and parents that I can help turn on not only my students to great reads, but maybe anyone who stumbles upon this blog.

Here are a few of the titles I have selected:

•  Go Big or Go Home  by Will Hobbs
  
• The White Gates  by Bonnie Ramthum
• Chains  by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Stolen Children  by Peg Kehert
  
• The Seer of Shadows  by Avi
• The Compound by S.A. Bodeen
• Good Enough  by Paula Yoo
• Stealing Heaven  by Elizabeth Scott 
• Gone  by Michael Grant