September Book Club -- "Eleven" by Patricia Reilly Giff

It's hard to believe that mid-August is here and the first meeting of the 2009-10 Ashburn Kids Book Club is close at hand! Once again we will meet on the first Thursday night of each month at 7 p.m. The first meeting will be on September 3. Please notice that this is actually BEFORE the first day of school. Registration is now open and can be found at this link: http://engagedpatrons.org/EventsRegister.cfm?SiteID=6457&BranchID=454&Branch=Ashburn%20Library&EventID=38561

The book for September is "Eleven" by Patricia Reilly Giff. It is an exciting book about a boy, Sam, who lives happily with his grandfather. On the eve of his eleventh birthday, Sam goes up into the attic in search of birthday gifts he thinks his grandfather has hidden there. But instead of birthday presents, Sam he finds an old newspaper clipping about himself. The newspaper article stirs old distant memories for Sam and he begins to question many things about his life. Eventually, with the help of a new friend at school, Sam is able to solve the mystery and get his questions are answered.

June Book Club: "Kensuke's Kingdom" by Michael Morpurgo

I am late getting my blog updated with our June book club selection. But I thought I should still add it so you can all see how we finished up our book club year. Our last book for this school year was "Kensuke's Kingdom" by the award-winning British author, Michael Morpurgo. This adventure book is one of my favorites...in fact, it is the first time in five years of running the AKBC that I have repeated a book. The very first line of the book is, "I disappeared on the night before my twelfth birthday." Thus begins an intriguing and poignant story that starts in England and ends up halfway around the world where the 12-year-old protagonist, Michael, and his dog, Stella, are thrown overboard off his family's yacht in the middle of the night and end up on a wild and hostile island teaming with screeching gibbons, ravenous mosquitoes, and one very strange human--an old Japanese sailor named Kensuke who has been living alone on the island for years. At first, Kensuke is angry and agitated by Michael's intrusion but slowly they forge a deep friendship. Michael never gives up hope of being rescued, however, and that day finally comes after nearly a year on the island. I don't want to give away the amazing ending so I'll leave it at that. "Kensuke's Kingdom" is a beautifully written tale of family life, survival, and true friendship.

May Book Club: "Love, Ruby Lavender" by Deborah Wiles

Our May meeting of the Ashburn Kids Book Club will be held on Thursday, May 7, 7-8 p.m. We will be discussing the book, Love Ruby Lavender by Deborah Wiles. Ruby is a nine-year-old girl growing up in the small town of Halleluia, Mississippi, a town of "400 good friendly folks and a few old soreheads." Ruby’s best friend is her grandmother, Miss Eula. The book opens with a wonderful scene where Ruby and Miss Eula pull off a daring rescue of "three of the most pitiful-looking, nervous" chickens, chickens bound for slaughter. This starts a summer of adventures, ups and downs, and some growing-up for Ruby. She has to cope with her beloved grandmother going to Hawaii to visit her son whose wife has just had a baby. She has to contend with her "tormenter" Melba Jane. She has to take care of the chickens by herself. And she has to come to terms with her grandfather's death. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and found it to be a refreshing and realistic look at small town life and how seemingly insignificant daily events can take on huge proportions in the minds of children. It also illustrates how important love, support, and kindness are in helping children find their way in life. Join us for the discussion of this wonderful book!

April Book Club: Phineas L. MacGuire...Erupts!

Our April meeting of the Ashburn Kids Book Club will meet on Thursday, April 2, at 7 pm. We will be discussing the book, Phineas L. MacGuire...Erupts, by Frances O'Roark Dowell. This book is one of the titles nominated for this year's Virginia Readers Choice (VRC) Award. It tells the story of a 4th grade boy, Phineas, who loves science and experiments more than anything. Phineas says, "If you're a scientist like me, you're always interested when a problem comes around. Because what you learn when you study science is that if you think hard enough and are willing to take risks, almost every problem has a solution. It's just a matter of discovering what that solution is." This philosophy is put to the test, however, when Phineas is forced to team up with a new boy in the class--a boy who has clashed with Phineas from day one--for the 4th grade science project fair. Phineas puts his scientific problem-solving to good use and, in the process, learns quite a lot about himself and others.

Besides our book discussion, we will also be voting for our favorite VRC books. The votes are due by the first week of April to the Virginia State Reading Association who will compile the votes of children all over the state and then announce the winners of this year's award.

Special Thanks to Our Guest Speaker

For our March meeting of the book club, we were excited to have a guest speaker come and talk about assistive technology. Judie Schoonover, an occupational therapist and assistive technology specialist with the Loudoun County Public Schools, spoke to the book club kids about her job and the many different types of technology she uses to help children overcome their learning disabilities so they can participate fully in a school setting. She brought along many examples of technology--from the very simple to the highly technical--which she passed around and allowed the children to try. She was a wonderful guest speaker and we all enjoyed her presentation. It was a perfect tie-in for the book, Rules by Cynthia Lord.

March Book Club: "Rules" by Cynthia Lord

Our book club for March will meet on Thursday, March 5, and we will be discussing the book, Rules by Cynthia Lord. This Newbery Honor Medal book is one of the books nominated for the Virginia Readers Choice award for 2008-2009. It has also received many other awards--too many to list them all here. The story is about a 12-year-old girl named Catherine who has a younger autistic brother, David. The title of the book comes from all the rules Catherine establishes to help David understand and interact with his world. For example, one rule is: No toys in the fish tank. I'll bet you can guess why she has this rule! Catherine loves her brother and is sensitive to his needs but she is also growing impatient with the responsibilities and embarrassment he brings. Catherine often accompanies her brother to his therapy sessions at a clinic. One day at the clinic Catherine befriends a wheel-chair bound boy, Jason, who can only communicate by pointing to small word cards. Catherine uses her drawing skills to make additional word cards for him and their friendship gradually grows. Catherine experiences some of the same discomfort with Jason that others do in the presence of her brother David. This gives Catherine the opportunity to explore her own thoughts and feelings and begin to look at her world differently. This is a tender and heart-warming book which the author says is loosely based on her own experience raising a son with autism.

February Book Club: Owen & Mzee + Henry's Freedom Box

Our February meeting of the Ashburn Kids Book Club was very busy! We did two books for the month. They were: Henry's Freedom Box by Ellen Levine and Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship by Isabella and Craig Hatkoff.

Henry's Freedom Box retells the true story of a 1849 Virginia slave, Henry "Box" Brown, who desired freedom so badly he devised a method of escape--he mailed himself to freedom by shipping himself in a wooden crate from Richmond to Philadelphia. The wonderful illustrations are by the award-winning artist, Kadir Nelson. The evocative illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to the simple text. Often we think picture books are just for young readers but this book is a good example of a picture book format written for older readers.

Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship tells the story of a baby hippo, Owen, who was orphaned in Kenya as a result of the 2004 tsunami. He was rescued and taken to an animal sanctuary where he formed a most unlikely friendship with a 130 year old Aldabra tortoise, Mzee. The book is illustrated by wonderful photographs that chronicle the whole amazing story. We were able to watch a documentary film about Owen & Mzee downloaded from their website. It was amazing to see such unlikely animals--a mammal and a reptile--form a lifelong bond of friendship. It's hard to explain how this would happen but perhaps the author's simple explanation is the best one, "Science can't always explain what the heart already knows: Our most important friends are sometimes those we least expect."

Both of these books have been nominated for the 2008-2009 Virginia Reader's Choice Award for grades 3-5.