Discuss @ Carroll County Public Library discussion

The Black-Eyed Susan Book Award is a children's choice award for the state of Maryland. Each year the Black-Eyed Susan Book Award is given to authors and/or illustrators of outstanding books chosen for the award by Maryland students. The award seeks to promote literacy and lifelong reading habits by encouraging students to read quality, contemporary literature.
Each year we choose a selection of books from this list to make up our Battle of the Books list for Elementary and Middle School.
For this month’s reading challenge, read one of the books from either list and share your thoughts. Here is a link to the book lists http://library.carr.org/programs/BOB.asp

My favorite book from the elementary list is "Big Bad Ironclad". This graphic novel tells the story of the ironclads and the civil war in an interesting way. I recommend this series to kids a lot. It's a quick easy read and the illustration panels fit the book perfectly.

My favorite book from the middle school list is "Far Far Away". I highly recommended listening to this on audiobook. This is a wonderfully crafted dark fairy tale for teens and even adults.

The Black-Eyed Susan nominees make for great reading lists when you are hunting for your next read!

I liked "On the Day I Died". It's very cleverly written and filled with dark humor.

I like Marcie wonder about the hidden mystery within "Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library" but loved "Kizzy Ann Stamps". How can you not love a story about a girl and her Border Collie and how their relationship made her special!

Mr. Lemoncello's Library hidden mystery was revealed by a group member at the BEST conference this weekend. I know the secret...if you'd like to hear it just send me a request. I won't spoil it by posting!

So far I've read Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library and about 1/2 of The Unsinkable Walker Bean.

As far as the Lemoncello book, the main character has a line (about half way through?) that could double as my one sentence review of the book, "Mr. Lemoncello is kind of like Willy Wonka". That about sums it up for me.

I suppose that makes The Unsinkable Walker Bean my favorite BES book. Which is weird, because I'm having a hard time imagining the average middle school student getting into that book. Ah well. I'll post some updated thoughts if I finish the book :)

I am reading Explorer: The Mystery Boxes for this challenge. I like how the different stories revolve around a central theme (should you open this box or shouldn't you?) and that they're each drawn by a different artist (this one is a graphic novel). Not what I usually read, but very cool.

My favorite is Poison by Bridget Zinn. I love that there were twists and turns that I didn't see coming. After all of the fantasy books I've read, that is a bit of a rare find for me. Plus, who doesn't just love Rosie the pig?

Counting by 7's was most excellent! Loved the writing style, the audio version is great too.
I also liked sugar.