2011 Edgar Award Winner

The 2011 Edgar Awards were presented on April 28, 2011 and the winner for Best Juvenile Mystery went to...


....The Buddy Files: The Case of the Lost Boy by Dori Hillestad Butler

While searching for his mysteriously lost human family, Buddy the dog is adopted by another family and helps solve the mystery of their missing boy.

Congrats!

Other nominees for Best Juvenile Mystery were:

• Zora and Me by Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon
  


• The Haunting of Charles Dickens by Lewis Buzbee



• Griff Carver: Hallway Patrol by Jim Krieg



• The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman by Ben H. Winters

Other books by Kate Klise

If you are enjoying Regarding the Fountain, here are other books by Kate Klise that you might like to read as well:

Grounded (2010)

After her father, brother, and sister are killed in a plane crash, twelve-year-old Daralynn's life in tiny Digginsville, Missouri, proceeds as her mother turns angry and embittered, her grandmother becomes senile, and her flamboyant aunt continues to run the Summer Sunset Retirement Home for Distinguished Gentlemen, while being courted by the owner of the town's new crematorium.

Deliver Us From Normal (2005)

With a mother who buys Christmas cards in August and a younger brother who describes the Trinity as a toasted marshmallow on a graham cracker, life for eleven-year-old Charles Harrisong is anything but normal in Normal, Illinois.

Trial By Journal (2001)

In this illustrated novel told through journal entries, news clippings, and letters, twelve-year-old Lily finds herself on the jury of a murder trial while conducting her own undercover investigation of the case.

And coming in May 2011...

Til Death Do Us Bark (43 Old Cemetery Road, Book 3)

When a dog arrives at Spence Mansion, Seymour is overjoyed. His adoptive parents, Ignatius B. Grumply and Olive C. Spence, are less enthusiastic—especially when Secret, the dog, begins barking all night long. Is it possible Secret just misses his old companion, the late Noah Breth, whose children are fighting like cats and dogs over their father’s money? Or does Secret have a secret that, in the end, will make the entire town of Ghastly howl with delight?

Author Kate Klise

Kate Klise is the author of our May book, Regarding the Fountain. She has written many books for children including others in the Regarding series (Regarding the Trees, Regarding the Sink, Regarding the Bees) and her newest series, 43 Old Cemetery Road. She and her sister M. Sarah Klise (illustrator for many of Kate's books) have a terrific website with lots of information about their books and an interesting biography.

May Book Selection

The May book will be Regarding the Fountain by Kate Klise, the Youth Reading Across Rhode Island Book for 2010-2011! We will meet on Monday, May 16th to discuss the book and celebrate another year of Book Buddies. This will be our last meeting of this school year so I hope everyone will come and help us celebrate! When the principal asks a fifth-grader to write a letter regarding the purchase of a new drinking fountain for their school, he finds that all sorts of chaos results.

April Meeting Wrap-Up

The Book Buddies Book Club met this past Monday, April 11th, to discuss our April book, Turtle in Paradise. We had a terrific discussion and a surprise guest!

We all like the book and thought that it had some interesting surprises. We liked Turtle and felt that she wasn't a typical girly girl - she doesn't like babies or Shirley Temple - and that she was very opinionated. We thought that she experienced a real culture shock in Key West, not only the location but the large extended family which was very different than what she was used to in New Jersey with just her mom and Archie. We talked about how Turtle was very realistic and her mom more of a dreamer - she always looked for the happy side of everything which tended to make her blind to life's pitfalls. We thought that in life it is better to be more realistic that way when something bad happens you will be more prepared for it.

We talked a lot about Turtle's extended family, her cousins and grandmother she didn't know was alive. We discussed the time period, the Great Depression, and how that affected Turtle's life and her family. We felt that Turtle was upset about being sent to Key West away from her mother but that her mom didn't really have a choice and probably thought she was doing the right thing. She needed to take the housekeeping job and unfortunately Turtle was not allowed to be with her.

We talked about the Diaper Gang and how Turtle's relationship with the boys in the gang changed over the course of the book. Initially no girls were allowed in the gang but by the end Turtle had proven herself and was allowed to join.

Turtle's shoes were very symbolic in the story and we talked about how Turtle felt about her shoes. When she first arrived in Key West she was proud to have shoes but overtime she stopped wearing them because no one wore shoes and it was really too hot to wear them anyway. But when they were stolen, Turtle was very upset. And then later the only thing she bought for herself with the treasure money was a new pair of shoes. We thought that the shoes represented her old home and the family she had with her mom and Archie. They reminded her of home because Archie had bought them for her and so having them stolen felt like another piece of her family was taken away from her.

Finally we talked a lot about the ending which we had mixed feelings about. Some of us didn't like it - it was definitely a surprise ending. Just when you think Turtle will get her "hollywood ending" it's snatched out from under her. But we thought about how Archie leaving and Turtle and her mom staying in Key West might actually be a good thing - the best thing for them - and how it might actually lead to a happier future.

The club members enjoyed reaing historical fiction and would very much recommend Turtle in Paradise to their friends.

Following our discussion, we went online and looked at the author's website as well as the youtube book trailor and other websites posted in prior blog posts.

Our surprise guest was a photographer from Newport This Week! Our picture will be in the paper today - Thursday, April 14th. Check us out!

Thanks to all the Book Buddies club members for coming!

Meeting Reminder

Just a reminder that the Book Buddies Book Club will meet this Monday, April 11th at 3:30pm in the John Clarke Children's Program Room to discuss our April book, Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm. Join us for a great book discussion, snacks and activities!

Hope to see you there!

Turtle in Paradise Activites

In Turtle in Paradise, Turtle finds a map which she uses to locate the lost treasure of the pirate, Black Caesar. If you like maps and using them to find things, check out the National Park Service's Reading a Map activity.

Or try one of these online treasure hunts:

Can You See What I See? Cool Collections

Can You See What I See? Dream Machine

Can You See What I See? Once Upon a Time

Can You See What I See? Don't Blink

Turtle in Paradise Book Covers

Which do you like better? How would you design the book cover?

Historical Fiction

Turtle in Paradise takes places in 1935 during the Great Depression. If you enjoy historical fiction, here are a few other books you might like:

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker is the daughter of a drifter who, in the summer of 1936, sends her to stay with an old friend in Manifest, Kansas, where he grew up, and where she hopes to find out some things about his past.

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

In the summer of 1968, after traveling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

In central Texas in 1899, eleven-year-old Callie Vee Tate is instructed to be a lady by her mother, learns about love from the older three of her six brothers, and studies the natural world with her grandfather, the latter of which leads to an important discovery.