20082009 Intermediate

1
Volunteer State Book Award

• 2008-2009 Intermediate

2
Whittingtonby Alan Armstrong

• 2006 Newbery Award Honor book.
• A battered stray cat named Whittington shows up
  at a barn in New England looking for a home.
• He earns his keep as a ratter and storyteller and
  tells the story of his namesake Dick
  Whittington.
• An animal fantasy and family story combined with
  the retelling of the English folktale Dick
  Whittington and his Cat.

3
The Penderwicksby Jeanne Birdsall

• -

• During their summer vacation, four sisters and
  their dog spend time with their father at a
  cottage in the Berkshire Mountains.
• Their days are filled with summertime fun that
  includes beautiful well-kept gardens, a
  treasure-filled attic, tame rabbits, and a cook
  who makes delicious gingerbread.
• They also meet Jeffrey whose Mother is not
  thrilled with the Penderwick sisters and the
  trouble they create
• A humorous realistic fiction story.

4
Langstons Train Rideby Robert Burleigh

• Clackety clack clack clack
• Langston Hughes hears the rhythm of the train as
  he travels to see his father in 1920.
• This picture book biography tells the story of
  Langston Hughes rise to becoming a famous writer.

5
Blood on the River James Town in 1607by Elisa
Carbone

• Twelve year old Samuel Collier becomes the page
  of Captain John Smith.
• Samuel boards the ship Susan Constant and travels
  to the New World.
• This historical fiction book includes Samuels
  account of the voyage to Virginia, the first
  winter of James Town, details about food and
  daily life, and stories about Native Americans
  such as Powhatan and Pocahontas.

6
Room One by Andrew Clements

• Ted Hammond attends a one-room school in
  Nebraska.
• In addition to doing chores on his familys farm,
  Ted delivers newspapers, belongs to the 4-H Club,
  and reads mystery stories.
• While delivering papers, Ted sees a face in the
  window of a vacant farmhouse.
• He sets out to solve the mystery of who is living
  in the empty house and why are they there.

7
Bridge to Americaby Linda Glazer

• In 1920 nine-year-old Fievel and his family live
  in fear in a small village in northern Poland.
• Fievels father in America finally sends money
  for the familys passage.
• Once in America Fievel has plenty of food and a
  home with flush toilets and electricity, but the
  other children make fun of him and he struggles
  to become an American boy.
• A realistic fiction story based on the true story
  of a Polish immigrant.
• Use the glossary for hard to pronounce Yiddish
  words.

8
Double Identityby Margaret Haddix

• Twelve-year-old Bethany Cole is left with Myrlie
  Wilker, an aunt she has never met.
• Bethany gradually pieces together information she
  has heard and learns that she is a clone of her
  sister Elizabeth who died many years ago.
• Bethany is hunted by a man who wants to reveal
  her secret.
• A suspense-filled science fiction story.

9
The Amazing Flight of Darius Frobisherby Bill
Harley

• Eleven-year-old Darius Frobishers father
  disappears during a hot-air balloon flight.
• Darius is not allowed to stay with his kind
  housekeeper, but is sent to live with his grouchy
  Aunt Inga.
• While exploring Aunt Ingas neighborhood, Darius
  meets Daedalus, an eccentric man who builds old
  bicycles.
• Darius is convinced that Daedalus is building a
  bicycle that will fly.
• This fantasy story is also combined with some
  suspense.

10
Trappedby Peg Kehret

• -

• Alex Kendrill and his friend Rocky are exploring
  the woods when they discover an illegal animal
  trap.
• With the help of Pete-the-Cat, Alex sets out to
  find out who set the trap.
• Alex, his friends, and his family rescue a hog
  that falls off the back of a truck.
• When hogman comes to reclaim his hog, he
  kidnaps Pete-the-Cat.
• Alex and his family set out to find Pete-the-Cat
  and to solve the mystery of the illegal animal
  traps.

11
The Book of Story Beginningsby Kristin Kludstrup

• In this fantasy story, twelve-year-old Lucy
  Martin and her family move to a home in Iowa
  where Lucy finds a mysterious notebook.
• Lucy hopes to solve the mysterious 1914
  disappearance of her uncle who supposedly rowed
  off in a boat in a magical ocean that lapped at
  the garden gate of Lucys new home.
• When Lucy writes in The Book of Story Beginnings,
  her own father turns into a crow and flies away
  over the ocean.
• Lucy and a cat who turns into a boy named Oscar
  set out to find her father.

• -

12
Punishedby David Lubar

• Logan is playing tag in the library reference
  stacks when he accidentally runs into Professor
  Wordsworth.
• The strange old-man is a wizard who punishes
  Logan by making him speak in puns.
• In order to break the spell Logan must complete
  three quests and locate seven oxymorons, seven
  anagrams, and seven palindromes.
• This story is a hilarious fantasy.

13
Rulesby Cynthia Lord

• Twelve-year-old Catherine is embarrassed by her
  autistic brothers behavior so she creates rules
  for him.
• Each chapter title is a rule.
• Catherines world is also complicated by her
  friendship with a young man who is a paraplegic.
• This realistic fiction story is about being and
  feeling different and finally coming to accept it.

14
Heatby Mike Lupica

• Twelve year-old Cuban immigrant Michael Arroyo
  has been banned from playing Little League
  Baseball because he is big for his age and cannot
  produce a birth certificate.
• Michael has a secret he is hiding from the
  authorities for fear he and his brother will be
  put into foster care.
• His father recently died and the boys are living
  alone.
• This realistic novel tells about Michaels
  struggles with his fathers death, his desire to
  play baseball, and his first girlfriend.

15
A Dogs Lifeby Ann Martin

• -

• In this animal fiction a dog named Squirrel tells
  the story of her life.
• Squirrel is born in a toolshed behind someones
  house.
• When Squirrel is very young, her mother is taken
  from her.
• Squirrel has to make her way in the world on her
  own.
• She faces humans who are kind and others who are
  mean, changing seasons, other animals, and busy
  highways.

16
Journey to the Bottomless Pitby Elizabeth
Mitchell

• -

• The setting for this historical fiction is
  Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.
• Stephen Bishop is a slave whose master purchased
  the cave.
• Stephens job was to explore Mammoth Cave and
  give tours.
• He crawled threw small curvy passageways,
  discovered underground rivers and fish without
  eyes, climbed huge rocks, and walked on a rickety
  ladder across the bottomless pit.

17
Uglyby Donna Napoli

• A modernized retelling of Hans Christian
  Andersons fairy tale The Ugly Duckling.
• A duckling named Ugly is driven away from the
  other ducks because he is different.
• Ugly is attacked by the other ducks and his own
  mother tells him to leave, for his own safety as
  well as the protection of her other ducklings.
• Ugly is finally taken by a friendly possum to a
  pond inhabited by black Tasmanian swans.
• What the swans tell him will forever change the
  way Ugly views himself.

18
Safe at Homeby Sharon Robinson

• -

• Ten-year-old Elijah Breeze, nicknamed Jumper, is
  having a bad summer because his Dad just died,
  his Mother moved them from the suburbs to Harlem,
  and now he has to go to baseball camp.
• Basketball is Jumpers favorite sport.
• He doesn't know anything about baseball, or city
  life, or how to keep going without his dad.
• The author of this realistic fiction is the
  daughter of baseballs famous Jackie Robinson.

19
The Next-Door Dogsby Colby Rodowsky

• -

• Nine-year-old Sara Barker is terrified of dogs.
• Her new neighbor Ms. Harrington has two dogs.
• One day Sara hears the dogs desperately barking
  and someone yelling for help.
• Sara must overcome her fear of dogs if she is
  going to enter the yard and rescue her neighbor.
• Realistic fiction

20
Bella at Midnightby Diane Stanley

• In this Twenty-first Century Cinderella-like
  fairy tale, Bella learns that she has been raised
  by peasants.
• She is the daughter of a knight who now wants her
  to return to live with him and her step-mother.
• The step-mother is cruel to Bella and forces her
  to sleep in the kitchen.
• Bella becomes caught up in a plot that will
  change her life and the kingdom for ever.

21
Listen!By Stephanie Tolan

• Twelve-year-old Charley is recovering from a car
  wreck.
• On her daily walk she finds a stray dog that she
  names Coyote and sets out to tame him.
• While training him, Charley is forced to examine
  her own feelings about her Mothers death two
  years earlier.
• This realistic fiction is the story of the strong
  bond that can develop between humans and animals.

22
Read and Enjoy and Vote!

• -

• Read 3 or more books from the 2008-2009
  Volunteer State Book Award list.
• Vote in your school library during the month of
  March

23
(No Transcript)