Media Center workers recently completed their digital storytelling projects on a fiction novel. You can view the digital booktalks at the following link:
Digital Booktalks
Digital Booktalks
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
5 stars - Incredible book, page-turner, exciting!!! Can't wait for the sequel and movie release!
Suzanne Collins has done it again! Just like the Underworld Chronicles, she has written a riveting new series that YA and adult readers will find irresistible.
Katniss is the spunky, admirable main character in this futuristic novel. The story takes place in Panem. The capitol of Panem with its 12 outlying districts "celebrate" a gruesome annual event that's viewed by everyone - the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games seem like a virtual reality video game - except the horrors are experienced in real life by the children who live in Panem.
Each year two children's names are drawn from each district to participate in the Hunger Games. The group must compete and fight in order to determine the winner. The only way to win this game is to stay alive - and to destroy all others before they destroy you. When Katniss's little sister's name is drawn from this year's participants, she quickly volunteers to take her place. Katniss knows she is poorer and weaker than the other participants, but she has skills they lack: determination, survival instincts, superior hunting skills, and a fierce need to save her family from their current plight of starvation and misery.
Though the odds are against her, Katniss emerges as a strong competitor - and a crowd favorite. The greatest threat to survival is not the life-threatening starvation and dehydration she faces, nor the blood-thirsty, cruel children from other districts. Katniss must contend with her feelings for another competitor, Peeta. Peeta seems to care for her and protect her, but isn't it all an act? Will he betray her in the end? How can she destroy the only love she has ever known?
There will only be one winner, but this victory will come at a great cost.
Amazing story, readers will be hooked
Summer Reading for Teachers
Several of our teachers selected Top Tiger Book Award Nominee titles to read and blog about over the summer! You can read their reviews under the comments link.
Here are two videos highlighting the 2009-2010 Top Tiger Books. Students may partipate in our Top Tiger Book Award program by reading four titles and turning in a book form or blogging about their selected books. In order to qualify for the pizza/voting party and participate in selecting the school winner, all requirements must be fulfilled by January 28th.
The first video is a shorter version.
After Tupac and D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson
Four stars
Neeka and her best friend had been tight since they were little kids - being hauled around in their onesies by their mamas. They always thought it would be the two them, sitting on Neeka's stoop, laughing and cutting up. Then they met D Foster.
D was crazy beautiful. Even Neeka's hot brother, Jayjones, got goofy around her. D's life wasn't so pretty. Her mom was hooked on drugs and D had been passed around from one foster home to another. At least Flo bought food with the state money.
The narrator and Neeka had their own set of problems, too. Neeka had to catch grief about her older brother, Nash. Then Nash gets locked up over something stupid. The narrator didn't know her daddy and times were always tough for her and her mama.
Only one person seemed to know what each girl was feeling - Tupac. Tupac's songs and dope lyrics always spoke to their hearts.
No matter what happened, even if they lost touch with one another, and D was lost to them forever, Neeka, the narrator, and D knew what they had together was real. As real as the pain in Tupac's voice.
