In all grades, the students are reading (or listening to) the books that are nominated for the 2012 CYRMA. This is a statewide contest in which the students, upon completetion of reading, get to vote on his or her favorite of the books. This is a great activity in civic responsibility; but really the students just love to participate and vote.
We tell the students that the winning authors are so pleased to get this award because it is given to them by the very people for whom they write the books. At the acceptance speeches, the authors really do mention this.
Kindergartners through third graders are read the five nominees in the Primary Category. The fourth and fifth graders are read the three nominees in the Picture Books for Older Readers Category. The fourth and fifth graders also have the option of reading the three nominees in the Intermediate Category (this is self-started and completed). A few fifth graders participate in reading the nominees in the Middle School Category.
For more information, please visit the CYRMA website.
This is a delightful series of four (so far, more to come – we hope!) books set in Concord, Massachusetts with a cast of truly likable and realistic cast of characters. When the moms of four sixth grade girls decide to start a mother-daughter book club and introduce Little Women to the girls, we get to watch as the four very different girls become unlikely friends. In seventh grade the girls read Anne of Green Gables; in eighth grade it’s Daddy-Long-Legs; and in ninth the girls read Pride and Prejudice.
As twelve-year-old Florence leaves the London orphanage for her great-uncle’s country manor house, she looks forward to getting to know the family she didn’t know she had. However, upon arrival she learns that her cousin Sophia died the previous year, and that Sophia’s brother James is sick, weakly and bedridden.
By Lauren Myracle. 337 pages, grades 3-5.