Newbery and Caldecott award winners at the St. Monica Library

Extra!  Extra!  Read all about it!!!  Hundreds of new books have found a home in the St. Monica School library. Over the last few weeks, picture books, non-fiction books and many, many  fantastic new novels for all ages have migrated into our library collection.
 
Excitingly, some of these books are even awards winners!!  Each year kids are thrilled to find out which new books have won the Caldecott and Newbery Medals.  Here are the 2013 winners:
 
 
The Caldecott Award:

This clever, unassuming, and fun book won the Caldecott Medal for best artwork.  John Klassen is both the author and illustrator of this wonderful book that appeals to children and adults alike!  Click here to learn more about John Klassen and to go to his blog.


John Klassen

The Newbery Medal (for ages 8-12) 2013 award winner is:
  

An easygoing gorilla named Ivan is the narrator of this year’s Newbery Award winner, “The One and Only Ivan,” written by Katherine Applegate.  Ivan has lived for years in a down-and-out circus-themed mall where humans come to watch him and his friends, Stella, an elderly elephant and Bob, a stray dog. Mostly, though, Ivan thinks about art and how he can capture tastes and sounds with colour, until he meets Ruby, a baby elephant who has  been added to the mall attractions and he decides it is up to him to find her a better life.  Go Ivan!!!

We also have many of the runner-up honour books for both awards. Look for those distinctive medals on the front covers!  Winning medals are in gold, honour medals are in silver.

Newbery honour books:

• "Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon" by Steve Sheinkin
• "Three Times Lucky" by Sheila Turnage

Caldecott honour books:

• "Creepy Carrots!" illustrated by Peter Brown, written by Aaron Reynolds
• "Extra Yarn" illustrated by Jon Klassen, written by Mac Barnett
• "Sleep Like a Tiger" illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski, written by Mary Logue

If you would like to learn more about the two awards, click on the medal captions below.  The links will take you to the American Library Association's pages that describe the awards and list past and present winners.

The Caldecott Medal

 

The Newbery Medal
 

And remember parents, whenever you see a book with one of these medals on the cover, you child is reading an outstanding book!!!

Curriculum Information for Parents

I often get parents coming into the library asking for curriculum information for the specific grades that their children are registered in.  A great website to check out that will answer many questions is from the Government of Alberta.  It is the "LearnAlberta" website.

A specific page on this site titled: "My Child's Learning: A Parent Resource" is a fountain of information!!!  You can click on any grade, from Kindergarten to High school and it will load information outlining the topics covered under the curriculum for that particular grade.

It is a fantastic resource!  Check it out here: "My Child's Learning"

St. Monica Spring Book Fair

Our latest Scholastic Book Fair was a great success!  Thank you to all our students, families and staff for support this worthwhile cause.  We always want our kids to be reading, but best of all  50 % of the profits comes back to our school library and your children's classrooms.

 

We are now able to get over $ 1000.00 in new books and school resources!!!  Look for them in the library and classrooms!! 

 

And a huge thank you also goes to our Grade 9 book fair assistants who volunteered to help run the book fair.  Great job: Alana, Clemenzia, Dominic, Greg, Hermela, Kalvin, Pamela and Tomi!!!