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Showing posts from August, 2015

Battle of the Books book lists!

Battle of the Books lists are now available! Visit my  Battle of the Books page for more information and to view book lists.  I can't wait to get started this year! Here's a display of the winning teams since we started Battle of the Books in the 2010-2011 school year.  

The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier

Many students ask me for "scary stories" or "creepy stories." Some students like to be scared "just a little," while others long for "really scary."  For me,  The Night Gardener  was a perfect mix of great storytelling, mystery, and spine-tingling suspense.  Molly and Kip are two Irish children who traveled across the sea with their parents from Ireland to England in search of a better life.  The Author's Note explains that between 1845-1852, about a million Irish people died of starvation and disease during a time called The Great Famine, and were forced to travel to England and North America. While the story does not explain too much about this part of history, Molly and Kip were fictional children living during this time period, and during their travels they are separated from their parents. They are promised work as servants at a place called The Windsor Estate, but they become very suspicious and fearful of this place when no one ...