Charlie May Simon Awards 2010-2011

Charlie May Simon: 1897-1977 The first prominent children’s book author from Arkansas. Wrote almost 30 books in her lifetime. Married to another writer. The two lived in a home overlooking the Arkansas River in Little Rock. An award was created in her name in 1971, and is given to an outstanding book chosen by Arkansas students in grades 4-6

Last year’s winner was Winner: Honor Book: Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen No Talking by Andrew Clements Honor Book: Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen

Let’s Meet this year’s nominees!

AFGHAN DREAMS: Young voices of Afghanistan By: Tony O’Brien and Mike Sullivan A collection of personal stories from several children of diverse ages and backgrounds living in war ravaged Afghanistan provides insight into their fears, dreams, inspirations, and aspirations as they come to terms with the great change and loss around them.

BIRD LAKE MOON By: Kevin Henkes Twelve-year-old Mitch and his mother are spending the summer with his grandparents at Bird Lake after his parents separate, and ten-year-old Spencer and his family have returned to the lake where Spencer’s older brother drowned long ago. As the boys become friends and spend time together, each of them begins to heal.

THE DIAMOND OF DARKHOLD By: Jeanne DuPrau When a roamer trades them an ancient book with only a few pages remaining, Lina and Doon return to Ember to seek the machine the book seems to describe in hopes that it will get their new community, Sparks, through the winter.

ELEVEN By: Patricia Reilly Giff When Sam, an orphan, who can barely read, discovers an old newspaper clipping just before his eleventh birthday, it brings forth the memories from his past, and, with the help of a new friend at school and the castle they are building for a school project, his questions are eventually answered.

FEARLESS by: Elvira Woodruff In late seventeenth-century England, motherless eleven-year-old Digory Bieale is forced to leave his hometown when his father is believed to be lost at sea. Digory becomes an apprentice to the architect Henry Winstanley, who has built a lighthouse on the treacherous Eddystone Reef – the very rocks that sank Digory’s grandfather’s ship years before.

HATE THAT CAT by: Sharon Creech Jack is studying poetry again in school, and he continues to write poems reflecting his understanding of famous poems and how they relate to his life.

THE HOPE CHEST by: Karen Schwabach When 11-year-old Violet runs away from home in 1920 and takes the train to New York City to find her older sister who is a suffragist, she falls in with people her parents would call “the wrong sort,” and ends up in Nashville, TN where “Suffs” and “Antis” are gathered, awaiting the crucial vote on the Nineteenth Amendment.

KEEPING SCORE by: Linda Sue Park In Brooklyn in 1951, a die-hard Giants fan teaches nine-year-old Maggie, who is a “Bums” (Dodgers) fan, how to use a technique to keep score of a baseball game, which creates a special friendship between them.

LOST AND FOUND by: Andrew Clements Twelve-year-old identical twins Jay and Ray have long resented that everyone treats them as one person, and so they hatch a plot to take advantage of a clerical error at their new school and pretend they are just one person.

SAVVY by: Ingrid Law Recounts the adventures of Mibs Beaumont, whose thirteenth birthday has revealed her “Savvy” – a magical power unique to each member of her family – just as her father is injured in a terrible accident.

THE WILLOUGHBYS By: Lois Lowry In this tongue-in-cheek take on classic themes in children’s literature, the four Willoughby children set about to become “deserving orphans” after their neglectful parents embark on a treacherous around-the-world adventure, leaving them in the care of an odious nanny.

SWINDLE by Gordan Korman After unscrupulous collector S. Wendell Palomino cons him out of a valuable baseball card, sixth-grader Griffin Ping puts together a band of misfits to break into Palomino’s heavily guarded store and steal the card back.

THE UNDERNEATH by: Kathi Appelt An old hound that has been chained up at his hateful owner’s run-down shack, and two kittens born underneath the house, endure separation, danger, and many other tribulations.

How to Vote Read at least 3 of the nominated books and you will be eligible to vote for the Charlie May Simon winner this spring! Vote in your school library!