Well, it’s a little later than it should be, . . . .but the voting is done and the winners have been chosen. Thank you to everyone who voted for the 2014 winners. It was an honor to review each of these books.
To become a Top Book, and in the running for Best Book, a book must receive a 6-star review here at Kid Lit Reviews, released within the 2013 and 2014, and have been reviewed between December 1, 2013 and November 30, 2014. Voting normally occurs in December and the results announced in January. This year the only variation was the actual voting, which took place in March. Hopefully 2015 will be a healthier year and all will go as planned.
So, without any further delay, here are the winners. Congratulations to all.
Best Picture Book
The Grudge Keeper
Author: Mara Rockliff
Illustrator: Eliza Wheeler
Publisher: Peachtree Publishers (April 1, 2014)
x
Best Middle Grade Novel
The Guardian Herd #1: Starfire
Author: Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
Cover Artist: David McClellan
Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Books (September 23, 2014)
x
Best Nonfiction Book
Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker
Author: Patricia Hruby Powell
Illustrator: Christian Robinson
Publisher: Chronicle Books (January 14, 2014)
x
Best Poetry Book
Rhyme Schemer
Author: K. A. Holt
Publisher: Chronicle Books (October 1, 2014)
x
Best Holiday Book
Lobo’s Howliday (The Adventures of Loveable Lobo #5)
Author: C. L. Murphy
Illustrator: C. L. Murphy
Publisher: Peanut Butter Prose (December 1, 2013)
WINNERS: I can offer you the files for your “stamp,” if you are interested. Otherwise this is more bragging rights than anything. Please email (or use contact form). Once again, congratulations to all the winners!
(flags and reading cat © Laura Strickland @ My Cute Graphics)
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Top 10 of 2014 Tagged:
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C.L. Murphy,
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Chronicle Books,
David McClellan,
Eliza Wheeler,
HarperCollins Children’s Books,
Jennifer Lynn Alvarez,
Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker,
K.A. Holt,
Lobo’s Howliday (The Adventures of Loveable Lobo #5),
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The Guardian Herd #1: Starfire 
I’m a few days late to the party, thanks to my participation in the YALSA and ILF events, but I’m happy this morning to share with you this recently recorded interview I did for Katie Davis’ kidlit podcast, Brain Burps About Books.
In addition to discussing Shark Vs. Train and Attack! Boss! Cheat Code!, Katie and I talked quite a bit about my email newsletter, Bartography Express, which I wrote about earlier this year for Cynsations. And in fact, while I was listening to our interview, I was actually putting the finishing touches on this month’s edition.
The November edition includes, among other things, a Q&A with K.A. Holt and a giveaway of her new book, Rhyme Schemer. If you want to receive this issue in your very own inbox and get in the running for the giveaway, you can sign up on my home page.
Many of you may be aware that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but it is also National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month. I was blessed to receive this wonderful book, Rhyme Schemer by K.A. Holt, and I thought this would be the perfect time to shine the spotlight on this well-written tale of bullying and learning from our mistakes.
Kevin Jamison rules the school as a big, mean bully. The beginning of his poetry journal talks about all the kids he picks on—Giant John, Freckle-Faced Kelly, Harry (his teacher’s mole). His parents are doctors, and even though they make a lot of money, Kevin does not consider himself rich. No one notices that he exists, and when they do, it’s only to acknowledge his mistakes. He has four brother’s, and he is the “mistake baby.” So this complicated middle-schooler takes his frustration out through poetry. He has a talent for picking out words in pages of books and turning them into unique poems.
However, when his older brother Petey throws his poetry journal out of the car window on the way to school, Kevin’s position as king of the school takes a downward spiral. One of the boys that he bullies, Robin, finds the notebook and begins to copy pages of poems and secrets for the whole school to see. Kevin switches from bully to bullied. The school begins to torture him; Robin wants to become the poet bandit—ripping pages out of books and creating poems to post around the school—but he wants Kevin to create them. Blackmailed by his poetry journal of secrets, Kevin has no choice but to submit to Robin, which eventually leads to him getting caught. Once Kevin sinks into his darkest place, a few faithful friends who can see past his rock hard outer shell pull him back into the light by recognizing his unique poetry talent. His librarian forces his family to see his talent, which in turn allows him to find faith in himself. Once he finds faith in himself, life only shoots up from there.
I have never read any story of this sort—a story written in verse. I love the fact that Kevin’s poetry inches slowly from words in short lines to actual, rhyming poetry I did not think I’d like it, since I’m not a huge poetry fan, but this story was wonderful. K.A. Holt tells a wonderful story of a bully turning into the bullied. We see the outside forces that go into bullying and how hard it is for middle-grade children to deal with this sort of pain.
Bullying is a much larger problem than people make it out to be nowadays. Whether it is mean comments, physical abuse, blackmail….bullying is problem that needs to be addressed. Encourage children to speak up for themselves and their friends if they are being victimized. If they don’t feel like they can speak, show them different ways to share what is happening to them—like Kevin’s journal.
While Holt’s simplistic plot resolves a bit too neatly, this transformative tale offers important lessons for all persuasions of middle graders, whether bullies or targets, complicit or horrified bystanders.-Kirkus Reviews
Grab your copy of Rhyme Schemer HERE.
Something To Do
This is basically the type of poetry that Kevin composed, except with this, we are not going to deface books—because that is just wrong. With chance poetry. You have a pile of random, set words, and you are allowed to put the words in any order they want. Watch amazing poetry appear before your eyes!
2. Convert Old Books into Personal Journals: Run to Radiance
3. Host a Poetry Reading
- Invite your friends and have them bring some of their favorite prose with
- Make Coffee (Decaf for our young, aspiring poets)
- Have muffins, scones, and other goodies
- Have fun!
4. How Bullying Feels: This is a very compelling video from Pacer.org that I highly recommend families watch together.
What bullying resources would you like to share?
**some of these links are affiliate links
Now Available! The newest children’s book from Audrey Press. Click the image below for more details.
A Year in the Secret Garden.
*JIAB received this book to review. These opinions and reviews are our own.
The post Rhyme Schemer by K.A. Holt Book Review and Activity appeared first on Jump Into A Book.
Don't miss these even if they are catalogued in middle grade. A good story is a good story, right? When I picked up both of these works, from the first pages there was that feeling of instantly knowing these are brilliant books. These are the ones to savor and then share. Go. Find. Them.
"At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting-- he's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It's ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth. From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd-- whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself-- Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined."
A Monster Calls
by Patrick Ness
Candlewick Press, 2013
"Kevin has a bad attitude. He's the one who laughs when you trip and fall. In fact, he may have been the one who tripped you in the first place. He has a real knack for rubbing people the wrong way—and he's even figured out a secret way to do it with poems. But what happens when the tables are turned and he is the one getting picked on? Rhyme Schemer is a touching and hilarious middle-grade novel in verse about one seventh grader's journey from bully-er to bully-ee, as he learns about friendship, family, and the influence that words can have on people's lives."
Rhyme Schemer
by K. A. Holt
Chronicle Books, 2014
So.
There's this kid. Call him Poetry Boy, even Poetry Bandit, if you'd like. Things aren't exactly perfect home. Things aren't precisely perfect at school. But Poetry Boy has his whole life handled. He's king of his own world—finding "easy prey" within the halls, writing poems nobody sees, scratching little insider insults into the pages of old books. It's all cool, life is cool, it's all just fine (believe him), until a kid named Robin finds the book Poetry Boy has been keeping and uses it as blackmail leverage—lending life many shades of intolerable.
(Well, okay, yes. It's true. Poetry Boy might have had a thing or two coming from Robin.)
This is
Rhyme Schemer, K.A. Holt's engaging, clever middle grade novel in verse, which will be released this coming fall by Tamra Tuller and Chronicle Books. I'm celebrating it today because it's poetry month, because my secret poet Elisa of
Undercover really wants to meet the secret schemer, and because I will actually
meet author K.A. Holt in less than a week, in the sunny city of San Antonio.
And because it's just that good. Listen:
Kelly looks at me.
Her head is on her desk, too.
Those freckles are the same color as the desk,
like the desk has splashed a little on her face.
And:
Mrs. Little looks at me sideways.
I know she wants to say something
but I don't want to listen
so I pretend I don't see
her eyes
in the corner of her face
like a hieroglyph.
Fine writing. Fine storytelling. Something very fine to be looking forward to.
WINNERS: I can offer you the files for your “stamp,” if you are interested. Otherwise this is more bragging rights than anything. Please email (or use contact form). Once again, congratulations to all the winners!
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