bring on the award winners!

I'm thrilled to announce that it's my turn again to host 5 Minutes for Books' Children's Classics monthly carnival for the rest of 2010!  The coolest part, in my humble opinion, is the fantabulously awesome focus for the next six months- an Award Winners Challenge!  I'm telling ya, you've got to click over and check out my explanation, because quite honestly, I'm a little too tired this morning to retype it all out.  Don't worry, I'll wait.

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Okay, you're back, and I trust that you read it and are fully informed.  Right?  Right? 

So the purpose of this post, other than introducing the new challenge, is to declare my goals.  Now that it's summer time (I don't go by the calendar as much as I go by the sweat factor in the DC metro area), and JAM will be out of school in just eight short days, my hope is that we'll be increasing our library stats.  Red just got her very own library card on her birthday last month, and JAM's had his since he was four (my own personal age requirement), so with my card added to the mix to cover Pudge's and my books, we've got a total "spending" capacity of 225 books out at any given time.  Not that I can cart a couple hundred books for the 40 minute walk from the library back home, but you'd be surprised at how easy it is to have 150 or so books sutffed in bags and shoved in a stroller!

The goal is that we're going to use the Caldecott, Newbery, and Coretta Scott King award lists to put several books on hold each week, specifically for this challenge.  It goes well with the kids' participation with the county library's summer reading program, as well, so bonus!

Here's a sneak peek at some titles I hope to share with my little ones, award winning and wonderful:

• My People by Langston Hughes (with Red and Pudge)
• We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson (with JAM)
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (with JAM, or on my own if he's not interested)
• The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo (with JAM, or on my own since I believe he's already read it) 
• Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes (with Red and Pudge)
• Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback (with Red and Pudge)

Those are some titles I'll be searching our library and home shelves for, but I really hope to find lots and lots more!  Won't you join us?  If you think this is a cool reading experience and you'd like to be a part of the community, please visit the 5M4B's Children's Classics Award Winners Challenge post, and join in the fun.


Looking for those shiny stickers on book covers everywhere,