Flickr photo by Teresa Thompson
Don’t forget that voting for our Great Library Giveaway ends tonight at 11:59pm Pacific time. If you haven’t voted yet, please do so by looking to the left of this post. The voting poll is at the top of our left sidebar.
If you’d like to know a little more about our three finalists, please go here. Tomorrow we’ll announce the winning library.
Thanks to everyone for participating in our giveaway by either nominating, voting, or donating a book!
We are well into our voting period, but if you haven’t had a chance to vote yet, look to the left sidebar and do so. Voting ends on Tuesday, October 30th, and we’ll announce the winner on Halloween. We can’t wait to see who wins.
Today is our final spotlight for titles in this giveaway. One last thanks to all the authors, publishers, readers, and our our Mixed-Up contributors for donating these books. The entire list of donated books can be found here.
And now, the spotlights. All descriptions are by Indiebound:
The Boy Project: Notes and Observations of Kara McAllister by Kami Kinard
Description: For anyone who’s ever felt that boys were a different species….
Wildly creative seventh grader Kara McAllister just had her best idea yet. She’s going to take notes on all of the boys in her grade (and a few elsewhere) in order to answer a seemingly simple question: How can she get a boyfriend?
But Kara’s project turns out to be a lot more complicated than she imagined. Soon there are secrets, lies, and an embarrassing incident in the boy’s bathroom. Plus, Kara has to deal with mean girls, her slightly spacey BFF, and some surprising uses for duct tape. Still, if Kara’s research leads her to the right boy, everything may just be worth it. . . .
Full of charts and graphs, heart and humor, this hilarious debut will resonate with tweens everywhere.
Charlie’s Raven by Jean Craighead George
Description: So Charlie brings home Blue Sky, a baby raven with a big personality. Blue Sky imprints on Charlie and becomes a great friend and a source of amazement to the whole family. Granddad, an old naturalist, is intrigued, and he does seem to get better-at least for a while. But caring for a wild creature is very demanding, and as Blue Sky grows, Charlie must find a way to protect him from the many dangers-both natural and human-made-in the rugged Teton Mountains where they live. Weaving natural history, myth, and a family narrative about life and death, Jean Craighead George demonstrates once again why she is one of the most admired children’s writers today. Blue Sky will take his place in readers’ hearts beside Frightful of My Side of the Mountain as one of this author’s most compelling animal characters.
The Mask of Destiny by Richard Newsome
Description: Gerald, Sam, and Ruby are attending the murder trial of Sir Mason Green, hoping to see their longtime enemy put away for good.
But just as the trial is about to begin, Mason Green is killed–and Gerald is framed for the murder. And he has only one choice: to run.
This is book three in the Archer Legacy series.
Riley Mack and the Other Known Troublemakers by Chris Grabenstein
Description:
What do you get when you add up
1 middle-school bully
2 bank robbers
57 dogs in peril
4,000 missing dollars
and
5 daring troublemakers
led by the one and only
“Riley Mack”?
1 crazy caper
In this merry, mischievous romp, master storyteller Chris Grabenstein introduces Riley Mack–a twelve-year-old hometown hero you’ll never forget.
What Happened on Fox Street By Tricia Springstubb
Description:
Fox Street was a dead end. In Mo Wren’s opinion, this was only one of many wonderful, distinguishing things about it.
Mo lives on Fox Street with her dad and little sister, the Wild Child. Their house is in the middle of the block—right where a heart would be, if the street were a person. Fox Street has everything: a piano player, a fix-it man, the city’s best burrito makers, a woman who cuts Mo’s hair just right, not to mention a certain boy who wants to teach her how to skateboard. There’s even a mean, spooky old lady, if ringing doorbells and running away, or leaving dead mice in mailboxes, is your idea of fun. Summers are Mo’s favorite time, because her best friend, Mercedes, comes to stay.
Most important, though, Fox Street is where all Mo’s memories of her mother live. The idea of anything changing on Fox Street is unimaginable—until it isn’t.
This is the story of one unforgettable summer—a summer of alarming letters, mysterious errands, and surprising revelations—and how a tuft of bright red fur gives Mo the courage she needs.
What’s that, Mr. Spell-Checker? You say I’ve misspelled science?
I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Mr. Spell-Checker. My letter choice was entirely intentional.
I’m on a crusade. A sciency fiction crusade.
Sciency fiction is not science fiction. Sciency fiction is not at all speculative. It is not set in the future. Sciency fiction depicts actual current (or current for the time if historical) science. Although the characters and situations can be fictional, the science is not.
I made up the term, I admit, and Google is on my spell-checker’s team, misdirecting my searches every time. I have an ally across the pond in Tom Webb, who independently proposed the term for grown-up books.
Who reads sciency fiction? Kurtis Scaletta does. Back in August of 2011, he wrote a post on this blog about science fiction.
“To me, science fiction is fiction infused with science. … I quite like fiction that conveys some understanding about the workings of the universe.”
Kurtis is a fiction lover to whom science is an added bonus. He gains an appreciation of science through novels.
Then there are those who start out loving science. You know the kids—obsessed with dinosaurs, or rocks, or rockets. They love nonfiction. They eat up books like Guinness World Records or Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Novels are not their thing, and they only read them when assigned in school–and then grudgingly.
One day, one of these kids—my son, actually–got a look at The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages. It’s a novel set at Los Alamos during the development of the atomic bomb. The book is populated by scientists. Dewey, the young protagonist is smart and inquisitive, with a definite sciency sensibility. My son gobbled up this book and its sequel, White Sands, Red Menace, in five days. But he told me it got boring near the end. Why? Because the science aspect was downplayed and the focus was on Dewey’s emotional journey.
That observation was a revelation for me. While the emotional journey of the protagonist was compelling, it wasn’t enough for him. He needed more than emotion to hold his interest. I stocked our bookshelves with more sciency novels, and then steampunk and science fiction and fantasy. Now he asks me to get novels for him from the library.
My son is a science lover who learned to appreciate narrative fiction through sciency fiction.
Good sciency fiction combines a compelling story with interesting science, and it can serve is a bridge between science and fiction. Got a student who only reads nonfiction about science? Got a student who doesn’t care for science class, but loves a good story?
Give them both some sciency fiction.
Where to start? Here’s a list.
Kurtis included some great titles in his post, including
The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
The Apprenticeship of Lucas Whitaker by Cynthia DeFelice
Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass
He also included some more speculative titles in his list and mentions Isaac Asimov several times.
“The paragon for me will always be Isaac Asimov, a knowledgeable science-minded author. Asimov made his work true to science the way a historical novelist would be true to history… Science was my worst subject in school, but authors like Asimov made science lucid and compelling while telling a good story.”
Some people like their science real, so I’m limiting my list to those titles where the science is not speculative at all.
101 Ways to Bug Your Teacher by Lee Wardlaw
Brendan Buckley’s Universe and Everything in It by Sundee T. Frazier
Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
Nerd Camp by Elissa Brent Weissman
Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo by Greg Leitich Smith
Phineas L. MacGuire . . . Erupts! By Frances O’Roark Dowell
Samantha Hansen Has Rocks in Her Head by Nancy Viau
Back in April, I wrote a post for this blog about sciency novels that address environmental sciences—Eco-fiction if you will. That list is here.
I like to call my debut novel, The Reinvention of Edison Thomas, sciency fiction. It just came out in paperback, and to celebrate, I’m giving away the remainder of my Advance Reader Copies in one big giveaway. If you would like your school or library to have a teaching set of up to 15 ARCs, leave the name of the library or school in the comments, along with the title of your favorite sciency novel (it can be one I’ve listed, or something else) and the number of copies you’ll need. Enter by 11:59 CDT Saturday October 27. Winner will be announced October 28.
Jacqueline Houtman spent 27 years in school so she could be a scientist. Now she’s a freelance science writer and middle-grade novelist–living proof that biology (or chemistry or physics) is not destiny. Find out more at www.jhoutman.com.
