And the Answer Is...

This week's question was...

In which book was the protagonist amused because on the first day of class a cute girl told him not to look at her because he “might miss some priceless tidbits?” 

And the answer is...

Curveball: the Year I Lost My Grip by Jordan Sonnenblick

Congratulations to these schools who answered correctly!

Rockwood South Middle
Hazelwood North Middle
Hixson Middle
Sullivan Middle
Brentwood Middle
Hazelwood Northwest Middle
Parkway Northeast Middle
St Clare of Assisi
Oakville Middle
Cross Keys 
Ladue Middle
Brittney Woods
St Gabriel the Archangel

Question of the Week #2

This week's Question of the Week is...

 In which book was the protagonist amused because on the first day of class a cute girl told him not to look at her because he “might miss some priceless tidbits?” 

Remember to include in your answer the title and author of the book along with the name of your school.  Please only one answer per school.

And the Answer Is...

This week's Question of the Week was...

In which book is a young man asked not to water any trees?  

And the answer is... The Mighty Miss Malone


Here are the Schools who got this week's question correct...

Hixson

Rockwood South

Hazelwood Northwest

Brentwood

Thanks for participating a new question will be posted on Monday

Question of the Week #1

Welcome to the Question of the Week.

Every Monday from now until the Book Battle I will be posting a Question of the Week

Each school's team has the opportunity to post one answer per question.

The answer will be revealed every Friday and a list of schools who answered the question correctly will be posted.

The school answering the most questions correctly will be award a prize at the Book Battle.

This week's question is...

In which book is a young man asked not to water any trees?  

 

Remember to name the title of the book and the author's name as it appears on the official Book Battle Book List. Also do not forget to include the name of your school in the post.

Good Luck!

Feature Book of the Week #15 Ungifted by Gordon Korman

Feature Book of the Week

Ungifted 

by

Gordon Korman

The word gifted has never been applied to a kid like Donovan Curtis. It's usually more like Don't try this at home. So when the troublemaker pulls a major prank at his middle school, he thinks he's finally gone too far. But thanks to a mix-up by one of the administrators, instead of getting in trouble, Donovan is sent to the Academy of Scholastic Distinction (ASD), a special program for gifted and talented students.

It wasn't exactly what Donovan had intended, but there couldn't be a more perfect hideout for someone like him. That is, if he can manage to fool people whose IQs are above genius level. And that becomes harder and harder as the students and teachers of ASD grow to realize that Donovan may not be good at math or science (or just about anything). But after an ongoing experiment with a live human (sister), an unforgettably dramatic middle-school dance, and the most astonishing come-from-behind robot victory ever, Donovan shows that his gifts might be exactly what the ASD students never knew they needed. 

About the Author

Welcome to the wonderful world of a regular guy who just happened to write 80-something books for kids and teens.

I was born on October 23, 1963 in Montreal, Canada, and grew up mostly in the Toronto area.

My writing career began virtually by accident when I was in 7^th grade. The track and field coach had to teach English. For creative writing, he gave us total freedom to work on whatever we wanted for the rest of the year. It was February. That added up to a class period per day for more than four months. The result was my first novel, THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING AT MACDONALD HALL.

I sent my manuscript to Scholastic because I was the class monitor for Scholastic Book Orders, and figured I was practically an employee. Seriously. (Full disclosure: my mom had to type my book for me.) It was a totally flukey and random way to launch a publishing career, but here’s the thing: It worked.!THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING AT MACDONALD HALL was published by Scholastic when I was a freshman in high school, and I was on my way.

I’ve been writing for more than three-quarters of my life. My books have been translated into close to 30 languages and have sold over 25 million copies worldwide. I have a BFA degree from New York University with a major in Dramatic Writing and a minor in Film and TV.

I now live on Long Island, outside New York City, with my wife and family. When I’m not writing, you can usually find me driving one of my three kids to some practice or rehearsal or game. Either that, or I’m on the road, appearing at schools, libraries, and bookstores, meeting my readers. Visit Korman's website to see all of his published books

Feature Book of the Week #14 The Young Healer by Frank N. McMillan

Feature Book of the Week

The Young Healer

by 

Frank N. McMillan

In THE YOUNG HEALER tradition meets contemporary when what starts out as just another day becomes anything but that for young Feather Anderson. Her beloved grandfather, a traditional Lakota healer, pulls her out of class one snowy morning and takes her on an old-fashioned vision quest in the heart of New York City in hopes of finding the perfect Lakota medicine. It becomes the most magical day ever for eleven-year-old Feather Anderson, the day she saves her little brother’s life. Feather follows in her grandfather’s footsteps of healing as a medicine man and she then earns her newly-given secret Lakota name.

About the Author

McMillan, 53, began writing after the death of his father. McMillan wondered what he would want to have accomplished when his time was up. The answer was to tell stories and to be published.

"I like writing stories that I would have liked when I was that age," McMillan said. "I like appealing to young people's optimism and idealism. There's this real energy that young people have. I like to kindle that spark."

McMillan's father had a great respect and love for the American Indian culture. His son remembers his father's collection of Tonkawan Indian arrowheads that he found on the family farm in Central Texas. His dad also carved American Indian heads.

It is this childhood memory and a stay on a Montana Indian reservation in the 1990s that inspired McMillan's idea for The Young Healer.

Feature Book of the Week #13 Sophia's War: A Tale of the Revolution

Feature Book of the Week

Sophia's War: A Tale of the Revolution

by Avi

In 1776, young Sophia Calderwood witnesses the execution of Nathan Hale in New York City, which is newly occupied by the British army. Sophia is horrified by the event and resolves to do all she can to help the American cause. Recruited as a spy, she becomes a maid in the home of General Clinton, the supreme commander of the British forces in America. Through her work she becomes aware that someone in the American army might be switching sides, and she uncovers a plot that will grievously damage the Americans if it succeeds. But the identity of the would-be traitor is so shocking that no one believes her, and so Sophia decides to stop the treacherous plot herself, at great personal peril: She’s young, she’s a girl, and she’s running out of time. And if she fails, she’s facing an execution of her own. 

About the Author

Avi is part of a family of writers extending back into the 19th century. Born in 1937 and raised in New York City, Avi was educated in local schools, before going to the Midwest and then back to NYC to complete his education. Starting out as a playwright—while working for many years as a librarian—he began writing books for young people when the first of his kids came along.

His first book was Things That Sometimes Happen, published in 1970, recently reissued. Since then he has published seventy books. Winner of many awards, including the 2003 Newbery award for Crispin: the Cross of Lead (Hyperion), two Newbery Honors, two Horn Book awards, and an O’Dell award, as well as many children’s choice awards, Avi frequently travels to schools around the country to talk to his readers.

Among his most popular books are Crispin: The Cross of Lead, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Nothing But the Truth, the Poppy books,Midnight Magic, and The Fighting Ground.

In 2008 he published The Seer of Shadows (HarperCollins), A Beginning a Muddle and an End (Harcourt),Hard Gold (Hyperion) and "Not Seeing is Believing," a one-act play in the collection Acting Out (Simon and Schuster). City of Orphans was released in 2011, receiving a number of starred reviews, as did his most recent book, Sophia’s War: a Revolutionary War Tale, released in 2012 (Simon & Schuster). Follow Avi on Facebook, where he shares an inside look at his writing process: facebook.com/avi.writer.

Avi lives in Clark, Colorado, with his wife.

Feature Book of the Week #12 Shadow by Michael Morpurgo

Feature Book of the Week

Shadow 

by 

Michael Morpurgo

When a western dog shows up outside the caves in Afghanistan where Aman lives with his mother, Aman is initially repulsed – it is not customary for people to keep dogs as pets in his part of the world. But when Aman and his mother finally decide to make a bid for freedom, the dog Aman has called Shadow will not leave their side. Soon it becomes clear: the destinies of boy and dog are linked, and always will be…

About the Author

Michael Morpurgo is, in his own words, “oldish, married with three children, and a grandfather six times over.” Born in 1943, he attended schools in London, Sussex and Canterbury (one at least of which was horrible enough to inspire him to describe it obliquely in The Butterfly Lion). He went on to London University to study English and French, followed by a step into the teaching profession and a job in a primary school in Kent. It was there that he discovered what he wanted to do.

“We had to read the children a story every day and my lot were bored by the book I was reading. I decided I had to do something and told them the kind of story I used to tell my kids – it was like a soap opera, and they focused on it. I could see there was magic in it for them, and realised there was magic in it for me.”

In 1976 Michael and his wife, Clare, started the charity Farms For City Children (FFCC), which aims to relieve the poverty of experience of young children from inner city and urban areas by providing them with a week in which they work actively and purposefully on farms in the heart of the countryside. They now have three farms – Nethercott in Devon, Treginnis in Wales and Wick in Gloucestershire. “As a teacher I realised many children had little real contact with the world around them – to them the television was real. I wanted them to experience life at first hand.” In the last 30 years over, 50,000 children from cities and towns throughout the UK have spent a week of their lives living and working on one of the three farm.

Living in Devon, listening to Mozart, and working with children have provided most of the stimulae Michael needs to discover and write his stories. He spends about half his life mucking out sheds with the children, feeding sheep or milking cows; the other half he spends dreaming up and writing stories. “For me, the greater part of writing is daydreaming, dreaming the dream of my story until it hatches out – the writing down of it I always find hard. But I love finishing it, then holding the book in my hand and sharing my dream with my readers.” (Bio retrieved from  Michael's website. Check out his other books too.)

Feature Book of the Week #11 Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Feature Book of the Week

Seraphina

by 

Rachel Hartman

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life. 

About the Author

Rachel Hartman’s first YA fantasy novel, SERAPHINA, will be published by Random House on July 10th, 2012.

Rachel was born in Kentucky, but has lived a variety of places including Chicago, PhiladelphiDon Quixoteand the satires of Lucian.” She eschewed graduate school in favour of drawing comic books. She now lives in Vancouver, BC, with her family, their whippet, and a talking frog and salamander (who fight zombies)(really. There are a lot of zombies in the Pacific Northwest). Check out Racheal Hartman's website.