The Cubs Library

How to eat fired worms is a book about a kid named Billy and his friends Alan, Joe, and Tom. Billy thinks it would be so easy to eat worms, he rather eat that than the nasty food he thinks his mother cooks. So Alan makes a bet with Billy that if he can eat fifteen worms in fifteen days Alan would give him $50! If you think that’s easy, what if Joe told Billy that if he didn’t eat the worms, he would tell everyone in school that Billy was afraidy cat? Now would you do that? Find out what obstacles come his way. Will he get sick from eating the worms and lose the bet? Will his friends trick him into forgetting to eat a worm? Will his Mom freak out and call the doctor and the doctor sends him a letter that if he eats more he could throw up a lot, or get a bunch of acne all over his face? And will he eat all the worms and get $50 from Alan? Will Alan get the $50? Find out in How to Eat Fried Worms! I loved this book and hope you enjoy it to!

I’ve been busy adding Caldecott Medal titles to our shelves. Published in 2003, the book tells the true story of Philippe Petit, a man who walked between the twin towers of the World Trade Center on a tightrope. Gerstein won the 2004 Caldecott Medal for his illustrations. I can’t believe we didn’t already own it…but we do NOW!!!

 Calling all girls who like to read fun mysteries! I have just the book for you!

Alice Miranda at School is a story of 7 and 1/4 year old Alice-Miranda Highton-Smith-Kennington-Jones who is attending boarding school for the very first time! When she gets to her new school – the Winchesterfield-Downfordvale Academy for Proper Young Ladies, she quickly realizes that there are some strange things happening.

Why doesn’t the headmistress Miss Grimm ever come out of her office? Why aren’t there any flowers growing on the grounds of the school? Why can’t Mrs. Oliver go on vacation to visit her grandchildren? Leave it to Alice Miranda to find out the answers to these questions and more!

 On Monday, January 23rd, the American Library Association announced the winners of the Newbery, Caldecott and other book awards.

In the children’s book world, this is like the Academy Awards of books. Librarians get pretty excited about the announcement and try for weeks ahead of time to predict the winners. 
Here are the winners for 2012 and ready for you to checkout!!!
John Newbery Medal – for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

Newbery Honor Winners

Randolph Caldecott Medal- to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.

Caldecott Honor Winners-

When twelve-year-old Gratuity (“Tip”) Tucci is assigned to write five pages on “The True Meaning of Smekday” for the National Time Capsule contest, she’s not sure where to begin. When her mom started telling everyone about the messages aliens were sending through a mole on the back of her neck? Maybe on Christmas Eve, when huge, bizarre spaceships descended on the Earth and the aliens – called Boov – abducted her mother? Or when the Boov declared Earth a colony, renamed it “Smekland” (in honor of glorious Captain Smek), and forced all Americans to relocate to Florida via rocketpod? In any case, Gratuity’s story is much, much bigger than the assignment. It involves her unlikely friendship with a renegade Boov mechanic named J.Lo.; a futile journey south to find Gratuity’s mother at the Happy Mouse Kingdom; a cross-country road trip in a hovercar called Slushious; and an outrageous plan to save the Earth from yet another alien invasion.–library catalog

Here’s a little video tutorial created by the Boov to help teach us humans how our holidays have changed since the alien invasion.

Every spring second graders participate in the Flat Stanley Project!  After we read “Flat Stanley” by Jeff Brown we color a Flat Stanley, mail him, and wait to get him back with news of his travels!
To learn more about Flat Stanley click on the official Flat Stanley Project website:
http://www.flatstanley.com/
Here’s a fun YouTube Video showing Flat Stanley’s many adventures around the world!

Using this simple formula you can change your every day name to some racy Star Wars like name! Write your Star Wars Name in the “comment” section under the post and the first three Star Wars fans will receive $5.00 each from KeKa Nubel for their Jog A Thon envelope!  Kaion Bredm and Emmel Vied have already collected $5.00 for their Jog A Thon envelope!  With the Jog A Thon on Friday, there is room for just one more Star Wars fan!

Take the first 3 letters of your first name. Then add the last 2 letters of your last name. Behold: your Star Wars first name! Now take the first 2 letters of your mother’s maiden name. Add the first 3 letters of the city you were born in. Behold: your Star Wars last name!

Let’s do a practice run. Suppose your name is Justin Bieber. Using this formula:

•take the first 3 letters of your first name: J U S
•add the last 2 letters of your last name: E R, giving JUSER
•take the first two letters of your mother’s maiden name. If that was Mallette, it would be: MA
•If you were born in, say, Stratford, taking the first 3 letters gives you STR. This means your Star Wars last name is MASTR

Your complete Star Wars name is… JUSER MASTR

Here is another variation that George Lucas (allegedly) created to determine your Star Wars name. To determine your first name take the first 3 letters of your last name. Now add the first 2 letters of your first name. To contruct your last name, take the first 2 letters of your mother’s maiden name. Add the first 3 letters of the town in which you were born. Let’s have fun with Justin Bieber name again!

•From Justin’s last name we take the first 3 letters: BIE
•Then we add the first 2 letters of his first name: JU and we get BIEJU
•For the last name we take the first 2 letters of Justin’s mother’s maiden name (Mallete): MA
•If we now add the first 3 letters of the town in which he was born (STR) and we end up with the last name MASTR (this gives the same last name as the first method)
Your Star Wars name using this method is BIEJU MASTR.

You get the idea. And once you’ve got the idea, you realise that you can make up your own variations on this theme.

To add some variety, you can start introducing some Star Wars titles like Darth, Grand or Obi Wan. How do the following sound?

•Darth Juser Mastr
•Grand Juser Mastr
•Obi Wan Juser Mastr

 Jack Gantos won the Newbery Medal for his brilliant story, Dead End in Norvelt.

If I told you that you would love a story about a boy who who gets grounded for his entire summer and has to make amends by helping a local senior citizen write obituaries while the story goes on to explore the many facets of death, you’d say, “No way! That story doesn’t sound interesting at all.”Watch the book trailer. Watch the author interview. But read this book!