Texas Bluebonnet Award 2017-2018
The Texas Bluebonnet Award nominees for 2017-2018 are here! (They were actually here in November, but I’m just now getting around to them . . .) The Texas Bluebonnet Award (click HERE for the official website) is one of my favorites because kids vote for the winner. Each year, a selection committee chooses 20 books based on suggestions from librarians, kids, parents, and teachers, and the official list is announced at the Texas Book Festival in Austin. Throughout the year, eligible students in grades 3-6 must read (if they want to vote) at least 5 books, and then they vote for their favorite! Last year’s winner was Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson.
If you want to check out the Bluebonnet Award website, it is HERE. Even if you’re not in Texas, you might get some good ideas for your or your kid’s next book. If you go HERE, you can see book trailers for each nominee, or go to the Texas Bluebonnet Award YouTube channel.
I love this award for two reasons. One, anything that encourages and rewards authors, especially authors of quality children’s books, is worth supporting. Two, this award encourages reading for kids. I volunteer at my kids’ school library, and every year I’ve managed to be there when the wonderful librarian announces the books to a few classes and shows them the book trailers. The kids are incredibly enthusiastic, many of them vowing to read all 20 books, and more than a few jumping up and down with excitement. If you didn’t know what was going on, you might think the librarian had announced that summer had come early this year and class was cancelled. All kids should be that excited about reading!
My goal is to fit in the 20 books by the end of the summer. Some of the books are shorter picture books, some are longer chapter novels, and all of them look interesting. I’ll post mini reviews here of each book as I read them. If you want to keep up with my reviews of these books, just select the Texas Bluebonnet Award category from the dropdown menu over on the right!
2016 Winner–Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson
2017-2018 Nominees
–Ada’s Violin by Susan Hood
–The Best Man by Richard Peck
–Follow the Moon Home: A Tale of One Idea, Twenty Kids, and a Hundred Sea Turtles by Philippe Cousteau and Deborah Hopkinson
–The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
–The Great Pet Escape by Victoria Jamieson
–The Great Shelby Holmes by Elizabeth Eulberg
–In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse by Joseph Marshall
–The Key to Extraordinary by Natalie Lloyd
–The Last Kids on Earth by Max Brallier
–Little Cat’s Luck by Marion Dane Bauer
–Lola Levine: Drama Queen by Monica Brown
–The Magnificent Mya Tibbs: Spirit Week Showdown by Crystal Allen
–Maybe a Fox by Kathi Appelt and Allison McGhee
–The Princess and the Warrior by Duncan Tonatiuh
–Soar by Joan Bauer
–Some Kind of Courage by Dan Gemeinhart
–The Storyteller by Evan Turk
–Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes
–Unidentified Suburban Objects by Mike Jung
–Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions by Chris Barton