And the winner is...

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate!

Our second place finisher was Chris Colfer's The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell

And in third place, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein

BOTB School Championship

It was one of the closest, most well-fought Battles I have witnessed. Thank you to each and every participant! Our winner, for a second consecutive year, was the fifth grade red team  of Aaron, Will, Tea, Ryan and Myalin.

Battle of the Books

Scenes from the Fifth Grade BOTB championship round. These were three very qualified teams!

Bookmarks for everyone

We all know how important a good bookmark is for keeping your place when you are deep into a good story. It is so frustrating when you need to put your book down and don't have a bookmark handy! Thanks to an enterprising group of fifth graders, you should never have this problem again.

Ella, Inc., a newly formed enterprise enlists the talents of lower school artists to hand draw bookmarks, which are then distributed for free.
Founder Ella S. has organized ten fellow students, who create the bookmarks during read alouds, recess, and at home. They are: Ryan, Maya, Sally, Tea, Mya, Keira, Nate, Alex, Will and Josie.
The idea came to Ella when during a a recent classroom read aloud, her teacher's bookmark fell out of the book. "I thought I'd make her a new one," said Ella. "The idea took off from there."
To date, they have created over 100 bookmarks which they give away at no cost.
A recent supply of the brightly colored bookmarks recently arrived in the library and are available at the circulation desk. Many promote the MCBA program.
"We wanted to encourage kids to read," said Ella. "And it's fun."

What to read next

We still have over three weeks left in this year's MCBA program, so if you haven't qualified yet there is still plenty of time to finish your five books.



Wondering what you will read once MCBA ends? 25-reader Aaron in the fifth grade has compiled a terrific list of his top 25 books for children in grades 3-6. His list includes classics, past MCBA nominees, and new books. He has  included many of my favorite authors (Dan Gutman! Rebecca Stead!) Thanks for sharing this with us Aaron!
You can view Aaron's list here.  You may also view the resource list of which of his choices are available in the Bement library here.

T-Day Trivia 2/4

How old are Alex and Connor when they receive a very special book?

















Margaret had the correct answer---they are 12. Good job!

T-Day Trivia 2/2

Happy groundhog's day!
Who wrote the poem, "Ring-around the Cow"?

It was Lucy, in Fly Away. Alex is on a roll, with another winner!