Our school is one of the many in the state that are a part of the Rebecca Caudill Award reading program. Students in grades 4-8 read at least 3 books from an annual list of nominations and vote for the one they think is best. Each year a new list of 20 books is posted on the programs website: http://www.rcyrba.org/ and students have a year to read at least three books. The Rebecca Caudill program is a big motivator for many students because they get to vote at the end and our school offers a party to students who read all 20 books. The quality of books is also phenomenal and there is a lot of diversity with genres, plots, characters, so every student can find at least one book they really enjoy. The winner for 2013 was the graphic novel, Smile by Raina Telgemeir. Also, the website is very user friendly, which makes it easy for librarians to register and promote the program within thier school. Finally, students love that they are the ones who vote for the winners and are excited to read the winning novel if they haven't read it yet.
The nominations for 2014 were recently released, so my spring break goal was to read at least nominee. Since I'm a runner, The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen appealed to me. Any former track runner would be able to relate to this book. The main character, Jessica, loses her leg in a terrible accident and goes through the trying process of learning to walk (and run) with a prothestic leg. I really liked this book because I think any athlete could relate to Jessica even though she's a high school girl because the story really focuses on the problems with her leg, not typical high school drama. I'm definitely going to recommend this book to a few of my track all-stars this year and my cross-country team in the fall.
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