February 2009

Elementary Student Book Choice of the Month

Bella & Bean

By Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Atheneum (2009)

40 pages

ISBN-13: 9780689856167

Bella wants to write poems.

Bean wants to go for a walk.

Bella wants to write poems.

Bean wants Bella to look at her cute toes.

Could these two best friends be more different? But as Bean's attempt to coax Bella away from her notepad become ever more over the top, Bella finds her poetry taking unexpected twists.

You might be a Bella or you could be a Bean - either way, this sweet, clever tale will remind you there is perfect poetry to mismatched friends.

Secondary Student Book Choice of the Month

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume 1- The Pox Party

By M.T. Anderson

Candlewick Press (2008)

368 pages

It sounds like a fairy tale. He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest of classical educations. Raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers, the boy and his mother — a princess in exile from a faraway land — are the only persons in their household assigned names.

As the boy's regal mother, Cassiopeia, entertains the house scholars with her beauty and wit, young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians' fanatical studies. Only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments — and his own chilling role in them.

Set against the disquiet of Revolutionary Boston, M. T. Anderson's extraordinary novel takes place at a time when American Patriots rioted and battled to win liberty while African slaves were entreated to risk their lives for a freedom they would never claim. The first of two parts, this deeply provocative novel reimagines the past as an eerie place that has startling resonance for readers today.