Silver Birch Award Winner: Record Breaker

This year, I read all of the nominees for the Silver Birch fiction award. They are all middle grade novels. Kids vote on their favourite and there's a big celebration in May. Here's a list of the nominees for this year:

 Ultra by David Carroll

Record Breaker by Robin Stevenson

Eldritch Manor by Kim Thompson

The Metro Dogs of Moscow by Rachelle Delaney

Nobody's Dog by Ria Voros

Neil Flambe and the Tokyo Treasure by Kevin Sylvester

Curse of the Dream Witch by Allan Stratton

The Hypnotists by Gordon Korman

Yesterday's Dead by Pat Bourke

The Awesome, Almost 100% True Adventures of Matt & Craz by Alan Silberberg

My top two favourites were:

 And by popular vote, here's the winner:

The 2014 Silver Birch Fiction Award® Winner
Record Breaker
Robin Stevenson

Wow! How exciting! I really enjoyed this one too. It was short and a touching and emotional story. If you'd like to read my thoughts on this book, check out my Marvelous Middle Grade Monday post on Record Breaker.

Forest of Reading Nominees!

I'm excited because the nominees are out for the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading! Every year kids across Canada read the nominated books and vote for their favourites in the spring. I usually try to read all of the Silver Birch category nominees, and many of the Red Maple ones. But this year I'm going to try to add the Blue Spruce group too.

The Blue Spruce nominees (K - grade 2) include Jon Klassen's This Is Not My Hat, which I've already read, so I have a head start.

I haven't read any of the Silver Birch fiction nominees (grades 3 - 6) yet. I'm looking forward to getting started!

Red Maple nominees (grades 7 and 8)

White Pine nominees (YA)

I didn't realize it until this year, but there are also the Evergreen nominees for adults. They sound interesting too, but I don't know if I'll get to this category!