Reading Olympics 2010 video

Here is the Animoto for Abington Senior High Reading Olympics 2010--5 teams and tee shirts "Live Free Read Hard"

A good time was had by all!

http://animoto.com/play/mLDCt23Vp31AQZAAk6DlzQ

Ash by Malinda Lo

This is a breath-taking Cinderella story about a courageous girl named Ash, who loses her beloved mother to death but she has instilled in her daughter a love of fairy tales and a belief in magic. It is this belief in the fairy world that continues to sustain Ash as she becomes a stepsister to Anya and Clara,when her father remarries Lady Isobel. Soon after, her father becomes ill and dies. For a short while, Ash is part of this family but alas, things change when Lady Isobel finds that her husband died owing money and she makes Ash repay her father’s debts by becoming a servant in their home. Ash continues to wish for her mother, read her fairy tale book and walk to her mother’s grave. It is here that she meets Sidhean, a fairy who scares her, entrances her, and exerts an unnatural pull on Ash’s feelings. Ash also becomes friendly with Kaisa, the King’s Huntress and learns how to ride, hunt, and escape the desperation in her daily life. When Kaisa asks Ash to participate in the hunt and attend the Prince’s Ball, Ash strikes a deal with Sidhean’s magic knowing she will be in debt to him. Ash is such a strong female protagonist because she continues to search for love and acceptance, never doubts who she is, and is willing to risk everything for love. Lo’s story is enthralling, captivating and beautiful in the many different fairy tales woven throughout by each character.

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr

Samara Taylor is the fifteen year old daughter of a pastor workaholic and a mother who has been drinking so much, that she has landed herself into New Beginnings Recovery Center; her father wants to “officially tell” the congregation when he feels it is right, which is never. Sam is at a point in her life that she is questioning everything; the air conditioning is broken in their house, her ceiling fan is not working, it is the middle of a heat wave, the outside of the house looks like a disaster, all the while her father plunges himself into his congregation while Sam’s world is falling apart. Sam has been the one who has seen her mother drink because of the stress of being a pastor’s wife. Since Sam is the pastor’s daughter, she is part of the youth group and she is afraid of sharing, thinks she might be depressed, and is questioning why now that she is in high school, she is not feeling the understanding, friendship and bonding that she grew up believing existed in her community. Just as Sam is at her lowest, Jody Shaw, a sweet thirteen year old, disappears and the whole town is rocked to the core. There are searches in fields, house to house, and suspicions about suspects begin to permeate throughout the town. As Sam worries about what once was lost, she is also determined to talk to her mother in rehab, bring her home, and faithfully work on a family unit. This is a story of a young teen able to weather an internal storm of doubt and emerge a more secure, stronger daughter and friend. Students will love Zarr’s masterful storytelling, she weaves an engrossing tale of love and the power to heal.

Hate List by Jennifer Brown

What a great debut novel by Jennifer Brown! Imagine you are madly in love with a brooding bad boy and you list the names of everyone you hate in a notebook. Valerie Leftman is this girl, a junior at Garvin High, who has loved Nick Levil for the last few years. They are outcasts and bullied by the popular teens in their school. Only problem is, Nick takes the hate list and begins shooting on May 2 of their junior year after one bully, Christy, breaks Val’s MP3 player. Val desperately tries to stop the shooting, only to be accidentally shot by Nick, who then turns the gun on himself. As Valerie recuperates in the hospital with her leg wound, and also in the in-patient psychiatric ward, she continually replays her relationship with Nick and how she didn’t see what he was planning. Nick had an unhappy home life and Val’s parent’s fights had become very bitter. Her mother is suffocating and distrustful after the shooting and her father is furious with her total lack of judgment. After spending her summer recuperating and seeing a shrink, Dr. Hieler, Valerie decides to return to her high school “to see what’s out there.” There are many students who hate her, but one student, Jessica (who Val dove in front of and saved) continually reaches out and gets Val involved in the senior time capsule project. Throughout her senior year, Val slowly lets go of her love for Nick, realizes her parent’s marriage will not survive, owns up to her role that tragic day, and how to move forward, forgive, apologize, and heal. This is a sad, depressing book with a truly redemptive ending.

The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon

5 STARS
The mesmerizing story of two close brothers who become torn apart by the civil rights tumult in 1968 Chicago. Roland Childs is a civil rights leader and father to Sam and Stick. For as long as they can remember, they have been involved in their father's demonstrations. Sam is the "good son" who always does the expected and Stick has the fiery temper and tests his father's oath of nonviolence. And it is this conflict between father and son that comes between the two brothers. Sam learns that Stick is a member of the Black Panthers Party and thinks he may want to join as well. But Sam is conflicted about many things and is not always definite about what kind of person he wants to be. He cares for Maxie, but she lives in a bad neighborhood and at one point, Sam lies and insults Maxie, and loses her caring and admiration. As Sam continues to question what kind of person he is, who he should give his allegiance to (his father or his brother), events conspire to make Sam question the mythological tale Stick would read to him over and over as a child. What kind of person would he be? Was he the rock or was he the river? A piercing coming of age story of a boy who struggles mightily to become the kind of person both his father and brother envision.

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The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/89640751

Impossible by Nancy Werlin

I have been thinking about this book a lot, musing about the characters and how society is being portrayed in this book. School, family, and friends were always important, a love of home and loyalty to oneself and others was always present in Werlin's world. I thought Lucy was such a strong character who worked hard as an athlete, was a good daughter to Soledad and Leo, a fast friend to Sara and like a sister to Zach as they grow up, and someone who knew what she was about...Even as the past and the curse on her family hurtles in to destroy the calm and security in her life. But in Lucy's world, everyone comes to her aid, doesn't judge her and asks "what can we do to help?" Pure evil manifested itself in Padraig Seeley---he had disdain for the simple beauty of their home, he mocked their goodness, but soon their "magic" is able to defeat him and oh how sweet it is! So what did I learn from this book? I felt that Lucy was sooo loved, she was able to use this strength to free her "family" from this wretched curse and live happily knowing that maybe her life wasn't what she would have chosen----but it was "pure joy-to have the normal problems of being a married teenage mom of a newborn. And count my blessings."