Iowa Children's Choice Award Booktalks

Tadpole

2008-11-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

by Ruth White. In rural Kentucky in 1955, Serilda Collins, single mother of four lively girls, discovers that her orphaned nephew is being subjected to brutality. Click to hear the booktalk.

No dogs allowed!

2008-11-19T20:07:00.000-08:00

by Bill Wallace. Twelve-year-old Kristina, still struggling to come to terms with the death of her beloved horse, finds it difficult to accept the new dog she receives for her birthday. Click to hear the booktalk.

Tiger

2008-11-19T20:06:00.000-08:00

by Jeff Stone. Five young warrior-monk brothers survive an insurrection and must use the ancient arts to avenge their Grandmaster. Click to hear the booktalk.

Bartleby of the Big, Bad Bayou

2008-11-19T20:05:00.000-08:00

by Phyllis Shalant. After making a dangerous voyage down the Mississippi from New York, Bartleby, who had started life as a pet turtle, and his alligator friend Seezer must learn to survive in their true bayou home. Click to hear the booktalk.

A drowned maiden's hair : a melodrama

2008-11-19T20:04:00.000-08:00

by Laura Amy Schlitz. At the Barbary Asylum for Female Orphans, eleven-year-old Maud is adopted by three spinster sisters moonlighting as mediums who take her home and reveal to her the role she will play in their seances. Click to hear the booktalk.

Singing hands

2008-11-19T20:03:00.001-08:00

by Delia Ray. In the late 1940s, twelve-year-old Gussie, a minister's daughter, learns the definition of integrity while helping with a celebration at the Alabama School for the Deaf--her punishment for misdeeds against her deaf parents and their boarders. Click to hear the booktalk.

Archer's quest

2008-11-19T20:02:00.000-08:00

by Linda Sue Park. Twelve-year-old Kevin Kim helps Chu-mong, a legendary king of ancient Korea, return to his own time. Click to hear the booktalk.

Ophie out of Oz

2008-11-19T20:01:00.000-08:00

by Kathleen O'Dell. Fourth-grader Ophelia Peeler has always felt that she was just like Dorothy in Oz, skipping down the yellow brick road, until a move to Oregon, away from her best friend, sends her on a different path. Click to hear the booktalk.

Taking care of Moses

2008-11-19T20:00:00.001-08:00

by Barbara O'Connor. When dissension erupts in the town of Foley, South Carolina, after a baby is left on the steps of the Rock of Ages Baptist Church, eleven-year-old Randall must decide whether or not to keep secret his knowledge of who the foundling's mother is. Click to hear the booktalk.

Roxie and the hooligans

2008-11-19T19:59:00.000-08:00

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Roxie Warbler, the niece of a famous explorer, follows Uncle Dangerfoot's advice on how to survive any crisis when she becomes stranded on an island with a gang of school bullies and a pair of murderous bank robbers. Click to hear the booktalk.

Rules

2008-11-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

by Cynthia Lord. Frustrated at life with an autistic brother, twelve-year-old Catherine longs for a normal existence but her world is further complicated by a friendship with a young paraplegic. Click to hear the booktalk.

Drita, my homegirl

2008-11-19T19:56:00.000-08:00

by Jenny Lombard. When ten-year-old Drita and her family, refugees from Kosovo, move to New York, Drita is teased about not speaking English well, but after a popular student named Maxine is forced to learn about Kosovo as a punishment for teasing Drita, the two girls soon bond. Click to hear the booktalk.

Abduction!

2008-11-19T19:54:00.000-08:00

by Peg Kehret. Thirteen-year-old Bonnie has a feeling of foreboding on the very day that her six-year-old brother Matt and their dog Pookie are abducted, and she becomes involved in a major search effort as well as a frightening adventure. Click to hear the booktalk.

Weedflower

2008-11-19T19:53:00.000-08:00

by Cynthia Kadohata. After twelve-year-old Sumiko and her Japanese-American family are relocated from their flower farm in southern California to an internment camp on a Mojave Indian reservation in Arizona, she helps her family and neighbors, becomes friends with a local Indian boy, and tries to hold on to her dream of owning a flower shop. Click to hear the booktalk.

The sword that cut the burning grass : a samurai mystery

2008-11-19T19:51:00.000-08:00

by Dorothy Hoobler. In his latest adventure in eighteenth-century Japan, fourteen-year-old samurai apprentice Seikei, with the help of a servant girl and an imperious old man, sets out to rescue the young Emperor Yasuhito from his kidnappers. Click to hear the booktalk.

Penny from heaven

2008-11-19T19:50:00.000-08:00

by Jennifer L. Holm. As she turns twelve during the summer of 1953, Penny gains new insights into herself and her family while also learning a secret about her father's death. Click to hear the booktalk.

The million dollar putt

2008-11-19T19:49:00.000-08:00

by Dan Gutman. Assisted by his neighbor, Birdie, blind thirteen-year-old Ed "Bogie" Bogard will win one million dollars if he can sink a ten-foot putt in Hawaii's fifth annual Angus Killick Memorial Tournament. Click to hear the booktalk.

Larry the king of rock and roll

2008-11-19T19:48:00.000-08:00

by Iris Rainer Dart. Not only can Larry the dog talk, he can also sing , but when these unusual talents come to the attention of his family, the public, and dogdom, Larry is faced with problems he never imagined. Click to hear the booktalk.

Saving Grace

2008-11-19T19:47:00.000-08:00

by Priscilla Cummings. When Grace's family is evicted from their Washington, D.C., apartment just before Christmas 1932, and she and her younger brothers are sent to the Mission, Grace wonders what will become of her sick older brother, her pregnant mother, and her out-of-work father. Click to hear the booktalk.

Free baseball

2008-11-19T19:46:00.000-08:00

by Sue Corbett. Angry with his mother for having too little time for him, eleven-year-old Felix takes advantage of an opportunity to become bat boy for a minor league baseball team, hoping to someday be like his father, a famous Cuban outfielder. Click to hear the booktalk.

Victory

2008-11-19T19:44:00.000-08:00

by Susan Cooper. Alternating chapters follow the mysterious connection between a homesick English girl living in present-day America and an eleven-year-old boy serving in the British Royal Navy in 1803, aboard the H.M.S. Victory, commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson. Click to hear the booktalk.

Do you know the monkey man?

2008-11-19T19:43:00.000-08:00

by Dori Hillestad Butler. While searching for the father who left her and her mother ten years ago, thirteen-year-old Samantha begins to believe that the twin sister who supposedly died when they were three years old is still alive. Click to hear the booktalk.

The stolen sapphire: a Samantha mystery

2008-11-19T19:42:00.000-08:00

by Sarah Masters Buckey. Samantha investigates when a valuable jewel is stolen during an ocean liner's transatlantic crossing to Europe. Click to hear the booktalk.

Pieces of Georgia: a novel

2008-11-19T19:40:00.000-08:00

by Jennifer Bryant. In journal entries to her mother, a gifted artist who died suddenly, thirteen-year-old Georgia McCoy reveals how her life changes after she receives an anonymous gift membership to a nearby art museum. Click to hear the booktalk.

Friendship according to Humphrey

2008-11-19T19:34:00.000-08:00

by Betty G. Birney. When Humphrey the hamster returns to Mrs. Brisbane's class after the winter break, a new class pet and some other surprises give him an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of friendship. Click and listen to the booktalk.