Reading groups or solo?

[Anna]

Hi tell us how you got involved in reading the Carnegie books. Have you followed it before? Are you part of a reading groups or going solo?
Any ideas for group activities will be very welcome!

The official website is here:
http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/2...

[Elizabeth]

Hi Anna

Nice to see you here again! If you have time to add the books please do. I will get round to it soon if not. I run several shadowing groups and I love it! Another heavy list again this year for the Carnegie. It's a shame that not much comedy gets on. I do like the discussions that the tougher subjects bring though.

[Karen]

Great to be part of this group again!! I take an yr 9 Able Girls group and shadow the Carnegie. Having read Blood Family I am very concerned about the language used by the policeman in part 1 and wonder why Anne Fine felt this was necessary, the sentence added nothing and now it makes it a school librarians nightmare!.

[Anna]

Hi Karen Hi Elizabeth Great to hear from you both again! I have just spent this morning downloading my Kindles. We had a first meeting this week. I'm hoping some hard copies will be in by next Tuesday but Amazon pretty much looked out of stock on some of the titles :(

Let me know if you want help moderating Elizabeth? I agree the books sounds pretty heavy but we are still commenting on Verity over her and Wonder has remained popular so perhaps its not a bad thing.

I'll interested to know what your yr 9s think of the language Karen! I've put the 14+ and 11+ on different side of the information sheet so the students can make a choice. I have to say with yr 9 top set I would expect them to cope with the language and deal with it maturely. Perhaps turn it into a debating issue with your group.

[Karen]

Thanks for the top tip Anna, just seemed a shame to have it there. What did you think?

[Anna]

LOL, I'm seriously behind you! So far I have managed to order all my books, download my Kindles and get my group registered on the site. Sounds simple but its taken me a week to sort out all the lost passwords etc.

I'm hoping we get at least some books delivered by Tuesday - our next meeting. A colleague says all the books are sold out locally and never Amazon's stock looked thin on the ground! Once the kids have taken their share for holiday reading I'm hoping there will be a couple of Kindles left for staff. I suspect I won't start reading till we break up as I have exams all next week. *sigh* still. Something to look forward to.

[Rach (pagesofpiper)]

Hi everyone, I'm new here, I've been looking for a Carnegie/Greenaway group for a couple of years but obviously missed you guys last year.

This year I'm reading with a friend, previously I've not succeeded in reading the shortlist. I run a teen book group and it's the first year I've got very enthusiastic teens (for dystopia... but I'm hoping to sway them more towards Carnegie). They do the shadowing in the schools but I'm hoping to introduce those who are new to Carnegie to the shadowing.

I'm looking forward to discussing with you all :)

[Anna]

Hi Rachel, great to meet you!
I haven't started reading yet so I don't know if we have any dystopian in this years Shortlist though The Wall sounds promising.

If your readers are interested in dystopia, make sure they check out Maggot Moon and the Patrick Ness Chaos Walking series. Both are fabulous ex Carnegie winners.

Maggot Moon won in 2013 (short and a great introduction to dystopian for 12-14 but it has some shocking scenes so could be equally YA). Chaos Walking - won in 2011 (definately YA- this series left my Carnegie readers gagging for more for 3 years!) .

Maggot Moon
The Knife of Never Letting Go
The Ask and the Answer
Monsters of Men

[Rach (pagesofpiper)]

Yes, I absolutely loved Maggot Moon and Chaos Walking series, I've recommended them Maggot Moon but forgot about The Knife of Never Letting Go! Thanks :D

I'll post what I think about The Wall when more people have read it ;)

[Anna]

The Mortal Engines/Predator Cities series is also beautifully written, do you know it? The protagonists are a bit younger though.

[Rach (pagesofpiper)]

Yes I've ready the first one :) If you enjoyed that, have you read The Cloud Hunters?

[Elizabeth]

Hi Rachel, glad that you have found us. I run several groups in different schools but I love this group as it creates different discussions which then allows me to take some different thoughts back to my groups.

I am on my first one liar and spy will let you all know soon what I think.

[Karen]

I'm quite lucky in getting my books as my local education library service organise a meeting 2 days after the short list is announced where we can pick up our books. They also produce a really good criteria booklet for the students so they can keep track of what they think against the criteria rather than whether they like it or not.

Just to let you know, I showed my Headteacher the crude language in Blood Family and we decided that it was not appropriate for yr 9s and I will be making it 6th form only.

[Rach (pagesofpiper)]

The criteria booklet sounds good, how is it laid out?

[Karen]

The booklet has some background about the Carnegie award, a page for each book with the Carnegie criteria, each criteria can be marked out of 5 and then they total up the score, a page for the summary of marks so the can see their winner. It also has space for the students to comment. It is A5 size and a useful tool to get student to analyse characters, plot etc.

[Rach (pagesofpiper)]

Oooh thank you, I might try to replicate it :)

[Anna]

@Karen - interesting I handed out my books today - most of the group are yr 8 at the moment. Sounds like I should steel myself for some complaints! Having said that so many of our girls were reading 50 shades a year ago - when i challenged them they siad their mum/aunt had bought it for them!

@Rachel - No I've not heard of Cloud Hunters I'll look that up thanks.

[Anna]

Is it the same cover artist as A Boy and a Bear in a Boat?

[Karen]

Re bad choice of language in Blood Family - go to page 62

[Elizabeth]

Love your booklet idea, Karen. Think I might just be pinching that one :)

[Anna]

Out of interest does the total ever match the judges choice?

[Karen]

Rarely!! The students tend to award more if they like the story, as anyone would, as the characters in a plot that is engaging for their age group is going to score more highly. Over the past couple of years I have thought that they should do a separate KS3 and 4 award. Has anyone looked at the Booktrust Best Book award for yrs12-14? All of the 4 books have an interest age of 13+ - bizarre! I feel that has older YA fiction has improved they have left out the tweenagers - particularly those with lower reading ages.

[Anna]

No I've not looked at that. I followed the red house, but since I no longer have a dedicated librarian I've just stuck to Carnegie.

[Anna]

Did anyone subscribe to Read for My School this year? I heard about it too late.

[Karen]

I did but it wasn't very successful as I had no support from the English faculty. As is the mantra of all librarians - I will try again next year!!

[Anna]

lol Perhaps we should get together! I didn't hear about it in time to get my librarian onto it.
How does it work? Is it worth doing? Any problems to look out for? I think they are planning to run it next year. My daughter had it at her school but she didn't seem very impressed - accessibility I think was the problem for her.

[Elizabeth]

I have not hear of read for my school. I will have to look into that myself. Going back to previous discussions about winners our students never choose the real winner...not sure what that says about the judging! One of our librarians has got onto the judging panel for next year so there will be a little more insight into how it all works which will be interesting.

[Rach (pagesofpiper)]

Anna wrote: "Is it the same cover artist as A Boy and a Bear in a Boat?
"

I hadn't noticed that! They do look very similar.

[Anna]

I wonder if success in the Carnegie is reflected in sales? I think the publishers have missed a trick this year, I went into Waterstones fully intending to buy two; Rooftoppers and another and came out with Rooftoppers only. The only other book they had in was Ghost Hawk and unlike Rooftoppers it wasn't on a deal of any kind so cost £7.99. Since my daughter looked very unimpressed, I left it- thought I'd try the schools copies first. Do they want people to go to Amazon?