Bluestem AwardIllinois Readers Choice Award for grades 3-5

At King School, students in fourth and fifth grade may participate.

How does it work at King School?You may only check out one award nominee each week.You must finish the entire book! You may only renew it ONCE.

After finishing a book, fill out an I Read a Bluestem! sheet. When you turn this in, I'll mark the book off your Bluestem Bingo card.

For every Bluestem nominee that you read, you will be entered in a monthly raffle to win a free book!

If you read 4 nominees in a row on your Bluestem Bingo card, you will receive an extra raffle entry.

How does it work at King School?

Students who read at least 6 of the nominees will be invited to a pizza party in March. At the pizza

party, they will vote for their favorite book.

If you read at least 4 of the nominees, you can still vote for your favorite.

The student who reads the MOST Bluestem nominees will receive a special prize!

I will send the votes to Springfield, where they will be added to the votes of all the other students in Illinois

participating in the program.

the 2012 nominees...

It isn’t that Abby Carson can’t do her schoolwork. She just doesn’t like doing it. And in February a warning letter arrives at her home. Abby will have to repeat sixth grade—unless she meets some specific conditions, including taking on an extra credit project: find a pen pal in a distant country. Seems simple enough.

But when Abby's first letter arrives at a small school in Afghanistan, the teacher takes it to the village elders. And everyone agrees that any letters going back to America must be written well in English. And the only qualified student is a boy, Sadeed Bayat. Except in this village, it is not proper for a boy to correspond with a girl. So Sadeed’s younger sister will write the letters. Except she knows hardly any English. So Sadeed must write the letters. But what about the villagers who believe that girls should not be anywhere near a school? And what about those who believe that any contact with Americans is . . . unhealthy?

As letters flow back and forth—between the prairies of Illinois and the mountains of central Asia, across cultural and religious divides, through the minefields of different lifestyles and traditions—a small group of children begin to speak and listen to each other. And in just a few short weeks, they make important discoveries about their communities, about their world, and most of all, about themselves.

Ivy June Mosely and Catherine Combs, two girls from different parts of Kentucky, are participating in the first seventh-grade student exchange program between their schools. The girls will stay at each other’s homes, attend school together, and record their experience in their journals. Catherine and her family have a beautiful home with plenty of space. Since Ivy June’s house is crowded, she lives with her grandparents. Her Pappaw works in the coal mines supporting four generations of kinfolk. Ivy June can’t wait until he leaves that mine forever and retires. As the girls get closer, they discover they’re more alike than different, especially when they face the terror of not knowing what’s happening to those they love most.

Grace loves cats. She also loves taking pictures of cats and drawing Not So Super comics. She doesn't like Sammy Stringer, a boy in her class. She's got lots and lots of ideas, and when her neighbor's cat goes missing, Grace does her best to make Mrs. Luther feel less lonely. But as the mystery of the missing cat continues, Grace's well-intentioned plan backfires, and she finds herself in a bit of trouble. Maybe, just maybe, Sammy Stringer will help her through.