Poets from Youth Speaks Nashville add their voices to Nashville’s literary census
June 1, 2010 Youth Speaks Nashville gives teens the opportunity to learn and express themselves through spoken-word poetry. Some of its talented young poets will add their voices to Nashville Now: 2010 Spoken Word Census, a portrait of the city in poetry, prose, and song. The three-day series of events will take place at the Darkhorse Theater at 7:30 p.m. on June 3, 4, and 5.
Read moreSiori Koerner’s letter to J.D. Salinger wins the Murfreesboro eighth-grader top honors in the Letters About Literature contest
May 31, 2010 It began as just another school essay, with a due date for a grade. The assignment: to choose a book that speaks to you—any book you wish—and write a letter to its author, explaining how the story sheds new light on your own life experiences. Siori Koerner’s letter to J.D. Salinger ultimately won its author, an eighth grader from Murfreesboro, top honors in this year’s Letters About Literature contest, a national program sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
Read more
Tracy Barrett introduces kids to the descendants of the world’s greatest detective
May 26, 2010 What if Sherlock Holmes had married? And what if that union had produced children, who produced more children, until there were two great-great-great-grandchildren who had inherited their famous ancestor’s detective skills? The siblings would star in a series of detective stories, of course. Welcome to The Sherlock Files by Nashvillian Tracy Barrett.
Read more
Edited by Roberta Herrin and Sheila Quinn Oliver
McFarland
355 pages
$75
Teachers, parents, librarians and others who regularly encourage children and youth to read and who would like to share more books about the Appalachian region have an extensive new resource available to them. … This comprehensive bibliography – volume 26 in McFarland’s “Contributions to Southern Appalachian Studies” series – is a guide to books written about or set in Appalachia from the 18th century to the present. Annotations for the titles include brief reviews, critical analyses of the works, and indication of appropriate grade levels. Entries are indexed by author/title/illustrator and by subject, and appendices include a listing of authors and titles by grade levels and a listing of counties in the Appalachian region as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission.
—from the publisher
Jennifer Holm’s new middle-grade reader captures the Key West of an earlier age
May 19, 2010 From the looks of the dust jacket, you might assume Turtle in Paradise tells a sand ‘n’ surf tale of a lucky young girl luxuriating in a beachside resort, perhaps in pursuit of a boy’s attention. Instead, Jennifer Holm’s wonderful new novel for middle-grade readers takes readers to Depression-era Key West, a place that looks to our heroine, eleven-year-old Turtle, like “a broken chair that’s been left out in the sun to rot.” Two-time Newbery winner Jennifer Holm appears at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on May 20 at 4 p.m.
Read more
By John Carter Cash
Little Simon Inspirations
32 pages
$16.99
“John Carter Cash flies readers to magical castles by the sea as one little girl shares an adventure with her daddy by her side. The special bond between father and daughter protect them from pirates and alligators and guide them on the backs of eagles on which they return to their own home where Daddy tucks his little girl safely in her bed. Daddy reminds his little girl that however far they might roam and however high they fly, his love for his little girl will always keep them safe and strong.”
—from the publisher
Read an interview with John Carter Cash in Chapter 16 here.
