2015 Crystal KIte Awards part 2

By Susan J Berger
The annual Crystal Kite Award is a peer-given award to recognize great books from 15 SCBWI regional divisions around the world. This is the second post on the 2015 Crystal Kite award. The first is here.
Again: The Crystal Kite is a rather odd award in that there are no Categories. Therefore a picture book may be competing against a young adult novel. 

Midwest (Minnesota/Iowa/Nebraska/Wisconsin/Illinois/Michigan/Indiana/Ohio)

I am Cow, Hear Me Moo by  Jill Esbaum, illustrated by Gus Gordon

Nadine was a truly remarkable cow.
There was nothing she feared –
so she claimed, anyhow.
“Not lightning?” asked Starla. “Loud noises? A rat?”
“I’m not scared,” Nadine boasted, “of any of that.”
“The woods?” asked Annette. “‘Cause that place scares me stiff.”
“Not me,” bragged Nadine, with a proud little sniff.
 

This was not available online. I contacted Jill, via Facebook and she graciously sent the first page to me. I definitely want to read this book. My kind of fun.

New England (Maine/Vermont/New Hampshire/Connecticut/Massachusetts/Rhode Island)

Feathers: Not Just for Flying by  Melissa Stewart, illustrated by Sarah Brannen –
Young naturalists meet sixteen birds in this elegant introduction to the many uses of feathers.

Birds and feathers go together like trees and leaves, like stars and the sky.

Thanks to Melissa Stewart for sending me the first line! I love it.

New York

 Sniffer Dogs: How Dogs (And Their Noses) are Saving The World by Nancy Castaldo –

Eli, a four-year-old bomb-sniffing black Labrador, was assigned to work alongside Marine Pfc. Colton Rusk, an improvised explosive device detection dog handler. The two left for a tour in Afghanistan on September 23, 2010, Colton's twentieth birthday and became inseparable. In fact Colton often broke protocol by letting Eli sleep with him on his cot instead of the regulation kennel on the floor. And on his Facebook page Colton wrote under a photo of Eli, "What's mine is his." There was no question of the bond the two shared.

Southeast (Florida/Georgia/South Carolina/North Carolina/Alabama)

Just a Drop of Water by Kerry Cerra, illustrated by Katy Betz

September 7, 2001

Friday

 

I’d rather dunk my head in a school toilet than run cros country. All the tree branches and roots are like landmines. They slow me down. Besides, I’m not good for long distances –I’m more of a sprinter. You know, get from point A to point B as fast as possible, with a finish line always in sight and no surprises along the way. That’s running. Unfortunately, Coach makes us do cross country in the fall or we can’t run track in the spring. It’s stupid. They’re not the same sport at all.

Southwest (Nevada/Arizona/Utah/Colorado/Wyoming/New Mexico)

All Four Stars by  Tara Dairman 

Chapter 1
A GREAT, BIG FAT AMOUNT OF TROUBLE

Gladys Gatsby stood at the counter with the spout of her father’s heavy blowtorch poised over the ceramic cup. Her finger hovered over the trigger button that was supposed to turn her plain little custards into crunchy, tasty treats. That’s when she heard a car door slam outside.

Texas/Oklahoma

  Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood  by Varsha Bajaj

Chapter 1

Be careful what you wish for.

 

The one thing I want most in life . . . ? Hmm.

Miss Cooper needs to know that? Really?

My eyes dart from Zoey on my right to Priya diagonally across from me to the clock directly above Miss Cooper’s head. Three minutes to the bell. Unlike me, my friends are scribbling furiously.

I know I want to read this.


UK/Ireland

The Year of the Rat by Claire Furniss

 

I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual.”

Virginia Woolf’s diary, 17 February 1922

 

March

 

The traffic light glows red through the rainy windscreen, blurred, clear, blurred again, as the wipers swish to and fro. Below it, in front of us, is the hearse. I try no to look at it.

                                                                                                                      West (Washington/Oregon/Alaska/Idaho/Montana/North Dakota/South Dakota)

 

Be a Change Maker: How to Start Something That Matters by Laurie Ann Thompson 

It's Your Turn Now

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change we seek.
 Barack Obama, 44th President of the United Stated of America in a speech to his supporters in Chicago on February 5, 2008

 

You've heard the saying, "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself." I've found this to be true more often than one might expect. Sometimes it's because other people can't do it. They just don't have t skills or the tools that you do. Other times they just won't do it. It is, after all, what  you want, and it's your definition of right.
I kept reading this online. A very empowering book.

I hope you found a book you want to explore further. What's your favorite book you've read this year?

First Lines from the 2015 Crystal Kite Awards Part One

By Susan J Berger

I love first lines and first paragraphs. I learn so much from them. The annual Crystal Kite Award is a peer-given award to recognize great books from 15 SCBWI regional divisions around the world.  The Crystal Kite is a rather odd award in that there are no Categories. Therefore a picture book may be competing against a young adult novel. This year I am posting the winners.

 Part one: First eight regions. (If you can't stand the suspense, all the winners are posted on the SCBWI website.)

Atlantic (Pennsylvania/Delaware/New Jersey/Wash DC/Virginia/West Virginia/Maryland)

 Pandemic  by Yvonne Ventresca

Chapter 1
As with many serious contagious illnesses, it wasn't immediately apparent what we were dealing with.
 -Blue Flu interview, anonymous US government official
I stood on the smoking corner behind the school reveling in my aloneness.

 

Australia /New Zealand

Karen Blair and Raewyn Caisley - Hello From Nowhere
First line not available.

Eve thought that living in the middle of nowhere was better than living anywhere else in the world . . . Only one thing made Eve sad. She hadn't seen Nan since they left the city long ago. Eve lives in a roadhouse in the middle of the Nullarbor and when her Nan visits one day, Eve shows her all the things that are special about where she lives. A moving celebration of the Australian outback and the special connection between grandparent and grandchild.

California/Hawaii
 

Connie Goldsmith - Bombs Over Bikini: The World’s First Nuclear Disaster

Toxic Snowfall As soon as the war ended, we located the one spot on Earth that hadn't been touched by war and blew it to hell. BOB HOPE, US COMEDIAN, ACTOR AN AUTHOR -1947

March 1, 1954 was not a normal day on Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific Ocean. That morning the US Military exploded the world's first hydrogen bomb -Bravo -on Nam, part of the Bikini Atoll about 75 miles (120 kilometers) away from Rongelap. I want to read this!

Canada
Bog by Karen Krossing –
1
Stone
Bog smelled the humans from across the lake. The stench floated high on the breeze, infecting the stars themselves, and then settled among the branches of the birch trees. What were humans doing on their hunting grounds?

International Other

  A Dance Like Starlight: One Ballerina’s Dream

 by  Kristy Dempsey, illustrated by Floyd Cooper

Stars hardly shine in the New York City sky, with the factories spilling out pillars of smoke and streetlights spreading bright halos round their pin-top faces,
It makes it hard to find a star.
This one is on my MUST READ list. The illustrations are amazing.

Mid-South (Kansas/Louisiana/Arkansas/Tennessee/Kentucky/Missouri/Mississippi)
   

 Faking Normal by Courtney Stevens

Black funeral dress. Black heels. Black headband in my hair. Death has a style all its own. I'm glad I don't have to wear it very often.
I think I want to read this.

Mid-South (Kansas/Louisiana/Arkansas/Tennessee/Kentucky/Missouri/Mississippi)

     Hurricane Boy by  Laura Roach Dragon


Hollis Williams scowled as he stumbled on the same hump of buckled sidewalk he's climbed over almost all eleven years of his life. This time one of the broken sections tilted under his feet. His angry looked snapped into one of wide-eyed surprise, and his arms pinwheeled as he lurched of the chunk into the grass. He kicked the loose slab.

Middle East/India/Asia

Petu Pumpkin: Tooth Troubles by  Arundhati Venkatesh 

The Gap Club
Pushkin looked up from his snack box. He saw his friends huddled together in the corner of the art room. Kiran, Jatin, Sachin and Nitin were all there. Every thirty seconds, Jatin peeped into Kiran's book and copied something down. Pushkin moved closer and peered over Jatin's shoulder to see what he was writing,

I'll post the last seven in three weeks. I hope you found a book really want to read. I found more than one. Write on.