One of our Round 1 judges for Easy Readers and Short Chapter Books this year is Katherine Sokolowski, who blogs at Read, Write, Reflect. She's a 5th grade teacher who uses blogging as a way to reflect on issues of teaching and literacy–and, of course, as a space to review books. Fun fact: She started blogging in 2011 and her first book review was on Kate Messner's Eye of the Storm.
One of the books she and her son enjoyed this year was Cybils short chapter book nominee Iva Honeysuckle Discovers the World, written by Candice Ransom and illustrated by Heather Ross. It's the story of eight-year-old Iva Honeycutt, who combats summer boredom by coming up with an explorer alter ego to go out and look for treasure. In her review, Katherine says:
Iva dreams of being great – of exploring and discovering
things just like her Great-Grandpa. But things start to go awry and Iva has to
rethink her choices. I thoroughly
enjoyed Iva and think many of my students will as well.
Click here to read the full review, plus reviews of a couple more EZ nominees.