Welcome to the 2013 Caudill Club!

It's time to vote for your favorite Caudill Club book! If you've read or listened to at least three of the nominated books, vote now using the ballot below. Come back in mid-March to learn the winning book.


YOU MUST CAST YOUR VOTE BEFORE 9 P.M. ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2013.

Caudill Club Ballot

Of course, just because voting has started it doesn't mean you have to stop reading! Keep those comments and feedback forms coming in! (And remember that I'll need to have ten Feedback Forms from you if you want to earn a copy of the winning book. If you want to check to see how many you've submitted, just email me at smclaughlin@dppl.org.)


If you can't make a comment below, please fill out the Comment Form here.

Welcome to the 2013 Caudill Club!

Hi! I'm Mrs. McLaughlin (Mrs. M for short) at the Des Plaines Public Library and I'm very excited to welcome you to the 4th year of our online Caudill Club. If you're between the 4th and 8th grade and read at least three of this year's nominated books, you can vote in February for the 2013 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award.

Use the menu on the right to find the book titles. On each page, you'll find a summary of the plot, a picture of its cover and a place to write your review and rate the book. You'll also find links to Web sites that are related to the book. You can even go right to our online catalog to place a hold by clicking on the underlined title!

If you have ideas about what else you'd like to see on the page, please let me know!

I have a question to get you started: I've been (or will be) talking to lots of you during school visits and here at the library. I'm curious -- what books are you looking forward most to reading? Or which ones would you definitely recommend? (To post a Comment, you'll be asked to select an identity. Just pick the button that says "Name/URL" and type your first name and last initial into the box. Ignore the URL box.)

Voting Is Now Open!

It's time to vote for your favorite Caudill Club book! If you've read or listened to at least three of the nominated books, vote now using the ballot below. Come back in mid-March to learn the winning book.


YOU MUST CAST YOUR VOTE BEFORE 9 P.M. ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2012.

Caudill Club Ballot

Of course, just because voting has started it doesn't mean you have to stop reading! Keep those comments and feedback forms coming in! (And remember that I'll need to have ten Feedback Forms from you if you want to earn a copy of the winning book. If you want to check to see how many you've submitted, just email me at smclaughlin@dppl.org.)

Love, Aubrey

Love, Aubrey
While living with her Gram in Vermont, eleven-year-old Aubrey writes letters as a way of dealing with losing her father and sister in a car accident, and then being abandoned by her grief-stricken mother.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

Dark Life

Dark Life
When fifteen-year-old Ty, who has always lived on the ocean floor, joins Topside girl Gemma in the frontier's underworld to seek and stop outlaws who threaten his home, they learn that the government may pose an even greater threat.

Don't forget it fill out your Feedback Form here!

Countdown

Countdown
Franny Chapman just wants some peace. But that's hard to get when her best friend is feuding with her, her sister has disappeared, and her uncle is fighting an old war in his head. Worst of all, everyone is just waiting for a bomb to fall. It's 1962, and it seems the whole country is living in fear.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

Anything but Typical

Anything But Typical
Jason, a twelve-year-old autistic boy who wants to become a writer, relates what his life is lik as he tries to make sense of his world.

Author's Website 

Watch Nora Baskin discuss Anything But Typical




Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

The Year Money Grew on Trees

The Year Money Grew on Trees
In early 1980s New Mexico, thirteen-year-old Jackson Jones recruits his cousins and sisters to help tend an elderly neighbor's neglected apple orchard for the chance to make big money and, perhaps, to own the orchard.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

Bounce

Bounce
Thirteen-year-old Evyn's world is turned upside-down when her father, widowed since she was a toddler, suddenly decides to remarry a woman with six children, move with Ev and her brother from Maine to Boston, and enroll her in private school.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

Born to Fly

Born to Fly
In 1942, an eleven-year-old girl who longs to be a pilot and her family try to manage their lives in Rhode Island when the father goes to fight in World War II.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

Black Radishes

Black Radishes
Gustave and his family, who are Jewish, are forced to flee to the countryside when the Germans occupy France, but to reach Free France which would enable them to escape to America, Gustave must undertake a risky venture into the occupied zone.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

As Easy As Falling Off the Face of the Earth

As Easy As Falling Off the Face of the Earth
A teenaged boy encounters one comedic calamity after another when his train strands him in the middle of nowhere, and everything comes down to luck.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here! 

Turtle in Paradise

Turtle in Paradise
In 1935, when her mother gets a job housekeeping for a woman who does not like children, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to stay with relatives she has never met in faraway Key West, Florida.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

Trash

Trash
Fourteen-year-olds Raphael and Gardo team up with a younger boy, Rat, to figure out the mysteries surrounding a bag Raphael finds during their daily life of sorting through trash in a third-world country's dump.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda
Sixth-grader Tommy and his friends describe their interactions with a paper finger puppet of Yoda, worn by their weird classmate Dwight, as they try to figure out whether or not the puppet can really predict the future. Includes instructions for making Origami Yoda.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

Shooting Kabul

Shooting Kabul
Escaping from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, eleven-year-old Fadi and his family immigrate to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Fadi schemes to return to the Pakistani refugee camp where his little sister was accidentally left behind.

Smile

Smile
From sixth grade through tenth, Raina copes with a variety of dental problems that affect her appearance and how she feels about herself.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

Shooting Kabul

Shooting Kabul
Escaping from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, eleven-year-old Fadi and his family immigrate to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Fadi schemes to return to the Pakistani refugee camp where his little sister was accidentally left behind.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

Out of My Mind

Out of My Mind
Considered by many to be mentally retarded, a brilliant, impatient fifth-grader with cerebral palsy discovers a technological device that will allow her to speak for the first time.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

One Crazy Summer

One Crazy Summer
In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

Inside Out & Back Again

Inside Out & Back Again
Through a series of poems, a young girl chronicles the life-changing year of 1975, when she, her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam and resettle in Alabama.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

Ninth Ward

Ninth Ward
In New Orleans' Ninth Ward, twelve-year-old Lanesha, who can see spirits, and her adopted grandmother have no choice but to stay and weather the storm as Hurricane Katrina bears down upon them.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

How to Survive Middle School

How to Survive Middle School
When thirteen-year-old David Greenberg's best friend makes the start of middle school even worse than he feared it could be, David becomes friends with Penny, who shares his love of television shows and posts one of their skits on YouTube, making them wildly popular--online, at least.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!

The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book
Nobody Owens is a normal boy, except that he has been raised by ghosts and other denizens of the graveyard.

Don't forget to fill out your Feedback Form here!