Reading Challenge #2 - Rebecca Caudill 2014

In addition to the US Presidential Reading Challenge Plus, I've also given myself a second reading challenge - read all twenty books on the 2014 Rebecca Caudill list. The Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award is a book award chosen by Illinois children in grades 4-8. Each year there are twenty nominations, and kids in grades 4-8 are eligible to vote for their favorite. At our school we have a program called "Book Champs;" once a kid finishes reading one of the R.C. books, they have a discussion with a teacher who has read the same book as their "proof." We weren't able to run the program this year because the 2013 books didn't come in until almost the end of the first semester (oh school library funding, how finicky thou art), but the 2014s are all in. Our school librarian recruited teacher-readers throughout parent/teacher conferences before spring break so I took one home. And then checked out three more from my public library, because they were fun books and fairly quick reads. So I'm thinking, what the heck, with four down already I can finish all twenty by August, right?

All four were enjoyable, but I would be hard-pressed to choose my favorite between "The Lions of Little Rock" and "The Running Dream." "The Running Dream" is about a high school track star who lost her right leg below the knee in a school bus accident on the way home from a meet. It details her recovery, adapting to a prosthetic, and her changed outlook on life - very thought-provoking. "The Lions of Little Rock" takes place in Little Rock in 1958, the year after the "Little Rock Nine" enrolled in Little Rock Central High School. In order to circumvent the order to integrate, the governor of Arkansas led a series of steps which led to all four public high schools in Little Rock closing their doors for the entire 1958-1959 school year. The book chronicles the friendship of a white junior high school girl and a light-skinned "colored" junior high school girl who attempted to "pass" as a white child in order to attend a white school. Excellent, excellent story showing the different perspectives of various members of that community. While I of course knew the story of the Little Rock Nine and the National Guard, etc, I didn't know anything about what happened the next year. Highly recommended read!