Never Smile at a Monkey by Steve Jenkins
is the winner of the 2011
Rhode Island Children's Book Award!
Across the state, 7,241 children voted for their favorite of the 20 nominees, and Never Smile at a Monkey won with 1,322 votes!
Our Ashaway School students picked Aventures in Cartooning as their favorite. That book came in second in the state with 1,130 votes. Pretty close results!
Even though only one of our students selected Never Smile at a Monkey as their favorite of the books, 18 of them awarded it a gold star. That means they loved it! I'm happy to say that most of
the stars on our chart of books read are gold. There are also lots of silver stars ("It was good"), a handful of red stars ("It was okay") and some blue stars ("I didn't like it"). We discussed that there is a wide variety of books on the list and that it's okay not to love every single one. What's important is trying out some titles that might be different from the books they tend to pick out on their own and to explore a new genre, format, or author. When I asked the students if anyone really loved a book that they normally wouldn't have selected, most of their hands went up with lots of enthusiasm! I consider that a true success!Keep reading, 4th graders!
The Rooster Games
will be here
before you know it!
