Texas Bluebonnet Reading List 2020

The Bluebonnet reading list is near and dear to my heart. When my kids were each in 5th-grade, they participated in the Battle of the Bluebonnets. This is a competition where each school in the district have kids competing in a trivia competition. There are two questions each for each of the twenty books on the list. To show my support, I also read each of the books from the list. 

 

The Bluebonnet Reading List consists of a mixture of non-fiction, chapter books, picture books, poetry, and graphic novels geared at kids from 3rd to 6th grade. I think that they are a great mixture of books for kids. 

• A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech that Inspired a Nation by Barry Wittenstein. Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney ( Neal Porter Books / Holiday House Publishing, Inc., 2019)
• Much has been written about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1963 March on Washington. But there's little on his legendary speech and how he came to write it.
  
  Martin Luther King, Jr. was once asked if the hardest part of preaching was knowing where to begin. No, he said. The hardest part is knowing where to end. "It's terrible to be circling up there without a place to land."
  
  Finding this place to land was what Martin Luther King, Jr. struggled with, alongside advisors and fellow speech writers, in the Willard Hotel the night before the March on Washington, where he gave his historic "I Have a Dream" speech. But those famous words were never intended to be heard on that day, not even written down for that day, not even once.
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• A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry (Greenwillow, an imprint of HarperCollinsP ublishing, 2019) 
• Swift, a young wolf cub, lives with his pack in the mountains learning to hunt, competing with his brothers and sisters for hierarchy, and watching over a new litter of cubs. Then a rival pack attacks, and Swift and his family scatter.

  Alone and scared, Swift must flee and find a new home. His journey takes him a remarkable one thousand miles across the Pacific Northwest. The trip is full of peril, and Swift encounters forest fires, hunters, highways, and hunger before he finds his new home.

  Inspired by the extraordinary true story of a wolf named OR-7 (or Journey), this irresistible tale of survival invites readers to experience and imagine what it would be like to be one of the most misunderstood animals on earth. This gripping and appealing novel about family, courage, loyalty, and the natural world is for fans of Fred Gipson’s Old Yeller and Katherine Applegate’s Endling.

  Includes black-and-white illustrations throughout and a map as well as information about the real wolf who inspired the novel.

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• Bernice Buttman, Model Citizen by Niki Lenz (Random House Publishing, 2019) 
• When you're a Buttman, the label "bully" comes with the territory, and Bernice lives up to her name. But life as a bully is lonely, and if there's one thing Bernice really wants (even more than becoming a Hollywood stuntwoman), it's a true friend.
  
  After her mom skedaddles and leaves her in a new town with her aunt (who is also a real live nun), Bernice decides to mend her ways and become a model citizen. If her plan works, she just might be able to get herself to Hollywood Hills Stunt Camp! But it's hard to be kind when no one shows you kindness, so a few cheesy pranks may still be up her sleeve.
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• Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2019) 
• Cat and her brother Chicken have always had a very special bond--Cat is one of the few people who can keep Chicken happy. When he has a "meltdown" she's the one who scratches his back and reads his favorite story. She's the one who knows what Chicken needs. Since their mom has had to work double-hard to keep their family afloat after their father passed away, Cat has been the glue holding her family together.
  
  But even the strongest glue sometimes struggles to hold. When a summer trip doesn't go according to plan, Cat and Chicken end up spending three weeks with grandparents they never knew. For the first time in years, Cat has the opportunity to be a kid again, and the journey she takes shows that even the most broken or strained relationships can be healed if people take the time to walk in one another's shoes.
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• Charlie Hernandez and the League of Shadows by Ryan Calejo (Aladdin Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books, 2018) 
• Charlie Hernández has always been proud of his Latin American heritage. He loves the culture, the art, and especially the myths. Thanks to his abuela’s stories, Charlie possesses an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the monsters and ghouls who have spent the last five hundred years haunting the imaginations of children all across the Iberian Peninsula, as well as Central and South America. And even though his grandmother sometimes hinted that the tales might be more than mere myth, Charlie’s always been a pragmatist. Even barely out of diapers, he knew the stories were just make-believe—nothing more than intricately woven fables meant to keep little kids from misbehaving.
  
  But when Charlie begins to experience freaky bodily manifestations—ones all too similar to those described by his grandma in his favorite legend—he is suddenly swept up in a world where the mythical beings he’s spent his entire life hearing about seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Hispanic folklore and into his life. And even stranger, they seem to know more about him than he knows about himself.
  
  Soon, Charlie finds himself in the middle of an ancient battle between La Liga, a secret society of legendary mythological beings sworn to protect the Land of the Living, and La Mano Negra (a.k.a. the Black Hand), a cabal of evil spirits determined to rule mankind. With only the help of his lifelong crush, Violet Rey, and his grandmother’s stories to guide him, Charlie must navigate a world where monsters and brujas rule and things he couldn’t possibly imagine go bump in the night. That is, if he has any hope of discovering what’s happening to him and saving his missing parents (oh, and maybe even the world).
  
  No pressure, muchacho.
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• Frankie Sparks & the Class Pet by Megan Frazer Blakemore, illustrated by Nadja Sarell (Aladdin, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books, 2019) 
• The best thing EVER is happening in Frankie Sparks’s third grade class: They are getting a class pet! Their teacher, Miss Cupid, tells them they will vote on their pet, but it has to meet some “parameters.” Their pet must:
  
  1. Fit in aquarium.
  2. Cost less than $50.
  3. Be easily portable.
  4. Be able to be left alone for the weekend.
  
  Frankie thinks that a rat—just like the rats in her beloved Aunt Gina’s lab—would be the perfect fit. But her best friend, Maya, doesn’t think a rat would be great at all. They are kind of gross and not as cool as a hermit crab, which is Maya’s top choice. Using her special workshop, can Frankie find a way to convince her teacher and her best friend that Team Rat is the way to go?
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• From an Idea to Disney: How Imagination Built a World of Magic by Lowey Bundy Sichol, illustrated by C.S. Jennings (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2019) 
• “I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing—that it was all started by a mouse.” —Walt Disney
  
  Today, the Walt Disney Company is the biggest entertainment company in the world with theme parks, TV shows, movie studios, merchandise, the most recognizable cartoon character in the world, Mickey Mouse. But a long time ago, brothers Walt and Roy Disney started out with just an idea. Find out more about Disney’s history, the business, and the brand in this illustrated nonfiction book!
  • Find out what Walt first intended to name his famous mouse. (Hint: It wasn’t Mickey!)
  • Discover behind-the-scenes magic of how Walt Disney World is run.
  • Explore the ways the Disney expanded its brand from a little mouse into media, merchandise, and more!
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• Greystone Secrets #1: The Strangers by Margaret Petersen Haddix (Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, 2019) 
• The Greystone kids thought they knew. Chess has always been the protector over his younger siblings, Emma loves math, and Finn does what Finn does best—acting silly and being adored. They’ve been a happy family, just the three of them and their mom.

  But everything changes when reports of three kidnapped children reach the Greystone kids, and they’re shocked by the startling similarities between themselves and these complete strangers. The other kids share their same first and middle names. They’re the same ages. They even have identical birthdays. Who, exactly, are these strangers?

  Before Chess, Emma, and Finn can question their mom about it, she takes off on a sudden work trip and leaves them in the care of Ms. Morales and her daughter, Natalie. But puzzling clues left behind lead to complex codes, hidden rooms, and a dangerous secret that will turn their world upside down.

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• If I Built a School by Chris Van Dusen (Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2019) 
• My school will amaze you. My school will astound.
  By far the most fabulous school to be found!
  Perfectly planned and impeccably clean.
  On a scale, 1 to 10, it's more like 15!
  And learning is fun in a place that's fun, too.
  
  If Jack built a school, there would be hover desks and pop-up textbooks, skydiving wind tunnels and a trampoline basketball court in the gym, a robo-chef to serve lunch in the cafeteria, field trips to Mars, and a whole lot more. The inventive boy who described his ideal car and house in previous books is dreaming even bigger this time.
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• New Kid by Jerry Craft (Harper an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, 2019) 
• Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.
  As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds—and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?
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• Nightbooks by J.A. White (Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, 2018) 
• Alex’s original hair-raising tales are the only thing keeping the witch Natacha happy, but soon he’ll run out of pages to read from and be trapped forever. He’s loved scary stories his whole life, and he knows most don’t have a happily ever after. Now that Alex is trapped in a true terrifying tale, he’s desperate for a different ending—and a way out of this twisted place.
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• No More Poems! A Book in Verse That Just Gets Worse by Rhett Miller, illustrated by Dan Santat (Little Brown and Company, 2019) 
• In the tradition of Shel Silverstein, these poems bring a fresh new twist to the classic dilemmas of childhood as well as a perceptive eye to the foibles of modern family life. Full of clever wordplay and bright visual gags--and toilet humor to spare--these twenty-three rhyming poems make for an ideal read-aloud experience.
  
  Taking on the subjects of a bullying baseball coach and annoying little brothers with equally sly humor, renowned lyricist Rhett Miller's clever verses will have the whole family cackling.
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• Pass Go and Collect $200: The Real Story of How MONOPOLY Was Invented by Tanya Lee Stone, illustrated by Steven Salerno (Christy Ottaviano Books / Henry Holt, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, 2018) 
• In the late 1800s lived Lizzie Magie, a clever and charismatic woman with a strong sense of justice. Waves of urban migration drew Lizzie’s attention to rising financial inequality. One day she had an idea: create a game that shows the unfairness of the landlord-tenant relationship. But game players seemed to have the most fun pretending to be wealthy landowners. Enter Charles Darrow, a marketer and salesman with a vision for transforming Lizzie’s game into an exciting staple of American family entertainment. Features back matter that includes "Monopoly Math" word problems and equations. Excellent STEM connections and resources.
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• Rocket to the Moon (Big Ideas That Changed the World) by Don Brown (Amulet, an imprint of Abrams Books, 2019) 
• “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong said those iconic words when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. But it wasn’t just one man who got us to the moon—there was a whole team of people, plus centuries of discoveries and technologies that came before, that made it possible. From ancient Chinese rockets to the first steps on the moon, Rocket to the Moon! reveals which “bombs bursting in air” inspired the writer of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” why the Russians wanted to launch a dog into Earth’s atmosphere, and how exactly astronauts are able to go to the bathroom while in a rocket far off in space!
   
  Big Ideas That Changed the World is a graphic novel series that celebrates the hard-won succession of ideas that ultimately changed the world. Humor, drama, and art unite to tell the story of events, discoveries, and ingenuity over time that led humans to come up with a big idea and then make it come true.
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• Stay by Bobbie Pyron (Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishing, 2019) 
• Piper’s life is turned upside down when her family moves into a shelter in a whole new city. She misses her house, her friends, and her privacy—and she hates being labeled the homeless girl at her new school.

  But while Hope House offers her new challenges, it also brings new friendships, like the girls in Firefly Girls Troop 423 and a sweet street dog named Baby. So when Baby’s person goes missing, Piper knows she has to help. But helping means finding the courage to trust herself and her new friends, no matter what anyone says about them—before Baby gets taken away for good.

  Told in alternating perspectives, this classic and heartfelt animal tale proclaims the importance of hope, the power of story, and the true meaning of home.

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• Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxier (Amulet, an imprint of Abrams Books,  2018) 
• It's been five years since the Sweep disappeared. Orphaned and alone, Nan Sparrow had no other choice but to work for a ruthless chimney sweep named Wilkie Crudd. She spends her days sweeping out chimneys. The job is dangerous and thankless, but with her wits and will, Nan has managed to beat the deadly odds time and time again.
   
  When Nan gets stuck in a chimney fire, she fears the end has come. Instead, she wakes to find herself unharmed in an abandoned attic. And she is not alone. Huddled in the corner is a mysterious creature—a golem—made from soot and ash.
   
  Sweep is the story of a girl and her monster. Together, these two outcasts carve out a new life—saving each other in the process. Lyrically told by one of today's most powerful storytellers, Sweep is a heartrending adventure about the everlasting gifts of friendship and wonder.
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• The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman (Nancy Paulsen, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2019) 
• Four determined homeless children make a life for themselves in Padma Venkatraman's stirring middle-grade debut.
  
  Life is harsh on the teeming streets of Chennai, India, so when runaway sisters Viji and Rukku arrive, their prospects look grim. Very quickly, eleven-year-old Viji discovers how vulnerable they are in this uncaring, dangerous world. Fortunately, the girls find shelter--and friendship--on an abandoned bridge that's also the hideout of Muthi and Arul, two homeless boys, and the four of them soon form a family of sorts. And while making their living scavenging the city's trash heaps is the pits, the kids find plenty to take pride in, too. After all, they are now the bosses of themselves and no longer dependent on untrustworthy adults. But when illness strikes, Viji must decide whether to risk seeking help from strangers or to keep holding on to their fragile, hard-fought freedom.
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• The Rhino in the Right Field by Stacy Dekeyser (Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books, 2018) 
• Nick wants to change his life. For twelve years, he’s done what his hard-working, immigrant parents want him to do. Now he’s looking for his own American dream and he thinks he’s found it. The local baseball team is having a batboy contest, and Nick wants to win.
  
  But the contest is on a Saturday—the day Nick has to work in his father’s shop. There’s one other tiny—well, not so tiny—problem. A 2,000-pound rhinoceros named Tank. Nick and his friends play ball in the city zoo—and Tank lives just beyond the right field fence. Nick’s experience getting the ball out of Tank’s pen has left him frozen with fear whenever a fly ball comes his way. How’s a lousy fielder going to win the contest?
  
  Nick practices every day with his best friend, Ace, and a new girl who has an impressive throwing arm! But that’s not enough—to get to the contest, Nick has to lie to his parents and blackmail his uncle. All while dodging the school bully, who’s determined to win even by playing dirty. Nick will need to keep his eye on the ball in this fast, funny story about a game that can throw you some curveballs—just like life!
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• They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems by David Bowles (Cinco Puntos Press, 2018) 
• Twelve-year-old Güero is Mexican American, at home with Spanish or English and on both sides of the river. He's starting 7th grade with a woke English teacher who knows how to make poetry cool. 
  
  In Spanish, "Güero" is a nickname for guys with pale skin, Latino or Anglo. But make no mistake: our red-headed, freckled hero is puro mexicano, like Canelo Álvarez, the Mexican boxer. Güero is also a nerd--reader, gamer, musician--who runs with a squad of misfits like him, Los Bobbys. Sure, they get in trouble like anybody else, and like other middle-school boys, they discover girls. Watch out for Joanna! She's tough as nails. 
  
  But trusting in his family's traditions, his accordion and his bookworm squad, he faces seventh grade with book smarts and a big heart. Life is tough for a border kid, but Güero has figured out how to cope. 
  
  He writes poetry.
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• What Do You Do With a Voice Like That? The Story of Extraordinary Congresswoman Barbara Jordan by Chris Barton, illustrated by Ekua Holmes (Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Books, 2018) 
• Even as a child growing up in the Fifth Ward of Houston, Texas, Barbara Jordan stood out for her big, bold, booming, crisp, clear, confident voice. It was a voice that made people sit up, stand up, and take notice.
  
  So what do you do with a voice like that?
  
  Barbara took her voice to places few African American women had been in the 1960s: first law school, then the Texas state senate, then up to the United States congress. Throughout her career, she persevered through adversity to give voice to the voiceless and to fight for civil rights, equality, and justice.