Celebrate! CLA's 2014 Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts!

Celebrate this week with others by visiting Ruth Ayres Writes.

This week, we are celebrating another great list of Notables from the Children's Literature Assembly of NCTE. Great work, Committee! Great books, Authors!

 2014 Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts 

www.childrensliteratureassembly.org 

Ah Ha!, by Jeff Mack, published by Chronicle Books. 

Counting by 7s, by Holly Goldberg Sloan, published by Dial. 

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, by Chris Grabenstein, published by Random House. 

Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet, by Andrea Cheng, published by Lee & Low Books. 

Exclamation Mark, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld, published by Scholastic Press. 

Forest Has a Song, by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, illustrated by Robbin Gourley, published by Clarion Books. 

Gaby, Lost and Found, by Angela Cervantes, published by Scholastic Press. 

Hold Fast, by Blue Balliett, published by Scholastic Press. 

Journey, by Aaron Becker, published by Candlewick Press. 

Knock Knock: My Dad’s Dream for Me, by Daniel Beaty, illustrated by Bryan Collier, published by Little, Brown and Company. 

Light in the Darkness: A Story About How Slaves Learned in Secret, by Lesa Cline-Ransom, illustrated by James E. Ransome, published by Disney/Jump at the Sun Books. 

Little Red Writing, by Joan Holub, illustrated by Melissa Sweet, published by Chronicle Books. 

Look Up! Bird Watching in Your Own Backyard, by Annette LeBlanc Cate, published by Candlewick Press. 

Martin and Mahalia: His Words Her Song, by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney, published by Little, Brown and Company. 

Navigating Early, by Clare Vanderpool, published by Delacorte Press. 

Nelly May has Her Say, by Cynthia DeFelice, illustrated by Henry Cole, published by Margaret Ferguson Books/Farrar Straus Giroux. 

Prisoner 88, by Leah Pileggi, published by Charlesbridge. 

Sure Signs of Crazy, by Karen Harrington, published by Little, Brown and Company. 

The Beatles Were Fab (and They Were Funny), by Kathleen Krull and Paul Brewer, illustrated by Stacy Innerst, published by Harcourt Children’s Books. 

The Candy Smash, by Jacqueline Davies, published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. 

The Day the Crayons Quit, by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, published by Philomel Books. 

The Language Inside, by Holly Thompson, published by Delacorte. 

The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba’s Greatest Abolitionist, by Margarita Engle, published by Harcourt. 

The Long, Long Journey: The Godwit’s Amazing Migration, by Sandra Markle, illustrated by Mia Posada, published by Millbrook Press. 

The Matchbox Diary, by Paul Fleischman, Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline, published by Candlewick Press. 

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, by Kathi Appelt, published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers. 

This Journal Belongs to Ratchet, by Nancy J. Cavanaugh, published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky. 

When Thunder Comes: Poems for Civil Rights Leaders, by J. Patrick Lewis, illustrated by Jim Burke, R. Gregory Christie, Tonya Engel, John Parra, and Meilo So, published by Chronicle Books. 

Words with Wings, by Nikki Grimes, published by WordSong. 

Zebra Forest, by Adina Rishe Gewirtz, published by Candlewick Press. 

2014 Notable Childrens’ Books in the Language Arts Selection Committee Members: Patricia Bandré, chair; Shanetia Clark, Christine Draper, Evie Freeman, Dick Koblitz, Jean Schroeder, and Barbara Ward 

We interrupt our regular programming for this brief PSA

Language Arts teachers and literacy coaches, are you a member of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)? You're a professional...join your professional organization! Membership information is here--don't forget to add a journal to your membership!

Whether or not you're a member of NCTE, consider joining the Children's Literature Assembly of NCTE, a group whose goals are:

• To provide a forum for exchange among teachers of children's literature who share keen interest in children and classrooms;
• To promote children's literature as a field of learning, research, and classroom application;
• To undertake and disseminate programs and projects of special interest to those interested in children's literature;
• To work cooperatively with other organizations devoted to the promotion of literature in children's lives.

CLA is a great place to begin your involvement in NCTE. Serve on the committees that plan the events at the NCTE annual convention: the Master Class, the breakfast, the Monday workshop, and be eligible to serve on the Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts committee! Membership information is here (please note on your form that you learned about CLA right here at A Year of Reading!)

While we're on the topic of NCTE, we're not making any promises about posting during the week leading up to and including the Annual Convention -- Nov. 18-26. If the blog goes silent that week, you'll know it's because we're going to great sessions, attending committee meetings, catching up with old and new friends (maybe even YOU!), and taking in some history in Boston.