The Nebraska Library Commission has created a number of activities and games to go along with this year’s One Book for Nebraska Kids and One Book for Nebraska Teens book selections, which are available on the Library Commission’s website: http://nlc.nebraska.gov/Youth/OBOK/.
Below are book reviews from Aimee Owen at NLC:
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians
Alcatraz Smedry kicks off his thirteenth birthday by burning down his foster mother’s kitchen… and it’s all downhill from there. The arrival of a small bag of sand and a strange old man claiming to be his grandfather pulls Alcatraz into the adventure of a lifetime, full of magic, mayhem, and…a cult of evil librarians? While he’s not a “nice person” by nature, Alcatraz also doesn’t like to be shot at, so he goes along to help Grandpa Smedry and his band of Freelanders save the world from the librarians. Along the way, he discovers that the world as he knows it is a lie perpetrated by the librarians and that his tendency to be clumsy and break things (or set them on fire) is actually a superpower. What else will Alcatraz discover about the world and himself?
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, the first in the fantasy series by Nebraska-born author Brandon Sanderson, is the 2017 selection for One Books for Nebraska Kids, aimed at grades 4-6. The Nebraska Library Commission has copies of this book in print and audio versions in our Book Club Kit collection, available for loan to school and public librarians, as well as puzzles and activities for readers to continue the fun after the book is read. Please visit http://nlc.nebraska.gov/Youth/OBOK/ for this year’s selection, along with those from years past. Click here to reserve this book club kit.
Sanderson, Brandon. Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. Scholastic Press: New York, NY, 2007.
The Legend of Bass Reeves
Bass
Reeves is the greatest western lawman you’ve never heard of. While many people idolize Butch Cassidy, Wyatt Earp, and Billy the Kid, very little has been said about the former escaped slave who became the most successful U.S. marshals of his time. Born a slave on the western prairie, where he lived with his mother and helped wrangle wild cattle, Bass becomes a fugitive and escapes into Indian Territory after a dispute with his master. Bass lives with a tribe of Creeks for over 2 decades, until slavery is abolished, and is then recruited to help capture dangerous outlaws. Gary Paulsen does a masterful job filling in the unknown details of Bass’s life on the run and his later years as one of the first African American federal marshals in this fictionalized biography.
The Legend of Bass Reeves, by Gary Paulsen, is the 2017 selection for One Book for Nebraska Teens, geared towards middle school and high school readers. The Nebraska Library Commission has copies of this book in print and audio versions in our Book Club Kit collection, available for loan to school and public librarians, as well as puzzles and activities for readers to continue the fun after the book is read. Please visit http://nlc.nebraska.gov/Youth/OBOK/ for this year’s selection, along with those from years past. Click here to reserve this book club kit.
Paulsen, Gary. The Legend of Bass Reeves. Wendy Lamb Books: New York, NY, 2006.