Prairie Pasque Nominees 2009-2010

Kevin O'Malley

Planet Jurassica is under siege. The sinister space pirates have raided the Imperial palace and stolen the famous Jewels of Jurassica. This looks like a job for… Captain Raptor! …hero of a thousand space missions; champion of truth, justice, and dinosaurs in space throughout the galaxy. If anyone can track down those marauding space pirates, it's Captain Raptor and the fearless crew of the Megatooth!

Grade Level: 3-4
Publisher: Walker & Company

Linda Sue Park

A sijo, a traditional Korean verse form, has a fixed number of stressed syllables and a humorous or ironic twist at the end. Like haiku, sijo are brief and accessible, and the witty last line winds up each poem with a surprise. The verses in this book illuminate funny, unexpected, amazing aspects of the everyday — of breakfast, thunder and lightning, houseplants, tennis, freshly laundered socks. Carefully crafted and deceptively simple, Linda Sue Park's sijo are a pleasure to read and an irresistible invitation to experiment with an unfamiliar poetic form. Istvan Banyai's irrepressibly giddy and sophisticated illustrations add a one-of-a-kind luster to a book that is truly a gem.

Grade Level: 3-5
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Brian Selznick

Orphan Hugo Cabret lives in a wall. His secret home is etched out in the crevices of a busy Paris train station. Part-time clock keeper, part-time thief, he leads a life of quiet routine until he gets involved with an eccentric, bookish young girl and an angry old man who runs a toy booth in the station. The Invention of Hugo Cabret unfolds its cryptic, magical story in a format that blends elements of picture book, novel, graphic novel, and film. Caldecott Honor-winning author-illustrator Brian Selznick has fashioned an intricate puzzle story that binds the reader like a mesmerist's spell.

Grade Level: 4-5
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.

Joyce Sidman

When Mrs. Merz asks her sixth grade class to write poems of apology, they end up liking their poems so much that they decide to put them together into a book. Not only that, but they get the people to whom they apologized to write poems back. In haiku, pantoums, two-part poems, snippets, and rhymes, Mrs. Merz's class writes of crushes, overbearing parents, loving and losing pets, and more. Some poets are deeply sorry; some not at all. Some are forgiven; some are not. In each pair of poems a relationship, a connection, is revealed.

Grade Level: 3-5
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Alice Walker

Though War is Old
It has not
Become wise.

Poet and activist Alice Walker personifies the power and wanton devastation of war in this evocative poem. Stefano Vitale's compelling paintings illustrate this unflinching look at war's destructive nature and unforeseen consequences.

Grade Level: 3-5
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers