Students in Spirit Club read and discuss numerous Coretta Scott King award-winning books including:
- Words with Wings by Nikki Grimes
- Flying Lessons and Other Stories
- If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson
- From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun by Jacqueline Woodson
- Discovering Wes Moore by Wes Moore
- plan activities for the event
- create posters to help advertise the event
- create and record WOLF TV segments for the event and for Spirit Club promotion
- help fundraise for the author visit (see below)
- Three groups of 100+ 8th-grade students
- One group of Spirit Club members and two classes of 7th-graders.
Books we'll be reading and discussing:
"Jeremiah feels good inside his own skin. That is, when he's in his own Brooklyn neighborhood. But now he's going to be attending a fancy prep school in Manhattan, and black teenage boys don't exactly fit in there. So it's a surprise when he meets Ellie the first week of school. In one frozen moment their eyes lock and after that they know they fit together -- even though she's Jewish and he's black. Their worlds are so different, but to them that's not what matters. Too bad the rest of the world has to get in their way."
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"Melanin Sun has a lot to say. But sometimes it's hard to speak his mind, so he fills up notebooks with his thoughts instead. He writes about his mom a lot--they're about as close as they can be, because they have no other family. So when she suddenly tells him she's gay, his world is turned upside down. And if that weren't hard enough for him to accept, her girlfriend is white. Melanin Sun is angry and scared. How can his mom do this to him--is this the end of their closeness? What will his friends think? And can he let her girlfriend be part of their family?"
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"The story of “the other Wes Moore” is one that the author couldn’t get out of his mind, not since he learned that another boy with his name—just two years his senior—grew up in the same Baltimore neighborhood. He wrote that boy—now a man—a letter, not expecting to receive a reply. But a reply came, and a friendship grew, as letters turned into visits and the two men got to know each other. Eventually, that friendship became the inspiration for Discovering Wes Moore, a moving and cautionary tale examining the factors that contribute to success and failure—and the choices that make all the difference."
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"Gabby’s world is filled with daydreams. However, what began as an escape from her parents’ arguments has now taken over her life. But with the help of a new teacher, Gabby the dreamer might just become Gabby the writer, and words that carried her away might allow her to soar. Written in vivid, accessible poems, this remarkable verse novel is a celebration of imagination, of friendship, of one girl’s indomitable spirit, and of a teacher’s ability to reach out and change a life."
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All images and summaries taken from amazon.com