The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman won this year’s Newbery Medal.  I have not had a chance to read the book but was very intrigued by its cover.

Yesterday I was catching up on my Google Reader and came across a post on Mrs. Hills’ Book Blog.  She found a great site containing the video of Neil Gaiman reading chapters from his Newbery award book.

While watching the video I became engrossed in the way Neil puts such emotion into his reading.  I am enjoying the videos and wish more authors would do read alouds of their books.  This is a great way to capture the kids and get them interested in the book and other books by the same author.

Listen to Neil Gaiman read his 2009 Newbery Award Book “The Graveyard Book” Visit http://hillbookblog.blogspot.com/

While driving to Memphis and back I listened to my first audio book Hunger Games via my husband’s iPod.  It was very interesting listening to a narrator read the story.  I was not very impressed with the narrator.  She did not put much emotion into her reading.  I was also not very impressed with the book.  The ending was blah compared to the rest of the book.  It was almost as if the author got tired of writing and just ended the story.

I do not want to based my audio book experience on one book, so I am about to start listening to Rash by Pete Hautman and the The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  Hoping to take advantage of Spring Break to listen to both books on our drive to Louisiana.  Wish me luck.  Tell me about your experiences with audio books.   What are the pros and cons?

The winter break has officially ended.  Headed back to school today.  The students seemed to be ready to get back into their routines.  The strangest thing happened – had a computer glitch in the library.  Over the break all the students were moved up a year.  All of the 8th graders were no longer in our system and were now showing up as High School freshman.  The kids thought it was funny.  Glitched repaired in no time.  The libary blog is up and rolling.  Students have been writing book reviews and seem to be navigating their way around the site.  Take a look and visit often.  There will always be changes.  http://swmlibrary.edublogs.org

I would love to hear about your favorite book.