Maine Student Book Award

In October, the MSAD #6 elementary libraries began a Maine Student Book Award project. The Maine Student Book Award is given annually to the book selected by Maine students in grades four through eight as their favorite book of the year. The purpose of the Maine Student Book Award is to challenge young readers to read, evaluate, and enjoy a selection of outstanding new books.

Thanks to a generous grant from the Narragansett Number One Foundation, written by elementary librarians; Laurie Dunlap, Kris Zuidema, and Sybil Shiland, the Frank Jewett, George E. Jack, Hollis, and H.B.Emery libraries have purchased multiple copies of the MSBA books for students in grades four and five. Students have until the end of March 2007 to read as many of the books as they wish. The children have a reading log in each library to keep track of the books they have read and to help them organize their thoughts and opinions about each book. If they have read at least three of the books then they can vote for their favorite book with other students throughout the state on March 27th, 2007.

One of the primary goals of our elementary library program is to encourage and increase pleasure reading. Reading for pleasure helps to reinforce and expand literacy skills. Our goals for this project are to : encourage pleasure reading, encourage students to read more challenging books, and to widen the scope of our students’ reading choices. We also feel that our MSAD # 6 students will enjoy participating in this statewide program.