Maud Hart Lovelace Award

In 1892 in Mankato, Minnesota, a children's author was born. Maud Hart Lovelace grew up loving to read and dreaming about someday writing books of our own. Maud grew up on a hill in Mankato across the street from her best friend. The memories of her childhood fun inspired the writing of the classic Betsy-Tacy series. In this series, the character of Betsy is based on Maud and the character Tacy is based on Maud's friend Frances Kenney. The series tells of the adventures of these two little girls and their friends.

In 1979, the Minnesota Youth Reading Awards started a program named after Maud Hart Lovelace. The program is the Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award. This Minnesota state book award honors children's chapter books. The best part about this award is that it is run through school libraries and the winning book is chosen by students. There are two divisions to this program. Division 1 books are appropriate for grades 3-5. Division 2 books are meant for the middle school audience in grades 6-8. Students who fall in to the specified grade level and read 3 of the 12 nominated books by March are able to vote for the book they believe should win the award. You can check out this year's nominees here: http://www.maudhartlovelace.org/nominees.html

This is our first year participating in the Maud Hart Lovelace program at Pinewood Elementary. This year we are simply focusing on reading 3 books and voting in March, but I have some very exciting ideas for the years to come. After attending the ITEM conference this past weekend and talking to other Media Specialists about how they run their system, I have come to the conclusion that this program can be one of the most motivating reading programs that these students will be part of.
In the years to come, we will continue to have students read at least three books to qualify to vote, but we will add even more to this program. For starters, we will be adding the 12 book challenge. Any student in grades 3-5 can sign up in September to be part of the 12 Book Challenge. As they finish the book, they would come talk to me to answer a few questions and receive a small prize for finishing that book. If they complete the 12 Book Challenge by the end of the school year, they would get their name in our student announcements and receive a larger prize. Another program that the students in grades 4-5 could take part in would be the Muad Hart Battle of the Books, students would form a group of four and decide who would read which books. Throughout the school year, they would make time to meet together and discuss the books. At the end of May, there will be an after school battle of the books. This would be a trivia game that consists of questions about the nominated books. All participants would receive a small token, and the winners would have their choice of Maud Hart book to take home.These programs along with other reading programs will create a love of reading in our upper elementary school students.

In order to make these programs a success, community support is a must. If you are part of the Monticello community and would like to support our Maud Hart Lovelace Program, please contact me, Mrs, Newhouse at lisa.newhouse@monticello.k12.mn.us. Thank you for your support.