Thank you to all who supported the Reading Raiders Book Fair at Barnes and Noble!!

The Reading Raiders Book Fair was held early this school year. On Saturday, September 17, 2011, the we converged at Bloomington Barnes and Noble for the day. Reading Raiders manned tables, read to children, painted faces, and had a fun time raising money to buy books for the club. Thank you to all who came out and to those of you who purchased books on-line. Over $500.00 was raised(!) so the Reading Raiders will be reading books and e-books for another year.
Many many thanks to all of you!

November Reading Selections for 2011

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain










Two Girls from Gettysburg by Lisa Klein

Prisoners in the Palace:How Queen Vicotoria became a queen with the help of her maid, a reporter and a scoundrel by Michaela MacColl

Reading Raiders First Meeting of the 2011-2012 school year was held on August 25 in the BHS library. We celebrated the inaugural meeting with a beautifully bookish cake from Tiers (cake bakery owned by Mrs. Hotz's daughter), and some

lively discussion about the upcoming Barnes and Noble BookFair and titles that we will be reading for September.

The Barnes and Noble Book Fair will be held on September 17,

2011, all day Saturday. Currently we are planning on sponsoring some face painting, an arts & crafts table and readings for children. We arehoping to also have a POETRY SLAM and we are considering some additional activities. Visit here for more information to

be posted at a later date.

September Titles

• The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the

  Immortal by Nicholas Flamel The Truth: Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on Sept. 28, 1330. Nearly 700 years later, his is acknowledged as the greatest Alchemyst of his day. It is said that he discovered the secret of eternal life. The records show that he died in 1418. But his tomb is empty. The Legend: Nicholas Flamel lives. But only because he has been making the elixir of life for centuries. He protects the secret hidden in the Book of Abraham the Mage, because if it falls into the wrong hands; it will destroy the world. And that is exactly what one evil-doer is planning. Only Sophie and Josh Newman have the powers to save the world as we know it. Sometimes...legends are true.

• Graceling by Kristin Cashmore

  Kasta is a graceling; one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. If her skill had been anything else, she would have lived a life of ease and privilege, since she is a niece of the king. But Kasta's grace, or special power, is one of killing; so instead of a life of ease at court, she instead serves as the king's henchman...thug...enforcer. This story is one of death-defying adventure, and a heart-racing romance!
• Rise of the Heroes by Andy Briggs Four average kids stumble onto a web site called Hero.com and download super powers. Soon they are flying, teleporting and shooting lasers out of their eyes. But an evil villain interferes with their fun and things take a turn toward the dark side. The kids need to band together to ward off evil, and save the world from destruction.

• The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien A fantasy novel first published in 1937, but re-discovered bychildren and young adults generation after generation; now recognized as a classic. The Hobbit follows the quest of home-loving Bilbo Baggins in his effort to win a share of the treasure guarded by the dragon, Smaug. Bilbo's journey takes him from light-hearted, rural surroundings into darker and deeper territory. Bilbo along with the 13 fortune-seeking dwarves embark on an epic quest filled with high adventure and danger lurking at many a twist and turn. (from Wikipedia)

Field Trip

The READING RAIDERS took a field trip to Barnes and Noble after school on April 13, 2011 (Wednesday). Aaron, fromB&N demonstrated some basic features of the e-readers for the members. He gave a great 30 minute overview on several different features available on the Nook. He entertained questions, during and after, his presentation. After all of their questions were answered, the Reading Raiders stopped by the Barnes and Noble cafe for a treat, then boarded the bus and returned to school; just in time to catch the 4:00 late bus home. All Reading Raiders present, had Nooks to use for the demonstration. Most students have checked out the e-readers and are reading one of the selections for the upcoming meeting. Since this month starts out with APRIL FOOL'S DAY, the genre for APRIL is HUMOR and/or SCHOOL DAYS. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin and Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal-Snogging by Louise Rennison are the APRIL SELECTIONS. Rennison's title is not currently available in e-reader format, but it is available in paperback from the BHS Library. On Thursday, April 14th, Phyllis Coulter, a reporter from the Panatagraph came to the District to speak to Mrs. Linn McDonald and her students at BJHS and to BHS to speak to the Reading Raiders about using the Nooks in an educational setting. Mr. Jim Peterson, Director of Technology of District87 is sponsoring this pilot program at the junior high and high school levels. He has provided direction, funding, support and enough leniency that each of the library media specialists have designed programs that suit their student populations. For instance, BJHS checks out some of the Nooks to students through the Learning Center, and she checks out others to reading teachers to be used in classroom settings. At BHS, some of the Nooks are checked out to members of the Reading Raiders Book Club, some are used as incentive in a reading techniques class, and a couple are checked out through the library for by students who are heavy users of the BHS fiction collection. Students expressed what they thought about using the Nooks. Molly Stevenson and Emily Schultz thought that textbooks should be offered on the Nooks. They are just a little ahead of the curve in their thinking. College textbooks are just starting to become available in the proper format for tablets/e-readers like the Nook.

VS It may be another year or two before high school textbooks are available in this format. The girls have a good point about getting textbooks in electronic form.

March Selections 2010

Edgar Allan Poe's Short Stories and Poetry. Members who wish to read Poe, will come to an agreement ofwhat will be read. The poem "Annabelle Lee", the short stories "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Pit and the Pendulum" and the poem, "The Raven" will all be selections that we will read. Other titles can be added to these by member recommendations.

...from Wikipedia:Wuthering Heights is the only novel by Emily Brontë. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister Charlotte.
The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which the story centers (as an adjective; wuthering is a Yorkshire word referring to turbulent weather). The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them.
Now considered a classic of English literature, Wuthering Heights met with mixed reviews by critics when it first appeared, mainly because of the narrative's stark depiction of mental and physical cruelty.[1][2] Though Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre was generally considered the best of the Brontë sisters' works during most of the nineteenth century, many subsequent critics of Wuthering Heights argued that its originality and achievement made it superior.

Jane Eyre

Taken from the MOVIE's web page: After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meet the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Mr. Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Mr. Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

Graphic Novels

Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver set sail not knowing what fantastic adventures await him. First he is shipwrecked on the island of Lilliput where the people are only six inches high! Then, he voyages to Brobdingnag, a land of towering giants. Will Gulliver ever make it back home?

Maximum Ride (Taken from School Library Journal)
Hiding out in the wilderness of Colorado, Max Ride, 14, and her ragtag family of mutant kids think they're safe from the clutches of The School, a secret government lab that has erased their memories and turned them into human/bird creations. When Angel, the youngest of them, is kidnapped by the Erasers–cruel half-man/half-wolf enforcers for The School–Max and several of the kids set off in search of her. Despite outwitting them in several instances, the Erasers are able to intercept them. But all is not as it seems when Max is released from her confinement only to be told the secret of her origin–that she was created to save the world. The story is based on Patterson's popular Maximum Ride series (Little, Brown), and Lee does a superb job of translating his text into attractive manga-style illustrations. Although the narrative is a bit slow at first, the action quickly picks up and is bound to keep readers turning the pages. Bridging the gap between contemporary YA fiction and manga/manhwa, Maximum Ride is a fine first choice for sci-fi/thriller-heavy collections.–Dave Inabnitt, Brooklyn Public Library, NY Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

March Meeting will be held on March 15, 2010. This is the TUESDAY before Spring Break!

Feb. Books

This Months books are:
Spy High(?)(hard to get) by AJ Butcher
Reluctaut Heiress by Eva Ibbotson

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz