by Elena Grashchenkova

In 2012, schoolchildren in Russia organized a Children's Choices project for the first time. They named the project "Book of the Year: Children Choose," based on the International Reading Association's Children's Choices model. (The project is cosponsored by IRA and the Children’s Book Council.) The students also created PowerPoint presentations about the winning books. Children who participated in this project felt it was important to tell all the world about their experience. What follows is a letter that the children wrote about their work and images from their presentations.

Letter from Russian Students: 

We are students of grade 3 school "Career" from Moscow. We are from 8 to 10 years old. There are 13 students "Karjera" in our class. We learned about the contest "Book of the Year: Children's Choices" from the Internet. We liked this project, in which the children can find a new book, according to their interests. We liked that the competition involve a lot of states, different countries and many thousands of children. 

In Russia this contest is not conducted. And we wanted to organize in 2011 a project for the first time in Russia. 

To do this we first learned how to organize a competition in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. We read a set of books, first published in Russian in 2011. 

Second, when we had read these books, we evaluated them according to different criteria, chose the best, and voted. 

Third, we conducted a survey among strarsheklassnikov and teachers. We asked which books they prefer for home reading. 

Fourth, we made papers (posters), which told about the winning books in the competition in 2011 among American children, made an exhibition from book covers Children's Choices Reading List, Young Readers (Grades 3-4). 

Fifth, we have created annotations, illustrations, presentations, and toys from clay on the books that we read. 

We want to talk about our experiences and to submit its list of best books of 2011, recognized as the best in the competition the following books. 

Children’s Choices 2011 Reading List from Russia: 

1. René Goscinny, Jean-Jacques Sempé Baby Nicholas (René Goscinny, Jean-Jacques Sempé Le petit Nicolas) 

2. Kate Dikamillo Amazing Journey of Edward Rabbit (Kate DiCamillo, Bagram Ibatoulline The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane) 

3. Oscar Brenifier, Jacques Despres What are Emotions? (Oscar Brenifier; Jacques Despres The God Question) 

4. Galina Avuncular Button Sewing Town 

5. Marco Innocenti Underground Beast (Marco Innocenti Il Mostro Sotterraneo)

6. Unni Lindell, Fredrik Skavlan Stella and Seventh Star

7. Julia Kuznetsova Imaginary Tipster 

8. Arthur Givargizov In Honor of the King

9. Oscar Brenife What is Good and Evil? (Oscar Brenifier; Jacques Despres It's Good, It's Bad)

10. Ulf Stark, Anna Hoglund Little Asmodeus 

 

Sincerely,

Students of grade 3 of school "Career" from Moscow: Polina Aleksandrova, Arina Sukhanov, Ilya Utochkin, Alexander Moshkov, Konstantin Kotljar, Arina Naugolnaja, Konstantin Yerokhin, Irina Mihajlova, Sasha Morozova 

Teachers: Elena Grashchenkova, Oksana Hlopkova, Svetlana Zajtseva