Kilmer Middle School * One Book * One School * One Community
Kilmer Middle School has chosen the book Trash by Andy Mulligan as the first ever selection in our One Book * One School * One Community effort during the Summer of 2012. This is not required reading, nor will there be any academic assessments on this book.
Our goal is to build Kilmer as a reading community through a shared text that we hope students, families, faculty, and staff will read. We aim to faciliate discussion electronically, in person, and at dinner tables throughout the Kilmer community. Similar efforts are coordinated at a number of area high schools, such as James Madison HS, Thomas Jefferson HS for Science & Technology, Langley HS, Chantilly HS, to name a few, as well as by the Fairfax County Public Library with their All Fairfax Reads project. Many colleges and universities have embraced common book programs as well.
We have also arranged for a discounted purchase price of $6.74 with AKJ Books; they will ship directly to your home.
Raphael is a dumpsite boy. He spends his days wading through mountains of steaming trash, sifting it, sorting it, breathing it, sleeping on it. Then one unlucky-lucky day, the world turns upside down. A small leather bag falls into his hands. It’s a bag of clues. It’s a bag of hope. It’s a bag that will change everything. Soon Raphael and his friends are running for their lives. Hounded by the police, it takes all their quick-thinking and fast-talking to stay ahead. As the net tightens, they uncover a dead man’s mission to put right a terrible wrong. And it's three street-boys against the world...
Listen to the first few pages read aloud:
AWARDS
Carnegie Medal 2012 shortlist (British literary award recognizing an outstanding book for children or young adults, conferred by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals)
“The impact of a common reading experience on student learning may be magnified by multiple conversations students have about the common reading experience, through formal faculty- or staff-led discussions and spontaneous student-student conversations that may ‘spill over’ to informal settings” (Astin).
“this common source of conversation promotes student interaction with other members of the [school] community (e.g., peers, faculty), serving to ‘connect’ students with the institution and strengthen their sense of community membership” (Tinto).
WHY SUMMER READING?
"Reading is a declining activity among teenagers...the perecentage of 17-year-olds who read nothing at all for pleasure has doubled over a 20-year period" (Iyengar and Ball).
“Now there's a growing recognition that reading skills need to be nurtured well into adolescence, when students struggle with comprehension more than anything else" (McGrath).
Take pictures of yourself reading Trash and tweet them to @kilmerlibrary or e-mail them to kilmerlibrary <at> fcps.edu for display on the Kilmer Middle School web site. Use the hashtag #1bookkms when discussing the book on Twitter!
Please contact Gretchen Hazlin, Kilmer Librarian, if you have any questions about our common book project.
WORKS CITED
Astin, A. W. What matters in college: Four critical years revisited. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993. Print.
Iyengar, Sunil, and Don Ball, eds. "To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence." National Endowment for the Arts. National Endowment for the Arts, Nov 2007. Web. 18 May 2012.
McGrath, Anne. "A new read on teen literacy." U.S. News & World Report 28 Feb. 2005: 68. Educators Reference Complete. Web. 4 June 2012.
Tinto, V. Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition (2nd ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993. Print.
Kilmer Middle School has chosen the book Trash by Andy Mulligan as the first ever selection in our One Book * One School * One Community effort during the Summer of 2012. This is not required reading, nor will there be any academic assessments on this book. 