North Carolina Children's Choices books listed

Looking for summer reading recommendations? Check out the North Carolina Children's Choices book recommendations. More than 2,500 children in grades K-6 in New Hanover and Brunswick County schools read and voted on their favorite titles from more than 500 new books published in 2007. Their votes, along with those of 10,000 other children from across the United States, determined the Children's Choices for 2008.

The Children's Choices project, co-sponsored by the International Reading Association (IRA) and the Children's Book Council has been in existence since 1975. The purpose of the project is to provide a bibliography that teachers, parents and children can use to locate books that children from across the United States have chosen as their favorites. The annotated bibliography will appear in the October issue of The Reading Teacher, a journal published by IRA.

Jeanne Swafford, associate professor in the Watson School of Education at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, coordinated the project for the Southeast. At the end of the year, the books, valued at more than $50,000, were donated to participating schools. See the local Children's Choices at StarNewsOnline.com.