About
The Maine Student Book Award is designed to expand literary horizons of students in grades 4-8 by encouraging them to read, evaluate, and enjoy a selection of new books and to choose a statewide favorite by written ballot each spring. In the decades since the Maine Student Book Award was initiated, more and more students across Maine have expanded their reading horizons.
Join the fun!
The award is determined each year by participating Maine students in grades four through eight. The winning book is selected from a reading list that is compiled by the MSBA committee. Any interested readers - student, teacher, parent, librarian - may submit a book review for the committee's consideration for any fiction or nonfiction title published in the current year.
Timeline:
SPRING: The MSBA Title List for the upcoming school year is available online (usually by April 1st) and distributed at statewide conferences.
SUMMER: Consult the Annotated Title List for titles appropriate to your intended readers before ordering new books. This list includes grade level guidelines. While we hope that you will find many excellent suggestions for your readers on the list, it is not mandatory that all titles be available to students in order to be a participating site.
FALL/WINTER: Discuss the Maine Student Book Award with students, parents, library patrons, and faculty. Encourage students to read books from the MSBA list in preparation for voting in the spring. You may wish to devise a system to help students remember the books they have read and their opinions.
THE FOLLOWING SPRING: Students who have read three or more MSBA books are eligible to vote for their favorite book at their school or public library. The ballot is available online. Librarians or teachers tally the votes and submit them via the MSBA online voting site. We will not accept votes from individual students. The voting deadline is April 1st.
The students' top choice from the reading list is announced at Reading Round-Up, as well as on the MSBA webpage, MSBA Facebook page, ME-Libs listserv, and via email to those schools and groups who participated in the voting. The MSBA Committee encourages teachers and librarians to reward students' year-round reading with some sort of event or celebration - a cooperative display project; an ice-cream party; student skits or readings; or other activities. Consider using MSBA bookmarks, T-shirts and pencils. Use your imagination and please let us know about your successful events!