Smith Library Bluebonnet Book Club

 Traveling from the universe, towards our galaxy and into our solar system, travel from stop to stop experiencing poems that moves around each part of the universe. Readers learn essential facts such as size, temperature, density, orbits, and sources of color while they zoom into and throughout the night sky.

When twelve-year-old Hugo, an orphan living and repairing clocks within the walls of a Paris train station in 1931, meets a mysterious toy seller and his goddaughter, his undercover life and his biggest secret are jeopardized.

Six stories relate the adventures of three best friends, who happen to be toys.

In Kentucky, during the Civil War, the twelve-year-old slave, Gabriel, deals with a new cruel horse trainer, skirmishes with Confederate Soldiers, and pursues his dream of becoming a jockey.

Edgar, a gifted climber, is a lonely boy scaling the perilous cliffs that separate three worlds. He is on a mission. He is looking for a treasure lost in the faded memory of his past, hidden in the forbidden rock walls looming above the grove. But the treasure reveals a coming catastrophe. Soon Edgar finds that the world of Atherton is not what he thought it was, but something far more dangerous, with a history he could not have guessed in his wildest imagining.

Living in the family car in their small North Carolina town after their father leaves them virtually penniless, Georgina, desperate to improve their situation and unwilling to accept her overworked mother’s calls for patience, persuades her younger brother to help her in an elaborate scheme to get money by stealing a dog and then claiming the reward that the owners are bound to offer.

In the West Virginia town of Way Down Deep in the 1950s, a foundling called Ruby June is happily living with Miss Arbutus at the local boardinghoue when suddenly, after the arrival of a family of outsiders, the mystery of Ruby’s past begins to unravel.

Georgie learns to overcome his small stature and his fears of becoming a not-so-big-brother.

Twelve-year-old Ronnie loves organization, especially because her brother has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but traveling with their grandfather who is investigating wind power in Kansas brings some pleasant, if chaotic, surprises.

Sixth-grader Meg Summers and her family move to a new state every few years, her alcoholic father trying to get a fresh start, but when they land in Indiana and Meg finally make a real friend and eventually begins to talk about her family’s problems, they all find the strength to try to change their destiny.

After losing his hand in an accident in his father’s butcher shop in 1946, sixth-grader Norman uses hard work and humor to learn to live with his disability and to succeed at baseball, art, and other activities.

Misnamed by her teacher, seven-year-old Just Grace prides herself on being empathetic, but when she tries to help a neighbor feel better, her good intentions backfire.

Things get out of hand for a twelve-year-old boy when a neighbor convinces him to expand his summer lawn mowing business

Surrounded by a multitalented family, nine-year-old Case Callahan feels driven to succeed, but his failed attempts at various competitions discourage him until he finds a stray dog with a surprising past.

During Margaret E. Knight’s lifetime, from 1838 until 1914, there was a wave of invention and restrictions on respectable women, who were supposed to devote themselves to the home. Mattie was dogged all her life by the belief that women’s brains were inadequate for inventing. By becoming not only an inventor but a professional one, with twenty-two patents to her credit and over ninety original inventions, Mattie both defied and exemplified her times. She had just the exploring, visualizing, ingenious, persistent mind required by her work.

This story walks readers step by step through man’s first landing on the moon. This is the story of the unsung heroes who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo Missions a success. The thousands of people responsible for landing man on he moon finally and deservedly get credit for their part in this piece of history.

Martha Tom, a young Choctaw girl, knows better than to cross the river, but one day –in search of blackberries–she disobeys her mother and finds herself on the other side. Thus begins the story about seven slaves who cross the big river to freedom, led by a Choctaw angel walking on water.

I had some connections with some of the poems in this book.

The poem about the little boy who’s pet hamster escaped from it’s cage reminded me about something that happened to me. When my daughter was little, she had a pet hamster. Once when he got out of his cage, he chewed up the carpet in the corner of her room. After that, even years later when she was grown-up, it reminded me of the hamster when I went into her old bedroom.

In the poem about the kid breaking her mother’s Christmas reindeer, it reminded me about something that happened almost thirty years ago. One time when my niece was visiting me, she picked up a bowl from my end table. She dropped it and it broke. I glued it back together and put it back on the table. Years later, when I looked at that cracked bowl, it reminded me of my niece and all the fun times we had when she was a little girl and came to visit me.

In this work on the historical evolution of beds, bedrooms, and bedclothes, the author begins by presenting sleeping arrangements during the Stone Age (a clan on the ground) and comes full circle with a contemporary family camping out.

In this story, an older couple who were very poor, discovered a magical pot in their garden. They discovered that if they put something in it, like a potato, that two potatoes suddenly appeared in the pot.

If I had a magical pot, I would try to not be greedy about what I put into the pot, only things that I really needed. I would think of things that people I care about might need, such as my friends and family. By helping others in need, I would feel much better about myself, instead of being selfish and  thinking only of myself. If more people put others first, instead of themselves, this would be a much better world.