The 10th annual Bell Top Book Club began on Monday, January 27, with a school-wide assembly in the cafeteria. After an introduction about the book program students participated in a fun guess game where they had to match each “Lovey” – a stuffed animal- with it’s Bell Top teacher. Following the game, teachers Sarah Lussier and Tracy Cornell announced that the school would be reading “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane” by Kate DiCamillo to celebrate the club’s 10th anniversary. This was the first book that the Bell Top Book Club read in 2015. Every student in grades K-5 received their very own copy of the book courtesy of the Bell Top PTO.
New this year, the Nightly Mystery Readers activity asks students to listen and guess who the mystery reader is. Students will also participate in daily trivia questions related to the book, and end the book club with a school-wide “Vocabulary Parade.”
“We’re so proud to be reaching this ten-year milestone. Bell Top Book Club is really about giving our students a reading experience that will encourage a life-long love of reading, an experience that we hope they will look back on and remember with happiness. Celebrating ten years of bringing our school community together through the shared experience of reading aloud feels truly special,” said Mrs. Cornell.
About the Book (from the author’s website)
Students reading along with Mrs. Lussier and Mrs. Cornell
Once, in a house on Egypt Street, there lived a china rabbit named Edward Tulane. The rabbit was very pleased with himself, and for good reason: he was owned by a girl named Abilene, who treated him with the utmost care and adored him completely. And then, one day, he was lost.
Kate DiCamillo takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the depths of the ocean to the net of a fisherman, from the top of a garbage heap to the fireside of a hobos camp, from the bedside of an ailing child to the bustling streets of Memphis. And along the way, we are shown a true miracle: even a heart of the most breakable kind can learn to love, to lose, and to love again.
Bell Top Book Club Selections
2025 – “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane” by Kate DiCamillo
2024 – “Breadcrumbs” by Anne Ursu
2023 – “Odder” by Katherine Applegate
2022 – “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon” by Grace Lin
2021 – “The Wild Robot” by Peter Brown
(BTBC Bedtime Stories During COVID Shutdown)
2019 – “Wish Tree” by Katherine Applegate
2018 – “Because of Winn-Dixie” by Kate DiCamillo
2017 – “The One and Only Ivan” by Katherine Applegate
2016 – “The Trumpet of the Swan” by E.B. White
2015 – “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane” by Kate DiCamillo