Community Read 2008
Libraries in the Midcoast Maine area join forces each January to present the Midcoast Community Read, an area-wide collaborative book group. Patten Free Library, Curtis Memorial Library, Topsham Public Library and Wiscasset Public Library, along with new partners Freeport Community Library and Merrill Memorial Library (Yarmouth) encourage their patrons to read the same selected title over the winter and then come together in March for discussions, presentations and related activities to the book. See About Community Read for more on the program.
The Events Listings are now complete. Check this website or visit your library for details.
The Opening Event will be held at each participating library on January 15, 2008. Don't miss it! Pick up your copy of Shadow Divers there, or at a local book store
Shadow Divers
by Robert Kurson- Adult/General Title
This winter, mid-coast Maine will dive into Robert Kurson’s Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries Of World War II, a riveting and vivid non-fiction account of two deep wreck divers, one of whom now lives locally. In the fall of 1991 they found her six miles off the New Jersey coast and 230 feet below the surface of the deep blue Atlantic. She lay on her side, in a spot where all government experts concluded there could not possibly be a sunken WWII German U-boat. Who was she and what had happened to her? A mass of twisted wreckage, she gave no clue as to her identity.
synopsis link: robertkurson.com/book.html
Dive: The Discovery
by Gordon Korman - recommended for grades 4-7
This is an exciting suspense tale about four kids who are chosen to be part of a summer dive program where they discover sunken treasure. It is the first book in a trilogy.
Summary f rom Amazon.com: Four kids are on a marine expedition for the summer, diving to explore an underwater habitat that's just been altered by a seismic event. What they find, though, is much more than fish - it's sunken treasure. Can they salvage it without anyone else getting to it first? Will the prospect of wealth set them against one another? And what about those sharks . . . .DIVE is another action-packed trilogy from Gordon Korman. The narrative will shift between an account of two kids caught in the shipwreck and the story of the four kids fighting over and desperately trying to get the treasure
synopsis link: from Scholastic.com
Sunken Treasure
by Gail Gibbons - Children's Title
Accompanied by appealing illustrations, this book is full of information about sunken treasure, salvage operations, and the history of diving told in a style that is understandable and fascinating for younger children.
Summary by Harper Collins: Today treasure hunting is a big business. Searchers use metal detectors and sonar to locate treasure on the ocean floor. Divers use high-powered machinery to uncover objects buried in the sand and to raise them to the surface. And more than just treasures are discovered. A whole window into the past is opened up. A salvage can take months or even years. But it's worth it!
synopsis link : Sunken Treasure at Reading Rainbow
Suggested Links
Shadow Divers
Movie link: Hitler’s Lost Sub (2000):
Visit the companion Web site to Hitler's Lost Sub, originally broadcast for NOVA on November 14, 2000. The film follows a six-year odyssey of the "Shadow Divers" to identify a mysterious U-boat they discovered in 1991 off the coast of New Jersey.
Movie link: Das Boot (1981):
Das Boot (pronounced [das boːt], German for The Boat / The Submarine) is a 1981 feature film directed by Wolfgang Petersen, adapted from a novel of the same name by Lothar-Günther Buchheim. Hans-Joachim Krug, former first officer on U-219, served as a consultant, as did Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, the captain of the real U-96. The movie is the story of a single mission of one World War II U-boat, U-96, and its crew. It depicts both the excitement of battle and the tedium of the fruitless hunt, and shows the men serving aboard U-boats as ordinary individuals with a desire to do their best for their comrades and their country. The story is based on an amalgamation of the exploits of the real U-96, a Type VIIC-class U-boat commanded by Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, one of Germany's top U-boat "tonnage aces" during the war.
see also Reading group guide
Dive: The Discovery
Synopsis (Dive I, II, III)
Gordon Korman biography
Sunken Treasure
Lesson Plans:
Thematic Unit: Oceans & Undersea Life
Sunken Treasure (Reading Rainbow guide: PDF document, opens with Adobe Acrobat)
Using Informational Trade Books as Models for Kids' Writing (Instructor Magazine)
Reading Rainbow: Sunken Treasure (TV Episode)
page last updated January 31, 2008
