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Summer is winding down (say it ain’t so!) and the new school year is approaching. Get into the back-to-school mood with our senior superlatives for characters in the class of 2014-2015. What superlative would you award your favorite character?

Best friends: Sam and Dave (Sam & Dave Dig a Hole); Pom and Pim (Where Is Pim?); Bear and Hare (Bear & Hare Go Fishing); Boom, Snot, and Twitty (Boom Snot Twitty: This Way That Way); Bridge, Tab, and Em (Goodbye Stranger); You and Me and Him (You and Me and Him)

Best unimaginary friends: Beekle (The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend); Crenshaw (Crenshaw)

Best frenemies: Adam and Koala (I Don’t Like Koala); Love and Death (The Game of Love and Death); Violet and Orianna (The Walls Around Us); Won Ton and Chopstick (Won Ton and Chopstick)

Best sibling-frenemies: Rodeo Red and Sideswiping Slim (Rodeo Red); Dot and Wolfie (Wolfie the Bunny); Raina and Amara (Sisters)

Cutest couple: Mr. Happy & Miss Grimm (Mr. Happy & Miss Grimm); Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula (Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula); Carolina and Trevor (Forever for a Year: “A touching, relatable, and highly appealing coming-of-age romance à la Eleanor & Park but with lots of sex”); Greta and Da-Xia (The Scorpion Rules); Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter (The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage)

Most likely to aim high: Carl Sagan (Star Stuff)

Most intelligent: Octopus (The Octopus Scientists: Exploring the Mind of a Mollusk)

Out-of-the-box thinker: Red (Red: A Crayon’s Story)

Most likely to finish third grade: Clementine (Completely Clementine)

Least likely to finish first grade: Mommy-boy (First Grade Dropout)

Least likely to finish high school: Denton (Denton Little’s Deathdate)

Class activists: Glory O’Brien (Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future); Knud Pedersen (The Boys Who Challenged Hitler)

Class clown (tie): The Clown, The Farmer (The Farmer and the Clown)

Most likely to win a Tony: Tiny Cooper (Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story)

Best legs: Baba Yaga’s house (Egg & Spoon and Baba Yaga’s Assistant)

Best arm: Lizzie Murphy (Queen of the Diamond); Pedro Martinez (Growing Up Pedro)

Best wings: James (Nightbird)

Best eye: Gordon Parks (Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America)

Best nose for news: Normandy (The Truth Commission)

Best bowtie: Roger (Roger Is Reading a Book)

Best shades: Audrey (Finding Audrey)

Best retro style: Momo (My Cousin Momo), Jessica (Friends for Life)

Best sweet-talker: Victor Lustig (Tricky Vic); Will Shea and Andrea Dufresne (Con Academy)

Biggest potty mouth: Little Bird (Little Bird’s Bad Word); Maria from Sesame Street (who knew?! Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx)

Most likely to flip the bird: Nate (Read Between the Lines)

Most verbose: Noah Webster (Noah Webster: Man of Many Words)

World travelers: Gudrid (The Saga of Gudrid the Far-Traveler); Jane Goodall (Untamed: The Wild Life of Jane Goodall)

Home-bodies: Ollie and Moritz (Because You’ll Never Meet Me)

Worst sense of direction: Pablo (Lost in NYC: A Subway Adventure); A chicken (A Chicken Followed Me Home)

Best sense of direction: Osprey (The Call of the Osprey)

Varsity MVPs:

Football team: Arlo (Hit Count)

Swim team: goggles-wearing kids (Pool)

Baseball team: See “Best arm” above

Band: John, Paul, George, Ringo (Fab Four Friends: The Boys Who Became the Beatles)

Dance squad: Chicken Little and company (The Sky Is Falling!); Anna Pavlova (Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova)

Bunny martial arts: Bunjitsu Bunny (Tales of Bunjitsu Bunny); Ninja Bunny (Ninja Bunny)

For more Horn Book silliness about books we love, see the 2015 Mind the Gap Awards and our yearbook superlatives for 2012-2013 and 2013-2014.

The post 2014-2015 yearbook superlatives appeared first on The Horn Book.

As summer winds down and the new school year looms, we look back on the year that was. Here are our senior superlatives for characters in the class of 2013-2014. What superlative would you award your favorite character?

Wild-and-craziest: Mr. Tiger (from Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown)

Slow-and-steadiest: Giantess George (from Galápagos George by Jean Craighead, illus. by Wendell Minor)

Bravest: Peggy (from Peggy: A Brave Chicken on a Big Adventure by Anna Walker), Chicken Little (from Brave Chicken Little by Robert Byrd)

Most chicken: Alvin Ho (Alvin Ho: Allergic to the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, 
and Other Tourist Attractions by Lenore Look, illus. by LeUyen Pham)

Most zen: Koo (from Hi, Koo! A Year of Seasons by Jon J Muth)

Most loyal: Santiago (from Santiago Stays by Angela Dominquez)

Class clowns: the Vole Brothers (from Splat! Starring the Vole Brothers by Roslyn Schwartz)

Miss Congeniality: Princess Ko (from The Cracks in the Kingdom by Jaclyn Moriarty)

Mr. Congeniality: Jackson Greene (from The Great Greene Heist by Varian Johnson)

Cutest couple: Emily and Sam (from Just Call My Name by Holly Goldberg Sloan), Amy and Matthew (from Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern), Devorah and Jaxon (from Like No Other by Una LaMarche), Mouse and Mole (from Mouse and Mole, Secret Valentine by Wong Herbert Yee)

Most complicated love triangle: Alix, Swanee, and Liana (from Lies My Girlfriend Told Me by Julie Anne Peters)

Most likely to elope in Vegas: Holly and Dax (The Chapel Wars by Lindsey Leavitt)

BFFs: Rose and Windy (from This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki, illus. by Jillian Tamaki), Sophie and Bernice (from Sophie’s Squash by Pat Zietlow Miller, illus. by Wilsdorf), Pom and Pim (from Pom and Pim by Lena Landström, illus. by Olof Landström)

Best frenemies: Dog and Cat (from Dog vs. Cat by Chris Gall)

Best dancer: Josephine (from Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell, illus. by Christian Robinson), Rupert (from Rupert Can Dance by Jules Feiffer)

Best artist: Emily (from Emily’s Blue Period by Cathleen Daly, illus. by Lisa Brown), girl with red crayon (from Journey by Aaron Becker), prehistoric child (from The First Drawing by Mordicai Gerstein)

Best knitter: Needles (from When I Was the Greatest by Jason Reynolds)

Best dresser: Rose (from The Midnight Dress by Karen Foxlee)

Best/worst babysitter: Octopus (from Thank You, Octopus by Darren Farrell), Baba Yaga (from Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire)

Best car: Mike and Tschick (from Why We Took the Car by Wolfgang Herrndorf)

Best facial hair: George E. Ohr (from The Mad Potter: George E. Ohr, Eccentric Genius by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan)

Best teachers:

French: Mr. Hulot (from Hello, Mr. Hulot by David Merveille)

Chinese: Norman (from Norman, Speak! by Caroline Adderson, illus. by Qin Leng)

Sex ed: Sophie Blackall (author/illus. of The Baby Tree)

Best bus drivers: Joe (from My Bus by Byron Barton), Gus (Gus, the Dinosaur Bus by Julia Liu, illus. by Bei Lynn)

NBA-bound: Josh and Jordan (from The Crossover by Kwame Alexander)

Future mathlete: Annika (from Annika Riz, Math Whiz by Claudia Mills, illus. by Rob Shepperson)

Future gymnast: Jake (from Jake at Gymnastics by Rachel Isadora)

Most likely to be a vet: Lulu (from Lulu and the Rabbit Next Door by Hilary McKay, illus. by Priscilla Lamont)

Most likely to win an Oscar: Kate Walden (from Kate Walden Directs: Night of the Zombie Chickens by Julie Mata)

Most eco-concious: Kate Sessions (from The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever by H. Joseph Hopkins, illus. by Jill McElmurry)

Most traveled: cat (from City Cat by Kate Banks, illus. by Lauren Castillo), dad (from Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman, illus. by Skottie Young)

Most likely to get abducted by aliens: Robbie and Marilee (from The Summer Experiment by Cathie Pelletier), Aidan, Dru, and Louis (from Little Green Men at the Mercury Inn by Greg Leitich Smith, illus. by Andrew Arnold)

Cutest siblings: Gaston, Fi-Fi, Foo-Foo, and Ooh-La-La/Antoinette, Rocky, Ricky, and Bruno (from Gaston by Kelly DiPucchio, illus. by Christian Robinson)

Weirdest siblings: Merciful and Gospel Truth (from Engines of the Broken World by Jason Vanhee)

Most dysfunctional family: the Romanovs (from The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming)

Most well preserved (for her age): Lady Dai (from At Home in Her Tomb: Lady Dai and the Ancient Chinese Treasures of Mawangdui by Christine Liu-Perkins, illus. by Sarah S. Brannen)

Poshest: Lord and Lady Bunny (from Lord and Lady Bunny — Almost Royalty!: By Mr. & Mrs. Bunny by Polly Horvath, illus. by Sophie Blackall)

Bathing beauties: Queen Victoria (from Queen Victoria’s Bathing Machine by Gloria Whelan, illus. by Nancy Carpenter), Elizabeth (from Elizabeth, Queen of the Seas by Lynne Cox, illus. by Brian Floca)

Night owls: Hannah (from Hannah’s Night by Komako Sakai), Chengdu (from Chengdu Would Not, Could Not Fall Asleep by Barney Saltzberg), Tippy (from Tippy and the Night Parade by Lilli Carré)

For more Horn Book silliness about books we love, see the 2014 Mind the Gap Awards and our 2012-2013 yearbook superlatives.

The post 2013-2014 yearbook superlatives appeared first on The Horn Book.

By Phoebus Athanassiou and Stéphanie Laulhé Shaelou

European Union (EU) enlargement is both a policy and a process describing the expansion of the EU to neighbouring countries. The process of EU enlargement, first with the creation of the European Economic Community and, later, with that of the European Union, has resulted in today’s EU membership of 28 member states.

EU membership is open to any European country that will satisfy the conditions for accession as set out in Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). The position in EU law of countries aspiring to become member states of the EU has been well covered in multiple publications throughout the years.

As a corollary to the ‘right of accession’ of states to the European Union, the EU Treaties have recently provided for the member states’ right to withdraw from the European Union. This right has been enshrined in Article 50 TEU, formally introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon. The formal recognition of the member states’ right to withdraw warrants, in itself, special attention as regards its scope and the concrete consequences of its exercise, all the more so since there are, today, signals that this newly attributed right could be exercised in the foreseeable future.

The newly attributed right of withdrawal opens up new lines of enquiry relevant to other distinct scenarios, with no less of an impact on the EU’s composition. One such scenario is that of the separation or ‘secession’ of part of the territory of an EU member state, motivated by a desire for national independence. Recent months have seen a flurry of activity and academic debate on the likely implications of secession of part of the territory of certain member states, followed by the creation of newly independent states.

While secession within the European Union may be within the realm of the possible, several questions spring to mind when reviewing such a scenario, starting with the future of a newly created independent state in the EU. Would this future lie ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the European Union? This would be up to the newly created state to determine, as a sovereign state in international law. In case the newly created state decides to tie up its future to the one of the other members of the European family, the next question would be ‘how’ this is to be achieved? As newly created states wishing to join the EU would originate in an existing (rump) member state they would be familiar with the various EU principles, rules and procedures. Taking into consideration the ‘roots’ of a newly created state within the European family and its previous compliance with EU policies and practices (albeit in a different legal form and capacity) could an ‘automatic’ right to EU accession for the newly created state be envisaged? And, even if there is no such right of automatic accession to the European Union, what would be the parameters for an eventual ‘internal’ enlargement of the EU? To what extent would this differ from the stated policy and process of EU enlargement as enshrined in Article 49 TEU? The debate is on-going in various member states, while views on the matter have also been expressed at the European level.

These are only a few of the very fundamental and valid points raised by a secession scenario within the European Union. Many more questions spring to mind regarding, in particular, the future of the people living in the newly created states. Their people would normally find themselves outside the territorial scope of the EU, even if for a limited period of time only, with all the implications that this will have with respect to their rights as EU citizens. It is clearly in the interest of such citizens that their rights deriving from EU citizenship are maintained and/or protected during any transitional period from independence to full EU membership, so that they do not end-up being treated as third country nationals would. Is it at all possible to ensure the continuing enjoyment of their rights as (former) EU citizens? But this is yet another story.

Phoebus Athanassiou and Stéphanie Laulhé Shaelou are the authors of “EU Accession from Within?—An Introduction” (available to read for free for a limited time) in the Yearbook of European Law. Phoebus Athanassiou is Senior Legal Counsel with the European Central Bank, specializing on EU financial law and issues of relevance to the ECB and EMU. He holds a PhD and an LLM from King’s College, London, and an LLB from Queen Mary, London. He is a Member of the Editorial Boards of the ECB Legal Working Papers Series and of the International In-house Counsel Journal. He is the author of Hedge Fund Regulation in the EU (Kluwer, 2009), and the editor of the Research Handbook on Hedge Funds, Private Equity and Alternative Investments (Edward Elgar, 2012). Stéphanie Laulhé Shaelou is an Assistant Professor at the School of Law of the University of Central Lancashire Cyprus, specialising in EU constitutional law and governance, EU integration and EU external relations. She holds a PhD and an LLM from the University of Leicester, a First Class LLB from the University of Paris and a BA in English and German for lawyers from the international language school I.S.I.T in Paris. Dr Shaelou has written extensively in internationally refereed publications on multiple aspects of EU law, including related to Cyprus. She is the author of The EU and Cyprus: principles and strategies of full integration (vol. 3, Studies in EU External Relations, Brill/Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden, 2010) and of ‘Market Freedoms, EU fundamental rights and public order: views from Cyprus’ (2011) 30(1) Yearbook of European Law 298.

The Yearbook of European Law seeks to promote the dissemination of ideas and provide a forum for legal discourse in the wider area of European law. It is committed to the highest academic standards and to providing informative and critical analysis of topical issues accessible to all those interested in legal studies. It reflects diverse theoretical approaches towards the study of law.

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The post The ‘internal’ enlargement of the European Union – is it possible? appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Sophmore Year

As a teen, what new thing made/makes you bubble up inside with just-so-coolness? Here’s my answer. Fact or Fiction?

I’m the poster child for, well, everything that sucks about being sixteen. The zits. The braces. Never going to the popular parties. Studying and working all the time. Caring about what I might do in college, which makes IT that much worse. But what makes IT just that much more excruciating? Twisted even? This evil yearbook photographer.

I picked up my yearbook this morning I couldn’t wait to get my friends signatures. Summer always feels so long when I’m away from them. I’ll get to waitress more, which is awesome. Almost saved enough for my own car. Junior year will be the year I’ll stop taking the freaking bus. I mean, seriously. Sixteen and riding the bus. I didn’t have a lot of control over IT, all that sucked about being sixteen. But I could buy myself a car. And that made IT, everything, even looking in the mirror, OK. I’d have my own car. I’d be less sucky. Soon.

I walk up to my locker and fly through my combo so I can open my door and use it to shield me as I flip through the pages real quick before my next class. I find the not-too-many pages where I’ll see my picture. AFS, National Honor Society and the fall play, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man In The Moon Marigolds. Yeah. I know what you’re thinking. It gets even suckier. This just-so-coolness bubbled up inside of me because I’d sort of forgotten I had been in the play. It was way back in the fall. It was the first time I’d ever kissed a Senior. It was the first time I’d ever kissed a leading man, a guy so amazing I couldn’t believe he’d want to kiss someone as silver-toothed as me. The first semi-cool thing I’d ever done.

So I’m flipping through the pages and my heart stops. Two huge photos of just-me, on stage, took up two half-pages of the play pictures. Me, smiling my full-on yes-these-are-my-braces-and-would-you-like-to-get-a-better-look smile, my eyes dreamy like I’d taken a belt of booze at the wrap party.

I want to hide. Want to slam my locker shut and run down the second floor hallway outside the institutional prison they call high school. Leave. Forever. But, I have to take the bus. Summer can’t come fast enough.

“Sign my book?” The First Senior I’d Ever Kissed, The Only Senior I’d Ever Kissed, the leading man from The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man In The Moon Marigolds pries my locker door out of my hand.

Me? Our little romance hadn’t gone anywhere after the play and now he wants to be the first to sign my yearbook? Didn’t he see my sixteen-year-old suckiness fully documented in black-and-white on pages 102 and 103, for all future sixteen-year-olds to see forever?

“Ah, sure.” I grab my binder for Calculus and we exchange yearbooks. We write-walk to 4th period. I hadn’t gotten my cute saying for the year figured out yet. You know, the thing you write in yearbooks of guys-you-made-out-with-in-the-fall-and-then-sort-of-forgot-you-existed-after, and for all those other books

Hello again, apologises for no blogs recently but I've had some personal things to deal with. Anyway here's a great short story competition from the Writers' and Artists' 2010 Yearbook for writers both published and unpublished.
Your story must be up to 2,000 words long and be about the theme of 'Unity or Union' it must also be aimed at adults. The winner will receive £500 in cash and a place on the Arvon Foundation residential writing course.

I was longlisted for the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook centenary novel writing competition so it's definitely worth having a go at entering!
The winning story will also be published on the W & A's website, no purchase is necessary although every budding writer will probably want an up-to-date Yearbook, and the competition is open to all ages and nationalities.
To enter you must first register on the publishers website at http://www.acblack.com/registration/, then email your story to [email protected] with 'WAYB10 competition' as the subject line by February 14th, 2010. One entry only per person.
For more details including full terms and conditions visit www.writersandartists.co.uk

Hello again, apologises for no blogs recently but I've had some personal things to deal with. Anyway here's a great short story competition from the Writers' and Artists' 2010 Yearbook for writers both published and unpublished.
Your story must be up to 2,000 words long and be about the theme of 'Unity or Union' it must also be aimed at adults. The winner will receive £500 in cash and a place on the Arvon Foundation residential writing course.

I was longlisted for the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook centenary novel writing competition so it's definitely worth having a go at entering!
The winning story will also be published on the W & A's website, no purchase is necessary although every budding writer will probably want an up-to-date Yearbook, and the competition is open to all ages and nationalities.
To enter you must first register on the publishers website at http://www.acblack.com/registration/, then email your story to [email protected] with 'WAYB10 competition' as the subject line by February 14th, 2010. One entry only per person.
For more details including full terms and conditions visit www.writersandartists.co.uk

A few days ago I received two e-mails from one of my former fifth graders that I hadn’t seen since the final day of school in June 2007. He’s now in seventh grade and wanted to get back in-touch. Seeing as all of my students have my personal e-mail address, this was pretty [...]

Here’s what I’m working on now… Originally uploaded by teachergal Last year one of my fifth graders, Lauren, wrote a persuasive letter to a very large yearbook company’s CEO asking him to give our class yearbooks. She successfully persuaded him to discount the price of a full-color yearbook for the entire class (the kids paid $15 [...]

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