Northwest is the best!

The Children's CIA

2009-05-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

While looking up something at the CIA World Factbook today, I noticed that they have a kids' page. On that kids' page are some neat games, including one in which the player analyzes a photograph to produce useful information.

https://www.cia.gov/kids-page/games/aerial-analysis-challenge/index.html

Once you are done with that, there is the Photo Analysis Challenege, in which you compare the differences between two similar photos of the "same" stretch of a city street.

https://www.cia.gov/kids-page/games/photo-analysis-challenge/index.html

More Games: https://www.cia.gov/kids-page/games/index.html

- Jason Carter

NER

Real Estate in the library

2009-05-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

Hey Northwesters! Many of you know I'm prone to rearranging my collection and it shouldn't surprise you that yet again, I'm feeling the itch to move stuff - basically, as soon as my staff gets used to a current arrangement, I find myself planning a New and Improved arrangement.

One of the things I try to keep in mind when reconfiguring my collection is whether or not the change is truly new and improved. I ask myself if the new location will make sense not just to the staff but to the patrons. Next, I try to validate whether or not I've made the best use of the space available. For instance, for the longest time, I had my DVD/VHS collection situated near the back of the department. It was in plain sight from the door, but one would have to walk the entire length of the department to reach the much-desired collection. This positioning was purely marketing - I placed the collection in the far corner with the expectation that patrons would inevitably pick up other items (books! CDs! anything!). And, for awhile, it did seem as if this tactic was successful. But, in recent months, I noticed that my circulation statistics for this niche of my collection weren't improving despite the popularity of the items. I watched patrons come in to the branch, tractor-beamed to the far corner, blind to all of my other efforts to boost circulation (signs! displays! posters!), and I made the decision to abandon the tried and true supermarket technique (you know, milk in the back corner) because it turns out that this doesn't work as well in my library. So, I moved my DVD collection nearer to the center of everything and so far, so good. I don't have any firm data supporting the move as it's just been a month or so, but I'm pleased with the switch. This new location seems to be more in tune with what my patrons expect. Being able to recognize and act on that is somehow just as important as any other aspect of my job.

When it comes to fitting a collection to a space, there's the most obvious criteria: does that collection physically fit the space? I've had a number of good ideas that were nixed even before being put on paper simply because there would not have been enough room to do what I wanted. Other ideas are nixed because they inherently prevent the potential for collection growth (whether due to a lack of weeding or a surplus in the materials budget...). Nothing says "Don't check these books out!" quite like having to use a crowbar to pry the desired volume off of the shelf.

But there are also some less-obvious criteria for fitting a collection to a space: will it flow from one section to the next? Even if you have the space to put your audiobooks at the end of your reference collection, you shouldn't - there's no flow. Your biographies should go at the end of your reference (or some similar project-based collection, like science fair books). Your audiobooks should be placed as near to your other audio/visual materials as possible - this makes it easier for searching, easier for shelving, and easier for patrons. Is it inviting to the intended patron? I used to shelve my Family Favorites picturebooks (the ones that I found were most-requested: Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss, Curious George, and some others) on top of my picturebooks shelving. Now, the picturebook shelving is low - 3ft tall or so. But, for the intended patron - toddlers and pre-Ks - this was just not the most inviting (or safe, for that matter) arrangement. How could I expect these Family Favorites to circulate if Junior couldn't reach the books or, worse, tried to reach the books by climbing on the shelves (and falling, and getting hurt, and just overall being a no-good, very-bad situation)?

But why am I thinking about rearranging my collection again? I mean, aside from the DVD-shift, did I misunderstand my patrons and their needs? Or have things changed so greatly since the last time I did a major rearrange? Neither of those is the answer - instead, I'm looking at changing the layout of the department for very different reasons than I normally use. One, I'd like to have on-the-floor space for storytimes. With our meeting spaces being more frequently booked, I think it would be nice to be able to invite daycares and preschools to the branch without worrying too terribly much about whether or not the meeting space is available (that's not to say I would just start scheduling things whenever I wanted). The way the department is currently laid out, if I were to do a storytime on the floor (and I've done several), I'd be competing for attention with the front door, the front desk, the computer reservation station, the phone, and patrons and staff moving and milling about. I feel like it would be much better for all involved if I could tuck my picturebooks in the far corner, still within my line of sight but just a bit out of the main lane of library traffic.

The other reason I'd like to make this change is as a response to some behavioral issues among our after school patrons. Try as we might to maintain order, every day we face some level of chaso - whether it's from kids that have been penned up in the classroom all day and are just feeling rammy or it's from the 'tweens and teens who are testing authority, there are days and weeks when the staff goes home exhausted. If changing around my collection helps improve my statistics, I wonder what it would do for behavior issues? Would having the after-school crowd closer to the circulation desk and the guard's station mean a kinder, gentler after-school group? There's only one way to find out, I suppose, so let the to-scale drawings begin!

Question for you all: do you feel that you're making the best use of the space in your library? Do you feel like your collection makes sense or do you look at parts of it and say, "Then there's these books and I don't know what to do with them..."? If you had to brag about one feature of your department, what would it be and why? Any other comments or thoughts about making the most of the real estate in your department?

Activities for Eric Carle Books

2009-04-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

Wandering the web looking for activities parents can share with their kids I came across

http://www.eric-carle.com/catexchange.html

The Caterpillar Exchange is where teachers post ideas based off of Eric Carle's books. Find your favorite Eric Carle title and click on it and then browse the activities. Most of the ideas look simple and fun.

I'm going to try one out the next time I have a kindergarten storytime!

The Librarian's Guide to Gaming

2009-03-07T19:28:00.000-08:00

An online toolkit for building gaming at your library.
This site was just posted (Mar 2, 2009)by ALA and includes tools and resources, best practices, and even a calendar of conferences and events relating to gaming: traditional, electronic, theory, and education.

And here is a pdf file with a few board games for a wide range of ages, mostly elementary.

Share a Story - Shape a Future - a literacy blog event from ALSC

2009-03-07T18:49:00.000-08:00

(To see this article with enabled links got to the ALSC Facebook Page Note.)

During the week of March 9 - 13, please come visit Share a Story - Shape a Future. Each day, a different blog host will feature links to blog posts on a variety of topics having to do with children and literacy. Here is the schedule as of today, but please check the event blog for updated information, as the event is growing by the day.

Day 1 - March 9: Raising Readers
hosted by Terry Doherty at Scrub-a-Dub-Tub, the Reading Tub blog

* Finding Time at Home - Tricia Stohr-Hunt @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
* Making Time in the Classroom - Sarah Mulhern @ The Reading Zone
* Helping a Reader in Need (remedial readers) - Sandra Stiles guest post on Scrub-a-Dub-Tub
* It’s Bigger than the Book: Building Strong Readers at any Age with a Daily Dose of Read Aloud - Cathy Miller interview on the Share a Story - Shape a Future blog
* Keeping Gifted Readers Engaged - Donalyn Miller @ The Book Whisperer

Day 2 - March 10: Selecting Reading Material
hosted by Sarah Mulhern at The Reading Zone

* The ABCs of Reading: Infants, Toddlers & Preschoolers - Valerie Baartz on The Almost Librarian
* How to Help Emerging Readers - Anastasia Suen @5 Great Books NEW LOCATION!
* Helping Middle Grade Readers - Sarah Mulhern @ The Reading Zone
* Booklists and Read Alikes - Sarah Mulhern @ The Reading Zone
* Using Non-fiction - Mary Lee Hahn of A Year of Reading, hosted by the Stenhouse blog

Day 3 - March 11: Reading Aloud - It’s Fun, It’s Easy
hosted by Susan Stephenson at the Book Chook blog

* Ten Terrific Tips from Read-aloud Queen, Mem Fox - on the Book Chook blog
* Conquering Stage Fright - Interview with Sarah Mulhern/The Reading Zone @ the Book Chook
* Reading Aloud With Kids: A Dad’s Perspective - hosted by Steven and Brian at Book Dads: Fathers that Read
* Using Technology for Read Alouds - Sarah Mulhern @ The Reading Zone
* What to Do When the Reading is Done - Aimee Buckner, hosted by the Stenhouse blog
* Reading Aloud with Independent Readers - Donalyn Miller @ The Book Whisperer

Day 4 - March 12: A Visit to the Library
hosted by Eva Mitnick at Eva’s Book Addiction blog

* From Cozy to Cool - Library Spaces for Everyone - Eva @ Eva’s Book Addiction
* Lions and Marble and Books, Oh My - Betsy Bird at A Fuse #8 Production
* How to Make the Library Work for YOU - an interview with Adrienne of What Adrienne Thinks About That conducted by Jules at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
* The World Beyond the Library’s Walls - Melissa @ Librarian by Day

Day 5 - March 13: Technology and Reading - What the Future Holds
is hosted by Elizabeth O. Dulemba at Dulemba.com

* Audiobooks with Bruce Coville of Full Cast Audio and Mary Burkey of Audiobooker
* E-books with Harold Underdown of The Purple Crayon and Sheila Ruth of Wands and Worlds
* Podcasts with Andrea Ross of Just One More Book! and Cheryl Rainfield of cherylrainfield.com
* A resource of links to audiobooks, e-books, podcasts and webcasts @ Dulemba.com.

There will be plenty of giveaways, contests, and links to cool stuff, and most of all - inspiring and insightful posts by children’s literature bloggers. Guests will be invited to share their own knowledge and love of reading as well. Please tell parents and teachers and fellow children’s librarians about this blog event. See you then!

Newbery display.

2009-02-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

Wanted to share my Newbery display with you all!

The cards in the top of each book indicate the year it won the Newbery. I'm thinking about pulling them out, though, because people keep asking me if it's okay to check out the books on the display. My Caldecott display is circulating much better (I've replenished it several times a day since I put it up the day the awards were announced) without the year cards. Sometimes fancier isn't better!

Mock Caldecott Program for Class Visits

2009-01-12T10:48:00.001-08:00

Has anyone ever done a Mock Caldecott program before? I think it sounds like a lot of fun and something that would be memorable for the kids. I'm thinking of doing the program with first and second graders...kindergarten might be too young.

Here is how my current program outline:
1. Gather about 16-20 books. There are a lot of lists of possible contenders published by other libraries and there is even a spreadsheet created by Jim Averbeck showing which books appear most often on those lists.

2. Print out slips of paper with numbers 1-3. Each number has its own color. For example, 1 is on blue paper, 2 on red, 3 on green, etc.

3. When the class comes, I will explain what the Caldecott award is, show an example, and lead a discussion about the illustrations in picture books.

4. I'll divide the class into 4 or 5 groups and handout the numbered slips to everybody.

5. Each group will examine 4 books at a time.

6. After everyone gets a chance to look at the books, the kids get to vote by raising their slips of paper. Each book will have a number, and one child in each group will be the recorder to record how many votes each book received. (I think I'll create a spreadsheet for the recorder to make it easier.)

7. After everyone votes, I'll rotate the books on to the next group. This will continue until everyone has seen every book or until time runs out.

8. When the class returns, I will read the top 3 books and the kids will vote again to select their Mock Caldecott winner. I'll also announce the national Caldecott winner. This year, the national winner will be announced Monday January 26.

Is this type of a program possible with first and second graders?? Any suggestions?

Result: With a first grade class this was very chaotic. I think for first grade next time I will modify the program--I'll handout the voting slips, read 3 stories, and then have the kids vote and discuss. Perhaps this program is better geared towards grade 3-4. The kids were capable in small groups, but having 5 groups of first graders was just too much.

A Close Friend's Debut Children's Novel

2009-01-02T10:12:00.000-08:00

The Truth About Horses, Friends, and My Life as a Coward. Sarah P Gibson. Ill. by Glin Dibley. Marshall Cavendish Children: Tarrytown, NY. 2008. 146 pp.

Mixing the droll, deadpan understatements of the traditional Maine storyteller and the tongue-in-cheek humor of a Sciezska or a Pinkwater, Sarah P. Gibson offers 16 delightful vignettes of native, Maine Islander Sophie Groves’ struggle deciphering what’s easier: living with three crafty, ornery, downright nasty horses or discovering true friendship among her classmates. Her seemingly doomed attempts to win the respect of her family’s three horses, while at the same time navigating the social world of the pre-teen, looking for a friend who is a true friend and not just a (shudder) “horse lover,” provides a unique and funny look at growing up in Maine.

Each chapter is an unexpected and humorous tale of trials and tribulations showing the horses who’s in charge and trying to convince new found friends that horses are not the adorable, noble steeds they are thought to be. Sophie Groves’ understated, dead-on, Laocoön-like predictions of the horses’ behavior along with her friends shocked surprise upon experiencing the true nature of horses, never fails to provoke a laugh. Gibson allows the reader to experience the sweet sensation of knowing better than the characters that enter into Sophie’s life.

Will anyone ever listen to Sophie when it comes to Sweetheart, Fancy Free, and Really? Are sweets the only means of convincing the horses to cooperate? Can she cope with the Carpwells? How easy is it to tell a moose from a horse on Halloween Night? Is there a true friend for Sophie? Find out the truth behind all these questions in Gibson’s The Truth About Horses, Friends, and My Life as a Coward.

Character Counts Booklist

2008-12-26T10:39:00.000-08:00

Need to find books that teach specific character traits?

You can find a list at http://charactercounts.org/resources/booklist.php

The booklist includes books ranging from the Grouchy Ladybug to Jacob Have I Loved. It includes author, title, number of pages, type of book, and which trait the book illustrates. Some of the books seem a little outdated, but some books are still in demand and in the FLP system.

The 6 character traits are: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.

Signage

2008-12-08T11:43:00.000-08:00

It's no secret that I LOVE making signs - the bigger and more elaborate, the better. I typically have 4 or so sign making binges a year. There are just times when I need to make signs!

Here's what I've been up to lately.

A simple sign made using Comic Sans font, colored paper, and twine. I used MS Publisher and set my paper to landscape format and then made the font as big as I could while still printing two letters a page. I needed the sign to be double-sided since it can be seen from both the book stacks and the circulation desk, but I also needed a sign that didn't require lots of taping, cutting, or lining up. So, I calculated the letters and then laid out each page with two letters like this: F N,I O, C I, T T, I C, O I, N F. After printing out the letters, I folded each sheet in half, used a little bit of tape to hold the fold together, reinforced the top edge of each (now) double-sided letter section using some book tape, punched a couple of holes in the top of each sheet, and then ran some twine through those holes.

I recently made a big shift with my non-fiction, including special collections like Biographies and Holidays. Among those niche collections relocated was my group of atlases. I've wanted to give the atlases a space of their own for while, if only because I had a great idea for a sign in mind. Once I had the books in place, all I needed was a few supplies: bright poster board, thick letters, and some ClipArt make up this sign:

I used Publisher (again) to make an oversized circle (I opted for a custom-sized poster as my layout blank). Then, I looked for the most elementary image of a globe using ClipArt. I wanted something abstract since I wasn't aiming for perfection nor was I intent on cutting out intricate shorelines or islands. Using MS Word, I was able to ungroup the ClipArt image and use just those portions that I wanted. Then, I upsized those little odd looking and non-geographical entities so that they would be semi-proportionate to my blue circle. I printed everything out, cut out the shapes and taped it all together. I think that aspect of sign making really appeals to the puzzle-lover in me - I get to piece it just so. I made the letters using over-sized black font and then cut them out using an Exacto. The whole sign took about an hour to make, start to finish, and it's my current favorite.

My old favorite sign is still going strong at the library:

Eager to assist my patrons, young and old, from the minute they enter the building, I made this sign with them in mind. The letters are angled towards the entrance and on a clear day (that is, a day that isn't 40+ child deep...), the sign is obvious from the circulation desk. I made this sign by blowing up the font to as large as it would go for a single page, taped the lettered sheets to one side of a manilla folder and on the other side, I taped the fronts of recycled book jackets:

Want a closer look at the construction?

I rounded out this display by incorporating old, empty VHS cardboard sleeves. This is definitely a sign that sticks out!

Sorry for the image quality on these - I took the photos using my camera phone!

1,000 Books Before Kindergarten

2008-12-05T11:35:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week I came upon this program on some library websites. The goal is to get parents and guardians to read a lot of books to their young children. Some libraries run the program and some schools run the program.

Here are the basics:

Kids 0-5 signed up. (In the preschool-kindergarten collaboration kids only participate from sept of last year of preschool to end the kindergarten school year.)

Books are bagged in groups of 10.

At certain milestones like 100th book, 500th book, etc. the child receives a prize. Prizes can be things like t-shirts, cds of nursery rhymes, etc.

At the end of the program, kids get a big prize, certificate, and their picture in a local newspaper.

Example: I contacted the school that does the program. The woman I spoke with said that this is their 3rd year doing the program. They have 240 bags with unique titles (no repeats). This year they have 150 participants. Her school relied on donations for their books.

What I like about the program: It encourages parents to read to their kids and reinforces how important it is. At Oak Lane, I see a lot of elementary age kids, but not many preschoolers or babies.

Questions:

How practical do you all think this program is?

Would you bag up books? (I'm thinking that to start I'd have 20 bags and then switch them out every 3-4 months)

Who would participate? Kids from birth to end of kindergarten? 3-5 year olds?

Would you divide the bags into levels? Bag for toddlers, bag for 3-4s, bag for pre-readers and beginning readers? Or mix levels?

Overall, I think the program is worth doing. I will see if my Friends group is willing to collaborate and sponsor prizes. I think it will take me a month or two to get everything set up and organized.

The woman I spoke with is sending me an informational packet. Once I get it, I can I make copies and send it on to any that are interested. Let me know!

Some Old Favorites New

2008-11-14T10:15:00.001-08:00

http://www.mothergooserocks.com/

LEAP programming woes.

2008-10-20T16:19:00.000-07:00

So, experienced librarians. Let's talk about LEAP programs.

I know we all struggle with this, but I'm about to tear my hair out trying to convince my after-school kids that it's worth their while to participate in planned, structured programs during LEAP hours. We are particularly having issues with those hosted by outside performers. On those days, our regulars mysteriously absent themselves from the building just as the programs are supposed to occur.

My (awesome) new LEAP leader and I have been trying to figure out how to create the expectation that they can and should participate in these programs. So far we have tried snacks and bribery, including offering coupons for 30 extra minutes of computer time if they attend a program from start to finish. Neither has worked. I repeat: not even 30 free minutes of computer time has worked. Everyone disappears from the premises just as the program begins.

I'd shrug my shoulders and simply decide not to book any more programs if not for statistical necessity - we have virtually no school-aged programming otherwise, because kids in this community are so completely overbooked. Plus, isn't part of the point of LEAP to involve kids in an afterschool community? We are working against several years of history where our regulars operate very independently, doing their homework and then playing on the computer until it's time to go home. This is fine to an extent, but I'm not ready to give up yet.

Your suggestions for enticing children to programs - or, better yet, structuring them and creating expectations so that participation is fun and agreeable - are much appreciated! Thanks from the n00b.

Scholastic Drops Bratz Books

2008-09-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

(from an e-mail sent by Veronica Britto)
This article originally appeared in SLJ's Extra Helping. Sign up now!
By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 9/22/2008 2:00:00 PM

If you haven’t seen any Bratz books or items in your Scholastic catalog it’s because the publisher has dropped the brand from its book clubs and book fairs following complaints that they promote the sexualization of girls.

However, Scholastic says the move was part of a decision to “rotate the books in our book selection,” which happens routinely after consultations with a team of experienced in-house editors who consult with teachers, librarians, and other customers, says company spokeswoman Kyle Good.

The books are a spin-off of the highly popular 10-inch dolls, which have large heads, wide eyes, and full lips—and are often dressed in tight clothing, miniskirts, fishnet stockings, and feather boas.

The American Psychological Association created a "Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls" in February, 2007 and in its report said it was “worrisome when dolls designed specifically for 4- to 8-year-olds are associated with an objectified adult sexuality.”

Additionally, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), a national coalition that includes health care professionals, educators, advocacy groups, and parents, launched a letter-writing campaign in April 2007 urging Scholastic to stop promoting Bratz items at schools.

“You flooded Scholastic with emails urging them to stop selling books such as Lil' Bratz Dancin Divas, Lil' Bratz Catwalk Cuties, and Lil' Bratz Beauty Sleepover Bash, “said the CCFC. “And in the end, more than 5,000 emails from CCFC members were too much to ignore.”

Good said Scholastic’s decision wasn’t based on those complaints, but that the publisher does listen to what its customers, especially teachers and librarians, have to say. “Our goal has been and continues to be to provide quality, affordable books that meet the wide range of reading levels and interests of today’s students and help every child develop a love of reading,” Scholastic said in a statement.

Good stressed that Scholastic often gets mixed reviews from its customers—even of award-winning authors such as Phillip Pullman—but oftentimes books like the Bratz titles attract reluctant readers.

The last time Bratz books were available in Scholastic book clubs and fairs was last spring, and they are not scheduled for this year, Good says. The books sold very well at clubs during its first year in 2004 and sales have been slipping ever since.

These Aren't Your Child's Picture Books Anymore

2008-08-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

A middle school teacher wants Leo Lionni books to teach her students how to make inferences. A historical preservationist is reinvigorated by Virginia Lee Burton’s The Little House. Two teenagers flirt and read Wee Little Chick to one another. Picture books are not just for children anymore.

The graphic novel naissance—comics renaissance—has provided entry for a new way of seeing and engaging with picture books. The marriage of picture with text or picture with wordless narrative is no longer just the first step of the serious American reader. Illustrated books with and without words are accepted for all ages, thanks to the successes of the graphic novel. This brings us to the humble picture book and the ways in which graphic novels and picture books have been colliding and expanding and exploding conventions. When American Born Chinese, The Red Book, Zen Shorts, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and The Wall are award winners, we know there must be a sea-change.

I rediscovered picture books as a children’s librarian—no better way, perhaps. While I loved them as a child, I never thought of them as I traveled the typical reader’s trajectory: reading books for children, books for young adults and books for adults. I love children’s and young adult books because of my work. Most likely I would not have discovered their joys elsewhere. When people think of books—if they think of them at all—they adhere to a linear path linking human development and reading. Surely, reading picture books is regressing! Onward and upward, today Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, tomorrow Moby-Dick.

Like any range of literature, picture books can be gentle or challenging, in the terms of their language, themes, design, and images. Picture books can approach a difficult and complicated subject in a comforting and low-pressure way and they can provoke teen and adult readers to look deeply, intentionally, and closely at content that children might miss.

So what can result from interactions between teens and picture books? Teens can learn about book design in Black and White, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, and The Three Pigs; spirituality in Samsara Dog and The Three Questions; “wolves” in Wolves and The Woolves in the Sitee; animal biology (in rhyme!) in Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones; art elements in Hello, Fruit Face! The Paintings of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Nina’s Book of Little Things, and Voices in the Park; war and violence in Patrol:An American Soldier in Vietnam, The Letter Home, The Butter Battle Book, and Rose Blanche; and death in Michael Rosen’s Sad Book and To Hell With Dying.

Librarians must educate patrons that the picture book is a format not always prescribed for very young children. This is a challenge when we are constantly asked for the 4-year old, 6-year old, and 12-year old sections and we dutifully point to picture books, easy readers, and chapter books. But we can inform parents and teachers of the myriad ways picture books can be used with teens. Picture books can be microcosmic in the multitudes contained in their brevity. Jon Muth’s books sometimes seem to teach us all we need to know about Buddhism.

Picture books can be used with reluctant readers and visual learners, they can be paired with novels or nonfiction works in history lessons, they can initiate art and design projects, draw on art historical connections and critical thinking strategies, and rekindle the personal experience with literature. As students begin deciphering textual meaning, they can use picture book connections to learn about character development, language, and theme. While we think of storytime as an essentially preschool activity, collaborative out loud engagement with text and image can be pursued with teens.

For the picture book to fulfill its programming potential, it would be ideal to cultivate a young adult collection of picture books. This may be a cataloging or administrative challenge, but as we see graphic novels collected in up to three locations in a building, a home for young adult picture books seems possible. While many children’s picture books can be used successfully with teens, avoiding redundancy is probably desired. There are many picture books that work more deeply and better with teens than with children and would probably get more love in a YA division. Some resources to check out include: http://readwritethink.org, http://vue.org, http://www.picturebookart.org, and http://www.wiredforyouth.com/books/index.cfm?booklist=picture

Titles mentioned
Brannen, Sarah. Uncle Bobby’s Wedding
Browne, Anthony. Voices From the Park
Burton, Virginia Lee. The Little House
Decker, Tim. The Letter Home
Gravett, Emily. Wolves
Haring, Keith. Nina’s Book of Little Things
Heller, Ruth. Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones
Innocenti, Roberto. Rose Blanche
Lionni, Leo.
Lehman, Barbara. The Red Book
Macaulay, David. Black and White
Manos, Helen and Julie Vivas. Samsara Dog
Muth, Jon. The Three Questions
Myers, Walter Dean. Patrol: An American Soldier in Vietnam
Richardson, Justin. And Tango Makes Three
Rosen, Michael. Michael Rosen’s Sad Book
Scieska, Jon and Lane Smith. The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales.
Selznick, Brian. The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Seuss, Dr. The Butter Battle Book
Sís, Peter. The Wall
Strand, Claudia. Hello, Fruit Face! The Paintings of Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Thompson, Lauren. Wee Little Chick
Walker, Alice. To Hell With Dying
Wiesner, David. Three Little Pigs
Wild, Margaret and Anne Spudvilas. Woolves in the Sitee
Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese

A Moment off Topic, Please

2008-08-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

Developer of Irish capital's public library service

Sat, Aug 16, 2008

MÁIRÍN O'BYRNE, who has died aged 88, was a former Dublin city and county librarian, and did much to develop the public library service throughout the city and suburbs.

Deeply committed to public service, she passionately believed that libraries could make a difference to the lives of those who did not have formal education and was a great believer in life-long education.

Máirín O'Byrne began her career in Dún Laoghaire public library in 1937 and secured a diploma in library training at University College Dublin in 1943. For 15 years from 1946, she was librarian in Bray public library, which was then independent of Wicklow county library.

It was in a poor state when she took over and she made massive strides in bringing the facilities up to date.

She took up the position of Dublin city librarian in 1961 and was appointed Dublin city and county librarian in 1967, which she held until her retirement in 1984.

She sought to enhance the physical environment of libraries and persuaded the Arts Council to fund a mural by Eithne Jordan for Swords library, while convincing a local councillor and publican to fund a piece of sculpture by Conor Fallon.

She was held in high regard among her peers, being elected as president of the Library Association (1966-1967). She certainly made a difference, taking a particular interest in the development of professional qualifications for library staff.

The holder of an honorary fellowship of the Library Association of Ireland, she also was honorary (life) vice president of the Library Association (UK), chairwoman of the Public Library Review Group (1985) and visiting lecturer at the Department of library studies at UCD.

She was a member of An Chomhairle Leabharlanna/the Library Council (1958-1982), the RTÉ Authority, the Public Service Advisory Council and was a trustee of the National Library. A regular contributor to An Leabharlann, she also was co-author of the Public Library Review Report(1987).

Born in 1919, she was the eldest of the four children and only daughter of William and Mary O'Byrne.

Both her parents were school teachers. Her father was from Paulstown, Co Kilkenny, and her mother was from Clandouglas, Lixnaw, Co Kerry.

The family grew up in Kildangan, Co Kildare, where her father was principal of the local national school for more than 30 years.

She attended secondary school at the Mercy Sisters convent in Monasterevin. Most summers were spent in Ballybunion and her Irish was perfected in the Kerry Gaeltacht of Ballyferriter and Waterford Gaeltacht of Ring.

She settled in Albert Road, Glenageary, Co Dublin, in the early 1950, and was joined there by her parents after her father's retirement. He suffered from muscular dystrophy in his final years and was nursed by Máirín and her mother. He died in 1955.

Máirín's mother lived with her until her death in 1970. Two years later Máirín moved to another house on the same road, which became her home for the next 36 years.

She provided a home from home for her brothers Kieran and Brendan, who were priests in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. They did not enjoy perfect health and both were nursed from time to time by Máirín, allowing them to continue their priestly duties until their deaths in 1995 and 2002.

Her eldest brother Séamus practised as a pharmacist in Sutton for 35 years. Married to Pearl, they had six children, Máirín's only nieces and nephews. She cared for Pearl after Séamus's death in 2003.

She never married but was a great family person.

Former colleagues admired her sharp intellect, wit, sense of fun, generosity of spirit and admired her courage in the face of a slowly advancing illness.

A dynamic person, she was very involved the life of Dublin city. She had a great personal interest in art, and she loved her garden and her dogs.

Máirín O'Byrne: born December 5th, 1919; died August 1st, 2008

© 2008 The Irish Times

Let's talk trash!

2008-08-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

One of my sure-fire, last-minute, don't-want-to-read-dinosaur-stories-again storytime go-to is TRASH. It's a concept that pre-schoolers are able to grasp and it's potentially gross - that's a win-win situation!

Let me share with you some of my favorite parts of each story!

I Stink!, Kate and Jim McMullan
This is a noisy, roughly drawn tale of a smelly trash truck. The best (and grossest) part of the story is when the ingredients for Alphabet Soup are listed - D for Dirty Diapers, M for Moldy Meatballs, K for Kitty Litter, Y for Year-old Yams. I like to pause after some of the more repungent-sounding items and smack my lips, rub my tummy, or otherwise indicate that for a trash truck? THESE are yum yum yum!

Smash! Mash! Crash! There Goes the Trash!, Barbara Odanaka
This is a gentler trash story that has some great imaginative elements in it - the rumble of the trash truck as it approaches has the neighborhood wondering if it's a "dragon snoring...giants jumping...cymbals clanging?" Kids are then taken on a tour of a typical trash truck route, and are introduced to different trashy items. The last page reveals two little piggies playing with miniature trash trucks. Overall, it's not as crude a story as I Stink! and as such, provides a nice complement.

Trashy Town, Andrea Zimmerman
By far, this is my favorite of the three and I almost always save it for last. This is the tale of Mr. Gilly (and, the keen-eyed among the audience might note, a couple of ratty friends); Mr. Gilly is a trash man. All over the town, Mr. Gilly drives his trash truck, cleaning up as he goes. Kids quickly catch on to the rhythmic chant, "Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the Trashy Town". This is a great audience-participation story and helps kids realize they, too, can help clean up the trash.

In-between stories, I help keep the kids focused by singing/dancing/generally making noise. One of the songs we've had fun with is a trashy version of The Wheels on the Bus: the hopper on the trash truck goes dump, dump, dump; wheels go round and round; flies in the trash truck go buzz buzz buzz; and so on. I've yet to sing the same version twice. Other songs we sing are crowd-pleasers, like Five Little Monkeys, or The Hokey Pokey. I recently thought that I could present a butchered version of Old MacDonald Had A Farm - Old MacDonald had a trash truck, EIEIO. And in that trash truck there were some . . . leftover lunches . . . EIEIO. With a *barf barf* here, etc. Haven't tried it with the children yet, but hopefully I can give it a shot this week!

Do you have any trashy tales or songs you want to share?

The Rumbly in My Tumbly Song

2008-08-02T14:52:00.000-07:00

"Hum de dum dum,
Hum de dum dum;
I'm so rumbly in my tumbly.
Time to munch an early lunch:
Hum de dum dum dum."

Good eatin'! Toddler storytime, 7/29/08

2008-07-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

Storytime today was yummy yummy in our tummies!

We read:

Lunch written and ill. by Denise Fleming

"Hi, Pizza Man!" by Virginia Walter, ill. by Ponder Goembel

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff; ill. by Felicia Bond

We sang:

Another rendition of "Jello in the Bowl" with added verses: Jello in my mouth, jello in my hair, jello on my hands, jello in my belly...
"I Like to Eat Apples and Bananas" by Raffi - We also sang a version with "I like to eat, eat, eat pepperoni pizza" to transition into Hi, Pizza Man!
"The Donut Song" - Lots of lyrics variations at this site!
"There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" - Sung with a puppet! I used the traditional, "She's dead, of course" line, and it didn't seem to traumatize any of the toddlers too deeply. Phew. Do any of you use an alternative line for that part, and how does it go over?

Bonus food fun!

Cookie is good enough for me! None of this fruits and vegetables nonsense. ;) (I hope this video's lyrics have not been dubbed over with something obscene - apparently that is quite the YouTube trend and I don't have my sound on at work!)

Clips Continuing Kate's Comment

2008-07-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

The Clip Kate Mentioned:

Another Similar Clip:

"One World, One Love" y'all.

We love to boogie! Toddler storytime, 7/22/08

2008-07-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

We shook it all about in toddler storytime at CHH today! I'm hoping to get my hands on some of those floaty chiffon scarves for next time so the kids can do their very own fruity interpretive dances. ;)

We read:

Wiggle by Doreen Cronin; ill. by Scott Menchin - Everyone wiggled along with the silly dog in this bold, colorful picture book. Lots of giggling during the part about "wiggle in your underwear!"
Baby Danced the Polka by Karen Beaumont; ill. by Jennifer Plecas - This one has lots of flaps that reveal animals gettin' down with a baby who just won't take a nap. The rhymes are so compelling and they allow the kids to shout out the animal name as the flap is opened.
Rap a Tap Tap! Here's Bojangles - Think of That! written and illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon - Ah, classic Dillon illustrations and a catchy call-and-response rhyme: "Rap a tap tap! Think of that!" The kids liked tapping their feet and clapping their hands as they repeated it.

We sang:

"Jello in the Bowl" (All you do is sing "Jello in the bowl, jello in the bowl, wibble wobble wibble wobble, jello in the bowl" to the tune of "Farmer in the Dell!" If you have a smaller group the kids stand in a circle and each toddler takes a turn dancing in the middle while everyone sings. We just have too many to do that here!)
"Shake My Sillies Out" by Raffi
"The Hokey Pokey"

What are some of your favorite books and songs for the dancing queens and kings in your storytime?

**Fun bonus video to brighten your day**
Matt Harding started a viral phenomenon on YouTube when he filmed himself doing a stupid dance in various locations around the globe. Doesn't seem terribly exciting, but his videos now have millions of views. I won't lie, I get all teary every time I watch them, in a good way. His latest video was featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day today. Watch it and wiggle your waggles away!

Rub-a-dub-dub! Toddler storytime, 7/15/0

2008-07-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

I could not believe how crazy our packed house of toddlers went for this splish-splashy storytime! And they say kids don't like bathtime. The caregivers really got into it too, and it was certainly the most fun this librarian has had in a while. My voice now sounds like Kermit the Frog with emphysema (a phrase shamelessly stolen from YA author John Green) from sing-shouting the books, but it was worth it.

We read:

Big Red Tub by Julia Jarman; illustrated by Adrian Reynolds - We just got a fresh copy of this at CHH so I decided to give it a test drive. Huge hit! It's fantastical in a way that's appealing to toddlers, with various animals joining kids Stan and Stella in the tub and eventually sailing around the world.
Scrubbly Bubbly Car Wash by Irene O'Garden; illustrated by Cynthia Jabar - This one flopped a little, relatively speaking. Our copy wasn't large enough for the audience to really see the colorful illustrations. If I can figure out a way to make it more interactive - the cumulative rhyme didn't seem to do it - I'd use it again.
I Ain't Gonna Paint No More by Karen Beaumont; illustrated by David Catrow - This is one of my all-time favorite picture books. You can literally sing the entire thing to "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More," and it's hilarious. The kids pick up on the rhymes quickly and are able to predict what will happen next.
Bonus book: Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late written and illustrated by Mo Willems - This really has nothing to do with bathtime, except that after a bath you usually have to go to bed. The main reason I used it was that Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus was so popular a few weeks ago, and the kids get a kick out of yelling "No!!!" at the pigeon. They liked this one too!

We sang:
"(I wash my) Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes"
"This is the way we wash our ____" (I supplied the first few suggestions - hands, face, etc. - and then the kids could yell out other body parts. Luckily they were all G-rated. :))
"It Ain't Gonna Rain No More" (to practice for I Ain't Gonna Paint No More)

What have you been reading and singing with your young patrons, toddlers or otherwise, this week?

Musings on Good Books in Children’s Lit:

2008-07-14T19:43:00.000-07:00

Q:What makes a good book?
A: What your patrons like. Or, in library terms, what circulates well. Unfortunately, this might not include what YOU like, or what your years of grad school work tell you is good literature. Immediate Reward is one of the criteria that guarantees that a person will read. A good portion of what children read is prescribed reading. Prescribed – whether by teacher, parent, or other authority figures – Reading is the opposite of Immediate Reward. Prescribed Reading is not retained beyond the end of the assignment calling for the reading, leads to a negative view of reading, and hinders the development of good reading and comprehension skills. Prescribed Reading causes reading to be something to dread and avoid. But reading based on the interests, background, and desire of the child (Immediate Reward) develops a joy of reading, a yearning to learn more, and good comprehension skills.

Q:How do we figure out what circulates well; what our patrons like?
A: By considering the following: *Ethnicity of the reader
*Lifestyle of the reader
*Socio-economic concerns of the reader
*Interests of the reader

Q: How do we determine these considerations?
A: By engaging and connecting with the individual reader whether by a traditional reference interview, a casual conversation, or observation of reading habits over time.

By gaining a sensitivity towards and understanding of the reading community the library serves by studying census data, previous monthly and annual reports generated by the library, recorded circulation trends, articles from professional journals relating to aspects of the particular community. Equally important is the immersion of the librarian into the community by outreach efforts to schools, churches, day cares; by attending street festivals, block parties and other events in the community; by eating at local dining establishments; shopping locally; by walking the neighborhood; by being open and approachable at the library and outside the library.

Bottom Line: “When we read words that have meaning for us, we know ‘it’s worth it.’” (Jacobs & Tunnel, Children’s Literature, Briefly. 2000. p.5). The challenge to the librarian is to create a collection that allows as many patrons as possible to have this experience.

Crazy creatures! Toddler storytime, 7/8/08

2008-07-08T12:19:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to post the books we read and songs we sing at CHH every week. Feel free to critique, make other suggestions, or steal for your own use!

This week was nothing terribly special, but it sure was fun. The (loose) theme was silly creatures.

We read:

I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry
Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley
"Hi Pizza Man!" by Virginia Walter

We sang:
"Shake My Sillies Out"
"Down By the Bay"
"If You're a Monster and You Know It" (sung to If You're Happy and You Know it, with fun actions like growling, stomping, and scaring your friend!)

I'd love if others would post their storytime suggestions too. I present to roughly the same group of 20-30 toddlers and their caregivers every week, so I really need to ramp up my repertoire!

A Song for Pre-k, K, Grade 1 for the Summer and the Summer Reading Game

2008-07-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

Sung in a twangy, bluegrass/country music style. To listen to my recording of the tune here, Click and Brace Yourself! ;o) Heard a clip on NPR's all things considered on Saturday Morning. Did you know ladybug's are feared to be going extinct? Look up Ladybug Project on NPR.org.

Ladybugs' Picnic
Sung/written/animated by William "Bud" Luckey
Lyrics by Don Hadley

credited to Dwayne Wayne
on the "The Count Counts!" album (see below)

One two three
Four five six
Seven eight nine
Ten eleven twelve
Ladybugs
Came to the ladybugs' picnic

One two three
Four five six
Seven eight nine
Ten eleven twelve
And they all played games
At the ladybugs' picnic

They had twelve sacks so they ran sack races
And they fell on their backs and they fell on their faces
The ladybugs 12
At the ladybugs' picnic

They played jump rope but the rope it broke
So they just sat around telling knock-knock jokes
The ladybugs 12
At the ladybugs' picnic

One two three
Four five six
Seven eight nine
Ten eleven twelve
And they chatted away
At the ladybugs' picnic

They talked about the high price of furniture and rugs
And fire insurance for ladybugs
The ladybugs 12
At the ladybugs' picnic
12!

Transcribed by Luis Matias

Originally released on the album
The Count Counts! The Count's Countdown Show from Radio 1-2-3 (1975) Children's Records of America

Summertime songs?

2008-06-09T13:25:00.000-07:00

I'm getting ready to do a toddler storytime to help kids and caregivers beat this awful heat, but I'm having trouble finding age-appropriate songs to sing with them. Anything tangentially related to summertime would be great - ice cream, beach, etc. Any suggestions?

Links to lyrics are a bonus, and I'd also appreciate fingerplays if you can think of any!

Cinderella Tales the World Over (and Two Extra)

2008-06-03T12:25:00.000-07:00

Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella by Robert D. San Souci. ISBN-10: 0689848889
Cendrillon: A Cajun Cinderella by Sheila Hebert Collins. ISBN-10: 1565543262
The Way Meat Loves Salt: A Cinderella Tale from the Jewish Tradition by Nina Jaffe. ISBN-10: 0805043845
Smoky Mountain Rose: An Appalachian Cinderellaby Alan Schroeder. ISBN-10: 0140566732
Anklet for a Princess: A Cinderella Story from Indiaby Meredith Babeaux Brucker. ISBN-10: 1885008201
The Persian Cinderella by Shirley Climo. ISBN-10: 0064438538
Abadeha: The Philippine Cinderella by Myrna J. De La Paz. ISBN-10: 1885008171
Domitila: A Cinderella Tale from the Mexico by Jewell Reinhart Coburn. ISBN-10: 1885008139
Yeh-Shen (Paperstar Book) by Ai-Ling Louie.ISBN-10: 0698113888
The Korean Cinderella (Trophy Picture Books) by Shirley Climo. ISBN-10: 0064433978
The Egyptian Cinderella by Shirley Climo. ISBN-10: 0064432793
The Rough-Face Girl by Rafe Martin. ISBN-10: 0698116267
The Turkey Girl: A Zuni Cinderella Story by Penny Pollock. ISBN-10: 0316713147
The Gospel Cinderella by Joyce Carol Thomas. ISBN-10: 0060253878
Bubba, The Cowboy Prince by Helen Ketteman. ISBN-10: 0590255061
Cinderella Tales From Around The World by Ila Lane Gross. ISBN-10: 0971364915
Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England by Jack David Zipes. ISBN-10: 0415902630
Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the Worldby Jane Yolen. ISBN-10: 0393320464

A Sampling of African Focused Children's Picture Books

2008-06-03T09:05:00.000-07:00

Just a short list. There are so many more! On a personal note: For You Are A Kenyan Child is set amongst the people I lived with while in Kenya and Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain is the actual location where I lived!

All of these books portray values, feelings, and attitudes that are universal, so share them with all your patrons, not just those of African descent. Karibuni! Enjoy!

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: A West African Tale by Verna Aardema
ISBN-10: 0140549056 $7.99. A wonderful folktale with beautiful illustrations.
Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain (Reading Rainbow Book) by Verna Aardema
ISBN-10: 0803708092 $7.99. A repetitive and growing poem with beautiful illustrations - from East Africa.
Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti (An Owlet Book) by Gerald McDermott
ISBN-10: 080500310X $7.95. No African folktale collection can be without several Anansi stories.
A Story, a Story by Gail E Haley
ISBN-10: 0689712014 $7.99. A classic Anansi story about how stories came into the world.
For You Are a Kenyan Child (Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award) by Kelly Cunnane
ISBN-10: 068986194X $11.53. A Kenyan boy learns a lesson in responsibility.
Mama Panya's Pancakes: A Village Tale from Kenya by Mary Chamberlin
ISBN-10: 1905236646 $7.99. A Kenyan tale. Hospitality is very important in most African countries.
Zomo the Rabbit: A Trickster Tale from West Africa by Gerald McDermott
ISBN-10: 0152999671 $7.00. Another great trickster tale from West Africa.
Fire on the Mountain (Aladdin Picture Books) by Jane Kurtz
ISBN-10: 0689818963 $7.99. A folktale from Ethiopia.
Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story by Angela Shelf Medearis
ISBN-10: 0807573167 $6.95. This original tale (by the author) of seven brothers tells how the famous Kente cloth was created.
Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters (Reading Rainbow Book)
ISBN-10: 0688129358 $11.55. An African Cinderella story with beautiful illustrations - from Zimbabwe.
Masai and I by Virginia Kroll
ISBN-10: 0689804547 $6.99. An African-American girl compares her life to the life of a Maasai child's.
A Is for Africa by Ifeoma Onyefulu
ISBN-10: 0140562222 $5.99. Beautiful photographs of Africa and its people - from Nigeria.
Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions (Picture Puffin Books) by Margaret Musgrove
ISBN-10: 0803703570 $6.99. A great nonfiction book that paints a picture of the many peoples and culture of Africa.
Africa Is Not A Country by Margy Burns Knight
ISBN-10: 0761316477 $9.95. The authors narrate the experiences of children at play, at school, and at home, and use realistic illustrations to explore the cultural, environmental, ethnic, and social diversity of the 53 countries that make up the African continent..
Jambo Means Hello: Swahili Alphabet Book (Picture Puffin Books) by Muriel Feelings
ISBN-10: 0140546529 $6.99. A great addition to your collection if you want to add in some language.
Moja Means One: Swahil Counting Book by Muriel L. Feelings
ISBN-10: 0140546626 $6.99. A companion book to Jambo Means Hello.
We All Went On Safari: A Counting Journey Through Tanzania by Laurie Krebs
ISBN-10: 184148119X $7.99. A counting tale through the wilds of Tanzania.
Journey to Jo'burg: A South African Story by Beverley Naidoo
ISBN-10: 0064402371 $4.99. A poignant tale of the apartheid in South Africa.
Only a Pigeon by Jane Kurtz
ISBN-10: 0689800770 $5.38. The story of a boy raising pigeons in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
Honey... Honey... Lion!by Jan Brett
ISBN-10: 0399244638 $11.55. Beautiful pictures of African animals from a well-known children's author.
Pinduli / Pinduli by Janell Cannon
ISBN-10: 0152046682 $14.81. Another great story with beautiful pictures set among the animals of Africa.
Water Hole Waiting by Jane, & Christopher Kurtz
ISBN-10: 0060298502 $12.74. Another story set on the African savanna.
African Animals ABC by Philippa-Alys Browne
ISBN-10: 1841483192 $7.99. Enjoyable pictures of African animals for young children.
Galimoto by Karen Lynn Williams
ISBN-10: 0688087892 $9.99. An African boy collects scraps of wire to make a galimoto --a toy vehicle. Although he encounters many obstacles in his search, Kondi's persistence is rewarded.
In the Small, Small Night by Jane Kurtz
ISBN-10: 0066238145 $11.55. Two African children comfort each other by remembering African folktales as they cope with their move to America.
Faraway Home by Jane Kurtz
ISBN-10: 0152000364 $11.90. A girl born in American hears from her father what his native country of Ethiopia is like.

SRG Craft idea!

2008-05-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

Officially known as Marble Painting, I'll be marketing this as "Spiderweb Painting" or "Bug Splatter Painting" this summer. The end result is reminiscent of Jackson Pollock. Or, as I thought, bugs on a windshield. To play up the bug theme, name your colors Bug Gut Green, Mosquito Red, Luna Moth Brown, Bug-zappin' Blue, Bumble Bee Gold, and so on.

You will need:
marbles
poster or tempera paint
paper - white or multicolor
container - your container must be larger than your paper. An old casserole dish, a deep-sided cookie sheet, a shoe box, or a storage tote are all possible containers.
shallow cups (cut the tops off of styrofoam cups or use an old muffin tin!)

Put a couple tablespoons' worth of paint into the cups. Drop a few marbles in each color. The more marbles per color, the more of that color you'll get in your painting. Lay the paper into the bottom of box. Place marbles from one color into the container and roll around by moving the box from side to side etc. Remove that color and continue with the other colors.

Alternatively, you can put generous drips of paint along the perimeter of the box, drop in a handful of marbles, and then rock and roll.

Once the paint has dried, kids will have a masterpiece that's ready for framing!

(Thanks for Allison at FAL - I stopped by there one day and she was doing this craft with the kids!)

Video Game Gives a Tip O' the Hat to Libraries

2008-05-08T06:23:00.000-07:00

Pokemon teaches kids to respect libraries.
Originally uploaded by Klara Kim

Booktalk: Unfortunate Children Who Find Weird Stuff In Their Walls!

2008-04-16T12:30:00.001-07:00

I'm pretty comfortable doing storytimes at this point, but finding themes and formats to engage older elementary and early middle schoolers can be tough for me. UCWFWSITW (as I shall henceforth abbreviate this booktalk) is my fallback, as it's been a show-stealer every time and the kids always check out a chunk of the books I display. It's a great twist on smart kidlit because it marries realistic fiction themes to fantastical settings.

Booktalk/Read-Aloud: Unfortunate Children Who Find Weird Stuff Living In Their Walls! (or, Extraordinary Worlds in Ordinary Places)

Age group: 4th-6th grade (reasonably mature 3rd graders can also handle it)

Background/Introduction: Everyone knows that ordinary-looking wardrobes are connected to magical lands, and unassuming train platforms can lead to adventure in other worlds. But what else is hidden in the everyday objects around you? The books I'm going to tell you about today all feature quirky characters who fall on hard times - usually orphans or outcasts - and end up living in strange houses that lead to other worlds. You'd be amazed what you can find in your walls, for instance. Haven't you always wondered if that scratching you hear at night is a mouse... or a boggart?! (Here I usually make a scritching sound on a book or a table for the mouse, then startle them with the boggart bit. Unless they're 5th and 6th graders; then I cop to a certain amount of sarcasm.)

Display/Booktalk: I set up a table with selections from the following series. I spend maybe 30 seconds on each series, describing the plot briefly and leaving them with a "dangling carrot." (Here plot summaries are included, courtesy of Novelist, for my colleagues.)

Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black - This popular series features siblings who move into an eerie old house and find a field guide that reveals their home is infested with creatures - some of whom are out for evil. It was recently made into a movie so it is a natural connection point with kids. Five books in the series, plus numerous spinoffs, including an eye-grabbingly illustrated "field guide."
Green Knowe Chronicles by L.M. Boston - Tolly comes to live with his great-grandmother in an ancient house and becomes friends with three children who lived there in the seventeenth century. As the series progresses, they find various magical artifacts in the house. Six volumes in this series.
Pure Dead Magic series by Debi Gliori - When their father is kidnapped and danger looms, the Strega-Borgia children, their mysterious new nanny, and a giant tarantula use magic and trips through the Internet to bring peace to their Scottish castle. Six books of Lemony Snicket-esque insanity.
Ulysses Moore series by Pierdomenico Baccalario - After moving from London to an old mansion on the English coast, eleven-year-old twins discover that their new home has twisting tunnels, strange artifacts from around the world, and a mysterious, locked door. This series currently has four volumes.
Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins - A boy sets off to rescue his baby sister from the Underland, inhabited by rats, spiders and cockroaches, which is under his New York City apartment via an air duct. Five books in this series so far.
Orphan stories by Barbara Brooks Wallace - Though not exactly a series, these books (Ghosts in the Gallery, Peppermints in the Parlor, etc.) are parodies of the "orphans in strange houses stumbling upon creepy creatures and ghosts" genre.
The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs - A boy goes to live with his magician uncle in a mansion that has a clock hidden in the walls which is ticking off the minutes until doomsday. Bellairs has written many other books of this type.

I also throw the following on the table because their style or content relates them somewhat (mostly I just want every kid to have the opportunity to check something out!):

100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson
Horns and Wrinkles by Joseph Helgerson and Nicoletta Ceccoli
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket
The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop
The Game of Sunken Places by M.T. Anderson

Read-aloud: After I zip through the booktalks, I read aloud a fantastic picture book for older kids, Neil Gaiman's Wolves in the Walls. This book is like a graphic novel in picture book format, with really interesting collage-style illustrations by Gaiman's usual collaborator Dave McKean. Since the book is funny as well as creepy, it sucks the kids right in. Even the most stubborn pouters end up joining in on the great refrain, "If the wolves come out of the walls... it's all over!" I sometimes crinkle tissue paper in my hand to imitate the rustling sound of the wolves.

For older classes, I sometimes forgo Wolves in the Walls in favor of reading aloud from Neil Gaiman's Coraline, about a girl who finds a mysterious door in her house that crosses into another dimension, where she meets evil versions of her mom and dad. This book is genuinely spooky - gives me shivers every time. I got an ARC of the graphic novel version of Coraline at ALA Midwinter and passed it around last time I did this booktalk; after I was done, the boys huddled around it for almost 15 minutes, pointing out the grossest illustrations. Now that's success!

Additional uses: If you didn't want to do this as a booktalk/read-aloud, it works just as well as a display. You could use a slogan like, "What's in YOUR walls?" and make a working paper doorway with a creepy creature hiding behind it.

Feisty Bear and The Little Connies

2008-04-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

West Oak Lane had a wonderful time kicking off our Family Storyhour program last month. Feisty Bear from The Little Connies came out and shared interactive and fun stories about sharing and caring.

A shot of the action. Here, Connie Bear called on the assistance of one of the parents.

Feisty Bear showed up on time for the event and brought along her own little sound system and a CD for the program. She was great with the kids and was able to keep the room under control--which is no easy feat when dealing with a room of 1-10 year olds! Feisty Bear also left a copy of The Little Connies cd, which is full of toe-tapping, sing-along songs.

Two things I try to do with every program, whether it's something I put on myself or something presented by an outside performer: snacks and displays. Snacks as part of a program can be easily explained--EVERYONE loves snacks!

I went a little crazy and made up individual baggies of pretzels and candy. This was, however, a special night! Cookies and juice normally suffice--as long as everyone keeps the food in the meeting room...

Displays for programs can be a lot of fun. For this particular program, since it was a family storytime, I focused on picturebooks that are popular both in my branch as well as in general.

Here's another crowd shot, but check out the 35+ books on display!!!

If you're looking for a fun, interactive, and affordable library program, I definitely recommend The Little Connies!!!

A Few Suggested Titles For a 3rd Grade Boy Interested in African American Fiction

2008-04-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

If you look in the FLP online catalog (the website/public one) and type in African American Fiction you’ll get a large list, but not too large that you can’t pick a few children’s titles out. PS: The last one on this list may be too old, content-wise, for the patron in question (a Third Grade boy).

My Father’s Dragon. Ruth Stiles Gannett.
A volume that's sure to be treasured for years to come, this 50th anniversary edition of a children's classic contains the three tales of "My Father's Dragon: Elmer and the Dragon, The Dragons of Blueland", and the title story.

Rescue on the Outer Banks. Candace Ransom
Sam Deal and his horse, Ginger, help an African-American lifesaving crew rescue shipwreck victims off the coast of North Carolina in 1896.

Junebug. Alice Mead.
An inquisitive young boy who lives with his mother and younger sister in a rough housing project in New Haven, Connecticut, approaches his tenth birthday with a mixture of anticipation and worry.

Hot City. Barbara Joose.
Mimi and her little brother Joe escape from home and the city's summer heat to read and dream about princesses and dinosaurs in the cool,…

Scorpions. Walter Dean Myers.
Reluctantly taking on the leadership of the Harlem gang, the Scorpions, Jamal finds that his enemies treat him with respect when he …

(sorry: no cover images on this one...kind of in a rush today. I'll come back and fill in later.)

Story-Hour oops

2008-04-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share something funny that happened to me today that illustrates how experience is helpful, since I have no idea what I'm doing yet and if I were more seasoned then this little oops wouldn't have happened. I've been doing a Pre-K storytime at one of my local elementary schools, and at the teacher's request I've been using books that relate to their theme of the week. I went to do one today, and I brought my three books, and when I got there the teacher told me that she'd just read one of them to the kids yesterday. So I smiled and laughed and tried to read the other two slowly.

What I should have done, I realize now, is had either an extra book along just in case or just something little memorized to take up a bit of time in the case of the unexpected happening. I'm probably not the only one that this has happened to, so if anybody has other anecdotes or tips for avoiding this kind of situation, do share.

Reader's Advisory

2008-04-09T16:55:00.000-07:00

Readers' Advisory – Use this label for RA strategies and particular recommendations, as well as book talks. For example, “Here are books I have recommended to kids who want more wizards and magic now that Harry Potter is done,” or "I had a great RA experience when book talking to a small group of 4th graders today!"

After-school

2008-04-09T16:52:00.000-07:00

After-school – Use this label for after-school programming, ideas, and resources, including LEAP activities. This label might often be used in tandem with other labels (resources, websites, etc.).

SRG - Summer Reading Game

2008-04-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

SRG (Summer Reading Game) – Use this label for posts relating to programming, outreach, prizes, ideas, or questions related to the Summer Reading Game. Example: “Here are some suggestions for making your SRG school visits easy and fun…” If you're suggesting a website for activities or a resource for additional prizes, please use a second label as appropriate.

Children's Programming

2008-04-09T16:47:00.000-07:00

Children's Programming - Use this label for all non-storyhour programs. This includes book clubs, outside performers, chess clubs, and any programming that is librarian-generated.

Guidelines and labels

2008-04-09T16:40:00.001-07:00

Some of our labels have now been defined and posted. You can browse labels on the left hand side of the screen or you can read what we've added so far by clicking here. Please remember to use labels for your posts. If you think we need to add a label, please contact Heather S. so that we don't have any labeling redundancies. There remains a considerable amount of labels that have yet to be posted; please be patient as we get those posted.

Guidelines for posting are still in the works and much of that information was established in the initial "Blogability" email sent out to interested parties. Still, bear in mind that this blog will, for the foreseeable future, remain a children's librarian blog. So, teen and adult interests should be reserved for another forum.

Collection Development

2008-04-09T16:36:00.001-07:00

Collection Development – Use this label for resources or questions about your library's collection of books and other media. For example, "I recently pruned and weeded all my jSeries books. Here's how I went about it..."

Games

2008-04-09T16:31:00.000-07:00

Games - Use this label to discuss the use of games in your library, whether board games, traditional games like chess or checkers, or video games. For example, "The other day I whipped up a Dance Dance Revolution Tournament when the kids were bored. Learn from my mistakes!..."

Lapsit

2008-04-09T16:23:00.000-07:00

Lapsit – Use this label for programming for babies 6-24 months and their parents, including infant storytimes.

Storytelling

2008-04-09T16:22:00.002-07:00

Storytelling - Use this label for discussing storytelling techniques, resources, or favorite examples. Do not confuse it with the Storyhour label, which is used for reading books aloud within the context of a storytime program. Storytelling refers to a more organic art form that sometimes incorporates improvisation or costume and often originates from a particular oral tradition.

Displays

2008-04-09T16:22:00.001-07:00

Displays – Use this label for visual displays of books or other media you have created in your library, or for useful displays you have seen elsewhere.

Resources

2008-04-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

Resources – Use this label for general print resources well as people, e.g. "Liz is a great resource for Lapsit programs!" Use the label Websites in addition to this one if your resource is online.

Storyhours

2008-04-09T16:17:00.000-07:00

Storyhours – Use this label for regularly scheduled storyhours (also known as storytimes) at your library when outlining a favorite storytime theme, discussing why a storyhour didn't work, etc. For example, "Today's Earth Day-themed story hour was particularly successful; here are the books, fingerplays, songs, and crafts I used."

Outreach - Preschool

2008-04-09T16:14:00.000-07:00

Outreach – Preschool - Use this label for discussing outreach visits and strategies for preschool locations (daycares, HeadStart, etc.).

2008-04-01T13:26:00.000-07:00

New York Times - March 16, 2008
Ideas & Trends
Start Writing the Eulogies for Print Encyclopedias
By NOAM COHEN
IT has never been easier to read up on a favorite topic, whether it’s an obscure philosophy, a tiny insect or an overexposed pop star. Just don’t count on being able to thumb through the printed pages of an encyclopedia to do it.
A series of announcements from publishers across the globe in the last few weeks suggests that the long migration to the Internet has picked up pace, and that ahead of other books, magazines and even newspapers, the classic multivolume encyclopedia is well on its way to becoming the first casualty in the end of print.
Back in the 1990s, Encyclopaedia Britannica led the pack in coming to terms with the idea that the public no longer viewed ownership of the multivolume compendium of information as a ticket to be punched on the way to the upper middle class — or at least as the oracle of first resort for copying a book report.
Sales of Britannica’s 32 volumes peaked in 1990, but in the next six years, they dropped 60 percent, and the company moved quickly to reinvent itself online. In 1996, Britannica eliminated its legendary staff of 1,000 door-to-door salesmen, already down from a high of 2,000 in the 1970s, in the face of competition from Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia for home computers.
Jorge Aguilar-Cauz, president of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., a private company based in Chicago, said that the print edition was still profitable, but that sales were just 10 percent of what they were in 1990. Customers are mostly schools and libraries.
It was only last month, however, that the publisher of Germany’s foremost multivolume encyclopedia, Brockhaus, took similar action, announcing that in April it would be putting online, free, all 300,000 of its articles, vetted by scholars over 200 years of print editions. (Brockhaus hopes to make money by selling ads on its site.) At the same time, the publishing house said it couldn’t promise that it would ever produce another print edition, something it has done regularly since the encyclopedia appeared in Leipzig in 1808.
Publishers in Denmark and France, too, are rethinking the commercial viability of their encyclopedias. A one-volume French encyclopedia, Quid, lost its publisher last month, and may only survive online. The largest publisher in Denmark, Gyldendal, has decided that the subscription plan for its online encyclopedia is misguided (it stopped a print edition in 2006). It plans to come up with another way to support itself.
“There is some kind of sadness,” said Nicole Weiffen-Aumann, a spokeswoman for Brockhaus, “but on the other side, many people are happy, looking forward to our new product — both things you can find in our company.” She added: “There are many people that say, ‘When I was very young I bought my first encyclopedia from Brockhaus, and there will be no next edition, I can’t believe it.’ ”
The Encyclopedia Americana still has good sales in print volumes, said Greg Worrell, president of Scholastic Classroom and Library Group, but the company is focusing on its online outlets. He said it was still determining a print plan, but added, “the likelihood is there will not be the 2009 multivolume print version.”
To scholars, the ready access to updated information online is a net gain for the public. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t mourn the passing of a household icon — a set of knowledge-packed books on their own reserved shelves that even parents had to defer to.
“I remember in my own childhood in the 1940s, early ’50s, I and my parents would sit around the table and look at the encyclopedia together,” said Larry Hickman, director of a center at Southern Illinois University devoted to the education pioneer John Dewey. “In the old days, the Encyclopaedia Britannica or the World Book encyclopedia was regarded as authoritative,” he recalled, laughing as he agreed, “That’s why you would copy it for your book report.”
But Mr. Hickman said that parents and children can have the same discussions “seated in front of the computer, the electronic hearth, as I like to call it.” And he said that losing a set of books considered infallible was actually a good thing for developing critical thinking.
Yet, as encyclopedia publishers struggle, the Internet age has become a golden one for the newer kind of encyclopedia.
An ambitious project to catalog online all known species on earth — with the even-more-ambitious title the Encyclopedia of Life — went live last month. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a project that began online in 1995 and has never been in print and never will be, is chugging along with nearly 1,000 entries that are vetted by an academic board of more that 100 scholars for a total of 10 million words.
And then there is the behemoth Wikipedia, a project that has no board to vet articles and is created by thousands of volunteers, with more than two million articles in English and an additional five million in a babel of other languages.
Wikipedia is regularly among the top 10 most visited sites on the Internet throughout the world — maybe in part because there’s a lot more there than meets the needs of the average term paper. The superabundance of less-than-prized information on the site has led to a phenomenon called “wiki-groaning,” which involves comparing the length of seemingly disparate articles to humorous effect. Lightsaber Combat beats out Modern Warfare, for example, and John Locke, the character from the TV show “Lost,” edges out the other John Locke, whoever he was.
Encyclopedia publishers, while taking swipes at Wikipedia’s unreliability since it can be edited by anyone, have clearly adopted some of its lessons. They are incorporating more photographs and suggestions from readers to improve online content, and they are committed to updating material as facts change.
Britannica says it updates an article every 20 minutes. Even the Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia will make changes with relative speed. When a law was passed on voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands, “our entry was updated within a couple of weeks, at the latest,” said Edward N. Zalta, a senior research scholar at Stanford and principal editor of the online encyclopedia. “It may have been a day or two — we don’t do it as quickly as Wikipedia, but in a timely way.”
In essence, the Internet is justifying the hubris of early compilers like Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy, said Edward O. Wilson, the expert on insects at Harvard who spearheaded the Encyclopedia of Life and serves as honorary chairman. “There were so few species to deal with, only in the thousands,” he said. “He and his disciples thought they could do the rest of the flora and fauna of the world. Boy, were they wrong.”
In the intervening centuries, Professor Wilson said, science was taken over by specialists. But by allowing specialists to pool their knowledge on a Web site, he said, the Encyclopedia of Life will be able to come close to the dream of a compendium of all the known species in the world.
“Once we get all the information in one place, think of the impact this will have — available to anybody, anywhere, anytime,” he said.
Asked about his own experience with encyclopedias, Professor Wilson said, “I grew up in Alabama — we didn’t have things like the Encyclopaedia Britannica in our home.” What he did have were field guides. “All the field guides — for snakes, butterflies, turtles. Back in the 40s, I had my butterfly nets, and I was right up to date through my guides,” Professor Wilson said.
He added: “There are nerds that say we will have something the size of a field guide, and punch in something. Maybe I am hopelessly old fashioned, but a kid with a knapsack, and a Boy Scout or Girl Scout manual, printed, a field guide on snakes or butterflies, printed, is the best combination in the world.”
Mr. Aguilar-Cauz of Britannica is counting on that sort of nostalgic allure to keep at least some encyclopedias on bookshelves and not just hard drives. He envisioned the print volumes living on as a niche, luxury item, with high-quality paper and glossy photographs — similar to the way some audiophiles still swear by vinyl LPs and turntables. “What you need people to understand,” he said, “is that it is a luxury experience. You want to be able to produce a lot of joy, a paper joy.”

edited to add tags

Piaget's Characteristics of Development

2008-03-26T13:40:00.000-07:00

When should a child be first exposed to books? When does a child first derive any benefit from books? Is it time for my child to have books of his/her own? These are questions that are asked of many children's librarians by parents eager for their children to take full advantage of all that books, reading, and literacy offers.

Jean Piaget (1896-1980)was a swiss psychologist known for his work in child development psychology. Piaget theorized four levels of development corresponding roughly to (1) infancy, (2) pre-school, (3) childhood, and (4) adolescence. Each stage is characterized by a general cognitive structure that affects all of the child's thinking and each stage represents the child's understanding of reality during that period.

In a slightly more detailed description and using Piaget's terms, the four staes look like this:
(1)Sensorimotor stage: from birth to age 2 years (children experience the world through movement and senses and learn object permanence)
(2)Preoperational stage: from ages 2 to 7 (acquisition of motor skills)
(3)Concrete operational stage: from ages 7 to 11 (children begin to think logically about concrete events)
(4)Formal operational stage: after age 11 (development of abstract reasoning).

It's interesting to note that stage 2, the Preoperational stage: acquisition of motor skills, includes being able to control eye movement from left to right and from top to bottom as well as holding a book open and turning the pages of a book. But of even more interest is the fact that in stage 1, Sensorimotor stage: children...learn object permanence, a child learns that the world is made up of permanent objects and even start to differentiate one object from another.

So, as early as stage 1, books can be a part of a child's development. Granted the development is of gross motor skills and developing a perception of their environment, two things a parent might not have thought of when asking when their child first benefits from an exposure to books, but developmentally just as important as learning the alphabet and phonetic pronounciation!

Information gathered from Piaget's Theory of Cognitive and Affective Development. Barry J Wadsworth. Longman Publishers USA. 1996 and from
Jean Piaget. (2008, March 26). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:09, March 26, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean_Piaget&oldid=201008315

Three Titles of Interest

2008-03-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

Here are three books (2 are dated, but I believe still quite relevant) you might find of interest as a general resource and for use in your children's librarianship research:

1) The Kids' Book Club Book: Reading Ideas, Recipes, Activities, and Smart Tips for Organizing Terrific Kids' Book Clubs. Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp. NY:Jeremy P.Tarcher/Penguin. 2007. 460 pp. paperback.$16.95.

Editorial Reviews(from Amazon)
The first complete guide-for use by adults and children-to creating fun and educational book clubs for kids.

As authors of The Book Club Cookbook, the classic guide to integrating great food and food-related discussion into book club gatherings, Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp hear a common refrain from parents, librarians, teachers, community leaders and kids themselves: "How about writing a book for kids' book clubs?" Indeed, in recent years youth organizations, parents, libraries, schools, and our local, state, and federal governments have launched thousands of book clubs for children as a way to counter falling literacy rates and foster a love of reading. Based on surveys representing five hundred youth book clubs across the country and interviews with parents, kids, educators, and librarians, The Kids' Book Club Book features:

_- the top fifty favorite book club reads for children ages eight to eighteen;
_- ideas and advice on forming great kids' book clubs-and tips for kids who want to start their own book clubs;
_- recipes, activities, and insights from such bestselling children's book authors as Christopher Paolini, Lois Lowry, Jerry Spinelli, Nancy Farmer, Christopher Paul Curtis, Andrew Clements, Laurie Halse Anderson, Norton Juster, and many others.

From recipes for the Dump Punch and egg salad sandwiches included in Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie to instructionson how to make soap carvings like the ones left in the knot-hole of a tree in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, this book provides a bounty of ideas for making every kids' book club a success.

About the Author
JUDY GELMAN and VICKI LEVY KRUPP are book enthusiasts and cooks who came together as friends to coauthor The Book Club Cookbook: Recipes and Food for Thought from Your Book Club's Favorite Books and Authors. Both authors live with their families in the Boston area.

2)The New Press Guide to Multicultural Resources for Young Readers.Ed. Daphne Muse. NY: The New Press. 1997. 690 pp. $60.00.

Editorial Review From Booklist
This guide to multicultural literature for young people brings together more than 1,000 reviews of picture books, novels, poetry, biographies, and other resources, which cover more than 20 different multicultural communities. The purpose of the book is to provide teachers and librarians with an easy-to-use resource for multicultural materials that includes both print and nonprint titles and identifies the best of these titles. Arrangement is thematic. Each chapter covers a different theme, such as community, family, cultural traditions and ethnic stereotyping, immigration, and justice and human rights. Within each chapter, titles are arranged first by grade level (K^-3, 4^-6, 7^-8) and then alphabetically. In addition to the reviews of resources, the guide includes a number of essays on topics in multicultural education, such as "Ethnic and Gender Stereotyping in Recent Disney Animation," "Illustrating the Point: A Commentary on Multicultural and Stereotypic Picture Books," "Teaching Culturally Diverse Students," and "CD-ROM Technology in the Multicultural Classroom." A number of these essays, such as Beverly Slapin and Jill Lessing's "Handicapism Checklist: What Do We Mean by `Handicapism'?" are reprinted from other sources.
Each chapter begins with a short introduction, signed by the author. Each review was written specifically for this volume and is signed by the author, in most cases a teacher or a librarian, and includes the following information: title, author, illustrator if applicable, publication date and publisher, and the community described in the book, such as Latino, Asian American, or Native American. Information is also provided about special availability, such as braille and foreign-language versions, and related titles. Reviews contain a brief synopsis of the story, the message it intends to convey, critical comments on the way that message is handled, and suggestions for how the title might be used in the classroom. Reviews are generally 300^-500 words long. In many cases, a photograph of the book jacket is included. Publication dates range from the 1960s to 1996, with the majority of the titles published in the 1990s.

Criteria used to assess the titles included the quality of writing and illustration, the accuracy and nuance of treatment of different cultural groups, the extent to which the title provides a new perspective, and the accessibility of text to the target audience. Children's classics and other popular titles that reflect negative stereotypes or outdated thinking may be treated critically in this volume. Most of the titles deal with African American, Native American, Latino, or Asian cultures; however, there are reviews of works that deal with European cultures. The gay/lesbian/bisexual and emotionally and physically disabled cultures are not left out of this work. Titles that reflect these cultures are critiqued as part of the editor's commitment to multicultural education.

The table of contents lists the essays included in each chapter. Theme and grade level are listed on the top of each page, making the volume easy to use. Other useful features include a time line called "Milestones in Children's Literature"; a list of catalogs, media materials, organizations, and books on children's literature; a list of children's book awards; lists of special library collections and notable bookstores; and biographical data about all of the contributors. The guide concludes with an index of titles, authors, and ethnic groups. Under ethnic group, titles are listed by page number only, which makes it cumbersome to locate all those titles dealing with Asian Americans, for example.

A number of other books on multicultural resources have been published contemporaneously. To name a few, Rebecca Thomas' Connecting Cultures: A Guide to Multicultural Literature for Children (Bowker, 1996) provides subject access to 1,600 titles. Multicultural Literature: An Annotated Bibliography, Grades K^-8, by Beth Beutler Lind (McFarland, 1996), lists 1,000 titles under four ethnic groups. This Land Is Our Land: A Guide to Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults (Greenwood, 1994) annotates nearly 600 books of poetry and oral tradition. The New Press Guide to Multicultural Resources for Young Readers provides good background and context, as well as longer reviews. The culmination of five years of work, it will be an essential resource for teachers and librarians. It will serve as an easy-to-use source for anyone looking for the best works to teach and learn about diversity and the many cultures that make up American life.

3) The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. Humphrey Carpenter and Mari Pritchard. NY: Oxford University Press. 1999. $49.95. 588 pp.

Book Description (from Amazon)
The indispensable reference book for anyone concerned with children's books. Over 900 biographical entries deal with authors, illustrators, printers, publishers, educationalists, and others who have influenced the development of children's literature. The range of literature covered includes traditional narrative materials such as legends as romances; fairy tales; chapbooks; genres such as school stories, adventure stories, doll stories, and science fiction; ABC and other learning books; children's magazines, comics, and story papers; picture books; teenage novels; children's hymns; and children's stories on radio television and film. Other entries include: concise plot summaries, from familiar favourites like The Secret Garden to less well-known works such as My Friend Mr Leaky by the eminent scientist J. B. S. Haldane; characters, Andy Pandy to Tiger Tim, Captain Nemo to Shere Khan and Winnie-the-Pooh; literary and historical background, Puritans and penny dreadfuls, libraries and reviewers, racism and sexism; mythical and legendary creatures, trolls, dragons, witches, giants, dwarfs, and goblins; national surveys, including the USA, Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Australia, and India. Written both to entertain and instruct, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature is a reference work no one interested in the world of children's books should be without.

About the Author
Humphrey Carpenter's books include biographies of J. R. R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Ezra Pound, and Benjamin Britten. He is the author of the popular Mr Majeika series of stories for children. Mari Prichard has worked as a broadcaster and teacher, and is now a local government education officer. She and Humphrey Carpenter were married in 1973 and have two daughters.

Greetings and Salutations

2008-03-11T07:13:00.000-07:00

Friends, I'm slow getting out of the block, had to update my google account, yattayattayatta

Librarymonkey's blog was started when I was in graduate school, haven't touched it in a long time. Maybe this will motivate me to get back to it, but not today!

Does anyone have any leftover American Heritage Spanish/English 3 ring binder dictionaries from their after school program they would like to get rid of? If so, I'm the one.

Thanks, Marsha S

Words of Encouragement

2008-02-27T15:09:00.000-08:00

Linda Abby Fein was a colleague and supervisor of mine for many years at the Free Library of Philadelphia. She is one of maybe three people that I look up to with the greatest respect and admiration and hers was a great influence in making me the librarian I am today. Quoted below is a statement she made on the occasion of her retirement from the Free Library:

"Whether you are working for the Free Library because it is a profession or because it is a job, whether you can deal with or whether you hate the bureaucratic red tape and the political rankling that is a part of being a governmental unit, whenever you feel that everything in your worklife is going to rack and ruin, please be proud that you work for one of the most equalizing if not the most equalizing of all institutions – the public library.
One goes to a public health center if one is sick; there usually is no program for those who are well. One goes to a rec center if one is sports-inclined, if there is a craft program, if there is a town meeting; there is no appeal for someone who is not athletically or manually adept. One goes into a store, but unless one has money one doesn't come away with anything. One goes into a public library – any age, any interest, any talent, and for free, as long as one acts a socially acceptable way – one can come out with ideas in hard copy or in your mind that can make one happier, more informed, more challenged and better able to handle life.
The people who come into your agencies are feeling the same stresses as you. They don't know that you can help them make their lives a little better. Show them.
And, when you are looking back at your years with the Free Library, as I am, feel the satisfaction of knowing that, as corny as it is, you, in your profession or in your job, you have made a difference."
~~Linda Abby Fein
On the last day of her 37+ year career as a Children’s Librarian and Administrator

Coming Soon!

2008-02-27T14:31:00.001-08:00

Coming soon! A blog for Children's Librarians working in the Northwest area of Philadelphia! This will be a place for us to share success stories, gather advice on resources, and explore another aspect of serving not just our communities but also our profession.

Until the behind-the-scenes stuff is set up and ready to go, posting will be light. Stay tuned!!!