Category: reading
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Us, Too.
On being complicit. As a Youth Services Librarian, I sometimes have opportunities to mingle with those in the publishing community, including the authors and illustrators of books. I’ll meet them at signings or events at conferences, or from booking an author visit to my library and community, or from an excited phone call to tell…
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Picture it: a program
Do you want a program that you can do at your library that is: intergenerational? collaborative? creative? involves multiple departments, including tech services? celebrates picture books and novels? Well, here it is: Buy a bunch of blank books from Bare Books. They have paperbacks, picture books, graphic novels, board books–all of them blank and ready…
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No, really, let kids choose what they read
In case you need something to tide you over while you wait for your copy of Reading Unbound to arrive, here are some more quotes about why we need to let kids choose what they read. We want to help our students fall in love with books in ways that foster a life-long devotion to…
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Why Kids Need to Read What They Want
In the most recent edition of Cover to Cover by K.T. Horning, there are no early childhood, middle grade, or ya distinctions in books for children. Encompassing fiction and nonfiction, the breakdown is: Picture books (including board books) Readers/Beginning Readers/Easy Readers Transitional books Chapter books That’s it. We have those formats, and within those formats, every genre is…
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Stuck in the Middle With You
I don’t like the term middle grade, even though I love a lot of books that fall under that umbrella. Middle grade books are not for middle schoolers, but the confusing terminology flummoxes a lot of teachers and parents. If you’re also unclear, here’s the breakdown: Middle grade= a publishing classification; literature for 8-12 year olds.…
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Wolf Hollow review
Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk Cross The Bad Seed with To Kill A Mockingbird and add a dash of Night of the Hunter, King Lear (“I would fain learn to lie,” says the Fool), and Rebecca (the first line of this book is just as haunting as “Last night I dreamt of Manderly again”), and…
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See You Later, Alligator
I’ve just started a new “stop the summer slide” session of Beginning Reader Storytime, the first time I’ve presented this program at my new library (it’s still new to me, really, even after almost two years here). For this community, I made this program drop-in, and the ages are entering K to entering 2nd grade…
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Uncommonly Good Books (and more!) for Common Core Instruction
uncommonbooks (pdf of slide show)November 1st, ISLMA Conference 2013, Springfield, IL Hi ISLMA friends! I’ll be updating this post during the upcoming week, adding annotations and the new resources I added for the second chance presentation. Thanks so much for coming, and if there’s anything you’d like to add please leave a comment! Here is…
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Book Talkin’
(You need to sing the title of this post to the tune of “Jive Talkin’”) As the school year draws rapidly to a close (seriously, where did it go?) I’ve been reflecting on my first year as a school outreach librarian. I can’t tell you how invigorating it has been to use different skills and…
Hi, Miss Julie 