Spruce Up Your Space

Hello,
Christmas vacation is almost upon us and before you know it January will be here. What does your library space look like right now? Think about how you might spruce that space up and make it more inviting. Winter is a perfect time to get those kids reading.
Think about the shelves. What do they look like? Do they need to be dusted? A student can dust around the edges. A pair of students might even be able to take books off the shelves, dust, and then replace the books exactly. Also, putting students to work in the library can get them interested in a book they happen to see on the shelf. You never know!
What about seating? Do you have seating in the library? I don’t have very much, but some of you might have room for a few bean bag chairs. Those are kid magnets. Even if you don’t have room for too much, try to put something interesting in to sit on.
Did you put up posters at the beginning of the year? Are the same ones still up? You might change the posters. You can find fun posters through Highsmigh library supply or Demco.
You can also start a contest of some kind. A poster contest, a reading contest, making book marks. Let your imagination come up with something to promote the library and reading.
What about displays in the library? When your teachers assign projects for the students such as models or dioramas, ask to display them in the library for a time. That will also bring in parents. Other library displays could be based around a theme. Pick a word such as ‘sailing’, then put out all the information you have on sailing. Put a few boats with the books and magazines to add interest. The student that always chooses a story might be tempted to choose a nonfiction book for a change. After a couple of weeks, choose a new word and keep that going for a while.
Some teachers have their students ‘read around the library’ meaning they require students to read books from each of the Dewey sections. You can make cards or bookmarks that they keep track of the different genres and which book they read for each genre.
I hope there are a couple of new ideas for you in adding interest to your library. See what you can do to invite the students in to your space.
Have a great week, a very Merry Christmas, and a Joyous New Year! I’ll see you in January.
Audrey

Holiday Books

Hello,
I go one response from a librarian who sent in two favorites that I hadn’t mentioned. Thanks, Brenda, for your ideas. She mentioned The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston, illustrated by Barbara Cooney and Night Tree by Eve Bunting. I don’t know the Eve Bunting book, but I really like other books she wrote, so will have to find this one.

Now, for more Christmas favorites from me.

Tasha Tudor wrote about her family and how they celebrated Christmas long ago in Becky’s Christmas. This was back in the day when families made decorations and gifts for each other rather than purchase them like many of us do today. This is a darling book and may be out of print. If you find a copy, you would be smart to purchase it and hang on to it. While you are at it, Tasha Tudor also wrote The Doll’s Christmas which also is a great purchase.

One book that is in the top three favorites of mine is The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden. Rumer wrote a number of books about girls and dolls but this one is still in print. I happen to like the one illustrated by Barbara Cooney, but the story is wonderful no matter who illustrates it. Holly is a doll and Ivy is a little orphan girl. They get together through a series of events that are fun and interesting. I read this one every other year to the third and fourth graders and next year will be time for this one again. Last year I planned ahead and decorated my display case outside the library to match closely the toy shop window in the Barbara Cooney illustrated book. The kids loved it.

Another book in my top three is by Madeline L’Engle called The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas. I happened to read this story in a magazine about twenty-some years ago. I loved it so much; I went right out and bought my own copy of the magazine. Each year I reread the story and one day I found that it had been published in a book, so of course I bought the book and was finally able to toss the ragged magazine. It is the story of the Austin family and one special Christmas.

One of my favorite illustrators is Tomie DePaola. He has many, many books out and some of them are Christmas ones such as The Legend of the Poinsettia, but I really love the book he illustrated for the song The Friendly Beasts. Our music teacher sometimes uses that song for Christmas programs and we sing it in library class along with the book.

Other artists have illustrated Christmas songs and Ezra Jack Keats did a wonderful job with The Little Drummer Boy. It is a classic that is loved by many.

A newer book that is becoming a favorite of mine is Merry Christmas, Merry Crow. A crow gathers items as crows will and takes them away. At the end of the book, a tree is decorated with all the items that the crow has taken. Children love being surprised when they see the tree.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal is the author of a book called Christmas Cookies: Bite-Sized Holiday Lessons. This is one of the three ‘Cookies’ books she has written. The other two are Sugar Cookies: Sweet Little Lessons on Love and Cookies: Bite-sized Life Lessons.

Older students may enjoy learning how the different holiday traditions got started. They can find this out in Holly, Reindeer and Colored Lights by Edna Barth.
A picture book that older students will enjoy is Christmas in the Trenches by John McCutcheon. This tells the story of the Christmas truce between the Germans and the allied forces during World War 1. John McCutcheon also wrote a song about this and a CD is included in the book. You can also play the CD and hear the author read the story. Another book about this time in history is called Truce by Jim Murphy. This is not a picture book for young children, but there are many pictures and letters included in the historical account.

I hope that two weeks of Christmas books is enough to get you through the holidays. There are hundreds and hundreds more, but we must stop sometime.
Have a good week and keep well!
Audrey

Christmas Favorites

Hello,
I am not sure which books I recommended for Christmas previously, but I do have some wonderful favorites. Some of these are good read alouds, and others are good picture books. Some are heartwarming and others might be a bit sad in spots, but all are good books for someone.
A Certain Small Shepherd by Rebecca Caudill. I LOVE this story about a family in the Appalachian hills. Jamie, a young mute boy, is thoughtlessly assigned to sing with the chorus in the school nativity play. Soon he is reassigned to play a young shepherd which he embraces wholeheartedly. On the date of the Christmas pageant, a blizzard sweeps in and Jamie is disappointed when the pageant is canceled. Through the snowy night comes a couple in need of shelter. Father takes them to the nearby church and soon they have a baby. When Jamie sees the new baby, he runs back to his house then returns to the church wearing his shepherd costume. For the first time he speaks aloud and gives his own Christmas gifts – an orange and a dime – to the family. Other Rebecca Caudill books you might enjoy are A Pocketful of Cricket and Did You Carry the Flag Today, Charlie?

The Christmas Day Kitten by James Herriot. You may be familiar with James Herriot’s All Things Bright and Beautiful and other books about his experiences as a veterinarian in Yorkshire, England. This story is taken from one of his books and made into a picture book. On Christmas Day a young mother cat brings her kitten to a home where she has experienced friendliness. She is ill and does not survive. The kitten becomes part of the family. Trust me, the story is much better than I tell it here!

Silver Packages by Cynthia Rylant. This is another Appalachian Christmas story about a wealthy man who brings a Christmas train each year to give gifts wrapped in silver to the children. One young boy wishes each year for a doctor’s kit. You likely have heard this story but you will enjoy the wonderful paintings by Chris Soentpiet. (Pronounced SOON pete)

Patricia Polacco is a prolific writer and has a few books about Christmas. Two that are wonderful true stories of her family are The Trees of the Dancing Goats and An Orange for Frankie. Patricia’s family celebrates Hanukkah but the neighbors celebrate Christmas. One year scarlet fever is rampant in the neighborhood so Patricia’s family decorates small Christmas trees with their own brightly painted little wooden toys and deliver the trees to the neighbors. When the neighborhood recovers, they return the gift with one that Patricia’s family appreciates. In An Orange for Frankie, the family is excitedly preparing for Christmas and hoping Father is able to return in time. Father will be bringing the oranges which are a once-a-year treat for the family. When Father brings the oranges, Frankie just wants to hold his and smell it so he stuffs it inside his sweater and the family attends the Christmas pageant. When they return home, Frankie is horrified to realize that he has lost his orange! Mother solves this problem for him in a wonderful way. Most of Patricia Polacco’s books are fantastic, but she has a few that are pure fantasy and might not be a book you wish to place on your shelves. Be careful and read the book first before purchasing it just to make sure it is one you really want.

The Christmas Tree Farm by Ann Purmell. Have you ever wondered where those Christmas trees in the parking lots or grocery lots come from? How do they care for those trees during the year? What happens to Christmas trees in summer or spring? This book answers these questions and more plus includes facts about Christmas trees that your students will find fascinating.

Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto. Tamales are a traditional Mexican holiday meal and Maria’s family makes twenty-four of them in preparation for the family that will be arriving soon. Maria eyes her mother’s diamond ring and wishes to wear it for just a little while, but when she cannot find it later she realizes that the ring is lost in the tamales! She and her cousins eat all the tamales in order to find the ring, but no one finds it. Weeping, Maria confesses to her mother about the lost ring and the tamales, but then sees the ring on her mother’s hand. The family laughs over the picture of the cousins eating so many tamales, and all pitch in to make more tamales.

I hope you enjoy these titles. If you have some Christmas favorites, please let me know and I will include them next week.
Have a good week,
Audrey

Tips and Ideas

Hello,
I am sorry that I didn’t send a post last week, but I was out all week with a horrible upper respiratory infection. I made it to school this week, but still have some residual symptoms. Anyway, I am doing better, but this post will be blessedly short. Call it a Thanksgiving gift.

While perusing one of my library journals I noticed a few really interesting ideas. Here are some that may be helpful to you.

1. Inside some gift cards these days there is a little cell that can be used to record a message. You can use this technology to do ‘book talks’. Print a small cover of the book and place the cell with the recorded message behind the cover to make your own book talks. Students just push the button and hear a short book talk about the book. Or you could let students record book talks for books.

2. Signage for libraries can be very expensive, but you can make your own with a large coffee can, a yardstick, pebbles or rocks, spray paint, and paper. Spray the outside of the coffee can and both sides of the yardstick. Fill the can partway with the pebbles or rocks. Attach a sign to one end of the yardstick and stick the other end into the pebbles. Put these types of sign on table or shelving or wherever works in your library. These can be changed easily when needed.

3. Have a hard time getting your boys to read? Try what one school did. They took pictures of the adult males on campus reading a book and made a bulletin board titled “Real Men Read Books”. This really increased interest in reading and the boys began asking the men about the books they were reading. What if you are a small school and don’t have many adult males on staff? Use pastors, parents, or older siblings. I would advise that you have these males hold books from your library, possibly books that they enjoyed as a young person.

4. Encourage reading by using vendor’s catalogs. Cut out all the colored pictures of books that the library owns, laminate them and glue them to clothes pins. They can be used for bookmarks, genre sorts, library skills games or whatever you can think of. Don’t have vendor’s catalogs? Try using the book jacket. I usually cover the book jacket in plastic and affix to the book. But if you don’t use those book jackets, cut the cover off, then laminate and hang with clothes pins along a line in your library to call attention to the books and promote them.

5. One school had a Junior Prom Etiquette check day. Students were invited to bring their lunches to the library and different situations were reenacted such as introducing their date to their parents, table manners, and tips for awkward situations. We might not have the same situation, but our students can still profit from learning more about manners. Showcase books on manners and etiquette and have students act out etiquette tips and situations.

I hope these ideas were helpful to you. I was inspired when I read them and thought that you might be, too.

Have a great week and a very happy, safe, and warm Thanksgiving!
Audrey

Weeding Guidelines

Hello,
Today I will be tackling the difficult subject of weeding in the library. No matter what size your library is, you must periodically weed out books that are no longer useful. This can be a problem in most schools. Parents, church members, or even other teachers might criticize when you throw away books. Comments you may get are, “Why are you throwing away perfectly good books?” or “You ask for money for books, then you go and throw them away!” The best response is to have specific guidelines for this procedure that you can refer to as to WHY this book or that book has been discarded. Here are some guidelines that will be a good starting place for you.
General guidelines for weeding:
1. Information in the book is outdated, inaccurate, false information or obsolete. Imagine having a book on space travel written in 1960! Things have changed drastically since then.
2. Mediocre writing style or repetitious series– you likely have books in your library that were churned out to meet a popular interest which has passed and is not longer popular. Some of these may still be popular with your students, but if no one reads them and you cannot generate interest in them, they are taking up valuable real estate on your library shelves.
3. Material containing biased, racist, or sexist views or terminology. These don’t need to be kept for ‘historical purposes’. This kind of thinking is wrong. Is this what you want your students to learn? If not, then get rid of it.
4. Unused sets of books. Check these carefully to make sure they are useful to your school. If they aren’t something that you need, and they fit one in criteria #1 above, toss them out.
5. Duplicate books – if you have more than one copy of a book, consider if it is needed or not. If not, then get rid of the duplicate.
6. Superseded editions – it is usually not necessary to keep older editions if you have the newer one. Keep in mind that if your library is using all editions, then by all means keep them.
7. Weed out any material is worn out, ragged, shabby, dirty, warped, bug-infested, marked up, mutilated, missing pages, poor quality pictures or illustrations, or ‘edited’ by patrons.
8. Has the book been sitting on the shelf without circulating? Maybe it is no longer useful.
The guidelines above are just that - guidelines. It may be that you discard a book, while another school chooses to keep the same title. It will depend on your school and your particular needs. If you are having a difficult time with the idea of throwing away ‘good books’, keep in mind that you are improving your library and making it the best place for your children to study and learn. How can we do this with old, useless information?
Discard Process
Books may need to be discarded in a particular way. Delete them from the computer or shelf list if you have one. Black out the school name, spine label, and any other information that may bring the lost sheep home once it leaves. If you truly will be criticized heavily for removing them from shelves, put them in a black trash bag, drive to another town, and find a dumpster.
If you have older books that are in good condition that aren’t circulating, try a trick I sometimes use. Pull a student aside and ask them in a confidential way if they would be willing to help you with a problem. Give them the book and ask them to read it and let you know if they think it is a good choice for the library or if they think it should be discarded. Most students are willing to do this. I have also pulled out a shelf of books that look like they might need to be discarded and asked a class or two of students to help me decide if these books are worthy of shelf space.
I also have designated a shelf and titled it “Lonely Books: Please Read Us”. Then I do my best to sell these to the students.
What do you do with discarded books? If they are in truly deplorable condition, find a dumpster and dump. If they are in decent reading condition, I put them on a ‘Sale’ shelf and sell them for a quarter each. Parents even come in a check the sale shelf for books. It puts a little bit of money in the library kitty. You may have a better idea of what to do with discarded books.
If after all this you STILL have reservations about weeding in your library, tell me and I will come there myself and weed! Well, I probably won’t, but I hope you will see the importance of improving your library and making it the best it can be.
Last school year I discussed weeding in specific Dewey Decimal Classification areas and we went from the 100’s into the 500’s. If you weren’t a part of the email list or if you want to be reminded of what kinds of things to weed in those Dewey Decimal Classifications, you can check my blog at sdalibrarian.blogspot.com for that information.
Have a great week,
Audrey

Books and Such

Hello,
Don’t you need more ideas of books to get? I have a few good ideas again this week.

A friend of mine is a vet and has written a book about his experiences. Ask the Animals by Bruce R. Coston is one that you will enjoy. Bruce relates stories about his practice and his clients. Think James Herriot and add a Seventh Day Adventist point of view.

Dewey, The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter is about a tiny kitten that was put in the book return slot one wintry night. Vicki Myron found the kitten the next morning, cleaned him up and fed him not realizing that Dewey would claim the library as his home. The original book is wonderful and there are some picture books for younger readers about this cat named Dewey Readmore Books.

We have a popular series in our library called the ‘Dear America series’. These books are written in diary format by a fictional character but the reader learns about a particular event or time in history. If you don’t’ have any of the books in this series, consider getting them. One of the newest in this series is “The Fences Between Us: Seattle Washington, 1941”. The story revolves around Piper Davis, a young girl whose father is the pastor of a Japanese Baptist Church in Seattle. When his congregation is incarcerated in an internment camp, he follows them taking Piper with him. This could be a good introduction to this period in US history. The Dear America books are all diaries written by girls, but boys who aren’t interested in reading a book by a ‘girl’, might enjoy reading the series called “My Name is America” which are journals written by ‘boys’. I was visiting family in British Columbia and found three books called ‘Dear Canada’ which I bought and put in our library here. Lastly, “The Royal Diaries” written by historical royals are quite popular here, as well. All of these are published by Scholastic.

Another series that is loved by the same group that loves the Dear America books is the Sisters in Time series. I am about to place “Lydia the Patriot’, ‘Maria Takes a Stand’, ‘Nellie the Brave’, ‘Betsy’s River Adventure’, and ‘Meg Follows a Dream’ on our shelves. In a fashion similar to Dear America, these books help to chronicle a period of history through story format. ‘Lydia the Patriot’ is about the Boston Massacre, ‘Maria Takes a Stand’ is on the battle for women’s rights, ‘Nellie the Brave’ is about the Cherokee Trail of Tears, ‘Betsy’s River Adventure’ tells of the westward expansion, and ‘Meg Follows a Dream’ is on freedom for slaves. There are many more; just choose the subject or area of history you would like to have in your library.

I have heard that some of you print out and save my weekly posts. Some save them in a folder on their computer, and I am sure that many of you delete them. If you ever find yourself needing to refer to something that I have written or just need to check back, remember that I have each post on a blog. You can check back to each post dating from January 2009. (The blog was actually started in February and I posted January’s posts at that time, so you won’t see any posts for January, but they are there. I promise!) The blog is sdalibrarian.blogspot.com.

I hope you have a wonderful week. The sun is shining here and it is lovely weather. I hope the weather is good where you live, as well.
Audrey

Cash for Clunkers

Hi, Everyone,
I had intended to let you know again about the Cash for Clunkers program from Enslow Publishers. However, most of the Upper Columbia Conference teachers may have already received this information. No worries. It is still a good deal. Enslow will give a 45% discount on an order of 10 books when you weed out 5 old books. The process is listed below. I did this last year and got some great new books to help replace a few old weeded ones. Start thinking about this soon, because the offer is only good through December 31, 2010. Feel free to forward this information or email to any educator friends or librarians you know.

Let me know if you need any help choosing your new books. I LOVE spending other people’s money!

Have a great week.
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

(information included in original email)

Cyber Safety

This week I’m focusing on cyber safety or being safe online. This is good information for all people, young or old. Sometimes we think that our children already know how to be safe since they are part of the technology generation. But children are often too trusting and tend to believe everything they see on the internet.

We need to educate our students (and probably their parents, too) in online safety. A few years ago someone contacted me asking for information about keeping children safe online. She was writing an article for Women of Spirit magazine. I sent her these basic guidelines.

1. Computers should NEVER be in a child's room or any room that is not supervised at all times. Put the computer in the kitchen or family room where lots of traffic will be. Do not leave children at a computer unattended. Children can access objectionable sites in seconds. Monitor what sites children are accessing and check the history.

2. Invest in good filtering software and set parent controls with a password. If parents don't know how to do this, ask or pay someone who does know how to teach you. Change the password regularly. You can even set up accounts on the computer so children cannot get on the computer unless you type in the password.

3. Set your internet to open to a child-friendly site such as kids.yahoo.com. (This used to be called Yahooligans) You can also customize Yahoo or another browser to look the way you want and avoid certain sites.

4. Teach your child to not give out any personal information. Teach them what "personal information" is. Continue to reinforce this. Many parents think that if they told their child once, that is enough. Quiz them in the car, anywhere. "If someone asks you for your
address, is that personal information?"

5. Instead of using real names, use a computer code name. Make it simple and not suggestive. Don't use something like "prettygirl", "cuteasabutton", or names like that.

If you type in ‘online safety’ or other search terms like that you will come across many sites that will give you some good information. Here are three that you might check out.

http://www.ou.edu/oupd/kidtool.htm
http://www.safekids.com/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2272549,00.asp
Cyber bullying is yet another problem that could be a problem at your school. Most states have laws against bullying and more states are including cyber bullying in their law. Check out the laws in your state to see what the consequences of this can be.
Most students just aren’t aware of how dangerous it can be online. We don’t need to frighten them, but to teach them how to search the internet and what kind of information not to post. Facebook and Twitter and other social networking sites have our kids on them even though they may be underage. Parents are allowing their children to have their own Facebook page and may not be monitoring them.
Now you’re wondering if I know of any books to use to teach this information. The answer is ‘Yes’. In fact, I have a very good set of books that I used with grades 3 – 6 last year. It is a set of five books and was easy to use and talk with kids about. The books generated some good discussion and I was surprised how much the older children didn’t know. I thought that the kids would be savvier than they were, so I was glad I was able to do some teaching about these subjects.
The set is written by David J. Jakubiak and published by PowerKids Press, 2010. The books cost around $22.00 each with library binding, but I checked Amazon.com and saw them in paperback for less than $10.00 each.
A Smart Kid’s Guide to Social Networking Online
A Smart Kid’s Guide to Doing Internet Research
A Smart Kid’s Guide to Avoiding Online Predators
A Smart Kid’s Guide to Internet Privacy
A Smart Kid’s Guide to Online Bullying

Teaching children is one thing; we have them captive. But what about when they go home? Will they take these guidelines home and use them? It might be a good idea to have your Home and School leaders arrange an education program to help parents learn about these dangers and how to keep their children safe at the home computer. If this isn’t an option, consider a newsletter or a mailing with information for parents about this topic.

I hope you have a good week and keep yourself safe in all areas.
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

Dewey Decimal System

Teaching the Dewey Decimal System

Hello,
The Dewey Decimal System is a valuable resource for anyone. Even if your library doesn’t use Dewey, students will need to know it or at least know the basics in order to use most other libraries. Most public schools teach the Dewey Decimal System, but often our SDA schools don’t do as well at teaching this. Some might disagree with me, but I think that a student should know (memorize) the basic hundreds and the types of books that one can fine in each hundred. Here is an easy way to present this to your students.

The Dewey Decimal System is arranged a little like a person growing up.
100’s - Who Am I? (Psychology) When we are little, we think only of ourselves. The books in this section have information that a person might want to know about himself. Books on my thoughts or how I feel would be included in this section.

200’s – Who is My God? (Religion) As we grow a little older we start to wonder where everyone came from. These books explain the world and how it was created. Books on religions are located here. (Also books on Mythology, but we don’t usually include these in our lessons!)

300’s – Who is My Neighbor? (Social Studies) Once you learn about other people, you want to find out more about others. What do they do and where do they live? Books on careers, jobs, holidays, folktales are located here. These books are all about the social world.

400’s – How Do I Communicate With My Neighbor? (Languages) Now that we know something about other people, we might want to communicate with them. We need to learn their language, so books on other languages are here.

500’s – Man Sees the Things God Made. (Pure Science) Books on science and nature are in this section. We learn about the heavens, the animals, and the world God made.

600’s – Man is Lazy and Learns “How To’ Use the Science and Nature information to Work for Him. (Applied Science/Technology) Books on cars, airplanes, building bridges and other things, caring for your health, books on diseases, cookbooks, caring for pets; all these subjects are in here. This section is the “How To” section. The animal books are in the Pure science section, but caring for them (How To) is in the Applied Science section.

700’s – Man Enjoys Leisure Time. (Fine Arts) Since Man has learned to use science to work for him, he now has time to enjoy things like sports, crafts, music, drawing, and other hobbies.

800’s – Man is Vain and Likes to Tell Stories About Himself. (Literature)

900’s – Man Likes to Leave a Record of His Doings, Goings, and Comings. (History, Geography, and Biography)

000’s – General Information. This includes books like encyclopedias, media, newspapers, and books that have a lot of general information such as question and answer books.

I hope this information is helpful to you and will be enough of a start to explain to students how the library is arranged.

Have a great week.
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

Books I Would Make Sure My Library Had

Hello,
At first I thought I would call this post “If Your Library Doesn’t Have These Books, Drop Everything and Go Get Them Right Now”, but then reason took over and I realized that it is kind of bossy for me to say it like that. So here is the title of this post. “Books I Would Make Sure My Library Had.” Or for an even shorter version,” Books Audrey Loves”. The shorter version is not quite true because space and time prevent me from listing all the books I love.

Anyway, these books are not new. In fact, many of them are quite old and some are considered classics. I will also say that it is true that I believe every school library should have these books.

Enough said. Now to the list.

Brink, Carol Ryrie – Caddie Woodlawn, Magical Melons, Two Are Better Than One, Winter Cottage, and more

Cleary, Beverly –Ramona and Beezus, Henry Huggins, Muggie Maggie, basically anything she wrote

Campbell, Sam – classic books for any SDA school library

Burnett, Frances Hodgson – The Secret Garden – Read this aloud to any age.

The Dear America series by various authors (Also, there are a few Dear Canada books, as well.)

Fitzgerald, John - The Great Brain series (I haven’t read these, but other teachers have told me they really enjoy them.)

Farley, Walter – The Black Stallion series

Henry, Marguerite – Misty of Chincoteague, Justin Morgan Had a Horse, and more

Konigsburg, E. L – From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The View From Saturday and more

McCloskey, Robert – Famous for “Make Way for Ducklings”, but has also written chapter books such as Homer Price and Centerburg Tales

MacLaughlin, Patricia – Sarah, Plain and Tall; The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt; Cassie Binegar, Rhymes With Vinegar; and more

Mowat, Farley – Owls in the Family (Great read aloud for any age) and The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be

McSwigan, Marie – Snow Treasure (Another great read aloud for all ages)

Montgomery, L. M. – Anne of Green Gables series (I have loved this series since I was twelve years old. If anyone tells you they saw the movie, ask them to read the first three chapters, then if they don’t like it, you will find something else for them. You probably will not have to do anything more. Unfortunately, I have not had good luck reading this aloud. You might have better luck than I.)

Speare, Elizabeth George – The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Not to worry, it isn’t about a witch, but a historical fiction story about a woman accused of being a witch.) Also, Sign of the Beaver, Calico Captive, and The Bronze Bow. She only wrote four books, but all are worthy.)

Wilder, Laura Ingalls – The Little House series. Good read alouds.

You likely have many of these already in your collection. If you find that the students aren’t reading these, try reading portions of the book and see how they fly off the shelves.

I hope you have a wonderful week,
Audrey

Christian Fantasy

Hello to you all,
I got an email from one of you regarding the subject of Christian fantasy. The writer wanted to know my thoughts on the subject particularly for junior high and above. I hope that I will be able to help, but this is a subject that
Personally, I am not a huge fan of fantasy or science fiction. There are some fantasy books that I have read and enjoyed, but for the most part, that is just not a genre that I know well or am interested in reading more about. It is my opinion that we need to be very careful exactly what we put in our SDA school libraries in these two categories.
Some people make a distinction between Christian fantasy and fantasy while others make no distinction at all. My American Heritage dictionary defines fantasy (referring to books) as “4a: Fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements.” We can all agree that we don’t want supernatural elements in our libraries. We likely can all agree that we wouldn’t put J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books in our libraries, too. But what about C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books? Max Lucado’s books? Or John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress? Are these books OK or not?
I believe that C. S. Lewis’ books, Max Lucado stories, and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress are allegorical. By allegorical I mean they are symbolic rather than fantastical. An allegory helps explain ideas or principles through characters and events. Some would disagree with me that Lewis’ work is worthwhile for an Adventist Christian and that is fine. This is something that you will need to thoughtfully consider and then make your choice as to whether or not you put this genre in your library.
Here are a few items that may help you when making a decision.
1. Have you read the book in its entirety thereby knowing exactly what is in the book? If you aren’t sure about a book, you really should read it first to make an informed decision.
2. Does the book have magic or occult happenings in it? Does this look or sound attractive in the story? I am not talking about sleight of hand magic tricks, but supernatural magic.
3. Does the book promote Christian values and virtues?
4. Is the book useful in the curriculum in some way?
With all the fantasy in the past decade that has come out such as Harry Potter, the Twilight vampire books and movies, and other Harry Potter wannabes, it can be hard to find something that will interest children who are watching and reading the fantasy genre. Some people will say that anything that will get kids reading is good no matter what it is. I can sympathize with that to an extent but I do think that we can find other, better reading material for our children. This can be hard work, I know.
I hope this has helped you in some way. I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on this subject. If you know of any titles that we librarians and teachers can suggest to kids who love fantasy, please send them to me. I know we all would appreciate any suggestions. For the record, I do have the Narnia books, Max Lucado’s books, and Pilgrim’s Progress in my library.
I hope you have a good week.
Audrey

Books for Middle School Readers part 2

Books for Advanced Middle Graders

Alcott, Louisa M Little Women, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Little Men, Jo’s Boys
Anderson, Laurie H Fever 1793, Vet Volunteer series
Avi Nothing But the Truth, Iron Thunder, North by Night, Night Journeys, The Secret School, Hard Gold
Borden, Louise The Greatest Skating Race
Borden, Louise Across the Blue Pacific
Boyne, John The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Brink, Carol Ryrie Caddie Woodlawn, Magical Melons, Two are Better Than One, Winter Cottage
Carson, Ben Gifted Hands
Clements, Andrew Stick with his ‘school stories’. Frindle, The Janitor’s Boy, A Week in the Woods, The Last Holiday Concert, No Talking, Extra Credit, plus a couple more
Durrant, Lynda My Last Skirt
Farley, Walter The Black Stallion series
Ford, Herbert Flee the Captor
Freedman, Russell Children of the Great Depression, Cowboys of the Wild West,
Fritz, Jean Traitor: Story of Benedict Arnold
Gies, Miep Anne Frank Remembered
Giff, Patricia R Nory Ryan’s Song, Maggie’s Door
Henry, Marguerite Misty of Chincoteague, Justin Morgan Had a Horse, other horse stories
Hobbs, Will Far North, Jason’s Gold, Jackie’s Wild Seattle, Crossing the Wire
Montgomery, L.M. Anne of Green Gables series
Park, Linda Sue A Single Shard, Project Mulberry
Peck, Richard The River Between Us, A Long Way From Chicago, A Year Down Yonder
Rawls, Wilson Summer of the Monkeys, Where the Red Fern Grows
Rinaldi, Ann Mine Eyes Have Seen, Numbering the Bones
Robinson, Glen If Tomorrow Comes
Ryan, Pam Munoz Esperanza Rising, Becoming Naomi Leon
Schlitz, Laura Amy Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!
Sewell, Anna Black Beauty
Speare, Elizabeth G. Sign of the Beaver, Witch of Blackbird Pond, Calico Captive
Spinelli, Jerry Milkweed, Loser, Eggs, Maniac Magee
Weeks, Sarah So B. It
Whelan, Gloria Listening for Lions, The Turning, Angel on the Square
Wilder, Laura Ingalls The Little House books
Winthrop, Elizabeth Counting on Grace
Yep, Laurence The Cook’s Family, Dragonwings, The Star Fisher

Books for Middle School Readers

Post for Sep 13 2010
Greetings!
Have you ever had a student who was reading voraciously in the lower grades and wanted to start reading books that were technically on their reading level, but the subject matter was more mature? What do we do with these kids? We must keep them reading, but we do need to find reading material that will challenge them yet be age appropriate. I decided to see what I could do about this.
I happened to read an article about a public school librarian who had the same issue and decided to duplicate her project. She worked with a group of high school students to compile a list of books that were higher level reading, yet age appropriate for middle graders. I looked at her list and realized that only a few of those titles would be appropriate for Adventist schools, so I decided that someone should compile a list of books that would be
1. Challenging for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders,
2. Age appropriate, and
3. Appropriate for a Seventh-day Adventist school.
I wrote to the author of the original article and asked permission to use her forms along with permission to tweak them a little. She graciously gave permission and I began.
Last year in the Fall of 2009 I worked on this project with a few junior high students in my Honors Reading class. I had compiled a list of books in our library here at Rogers that I thought might be good for this list. I then explained to the students what we were going to do. We were going to read, read, read. For each book they read, they were to complete two different evaluation forms. At the end of the semester, I compiled a list of the books that the students liked and thought would be good for the list. I also had a couple of students tell me about other books that they found that would be good for the list and requested permission to evaluate them.
This project accomplished two things. One, I have a list of books that we feel are challenging, age appropriate and SDA appropriate. Two, those students learned how to read a book for evaluation purposes.
I will admit that I added a number of my favorites that the students just did not have time to read. There are a lot of older books that we read as children that kids today don’t read. Louisa May Alcott, Carol Ryrie Brink, Marguerite Henry, Walter Farley, and more. If you have trouble getting kids to read these, try reading part of a story to hook them in. For one example, the book Anne of Green Gables – I want to scream when I suggest this series and a student says, “I saw the movie.” I reply, “The movie is not the book.” Then I usually suggest they read the first three chapters and if they don’t like the book, please let me know so I will be able to help them find something better. Usually by the third chapter they are hooked, but if not, it is OK.

Most of these authors are great, but we always need to be careful. You never know when a beloved author starts writing books that might not fit with Adventist values. Here are some words of wisdom about a few of these authors.
1. Avi – he is a prolific writer and writes in many genres. His historical fiction is top notch, but I stay away from the fantasy books.
2. Andrew Clements – We love his books and they fly off the shelves here, BUT he has a few titles that I avoid. “Things Not Seen” is one of them. Just be careful.
3. I didn’t put Gary Paulsen on the list, but he has some great stories. “Hatchet” is a classic example. Just watch out for some of his. One of my favorites of his books is his account of his Itidarod race titled “Winterdance”. There is a lot of language, so I never could put this particular book in one of our libraries.
If you have ideas of books that would fit this list, I am very willing to update my list. Send ideas along to me as you come across them. I’ll include the list in a separate email that I post immediately after this one. You know I wouldn’t keep you waiting a week for it!
Have a great week.
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

New Books

Greetings to you all!
I heard from a number of you that you are interested in some good books to get for your libraries. I have a few brand new titles on my cart just waiting for me to process them, so I pulled off some to share. Most of these are picture books. I hope we can get the idea out of our students’ heads that picture books are only for little kids. This is not true and anyone who actually reads a book to a child will know that the vocabulary is much too high for them to read themselves. When you assign book reports this year or have some research project, consider requiring one of the books be a picture book. Many libraries call them “Everybody Books” rather than “Easy Books”.

Here are a few “Everybody Books” for you.

Wonder Horse by Emily Arnold McCully. The story is based on the life of a real horse who learned to spell, make change from a cash register and more. The subtitle is The True Story of the World’s Smartest Horse. Don’t forget to read the author’s note at the back to the students.

Emma’s Poem by Linda Glaser. Emma Lazarus wrote the poem ‘The New Colossus’ which is engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. This is the story of her writing the famous poem for the statue. There is a little about the statue itself, but mostly concerns the poem.

How to Clean a Hippopotamus by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. It has come to the point for me that if Steve Jenkins writes a book, I want it. Check out his other books, too, but this one is so interesting. This deals with unusual partnerships between animals.

POP! The Invention of Bubble Gum by Meghan McCarthy. The title says it all. This will be really POPular with your students.

Here Comes the Garbage Barge! By Jonah Winter. Did you know that before recycling became an enforced practice, Long Island’s landfills were too full to take any more garbage. They put some of the overflow on a barge and sent it to dumping ground in the South. Unfortunately for Long Island, no one would take the trash. This brought national attention to the problem of too much trash. One really interesting item to note is that the art in the book is made from recycled trash.

The Village Garage by G. Brian Karas. A simple story about a garage in a small town and the work they do in each season. They rake and suck up leaves, sweep the streets, patch the roads, paint new road stripes, scrape the snowy roads, and then start all over again.

Titanicat by Marty Crisp. One reporter learned that there had been a cat on the Titanic that had given birth to a litter of kittens. A ship’s cat is a lucky omen. The reporter learned of an Irishman who claimed he had been crewing on the Titanic and had been assigned to care for the cat. When the cat got off the ship in Southampton, the young man became superstitious and also left the ship. The author gives her research sources for this book so you can check them out. The paintings are glorious and the story is wonderful.

Insect Detective by Steve Voake. This is a great introduction to insects and some information about where they live and how to find them.

The Buffalo are Back by Jean Craighead George. Jean gives some history about the buffalo and how they nearly disappeared from the Great Plains. Today there are buffalo that are protected. This is the story of how they were saved.

I hope you found something that you might like. Have a good week. If you are new to this email list, check out my blog where I post each email each week. You can find older posts and see what kinds of information I have given in the past. Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com


Audrey

Summer Reading

Hello!
This is the last week of school for us and likely you as well. I know that some of you will be taking summer courses, some will be traveling, some will be working in the yard and around the house taking care of those jobs there is just not time for during the school year, and some may be just sitting around with a dazed look for a few days.

How many of you have asked or told your students to read over the summer? This simple act of reading 15 minutes a day will help keep their skills up and very likely increase reading scores. Did you realize that? Just 15 minutes a day can increase a student’s reading ability by a grade level. That’s just the commercial time for about one hour’s television viewing. If you haven’t said anything to parents and students, this may be a fantastic time to mention this. What about offering a prize to students who keep a reading log signed by parents? You could have your class set the goal and then give prizes next year when school begins.

Now that you have your students set with their summer reading goal, what about you? What is your goal? How will you keep track of your reading? It would be fun for the students for you to report on your reading over the summer. A number of years ago when I lived in Texas, one of our best friends who taught in the English department said he had a goal of 50 books to read over the summer. He wanted me to make a device for recording each book. I was teaching third grade at the time and loved the idea. I made large trees on full sheets of poster board and cut out apple shapes. Each time one of us read a book we filled out an apple and glued it on our tree. My husband, our two friends, and I had a great time with this. It sounds childish, but it was fun. Now I keep track of the books I read on the computer through LibraryThing. LibraryThing is free for the first 200 books you list. I started this about 7 years ago as a way to keep track of the books I have at home. I soon gave up because I just have too many. Now I just put on LibraryThing the books as I read them and record the month and year I read the book. Whatever you do to keep track of your books, just do something that will be fun for you and help you keep track of your summer reading. What a great example for your kids! You may be surprised at how much you read after all.

One more thing. As you are reading this summer, you will likely come across a great book that you want to share. Please send these titles to me and I’ll make a list and post it for others.

Have a great summer and rest up.
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

Common Sense Media Website

Hello,
I have something different for you this week. Usually I stick with books and other print materials, but this week I am bringing you a tool that you can share with the families in your school if you want. The tool is a website that rates Movies (in and out of theaters), DVDs, Games, Websites, TV, Books Music, and Mobile Apps for age appropriateness from age 2 - 18. The website is www.commonsensemedia.org.

You may have to sign up to use the site, but it is free and quick. You can also personalize a page according to the age of your child or children. What I think makes this website so helpful is the reviews which are very helpful for parents. Each review has explanations for why the program is rated the way it is. The ratings include five areas of concern for most parents – Violence and scariness, Sexy stuff, Language, Consumerism, and Drinking, drugs, and smoking.

I logged on today and noticed a movie that is coming to theaters soon – Shrek 3 - and I looked at the recommendations. This movie is listed as being age appropriate for ages 6 and up. Scenes that have some violence in them are described. Here is the description from the Common Sense website. “Characters in peril; ogre hunters wave pitchforks and torches; a bird explodes; scary fire-breathing dragon (who is much less scary when she gets a crush on Donkey); one character is eaten in one gulp by the dragon.” If a parent is considering taking a child to this movie, it would be helpful to know what kinds of things to expect.

I also picked an old musical that I enjoy to see what was said about it. “My Fair Lady” had comments about alcoholism being treated as serious and also as a gag. Listed also were the bad words found in the movie. I was quite surprised since I consider this a pretty tame movie. I checked out TV programs, games, and music, as well.

There are different tabs for New Releases, We Recommend, Parents Recommend, and Kids Recommend. The site also has a section for Parents and one for Educators. I have barely touched on the information that is available here. You need to go see for yourselves.

Once you have visited this website, you might want to let the parents of your students know about the site. If you have a school or classroom newsletter, this would be a good item for that.

I hope you have a great week and a wonderful Memorial Day vacation!
Audrey

Graphic Books and Graphic History

Recently someone asked me what I thought about graphic novels and other graphic materials such as biographies and historical fiction. For those of you who may not be familiar with this type of book, graphic books are written like a comic book with pictures and captions or dialogue. Think “Mary Worth” or “Superman” in book form and you probably have a good idea.

Well, I am not a fan of graphic books. The illustrations are usually comic in nature, the text is sparse thereby leaving out much information, and the graphic style for a whole book actually bothers me. Thus said, there are some students who love them and would actually read them. They will appeal to many of your high interest low level readers. Plus, they can be used to provide a quick overview of a historical event.

If you are looking for a few graphic format books for your library, ABDO Publishing Group has a number of books that might be of interest to you. Their Graphic History gives students a basic idea of the historical event. We have “The Fall of the Berlin Wall” in graphic form in our library. To see what other books are available, go to www.abdopub.com and type in graphic novel or graphic history in the quick search box.

Each to his own. If I decide to read a graphic book, I am much more likely to pick up a treasury of Foxtrot or Zits.  I do believe there is a place for a good graphic book even if I am not interested in them personally.

Have a great week.
Audrey

Copyright and Honesty

Copyright

We try to teach our students to be honest. Are we also teaching them how to be honest with the information they get from other sources such as books, magazines, and the internet? Are we ourselves being honest by crediting our sources when we find information? I believe that it is vitally important for us to not let something like copyright ethics slip by because the chances of being caught are slim.

We as educators must learn the basics of copyright rules and follow them and we must teach these basics to our students. You would expect high school teachers to require this from their students when they do research and most of us would be shocked if we learned that a teacher didn’t follow through on this practice. But what about a first grade teacher? Can we expect these young children to cite their sources? Isn’t this a bit much? Most teachers and parents would never even consider this a copyright violation. So where do we start? When is it OK to use information and not give credit to the creator of that information? I believe that this must start in the lowest grades. Do you have your children cut pictures from magazines to paste on posters or projects? Have them show the magazine they got the pictures from. Did they learn something from a book they read? They can show the book when they present their information to the class. Did they get pictures from the internet? They can tell how they found the pictures. By these acts they are crediting their sources in an age appropriate manner.

When students get to third grade and above, they are old enough to understand that they need to have a list of sources for the information they find. At our school we do not allow students to print from the internet. Instead we teach them to copy and paste only the information they need into a Word document. Then we also have the children copy and paste the URL address either under the picture or on a separate page to include in their report. By printing from Word, we can consolidate the information and save quite a bit of paper.

I do not accept “Google” as a source. I tell students that saying I got this from Google is the same as saying “Come to my house for my birthday party. I live in the United States.” If someone issued us an invitation like that, we would all say that we need quite a bit more information. If students try to push you on this, have them type in www.google.com and see what comes up. Their information will not automatically appear. The Google logo appears. That is a good way to illustrate that “Google” is NOT a source, but a place to start from.

Many teachers say the ‘Fair Use’ clause entitles them to use material if it is for educational purposes. This is partly true. ‘Fair use’ means that we can use a small portion of the information for educational purposes without contacting the author for permission to use the material. It does not mean that we can use the material without citing the source. You can use the material. You still must cite your source. Fair use does not mean that you can use anything and everything you want just because you are an educator.

Here is just one example of a fair use situation. You are teaching a unit on the Civil War. One evening you notice that there is a special television program on the Civil War and it would be perfect for your unit and the lesson you will be presenting tomorrow. You have no time to write and get permission to use the video. Can you tape the program and use it or will this be a violation of copyright? The answer is “Yes, you can tape the program and use it tomorrow in your class. This is not a violation of copyright.” The information is for educational purposes and you have the problem of time constraints here. But what if you teach this unit every year? Can you keep your copy and use it again each time you teach the unit? This is where a copyright issue comes up. Now, you DO have time to contact the author and ask for permission to use the whole video or DVD in your class or you now have time to purchase the program for classroom use. At this point, you legally cannot save your copy and use it again without permission.

There is a lot to know about copyright. Thick books are written about the subject and legal battles fought daily over this. We likely will not learn all there is to know about copyright, but I believe that educators need to be informed of the basics. I am ready to help you with this. I found a short online course for teachers to use. It is entertaining, it takes about 30 minutes or less, and it is very informative. The course was made for staff development in Henrico County public schools. You can go through the same presentation and learn the same information; you just will not be able to take the quiz at the end. I hope you will take time to look at this site and either learn or refresh your memory about copyright.

Have a great week,
Audrey

Henrico County Staff Development presentation on Copyright http://henricostaffdev.org/copyright/

Student Policies

Hello,
Last week I gave you ideas for putting together a policy for your community patrons – parents, church members, home school families, and others. Soon after I sent the email, I got a question asking what my policy is for my students. At first I hesitated sending this out because each school should do what works best for them. But, then I thought that it might be interesting to know what other schools do. Here is the policy we use at Rogers.

LIBRARY CARDS
Each student has a library card which stays here in the library. The cards are filed according to classroom and each teacher has a box containing all the library cards for their students. Since we have fourteen classrooms, on each card we place a tiny sticker to help us return the cards to the correct box. For example, Mrs. Thompson’s classroom cards have a blue star; Mr. Sutton’s class has a purple whale, and so forth.

LIBRARY CLASSES
We have regular library times for each classroom to come visit the library and we also have times that students can come individually. We require that students bring a pass from their teacher so we know that they do indeed have permission to be here. Students that come without a pass are reminded to pop back to the classroom and get one.

CHECK-OUT
Kindergarteners are allowed to check out one book each week. I teach them about the different sections and they choose a book from the different sections.

Grades one and two are allowed to check out two books each week. For third grade and above, the students are allowed three books each week.

There are exceptions to this. My Library Club workers are allowed to have four books out at a time, and a select group of junior high students can also have four books at a time.

LATE BOOKS
We don’t have fines for late books, but the students cannot check out again until their books have been returned to the library.

LOST BOOKS
Often students will tell us that their book is lost. If this happens, we ask them to have their parent or guardian contact us and then we will let them continue to check out. This puts some of the responsibility on the student. The main reason for this is to assure us that the parent does indeed know about the lost book and they will keep looking to find the book. Since our library is automated, we then put an alert for that student stating the name of the lost book, the date, and that they have permission to check out.

Occasionally we will have a parent who says they don’t want their child to check out books. With a little finesse, we usually learn that the child has lost a book and the parent doesn’t want to pay for more lost books. We will ask the parent if the student might check out books but keep them here at school. That usually is fine with the parent. We then put an alert on the student’s profile and remind them that they need to leave their books at school. When we swipe their library card barcode, the alert comes up to remind us.


It has been my experience that students who lose a book usually find it at some point in the school year. Over the year I would estimate that we check out 2000 or more books each year. I usually have about 10 – 15 books that are really lost. I send charges to the office at the end of the school year to be put on the last bill. By sending charges in once, I do not have to refund money over and over during the course of the year when each book is found. I figure the charges this way. I look up the cost of replacing the book and add a $5.00 processing fee. If the book is found over the summer, I will refund the cost of the book, but not the processing fee. Other schools have the students pay for lost books at the time they are lost, and then will refund the money if the book is found. Some schools have a flat rate for lost books. I prefer students having to pay to replace the book rather than a flat rate. If a student loses a paperback book and has to pay $20.00, that doesn’t seem fair to me. If a student loses a $50.00 book and has to pay only $20.00, this also doesn’t seem fair.

As you are working with your library and your students, make sure that the procedure you have in place is something that will work for you and that it works for your school. What works for one school will not necessarily be the best plan for your school. Check with your board or principal and get support for your policies, then make sure that parents are aware of them.

Have a great week.
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

Community Patrons

Hello,
I had a great question last week from a librarian wondering about allowing the community to check out books from the school library. Likely many of us have this same issue. Do you have homeschoolers wanting to use your library? How about church members? Parents? What are the ramifications of letting people other than your students use the library?

Here are some pros and cons to this particular situation.
Pros
1. It is good PR for your school. We all need as much good PR as we can get.
2. Our job is to promote literacy and this puts reading materials into more hands.
3. It is a low-key recruiting tool. It brings in future students. Parents with young children visit the library for books and the children get used to coming to the school. Homeschoolers may be impressed by what you offer at your school and decide to enroll. At the very least, they will be supporting your school verbally.
4. It can offer a service to the church members. It is a solid connection for church and school. You will reach people who don’t have children in the school, but they may visit the library and will feel a part of the school in that way.

Cons
1. You may lose some books. Face it. When we check books out to others, books will be lost.
2. If you check out to patrons other than students, the books may not be available when students need them for school purposes.
3. The visitors may come at an inopportune time.
4. Your library is not a public library. The purpose of your library is to support the school curriculum.


If we agree that it is a good idea to have community patrons, let’s make a policy for them to avoid some of those cons. Write up a policy for your library materials.

It may be that your church family considers the school library to be theirs, too. This should not be a problem. Make them library patrons with a card for themselves. You can have a separate card file for the community patrons and give them supervised library times. I have a simple policy for community patrons and a simple library card application. Each year patrons fill out a new application and update any information. Basic information to include on the application is name, address, all phone numbers. I also have a space to write the names of their school-age children.

I give each community patron a copy of our library policy and specifically mention the first one to them so they know that we may ask them to return the books ahead of time if a teacher or student needs that particular book. They all have understood and don’t seem to mind this at all. I also let them know the best times for them to come to check out books and which times the library will not be available to them. This information can be on the policy page.

Here is a copy of my policy. You are welcome to adapt this to your particular situation. If you have a policy for community members and are willing to share it with us, please send it to me. I’ll be happy to pass this information along.


Library Policies

1. Please note that the students and faculty of Rogers Adventist School have priority to all library materials. All loaned materials may be recalled at short notice if they are required for use by a student and/or faculty member.
2. If items are lost or damaged beyond repair, the borrower must pay a fee to replace the item. The fee will be the cost of the book plus a $5.00 nonrefundable processing fee. The Library does not accept materials in lieu of payment.
3. Books may be borrowed for a one-week period. However, books may be renewed each week. Patrons must bring in the books in order to renew them.
4. There are no fines for overdue materials. However, patrons will not be allowed check-out privileges when they have overdue materials.
5. The loan of seasonal books (i.e. Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) may be limited. Also certain subjects that classes are studying will be limited for the time period the class needs them.
6. The suggested limit is five books. This number may vary as need and availability dictates.

I would caution you about one thing. Our school libraries are there to support the school curriculum, not the wishes of the community.

Have a great week.
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

Book Fair

Post for April 20, 2010

Book Fair Ideas

Hello,
This week I am in the middle of my spring Scholastic Book Fair and I thought I would just tell you what I do and how I run one. That way, you can use my experience to decide if you want to try this or not.

I hold two Scholastic Book Fairs a year, one in the fall and one in the spring. Scholastic is very good at helping and supporting me with each fair. A few weeks before the fair I receive a box filled with posters to personalize and flyers to send home with the students. I fill in the posters with the dates and times and I make stickers for the flyers. I use Avery # 5163 2” X 4” shipping labels and put the dates and times of the fair on that label. I also use Avery # 5160 address label and put a disclaimer on that. “Please note that not all the books seen in this flyer may be available at our book fair.” This is a good job for kids to do. I have my Library Club members place the stickers on the flyers. They love this job.

About a week before the fair I put up the posters around the school and send the flyers home. I hold my fair in the library and sometimes I decorate for the particular theme that Scholastic is using. The flyers and decorating and posters help to increase the excitement for the fair. Often there is a DVD in the box with information about a few of the books and authors. I preview this ahead of time and choose which segments I plan to show to the students.

When the book fair actually arrives, it is usually delivered in Scholastic’s semi truck with Clifford the Big Red Dog painted on the side. Since I am the librarian and not a classroom teacher, I begin right away. The Scholastic delivery person brings the cases in to the school and I figure out the placement of each case. Most schools will have four or five cases plus boxes, but since we are a large school, I usually get seven cases plus boxes. Inside the cases are shelves with books arranged on them. Inside the boxes are more books, toys, plush animals, activities, games, software, pens and pencils, bookmarks, notepads, stickers, erasers, and more. I place the cases around and open them up, and then my assistant and I begin to organize all this stuff on tables and counters. She takes care of all the pens, pencils and other smaller items and I start to cull the books. I look over all the shelves in the cases carefully and pull off the ones that aren’t appropriate for our school. I put them on the top of the cases for the time being. As we arrange items from the boxes on tables and counters, I use the boxes we empty to pack away the books that I put on top of the cases. This way any inappropriate books are packed away and not seen. There have been times that I wondered if I would have any books left on the shelves! But I have always had enough other books to take their places. I often have volunteers come help with the set up. I am so happy when I can have a creative parent arrange items on a table since decorating is not really my gift. We put the boxes out of sight in a closet or under the tables.

As the fair runs, we have two cashier areas where people can pay. If I see that some items are getting low, I can send a restock request to Scholastic and within a couple of days my restock items will arrive and I put them on the shelves. I usually take a look around and see what titles I know will be popular and actually send a restock order before the fair even starts!


The benefits of holding a book fair are many. You will earn Scholastic Dollars to spend on books or other materials from the Resource Catalog. I always use some credit to buy books off the book fair to put in our library, or books to use for prizes throughout the year, and books for gifts for my helpers. I also have saved up and purchased items of furniture found in the catalog to spice up the library.

If you decide to hold a Scholastic Book Fair, you’ll have a wonderful, busy, exciting time. You can contact Scholastic to learn more. I would recommend attending a free Book Fair Workshop for ideas and help. If you are a classroom teacher as well as the librarian, you might get your Home and School to run a book fair for you.

Have a wonderful week!
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

Choosing Fiction for the Library

Hello,
I received a great question today. Many of us have concerns about our fiction section and want to make sure we are putting in good quality books, but we also want the kids to be reading what we put in our libraries. We can put wonderful stories in there, but if the kids won’t read them, it is a waste of money.

So what do we want to put in our libraries? What are other libraries from Adventist Schools putting in their libraries? Am I the only one who hesitates to put fantasy or just silly stories on my shelves?

Here is one way that I select books for Rogers Adventist School library. I have the following goals and selection criteria in my library policy.

Goals

Rogers Adventist School Media Center has the following goals for the media center collection.
1. To provide materials that will enrich and support the curriculum, taking into consideration the varied interests, abilities, and maturity levels of the pupils served.
2. To provide materials that will stimulate growth in factual knowledge, literary appreciation, aesthetic values, and ethical standards.
3. To provide materials representative of many religious, ethnic, and cultural groups and their contribution of our American heritage.

Criteria for Selection
The Media Center Director is guided in selection of materials by professional book reviews and standard bibliographies. Recommendations from the patrons will be given careful consideration for purchase.

The Library’s collection will be built to meet the needs and interests of Rogers School. Materials are selected to reflect the varying age groups, abilities, and interests of the patrons. All materials to be selected are subjected to the following criteria as they are applicable:

 Current interest and usefulness
 Permanent value
 Comprehensive in scope
 Relevance to the existing collection
 High standards of quality in content
 Cost in relation to the individual title and to the overall collection
 Availability of funds and space
 Attention of critics, reviewers, and public
 Balance of viewpoints in the collection
 Strengths and weaknesses of the existing collection
 SDA values


Our students know that books such as Harry Potter and other high fantasy do not really belong in a SDA library. Most of us have no problem deciding on this. Some of us have no problem including the Chronicles of Narnia in our libraries since this is religious allegory, but other consider it high fantasy and choose not to have these books in their libraries. But what about books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid or the Lemony Snicket series? What do we do with other fiction?

I know that many students are reading books that we as Adventist teachers and librarians do not really approve. One problem is that we have parents who either don’t care what their children read or they don’t know what they are reading. When a student comes to me to ask if I have a particular title, we look it up on the computer and when it isn’t there, I ask them what it is about that book that they especially like. Is it the adventure story, or about kids doing exciting things, or that it is a thick book? Then I tell them that we have books about adventures, or thick books and guide them to what I have in my library. If they seem hesitant, I say in a casual way, “Why don’t you take this and start reading it? If you don’t like it, bring it back tomorrow and we’ll find something else for you.” I cannot stress enough how important it is to say this in a casual, offhand way. I almost NEVER say, “You’ll love this book!” Too many times it is the kiss of death for that book. I WILL say, “You might like this book. A lot of the junior high students have enjoyed it.” Now THAT is high praise especially for a 5th or 6th grader. “I’m reading a ‘junior high’ book?”

If a student continues to question why a certain book isn’t in the library, I suggest you discuss this with them in an interested way. If you haven’t read the book, or even if you have, ask them why they feel that the book belongs in our church school library. You might make out a little form that students can fill out with the book information and a little essay describing how it fits SDA values. Ask them to help you evaluate the book by filling out the form. If the book is worthwhile, you might have a new book in your library. If not, the student will at least have been heard and treated with respect.

For the record, I do not have Diary of a Wimpy Kid or the Lemony Snicket series in our library. I feel that those books they can get at the public library or at a book fair. I have kept both those titles on my book fair shelves, and read the Lemony Snicket series myself. When I am asked by students why I don’t get them for our library, I tell them that they really aren’t the kind of books that fit in an Adventist school library. If you have them in your library, I am not here to criticize you for it. I just decided that it wasn’t a fight I was willing to fight. Those titles weren’t worth the fight.

I hope this helps. Library life can get a little sticky sometimes. For those of you who are new this year, check out my blog and see my previous posts.

Have a great week.
Audrey

Weeding in the 500s Part 1

Greetings!

This month we will be weeding in the 500’s. This may be a very large section so we will just do part of it in order to keep it easier for you.

The 500 – 510 section has basic science overviews and science experiments. Science experiments are very popular in many schools. Science experiments tend to be the same year after year, but watch for some of the older books that may have outdated or unsafe material. One suggestion I have for this section is adding the “Einstein” books. “What Einstein Told His Barber” and “What Einstein Told His Cook” are both very popular with our junior high students. My paperback copies are now getting beat up, and I now buy these in hard cover.

The 510 section consists of Mathematics books. Math does not change rapidly so you will not likely have outdated books. Weeding here will be done on books that are in need of repair or aren’t being used.

Next comes the 520 section. This includes books on Space and Astronomy. Major changes happen regularly in these subjects. Check that the information in your library is up-to-date and correct. Pluto is not a planet any longer. These books need to be replaced as soon as possible. Do you have books on the Space Station? What about Mars expeditions? Let’s do our best to keep up-to-date in this section.

That is plenty to take care of for now. In all these sections, take a look at the date and look carefully through any book over five years old. Many of them you will be able to keep, but others may have information that is incorrect. Keeping these books for ‘historical’ purposes is doing a disservice to our children. It is better to have a few good books in this section and have them be accurate than to have many inaccurate ones.

Have a great week!
Audrey

Challenged Books

Hello,
Long, long ago I taught grades 5 – 8 in a two teacher school. I read the book Cheaper By the Dozen aloud to them after lunch and we all enjoyed the story. If you have read this book you know that there are a couple of places where the father swears. As I was reading, I seamlessly inserted the harmless “Oh, my goodness!” in those places. However, one spot came where I had to stop and explain that the story is true and wonderful, but the father used language that we felt was inappropriate and I had been substituting other words instead. One child took that book home and within a few days, father and pastor were visiting me after school. I mentioned the value of the book but they wanted it off the shelves. I then asked if either of them had read the book. They had not. I requested they read it first, but neither of them were interested in reading it. I then told them that I would check with the conference and another source to see what they thought of the book. Both the conference and my other source said that the book was a good one, but there was a bit of a language problem and they recommended I keep the book, but keep it in the upper grade classroom. I met with the pastor and told him of my decision to keep the book and why.

It certainly would have made my life easier if I had a policy in place ready in case anyone challenged a book from my library.

Recently I heard about a man who accessed the local school library catalog online and searched the terms ‘witch’ and ‘magic’. He came up with titles about magic tricks and also The Witch of Blackbird Pond. (If you haven’t read The Witch of Blackbird Pond, I highly recommend it for two very good reasons. One, it is a wonderful, well-written story about a Puritan family and the niece from Barbados who comes to live with them. Kit, the niece, makes friends with a Quaker woman who is different from the townspeople and when something bad happens, the Quaker woman is accused of being a witch. Two, this book will be challenged by the person who sees the title and hasn’t read it. So, if you have read it, you can tell them about the story and possibly alleviate a potential problem.)

No matter how hard we try to choose the best books for our libraries, we are human and are bound to make mistakes. At times these mistakes will certainly be found by students, parents or local church members. What do you do? Do these people have the right to remove books from the library? How will you handle this?

The best way is to have a policy in place. Think of it as accident insurance. You can research other schools’ policies online and tweak one to fit your particular situation. I recommend one that has the person who has registered a complaint read the material, point out where the problem or problems are and then have a committee review the complaint. No one person should be able to remove a book without a valid reason. Granted, there very well may be books that should be removed and it may be that when you see the complaint, you realize immediately that the book is inappropriate and promptly remove it from the shelf. According to your policy, you can immediately pull out the forms to request removal and have the complainant fill it out right away. Then you have written reason to remove the book, you can meet with the committee and have the book removed from the shelf.

Recap: Have a library policy in place for the following reasons.
1. You will appear professional. You are ready for this situation even if it never comes.
2. You will not stress as much. You have a procedure in place and you have a committee to help you with the decision.
3. Your complainer may choose to not do anything once he or she sees your policy and procedure. Situation resolved. You have done your part.

If you would like to have a copy of another Adventist school’s Library Policy and Challenge policy, email me and I will be happy to send it to you.

Meanwhile, know that you are not alone. We are all in this together.

Have a wonderful week!

Blessings,
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

Book Swap Anyone?

Greetings!

I’ve been giving out titles of good books for the last few weeks and I thought I’d think of something else for you this week.

Why don’t you hold a Book Swap? Hold it in May near the end of the year and students will leave with ‘new’ books to read over the summer. What is a Book Swap, I hear you asking. A Book Swap is just that. Students bring books they no longer want or have outgrown and swap them for books they want. I held a Book Swap just before Christmas for the junior high students only. Here is what I did and what I learned.

Students bring in books they want to swap. For each book brought in the student receives a ticket. On the day of the swap, the student can redeem the ticket for a book. If they bring in 10 books, they get 10 tickets and can swap for 10 books. It’s really pretty simple. But here are some hints that may help make your Book Swap run smoothly.

1. Be sure that children have parent permission to swap the books. You’ll have to decide what will work best for you.
2. I had the students keep track of their own tickets. I did this with our junior high earlier this year. If they lost their ticket, too bad. You might choose to handle this differently, but I decided I did not want to be responsible for tickets for 90 students!
3. Check the books as they come in and don’t give tickets for books that aren’t appropriate for other students in your school. This can be handled with kindness and tact. I told the students ahead of time to bring books that were appropriate for an Adventist school and also to bring books that other junior high students would enjoy. If they brought a book that they had outgrown, other junior high students wouldn’t want it either. (I plan to do another one in May with the whole school participating.)
4. I set up the books in the library and sort of organized them into sections. Basically, I had one area for nonfiction and another for fiction.
5. Students came in to ‘shop’ and left with the books they ‘bought’ with their tickets.
6. I made sure that students knew ahead of time that there was a possibility that they might bring in 8 books, but only find 2 or 3 that they really liked.
7. I set a time period of about an hour or two for only those with tickets to come and buy books. After that time period, I then opened it up to others to buy books for $0.25 each. The money went into the library petty cash, not to the students.
8. One good idea that I read from another school is to let the older students go first. The first year that school had Kindergarteners choosing chapter books over the picture books and there was nothing much left for the older students! The next year they let the older students go through first and there was plenty to choose from. That school then sold their extra books for ten cents apiece after the ticket shopping was done.
9. If you have done some weeding, consider including those weeded books in with your Book Swap. I also brought some of my books from home that I no longer wanted.

If you have held a Book Swap, you might have some good ideas to share with us. What worked for you and what would you change another time?

I hope you have a great week and a safe Spring Vacation!

Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

New Books

Hi,
Here are some titles that have been published within the last year or two. I’m going to try to give a one sentence summary. This will be difficult for me since I really want to share the WHOLE THING with you because it is so good. But the shorter the summary, the more books I can share!

My Name is Sangoel by Karen Lynn Williams and Khandra Mohammed. A young Sudanese refugee adapts to America and keeps the dignity of his name.

Tsunami! By Kimiko Kajikawa. In 1854, Ojiisan saves his village from a tsunami by attracting them to his mountain by setting fire to his crops.

Tricking the Tallyman by Jacqueline Davies. A funny story of an early census taker and the town that tries to trick him.

My Uncle Emily by Jane Yolen. Emily Dickinson is “Uncle Emily” in this story told from the view of a young nephew.

The Dust Bowl: An Interactive History Adventure by Allison Lassieur. This is a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ type book about the Dust Bowl. Look for the one about the Titanic, too.

The Name Game: A Look Behind the Labels by Donna M. Jackson. Information presented in a funny way (at times) about names and where they originated. Names of people, pets, companies, rock stars, famous people, unusual names, origin of surnames, and much more.

Saving the Ghost of the Mountain: An Expedition Among Snow Leopards in Mongolia by Sy Montgomery. Information about Snow Leopards has been scarce until fairly recently thanks to the Planet Earth expedition.

Whaling Season: A Year in the Life of an Arctic Whale Scientist by Peter Lourie. Photographs and text tell the story of the Inupiaq Eskimos along with John Craighead George, son of Jean Craighead George who is a noted children’s book author.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan adapted by Richie Chevat. Michael Pollan researches the food we eat and discusses how it is raised, processed, and or grown. Parts of this may be things you didn’t want to know.

Never Smile at a Monkey by Steve Jenkins. It has gotten to the point that if Steve Jenkins writes a book I will buy it immediately. In case you didn’t know, monkeys show aggression by baring their teeth, so if you smile at them and show your teeth, you are showing aggression toward them. There is lots more of this kind of information in the book.

Marsupials by Nic Bishop. I learned about Nic Bishop this past summer. He is a photographer and illustrated his books with his stellar photos. His books have universal appeal to all ages. The photos are wonderful for non-readers and the text is appropriate for younger readers and older ones also. Check out his other books, too.

Well, it looks like I need to stop for this week. I’ll have to continue this next week.
Have a great week,
Audrey

Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

Weeding the 400s

Good news! This is a section that will be easy to weed. This is the language section. Believe it or not, kids love this section. Discard books that are too tattered and torn to mend and replace them with bright new copies.

If you don’t have much in this section, ask the students what languages they are interested in having in the library. We have a family with Filipino roots and they asked for Tagalog, so I have a couple of books with Tagalog.

Here are some suggestions for your library Language collection.

The Usborne First Thousand Words in . . . . by Heather Amery and Stephen Cartwright. These come in many different languages. Basic languages such as Spanish, German, and French are good to have in your library. But you might like a little exotic flavor and bring in Russian, Italian, Japanese, or Arabic, too. The Usborne series has drawings that may seem childish to some. You can find easy language books with photographs, too. I happen to like the Usborne series.

Don’t forget the English language! Books on grammar, dictionaries, a thesaurus or two; all these will enhance this section. I have a book called Ox, House, Stick The History of our Alphabet by Don Robb. This book is deceiving because it has the appearance of an ABC book, but the information inside is more appropriate for the upper elementary grades and possible into high school.

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss. You may remember when this book was on the New York Times bestseller list. Well, they came out with a kid’s version. There are at least two more by Lynne Truss, too. Girl’s Like Spaghetti and Twenty-odd Ducks.

Brian P. Cleary has written a number of language books on different parts of speech. One of his first books was Stop and Go, Yes and No What is an Antonym? Check his website or Amazon for a more complete list if you are interested in these. They are written in humorous verse and illustrated in full color cartoons. Teachers like using these when they study the different parts of speech.

This section is small but can be very powerful and useful. Take a look at your library and see how you might pump your 400s up.

Have a good week,
Audrey
Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

Math Books

Hello,
How many of you have students that don’t like math? How would you like a book or two that might help them with math and entertain at the same time? If you answered ‘Yes’ to both questions, this is a great post for you.

This week I will focus on Math and books that help supplement that subject. Some of these will also help to answer the question, “When will I ever use math in real life?”

Stuart Murphy writes the MathStart books. They are picture books geared for Preschool through 3rd grade, and they really help to explain a concept. Here is a partial list and the math concept it teaches. For more titles and activities, you can check out Stuart Murphy’s webpage.
1. Every Buddy Counts – counting
2. Just Enough Carrots – more, fewer, the same
3. The Best Vacation Ever – data collection
4. Get Up and Go! – time lines
5. Give Me Half! – understanding halves
6. Probably Pistachio – Probability
7. Dave’s Down-to-Earth Rock Shop - classifying
8. Divide and Ride – dividing
9. Lemonade for Sale – Bar Graphs
10. The Penny Pot – Counting coins


The Sir Cumference series written by Cindy Neuschwander is about angles, ratios, pi, and shapes. The stories are clever and older students will groan at the puns, but they are fun and interesting. The first title is Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi (A Math Adventure).

Greg Tang writes math riddles for students to solve. The Grapes of Math shows students creative ways to find answers to solve math problems. Just in case you are wondering, there is an ‘Answers’ section at the back of the book! Greg also has other math titles, too.

The Math Curse by Jon Scieszka (pronounced ‘SHESH – ka’) and Lane Smith. These two men write the funniest books. This particular one is about math and numbers in daily life. One example is: If the Mississippi River is about 4000 kilometers long, how many M & Ms would it take to measure the length of this river? These two men collaborate to write and illustrate their very popular books. You might know them from ‘The Stinky-Cheese Man and Other Stories’ and ‘The True Story of The Three Little Pigs’.)

How Much is a Million? By David M. Schwartz and Steven Kellogg. This concept of a million of something is difficult for adults to comprehend, much less children. David Schwartz does a wonderful job of helping us understand a million of something. This duo also writes “If You Made a Million” (a fantasy for us teachers!) and “Millions to Measure”. David Schwartz also wrote “G is for Googol” which is an ABC book for grades 6 and up. The letter W is for “When are we ever gonna use this stuff, anyway?” In case you have to have more David Schwartz books, you can also get “Q is for Quark” a science Alphabet book.

Well, I’ve given you a start on fun and interesting math books. Think about using them in conjunction with your math classes, reading “Divide and Ride” before starting the division lesson. You can also assign them to groups of students who teach the concept to the class. These ideas can help stretch the K – 3rd grade level up to your middle grades and maybe even junior high students.

Have a great week.
Audrey

Weeding in the 300's

Hi,
We are back to weeding. This month we will weed the 300’s. The books in this section include sociology, folklore, culture, crime, and education. The information here should be current, accurate, and fair. You may have little or no information in this section so that will make it pretty easy.

310 – General Statistics: Almanacs – these are usually not too useful after about two years. Make your own judgment on this. Do your students like reading these or are they just taking up shelf space? If they are being used, even the old ones, keep what you like. If they are too outdated and that is why they aren’t circulating, discard them.

320 – Political Science: Books on current politics and local political history can be kept. Weed out any information that is not longer relevant to any current political campaigns.

323 – Immigration and Citizenship – Weed information that is biased or inflammatory.

330 – Economics – Books on money management and personal finance are in this section. Make sure information is up-to-date and worthwhile. There are some good books for children on saving money and being good stewards at the ABC. If you don’t have them, you might consider purchasing them.

360 – Social Services – Drug and alcohol education, crime and criminology, and other social issues are in this section. Check the information to make sure it follows current recommended procedures or practices. Our students like reading about forensic science. That may be a topic you choose to add to your library.

370 – Education – Again, check that information is current and not outdated.

390 – Customs, Etiquette and Folklore – This is our largest part of the 300’s. We have lots of holiday books. Weed these according to the condition of the book. If it is falling apart and not able to be mended, toss it. Does the book have a boring cover? No dust jacket? Replace it with the same title, or another more updated title, or put a nice new cover on the book. (Where can you find a new dust jacket? I’ll let you know next week!)


Have a great week,
Audrey

Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com

Information in this post from CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries. http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/crew

Books that are Better than the Movie

This week I am going to focus on “Books That Are Better Than the Movie”. The short answer is “all of them!” I often recommend a book only to hear the response, “I saw the movie.” Then the child usually refuses to touch the book. This is so irritating to me, since seldom does the movie compare with the book. I sometimes say to the child, “The movie has very little to do with the story in the book.”

When my son was in second grade, his teacher read The Secret Garden to the class, then they saw the movie. My son turned to his teacher and asked her, “Didn’t they read the book?” So here are some books that have been turned into movies, but are definitely better than the movie.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Mary Lennox, an orphan, is sent to live with her uncle in England. She is spoiled and bossy. Mary hears from a servant about a garden that is locked up and determines to find the key in order to get inside. Of course she does and through working in the garden to help it live and be beautiful again, she transforms not only the garden, but herself in the process.

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Anne Shirley, another orphan, is adopted by Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. Anne is the polar opposite of Mary Lennox. She is lovable and exuberant and full of life. She makes hilarious mistakes, but is always contrite and earns the love of everyone who is in her life. (This is on my top ten children’s books of all time list. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to visit Green Gables in Prince Edward Island last summer.) There are movie sequels to Anne and they each drift further and further from the books.

Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. Opal, a ten year old girl, has moved to Florida with her preacher father after her mother abandons them. She is in the local Winn Dixie grocery store and takes home a stray dog to love. The story of the local people and how Opal makes friends in her new town is wonderful. Kate DiCamillo also wrote the Newbery winner The Tale of Despereaux.

Bridge to Terebithia by Katherine Paterson. Jesse, a country boy, befriends a new girl at school who can outrun all the boys in the recess races. Leslie and Jesse invent a magical land called Terebithia which is from the Narnia books which Leslie has read. The friendship grows, but does not cross into a boy-girl relationship. One day when Jesse is away, Leslie is killed and Jesse has to learn to deal with the death of his friend.

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. This is a wonderful historical fiction book about the Revolutionary War and also about the life of an apprentice. Real life people make their way into this story such as Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and others.

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Although this was not actually a movie, but a television series, it still fits in with my theme. The television series is good family material, but they often seem to have little to do with the books other than the characters. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about her family and what life was like many years ago. Many people have enjoyed reading about Laura as she grew and married. Some have capitalized on the popularity of the series by continuing on with her daughter Rose and even backtracking to write about Laura’s mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink. Carol Ryrie Brink wrote about her grandmother’s life in the mid 1800s. Story after story about Caddie and her family fill this book and the sequel “Magical Melons” which has been reprinted under the title of “Caddie Woodlawn’s Family”. One of my favorite stories is called “PeeWee”. I also enjoy the story of Hetty visiting the doctor’s family and getting to know Annabelle the doll. Of course the stories are the main thing, and there are few illustrations, but I really like Kate Seredy’s line drawings.

I suggest that you read one of these books to your students, then watch the movie and do a comparison of the two. This may help them realize that even when a movie is well made, there are always changes and parts left out. So, if you enjoyed a movie, read the book. It is bound to be better.

Have a great week,
Audrey

Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com