Tuesday, March 30, 2010

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

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

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

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

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

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

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