Books for the Library

Greetings!
I have been processing some books for our library and I want to share some wonderful titles that you might decide to purchase for your library. My choices this week are totally random in subject matter. I just picked books that I liked particularly well.

One set of books I recently bought is a great set for your career section. The set is published by ABDO Publishing and each book shows the different tools that each professional uses. The book is appropriate for nearly all ages although the reading level is low. We are placing these books in the Everybody books section so the younger children will have some information on careers. If you don’t have any books on career choices, that is a section to improve.



I found an article years ago about a traveling library in Africa that uses camels to haul the books. I thought this was so interesting and cut the article out, put it away, and promptly forgot about it. Last year I was culling a huge pile of papers at home and came across the article. I went to the internet and did a little research and found a book called “My Librarian is a Camel” by Margriet Ruurs. I bought the book and was fascinated by the different ways books are brought to people all over the world. Libraries come by boat, bus, train, wheelbarrow, elephant, donkey, and even bicycle. Photographs show each country and the ways books come to the people who live in remote areas. It makes me feel so fortunate to live where books are so readily available.

Someone recommended the book “Me . . . Jane” by Patrick McDonnell to me and I decided to get it. It is the story of Jane Goodall and her childhood decision to become a naturalist and work with gorillas. Some of her childhood drawings and writings are shown in the center of the book. The story is simple and sweet and I wholeheartedly recommend it.


How’s the pet section of your library? Do you even have one? That is a section that is popular with our students so I try to keep an eye out for good books on pets. I found a set on large dogs that I like. Each book tells about the dog and the history of the breed, the characteristics of the breed, and the pros and cons of owning that particular breed of dog. Photographs make this a great choice for your library.


Do you have any books to help your children understand relationships with others? There is a lot of talk about bullying in schools and as much as we’d like to think it doesn’t happen in our schools, the truth is that we are not immune. This set has one book on dealing with bullies, and other subjects that are worthwhile to discuss in class. Respecting others and treating them with kindness is how our Christ modeled his behavior for our example. This set of books written by Susan Martineau is called the Positive Steps set and is published by Smart Apple Media. I also have a page from the inside of one of the books so you can have a glimpse of the layout.



I cannot resist a good children’s cookbook. They are so much fun and kids love them. If you don’t have any children’s cookbooks, I would urge you to consider adding a couple to your library. Then watch and see how they are used in your area. I would bet that you end up adding more.

While we are talking cookbooks, think about getting some to represent the different cultures and countries that our students study. The two books shown below are easy to handle and have recipes and other cooking information and are specifically meant for children.


Check your library and see where your gaps are. Then keep an eye out for books to fill the gaps and make your library a better resource for your school.

Hope you have a great week.
Audrey

Ellen G. White books and a Holiday idea

Greetings!

I received a question this week from a reader asking if there was a preferred way to catalog the books of Ellen G. White. I think the easiest way to do this is to use a ‘W’ on the top line and then the abbreviation for the particular book. For example, you would catalog The Acts of the Apostles like this:

W
AA

I found in the Index to the Writings of Ellen G. White a list of her books and the abbreviations for many of them. If you would like this list, check in the first few pages of your index to find them. If you don’t have an index and would like a copy, let me know and I will send you a copy. There are other books that aren’t listed there, but you can follow the general pattern and catalog them accordingly.

I found an idea in a library journal that you might like to use to encourage reading over the holidays. One librarian used the song “The 12 Days of Christmas” as her start and then selected 12 recently published books to recommend to the students. She called it her “12 Books of Christmas” reading list and posted this in the school library, in the newsletter, as a bulletin board display, and made a bookmark for the list. I might not use recently published books, but would choose books that I wanted the students to read or books that were favorites of mine. The point of the reading list is to keep books and reading on their minds through the holidays. Try it out and see if you like it.

Encourage books as gifts and consider starting a stash of books that you can use for gifts. When I have a book fair, I use my points to get books from the fair and put them in a separate cupboard to use for gifts.

I hope you have a great week.

Audrey

Authors and Books

Greetings!
I want to share some authors and their books with you this week.
It is difficult to find books that span the ages of our children in grades 1 – 8, but Jerry Pallotta is able to do this easily. He writes alphabet books. I know that sound childish, but his books also include a lot of information about the subjects he is writing about. If you aren’t familiar with his books, I highly recommend them. I know of teachers that have their students make similar books for class projects and use these as a guide. Some of his titles are ‘The Underwater Alphabet Book, The Spice Alphabet Book, The Bird Alphabet Book, The Desert Alphabet Book, The Flower Alphabet Book, The Ocean Alphabet Book, and The Icky Bug Alphabet Book.’ He also has some math books that kids enjoy such as the “Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Fractions Book.” The fractions are shown using a Hershey’s chocolate bar.



Gail Gibbons writes and illustrates informational books for younger children. She researches her subject and simplifies it for her readers. She has many, many books out and you can find them online and choose the subject or subjects you can use best in your school. I like the one about apples and the one about berries, but the one about monarch butterflies is good, and the one about bees is great. You can see how much I like her books, can’t you. I really like the one about pottery. It is called ‘The Pottery Place’ and she has even made the endpapers look like splatters of clay slip. Gail describes the process of making things out of clay and the firing and glazing process. In her book ‘Stargazers’ we learn about stars, constellations, astronomers, telescopes and more. All that in 32 pages! There are many more books of hers, but you get the idea.


Aliki also has many books that she writes. She, like Gail Gibbons, researches, writes and illustrates her books. The first book I noticed of hers was ‘A Medieval Feast’. I love the descriptions of the preparations needed for a feast for a king and the illustrations are so colorful. There is a simple text for the story, but further information is included in the illustrations. In her book ‘How a Book Is Made’, she goes through the entire process of writing a book, the editing process, the publishing and the printing until finally the book is done and ready to read. ‘Corn is Maize’ tells the history of corn and how we use it today. At the end of the book she describes how to make a corn husk doll and corn husk wreath.

Beverly Cleary wrote the Ramona Quimby books and I hope you all have heard of them and even have them already in your libraries. If you don’t, it would be a good collection to have. The Beezus and Ramona movie that came out recently spurred a new interest in the books. They are also great read aloud books. Anyway, most people know about those books, but she wrote four books for young children about twins Janet and Jimmy which are wonderful. The Growing-up Feet, Two Dog Biscuits, The Real Hole, and Janet’s Thing-a-ma-jigs are all so good I could not tell you my favorite. Beverly Cleary has the ability to write exactly what a child would think and feel so the stories are very real. Other books of hers are about Henry and his dog Ribsy, and ‘Dear Mr. Henshaw’ with the sequel ‘Strider’. She wrote a few books that stand alone such as ‘Socks’, ‘Muggie Maggie’, ‘The Mouse and the Motorcycle’, ’Mitch and Amy’, ‘Ellen Tebbits’, ‘Emily’s Runaway Imagination’, ‘The Luckiest Girl’ and ‘Fifteen’. The last two books are about girls in their teens. I believe that you can’t go wrong with a Beverly Cleary book.

One last author that can span the grade levels is Peter Spier. His books are often wordless or nearly so and filled with pictures. Everyone will enjoy looking at the books and little ones learning to read will be able to ‘read’ the story for themselves. I am showing his book ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ which has the lyrics to our national anthem illustrated in great detail. However, my favorites include ‘Noah’s Ark’ (look for the comical end when many rabbits leave the ark), ‘Rain’ (somehow he makes the beginning of the book look a bit dustier than the end when the rain has cleaned it all up), ‘Christmas’, and ‘Jonah’. There are more, but these are good ones to start on.

I hope this information has been helpful to you and you got some good ideas of books to put in your library. I know I had a good time looking at these again.
Check out my blog at sdalibrarian.blogspot.com. All these weekly emails are archived there. I would be pleased for you to become a follower, too.
Have a great week!
Audrey

The Making of a Good Reader

Greetings!

We all want our students to be good readers. You can buy all the programs, incentives and other gizmos you want, but as far as I am concerned, there is one best way to become a good reader. That is to READ. Since most of us don’t have extra money to throw away, there is a great FREE way to accomplish this. Sustained Silent Reading. Drop Everything and Read. It doesn’t matter what you call it. Daily silent reading will do it.

There are some important steps or rules to follow. These are NOT for the students as much as for the teacher to follow. I personally guarantee that if you follow the rules I am about to give you, you will have a 98% success rate and have increased your students reading levels by nearly two grade levels in reading over the course of the school year.

First, you need to make time in your daily schedule for silent reading. This could be part of the reading class or after lunch or anytime that works, but it needs to be scheduled just like you do for all the other subjects. If you decide to use part of the reading time, still schedule it along with a time slot. Write it on the schedule so you and the children will see it every day. Do your ultimate best to never miss a day. These actions will visibly show the students that this is important to you. It is important enough that we do this every day, not just when we feel like it or if we happen to have enough time, then we will have silent reading. We do this every day.

Second, let students choose what they want to read. The reading needs to be self-selected, not assigned. This is not the time to read the social studies assignment! Encourage students to gather enough reading material to last for the period so they won’t be getting up and walking around and distract others. Young children may need 10 – 15 books or magazines at arm’s reach. Older ones may only choose to have a chapter book. You may need to decide if you will allow students to bring reading material from home or not.

Third, YOU NEED TO READ TOO. If you grade papers or work on lesson plans and don’t read during this time, you send a very loud message that even though you SAY reading is important, you don’t really believe it. Find a book that you have been wanting to read and pull it out and read every day. You are the model for these kids. If you are afraid you will go overtime if you start reading, I totally understand. I kept a timer handy and set the timer for the specified time every day so I could read in peace and not continually have to be watching the clock. I waited until everyone was settled, and then set the timer and we all started reading.

If you haven’t done this yet, I would recommend starting with 5 minutes for grades 1 – 3 and 10 minutes for grades 4 – up. After a week or so, increase the time until you are reading for 15 – 20 minutes every day for grades 3 – up. First and second graders may not all be able to read for that long, but you know what your students are capable of doing.

This is not Reading Buddies where older students read to younger ones. That is also a great program, but completely separate from this. If you have a variety of grades that includes students too young to read for the extended time slot, you may need to be a bit creative with them. Maybe a parent or volunteer can take them out of the classroom and read aloud to them during this time. Maybe this can be nap time. Maybe you set a silent reading period for 10 minutes, and then take the younger ones for a quiet class while older ones who wish to continue reading silently can do so.

A quick recap:
1. Schedule daily silent reading time and write it on the schedule.
2. Let students choose their own reading material.
3. The teacher must model and read during the time slot.
4. Read daily without fail.

If you follow these guidelines, you will turn out a classroom full of readers for FREE!

I hope you decide to have a silent reading period in your classrooms if you aren’t doing it already. It amazes me that many teachers do not seem to think this is important enough to schedule in daily. I taught third grade for 11 years and at the end of each year my third graders would leave my classroom with nearly all of them reading on a fifth grade reading level or close to it. The only thing I did that other teachers did not do was to have silent reading time every day. I loved that time of peace and quiet. It really helped lower stress levels in our classroom, mine included. After reading, we were all calm and would then continue our school day.

Have a great and peaceful week!
Audrey