New Picture Books

Greetings! This is the last post for the year 2011. My next one will be in the year 2012. I have now completed three years of emails and blog posts now. I have a good time doing this and I know many of you have been helped because you write and tell me so. Thanks so much for the kind words. I enjoy helping where I can.
Today I will booktalk a few more books for you. These are mostly all new books and I hope you see something that catches your eye.

I just got this book called ‘Balloons Over Broadway’. It didn’t look like a book that I would normally be interested in, but then I saw the last line on the cover; the story of the puppeteer of Macy’s parade. I know I am not the only fan of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and this book tells the story of how the whole thing began and how it has grown over the years.

The two books shown below are part of a set of books about a period in history. The cover looks a little bit like a newspaper and is titled “Actual Times” and the date of the paper is the date of the event. Don Brown writes the story and illustrates it so people will know what the event was like. These titles are ‘Gold! Gold from the American River!’ and ‘America is Under Attack’.

“I Will Come Back for You” is the story of a Jewish Italian family during World War ll. The father was taken and detained in a village in the mountains and the family went into hiding on a farm. The story actually happened to the author’s mother. The dust jacket reads, “Based on the experiences of the author’s own family, this deeply moving book deals with a difficult subject in a way that is accessible and appropriate for young readers.” The endpapers have photographs from the family album of the people in the story.



Steve Jenkins is one of my favorite nonfiction authors. His illustrations are torn and cut paper collage like his other books, but so well done that you have to look carefully to notice this. These two books are about the eating and sleeping habits of different creatures. If you already are a Steve Jenkins fan, you will enjoy these two books. If you aren’t a fan yet, just pick one up at a bookstore and leaf through it. I advise starting with “Actual Size”.

“Saving Audie” is the story of a young pit bull who was about to be raised to be part of a dog-fighting ring until the owner was caught. Audie was rescued by a kind couple and is now able to trust other humans and even help other dogs in different ways. The book also contains information about pit bulls and information about the other dogs from the dog-fighting kennel and how they are doing as well.

Claire Nivola has written a book about the Italian village Orani on the island of Sardinia where her father was born. She writes about the times her family would visit the relatives and explore the town and surrounding countryside. The author describes ordinary life in the village with her family and the other villagers. Note that the book contains a drawing of a dead man on a bed with mourners dressed in black surrounding him. The story does not dwell on this event, rather it includes it along with festivals, and weddings as part of the daily life in Orani.

If you have ever been to Niagara Falls, you may have seen the movie about the different people who have tried to go over the falls and you will also know that few have done this and lived through the experience. “Queen of the Falls” is about Annie Edson Taylor who accomplished this amazing feat. Chris Van Allsburg has written and illustrated Annie’s story and also included other information about the barrel riders who have been successful.

What do you do with a runt piglet that was too weak to push his siblings aside so he could eat? Why, bring him to the house and let the family pet dachshund nurse him, of course. Pink thrived with his doggie mother and eventually returned to the farm although he did take his dog bed with him. Students will love the photographs of Pink and his two families, pig and dog.



At first this book did not attract my attention, but during the Scholastic book fair last fall, I finally sat down and leafed through it. The book contains a number of stories of extraordinary animal friendships. Some are long-term friendships, and others are shorter, but it is very interesting to see some of the animal combinations that make some unlikely friendships. The photographs are stunning. This is a good book for all ages. Nonreaders can study the pictures and more advanced readers can read the text as well as enjoy the pictures.




I hope you find something that is of interest in this group of books. I also hope you have a restful Christmas vacation. I’ll see you back here in January 2012.
Christmas Blessings,
Audrey

Library Holes and Weeding

Where are the holes in your library? Do you know what kind of books you have and what kind of books you need to update or weed? This week I will give you some very general guidelines for weeding your library. If you want to go into more depth, you can do a search on the internet for weeding the library.

I found that The Crew Method (for weeding my library) is fairly easy for me to use and is intended for small to medium sized public libraries. In our even smaller school libraries, we need to take these weeding guidelines with a pinch of salt, but they are still useful and a good place to start. I actually printed out the 93 pages and put them in a binder for quick and easy reference. I will admit that I need to weed my library as much or more than you do, so this is me preaching to myself as much as giving you some guidelines! You can find this at https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/crew/index.html.

Here are some very general guidelines to keep in mind as you weed your library.
1. Remove books that have wrong information in them. No information is better than wrong information.
2. If a book is being used in your library, keep it. If it is something that is valuable to your school, keep it. (Even if students don’t use it.) For example, a local author donated a book to your school, or it is precious to someone.
3. You don’t have to throw away a book that you wish to keep. The weeding guidelines just help you get started. The decision is ultimately yours. Just because a book is old does not mean it isn’t good.
4. It is much easier to weed someone else’s library rather than your own. If you are finding that you just can’t throw books away, get an outside opinion.
5. It is OK to throw books away.
6. If a book is dirty, torn, marked up, etc., throw it away. If you need that particular title, buy a newer copy.

Reference books such as encyclopedias may soon be outdated since the latest information can be quickly obtained from an online encyclopedia. Take a look at the encyclopedia in your library. How old is it? If it is more than five years old, take a longer look at how you use it. (Or do your students use it at all?) Now you have a decision as to keep it on the shelves or not. If no one uses it and you just dust it off every year or so, it might be nice to have a little extra room on the shelf. If the encyclopedia you have is from 1970, just throw it out. I give you permission.

Do you have anything in the 100s? This can be a difficult section for an elementary library. Look for books on computers and books on feelings like I mentioned in last week’s post. Try to have SOMETHING in that section.

Your religion section should be easy. BUT check to see what kind of books you have there. Do you have 40 old devotional books sitting there unused? Maybe it is time to weed them drastically. Go to the Adventist Book Center and see what is there. If you can, take a couple of students to help you choose. This will be fun for them and they will be more likely to read them which will promote them to others.

The Social Science section should be pretty easy, too. Careers, military, immigration, economics, education, law, customs, etiquette, folklore, and holidays all belong here.

Check the Language section (400s) of your library. Do you have ANY books on language or in other languages? Kids love to look at this kind of book. One suggestion I have is to get books from the series “The First Thousand Words in . . .” Let the students choose which ones you start with. These have drawings for each word and are fun to look at.

In Pure Science (500), you probably have lots of nature books. Check that you have science experiments for the kids to try. What about math books? Space, astronomy, earth sciences, botany, and animals all belong here. This is often quite a large section.

It is also easy to find books for the Applied Sciences (600) section. Medicine, health, cars, transportation, agriculture, pets, home economics, and cookbooks will all go here. This is usually a very popular section, especially the pets section. Students love reading about dogs and cats and horses, but don’t leave out other pets. I add to this as students ask for particular books. “Do you have any books on how to take care of rabbits?”

Arts and recreation is again another easy section to fill. Think art, music, collecting things, drawing, photography, games, and sports. Also, think riddles and joke books. You can see that this is easy to fill. We put I Spy books here and watch them leave and come back on a regular basis.

Literature (800) is the easiest to fill unless you have a separate section for Fiction or Stories. I have all our stories cataloged as 813 and therefore this is our largest section. If you have a separate section for Fiction, then you would put poetry books and any books by non-American authors in the 800s and the stories in the separate Fiction section.

Last comes the 900s, History and Geography. Check that facts are accurate, watch for changes in country names, borders, etc. If you put your Biographies here, check that you have the biographies you need for the curriculum. Do you have all the presidents? What about world leaders? Do you have books on the different states and countries? Those are the kind of books you will look for to fill any gaps in your library.

Previously I have been asked if there are any guidelines as to how many books should be in each section and I found the following information. I put the percentage recommended and in parentheses I put the number of titles for a library of approximately 4000 books. (I did not do this for the high school side.)

Dewey Classification Subject Grades K - 6 Grades 7 - 12
000 - 099 General Works and Reference 2 – 5 % (80 – 200) 6 – 8%
100 – 199 Philosophy, Psychology .5% (20) 1 – 2%
200 – 299 Religion & Mythology 1 – 2% (40 – 80) 1 – 2%
300 – 399 Social Sciences, Folklore, Holidays5 – 10% (200 – 400) 10 – 15%
400 – 499 Language .5% (20) 2 – 5%
500 – 599 Pure Science 10% (400) 5 – 10%
600 – 699 Applied Science 10% (400) 5 – 10%
700 – 799 Fine Arts, Recreation 5% (200) 5 – 10%
800 – 899 Literature (not including fiction)5% (200) 5 – 10%
900 – 999 History, Geography, Biography 20% (800) 20%
F Fiction, Stories 20% (800) 20 – 25%
E Easy books, Picture books 20 – 25% (800 – 1000)

This chart is taken from Administering the School Library Media Center by Betty J. Morris, 2004; page 339.

Please keep in mind that these are just guidelines. We do want our libraries to be well balanced as much as possible so that makes this helpful, but we are very likely to have more than 40 – 80 books in our religion section. Take a quick inventory of the Dewey numbers you have and how many in each section. (Students love to do this kind of thing!) How many books in the 100’s, 200’s, etc? That will give you the approximate number of books you have and will also give you a general idea of the balance of your collection. You will see at a glance where the gaps in your library are.

I hope this quick overview of the sections and the kinds of books in each of them hasn’t been too boring. This is the kind of post you might print out and refer to on occasion or check it out on my blog.
Have a great week,
Audrey