New Books

Greetings!

I have some new books for you to take a look at. I hope you will find a few that tickle your fancy and you’ll stop everything to go purchase them. These books are picture books, but please don’t think that just because a book has pictures, it is for young children only.

This first one is about the origins of Juneteenth. In fact, it is a story about the first Juneteenth and freedom. If you aren’t familiar with this event, it is commemorated on June 19 and is recognized in at least 40 states according to the book. I like books that take real events and bring them to life. Check out All Different Now by Angela Johnson, illustrated by E. B. Lewis.

I had the wonderful opportunity to see Michelangelo’s David in person a few years ago, and when I saw Stone Giant by Jane Sutcliffe, I had to get it. I know that there will be some giggling at the one illustration showing the whole statue, but the story is wonderful. It helps us visualize what Michelangelo wanted when he started and finally completed forty years later.

Lois Ehlert has written a picture book biography of her life and her art process. She uses collage as her art and uses whatever she finds in her collages hence the title Scraps. Her descriptions of what she does as she works is very interesting and students will see yet another successful person working, self correcting and fixing until things are just right. Most children hate to ‘fix’ or edit their work, so it’s nice to let them see that this is part of the process.

Many years ago Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a story titled The Great Stone Face about a boy who spent his life gazing at the magnificent mountain hoping he would live to see the fulfillment of a local prophecy that “one day someone would be born who will look just like the Great Stone Face and will be the noblest person of his time”. Gary Schmidt has retold this great story of the young boy who by gazing at the mountain, became the noble person of the prophecy. It is yet another reminder that by beholding we become changed.

Pharoah’s Boat by David Weitzman is the story of the ancient boat built for Cheops, a Pharoah who died over 4,600 years ago. It is the story of the building of the boat, and the archaelogist who guessed that this boat was in the pit under another boat in 1954, but was unable to actually prove it until 1988 when tiny cameras wereinserted and the rotten timbers were first seen. Finally in 2008, they began to actually excavate the boat. Excavation will be complete in about another three or four years. This can be used in a study of Egypt, or a Bible lesson.

Mary was an ordinary girl, but she was able to make a change in her world. In this story of Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed by Emily Pearson, we meet Mary and her act of kindness that multiplied and continued on. Mary picked some blueberries and left them on a neighbor’s porch. The neighbor was so pleased that she made blueberry muffins and secretly gave them to five friends. The paperboy was one of those who got muffins and he threw the papers on the porch instead of in the bushes. The story continues on as people are made happy by an act of kindness continued. If you like this book, you might also like When Brian Hugged His Mother, which is a similar story.

The Black Rabbit by Philippa Leathers is about a rabbit who sees a large black rabbit and tries to hide from him. Students will enjoy the story as they are able to see that the black rabbit is actually the rabbit’s own shadow.

We have all heard stories about animals that have been lost and have found their way home. Lost Cat by C. Roger Mader is just that kind of story. Slipper, the cat, loves to sleep by fluffy slippers and calls her owner Mrs. Fluffy Slippers. One day Mrs. Fluffy Slippers moves to live with her daughter and in the mayhem of moving, Slippers was forgotten. Slippers chases the van but eventually is lost. She decides to adopt a new person. Slippers identifies the people she meets by the shoes they wear, so Mrs. Muddy Boots, Mr. Cowboy Boots, Mr. Big Boots and others are just not what Slippers wants. Finally, she sees Miss Shiny Shoes and follows her home. Miss Shiny Shoes led Slippers down the hall and opened the door. Who is there but Mrs. Fluffy Slippers! The illustrations are from a cat’s perspective and people are shown only by their shoes.

I am so happy to be able to share new books with you. Next week, I will have some chapter books to share.
Have a great week,
Audrey

Cataloging Challenges

Greetings!

I get lots of questions about how to catalog certain kinds of books. Today I’m going to focus on the types of books that we all have in our libraries.
We all have mission books. These books belong in 266. When I go to help organize a school’s library, we use the 266 on the top of the spine label and the first three letters of the author’s last name on the bottom of the label.


We all have devotional books. Devotional books are cataloged in 242. If you want to separate out devotional books from daily devotional books you can catalog the daily devotional books as 242.2. Check out your shelf of devotional books. Chances are that you have 20 or more of these. Depending on how you use them, you could easily weed a few of these. If your local church has a church library, give the ones that are for adults to the church and keep the ones that are geared toward youth and children. Any devotional by ‘James A. Tucker’ is a keeper. There are two that I often see in the libraries – Nature Quest and Glimpses of God’s Love. These short devotional stories can also supplement your science curriculum.

Likely you all have inspirational stories such as the Chicken Soup series, Taste Berries, and similar types of books. These are not devotional books, but they do have individual short stories in them by different authors and many students enjoy reading them. If you look in the book, you may notice that the Chicken Soup series is cataloged as 158.1and Taste Berries is cataloged as 242.63. Some of you want to put these type of books together which makes it easier for students to find. If a student likes the Chicken Soup books, he might notice the others on the shelf and decide to try those, too. The Guide’s Greatest stories is a collection of reprinted stories along a theme such as Adventure, Angel, Miracles, etc. The Shoebox Kids is another series of stories that is published by our SDA publishing house and is similar to the Guide series. Some libraries put them in 221 so they are in the Religion section. If this works well for your library, that is perfectly fine.

We decided to catalog these sets in 808.8 which is Collected Stories. So this section in our library includes the Uncle Arthur books, The Children’s Hour set (also by Uncle Arthur), Shoebox Kids, and Guides’ Greatest stories, Chicken Soup series, and Taste Berries here along with other books that have individual stories in them. This puts them nearer the 813 section which is the section that children usually gravitate to anyway.

Hint: Guide’s Greatest stories have been put together by different editors, so if you want to keep this collection together, choose one editor and catalog them all by that editor’s name. We chose ‘Pec’ because Lori Peckham was the first editor of this series. As more came along with a different editor, we continued using ‘Pec’ so the set would be shelved together. Keep this in mind for other sets that you want to keep together.

Let me know if you have any cataloging issues or shelving challenges. I’m happy to try to help you solve these problems and make your library easier to use.

Have a great week.
Audrey

Library Policies

Greetings!

I received an email this past week from a librarian who had a question about policies. She commented that she was surprised by some of the books that she found in the library and also was surprised to NOT find certain books in the library. Recently at her school a couple of parents questioned books that their children checked out from the library. In discussing this with her principal, they decided to form a library committee to set up some standards for choosing books for their school. She then asked me if I had some kind of policy that they could use as a template instead of starting from scratch.

I responded to her and sent her the policy we use here at Rogers.

I thought that there might be a number of you who are new to your school or may have missed this information I sent a couple of years ago. I recommend that you do set up a library committee. You should include the principal, the person responsible for the library and a parent who is interested. Small schools could include both teachers since they would both need to know this information, and possibly the school board chairman. Large schools might include the librarian, a teacher from the upper grades, a teacher from the lower grades, the principal and a parent. Try to keep your committee small, three to five members, if possible. Since I am at a larger school, my committee consists of my assistant librarian, my principal, and an ad hoc teacher at the grade level the book is meant for.

When the committee first meets, talk about what you want your library to look like and go over a sample policy. I will include my policy and you can tweak it to fit your school. You can also search the internet for the library policies from other schools if you would rather.

I then recommend that you do a quick weeding in your library. Go through and pull anything that you feel may not be appropriate for your school. Use the Library Selection policy to guide you as you remove books. This should just be a quick weeding, and maybe take an hour or so. Before you actually discard the books, have members of your committee actually read them to determine if they are indeed inappropriate. I heard about a grandfather who browsed the school library catalog and sent word that there should not be any magic books or books about witches in the library and he was appalled to find both of these kinds of books in their library. Reading titles only could pull books like “The Witch of Blackbird Pond” which is a wonderful book that is NOT about witches. Searching the catalog for “magic” would bring up books with sleight of hand tricks. So, please check each book you have pulled or look through them to make sure they are really not appropriate for the library.

Now is the time to put your policies into place. I believe it is important to have a Reconsideration Policy. This is the policy to use if a parent or guardian complains to the school about a book that they feel should not be in the library. Have the parent fill out the form and then take it to the Library Committee for discussion. Be consistent with this. It would be tempting to take a look at the book, immediately tell the parent, “You’re right. I’ll take it out of the library immediately.” Likely you will know right then that the book should be removed, but I strongly recommend you have every parent who questions a book fill out the Reconsideration Form. Otherwise you will hear from them, “Why do I have to fill this out? You didn’t have Mrs. Smith fill one out.” If everyone fills the form out, it is your policy. You aren’t playing favorites; everyone is treated the same. This also keeps Grandpa from eliminating “The Witch of Blackbird Pond” on a whim.

The committee should meet to discuss each Reconsideration Form and then inform the parent of the decision.

I used to just pull any book that a parent complained about simply because I knew that the book should not be in our library, but a few years ago I found the Reconsideration Form and put that policy into place. I have yet to use this policy, but it is ready in case I need it.

I hope this is a help to you. Please let me know if I can help or answer any questions.

Have a great week.
Audrey

Books about Legos

Greetings!

If your students are like ours, they love Legos. Many of our schools have Lego Clubs that meet after school and some of them prepare for the Lego Robotics weekend that is held at WWU.
I want to let you know about some of the Lego books that we have here. I often buy double copies of some of the books because they are used so much and checked out so often.

Short Version: Go to Amazon.com and do a search for “Legos” in Books. You will find a wonderful list of books to choose from. Many of them have the “Look Inside” feature which really helps to know what level it is.

Long Version: Here is a list of books to choose from. The students will love them.
1. Lego Architecture by Philip Wilkinson. $40.00 This is a stunning book filled with well-known buildings such as The White House, Brandenburg Gate, Big Ben, The Eiffel tower, Trevi Fountain, The Space Needle, and many more. Each building has information about the original building and then the Lego version of the building. One of our classrooms built many of the buildings and put them on display along with a quiz to see how many of them viewers could name.
2. The Lego Build-It Book Amazing Vehicles by Nathanael Kuipers and Mattia Zamboni. $19.95. If your students like cars and trucks, they will enjoy building an off-roader, a go-kart, a muscle car, a stroller, a pickup truck, a rescue truck, and more.
3. Totally Cool Creations by Sean Kenney. $19.99. This is actually three books in one – Cool Cars and Trucks, Cool Robots, and Cool City. The directions look like the ones that come with the Lego sets.
4. Cool Creations in 35 Pieces by Sean Kenney. $12.99. Each of the models can be built with just – you guessed it – 35 pieces. Not just 35 pieces, but the same 35 pieces will make the fourteen plus creations in this book. What a great challenge!
5. Extreme Bricks by Sarah Herman. $24.95. You probably have seen very large Lego creations such as the Space Needle built in Seattle, WA. It was completed in 2012 and took 15 years to complete. The Lego sculpture contains 55,000 Lego elements. That is just one of the record-breaking Lego projects from around the world found in this 236-page book.
6. The Lego Play Book by Daniel Lipkowitz. $24.99. This is a large hardbound book with loads of Lego creations and full color pictures. It is a great bargain for the price.
7. Getting Started with Lego Trains by Jacob H. McKee. $14.95. Kids who like trains and Legos find them both in this paperback book. Directions are similar to the ones that come with the Lego sets.

So, there you have it. Legos from the simple to the complex; a book for every Lego lover no matter his or her age.

Enjoy!
Audrey

Safe Searching Online

Greetings!

Do you have filters or filtering software on your computers at school? Google has some options that really do a good job with filtering out adult content. Just do a search for ‘ safe search’ and a box will appear at the top of your screen with instructions.

SET THE FILTERS: Go to settings and set the filter to Strict, then lock. You will need to input your Google account login and then you will be able to lock the settings. This should lock the filter across all Google domains. Please note that this will need to be done on all the web browsers you use. I set filters on Firefox, Explorer, and Chrome. If there is a way to set filters for the computer to include all the browsers, I don't know how to do this except to have filtering software.

SET THE HOMEPAGE: After this, I suggest you also use as your homepage Google Safe Search for Kids. Search for 'Safe Search Kids' or just 'Safe Search'. Click on the Google Safe Search link and copy the link. Use 'Options' to set the homepage.

You might wonder why I recommend you do both of these things. A number of years I set the homepage to YahooKids which was a safe search. However, many students in 5th and 6th grades would just type in “Google.com” and go straight to Google. It isn’t hard to change the homepage, so by setting the filter, it won’t matter if they use another homepage.

I learned something about Bing. I know a lot of kids like to use Bing here for a search engine. However, when I researched how to set filters in Bing, an article gave instructions, but at the end, they mentioned that there is no lock on the filter. Results are filtered, and a message comes up to say that if the user wants filters to be removed they need to go to settings. The user can remove filters apparently.

If you have filtering software at your school, you are likely covered, but these ideas are still worth thinking about. It might not hurt to have back-up. It also might be good to mention this to parents who may not have their home computers filtered for children.

Have a great week.
Audrey