Matt de la Pena Visit!

The last couple of weeks have been largely centered on getting everything ready for my first author visit, and with a Newbery-winner, no doubt.

In conjunction with the other elementary librarians in our district, we were so excited to be able to bring an author like Matt into our schools. Through the power of teamwork, we wrote a grant to our local public schools foundation, and together with our PTOs were able to have him visit all three schools.

He did not disappoint.

Among all my classes, we focused on Love and Last Stop on Market Street to prep our students for his visit, going into varying levels of depth, depending on the grade level.

MCBA by the Numbers

One of my goals this year has been to keep older elementary kids interested in reading. The Massachusetts Children's Book Award was instituted for this same reason, so I thought it was an easy enough way to try to achieve my goal. The premise of the program is simple: from a list of 20+ books, 4th-6th grade students read at least 5 of them, and then they get to vote on their favorite. Votes are tallied from around the state, and each participating library gets a certificate with the winning book.

We had our voting party this week, and Roller Girl was the Loker favorite - we'll have to wait a few more weeks to see what the rest of the state thought! A quick shot of our voting party spread and prize for participating:

With it being the first year, I wasn't sure what to expect, but overall, I think interest was high enough to do it again next year.

MCBA BY THE NUMBERS:

• The 25 titles that were on the list this year circulated 135 times from mid-October to mid-March 
• 22 out of 97 4th and 5th graders read at least one book as part of the contest 
• 12 students read at least 5 and were eligible to vote 
• Most books read was 17 by one eager 5th grader

As there is always room for improvement, my initial ideas to boost participation next year:

• Have the books ordered over the summer, so that readers have an extra month to participate
• Host a monthly book club to discuss a different book 
• Hopefully, enjoy a little word-of-mouth, where this year's 4th graders spread the word to their classmates!

Caldecott Time

Lessons for the next few weeks will center on the upcoming Caldecott Awards, with a slightly different twist for each grade level. 

To start, I built a new display with all Caldecott Winners and Honor books - we have a lot of them! It's pretty cool to see all the different authors and illustrators who have won over the years, although, I think the competition is much tougher in modern times. I love seeing how books on display fly off the shelves - it gives me motivation to keep coming up with new ideas to showcase different types of books. 

Preview of the books we are reading this week: 

What I'm Reading: January 2015

Just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I haven't been reading. Quite the opposite, actually! Here's a snapshot of my Goodreads for since my last update and a quick rundown (in case you care!)

 

What I'm Reading: October 2014

After my YA binge this summer for my Children's Lit course, it's been a little slow going on the reading front, but now that I'm in the swing of things with my classes, new school schedules for the kids, and so on, I am ready to get back at it!

My book club book this month is The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer, which I just recently finished. It was, surprise, surprise, another one picked up from the Parents' Picks shelf at my local library, but I had also remembered one of my Goodreads friends reviewing it a while back. I have a soft spot in my heart for summer camp - which features pretty prominently in the story - but this one fell a little flat for me. It was certainly readable, and I liked Wolitzer's style, but the characters didn't quite do it for me. There's another one by her that seems pretty applicable to my stage in life - The Ten Year Nap - which I might check out soon.

For my YA pick, I am finally reading If I Stay, and will likely follow it up with Where She Went (damn Gayle Forman...there's no way I can *not* follow up with the companion book right away!). So far so good on this one - certainly very readable and have a feeling there may be a tear or two shed before all is said and done!

New semester

Hooray! I'm actually not commencing another semester-long break from blogging, even though it's not required for either of the classes I am taking this fall. Progress, for sure.

My two classes this semester are EDU classes (vs. LBS) so not as interesting to blog about but I am doing some library volunteering that has me pretty excited.

In my home school district, there isn't budget for an elementary librarian, so all five elementary libraries are parent-run. Which, coincidentally, is a good opportunity for an elementary school parent looking to become a librarian.

I'll be helping out with my daughter's K class (mostly checking in and out books, and choosing a book to read aloud), but another way I'm helping is through a really cool program called the Massachusetts Children's Book Award (MCBA).

In a nutshell, this program was designed to continue momentum for reading for upper elementary students in the hopes that it will carry them through middle school and beyond. It essentially culls a list of 25 books - across genres, targeted to all levels of readers - and encourages students to choose at least 5 to read between now and March. Those students who read all 5 (or more) will be eligible to attend a special breakfast event at the school and vote on their favorite.

I attended one of the kick off meetings for a 4th grade class this morning and it was awesome. The kids were SO excited about the program (helped by the strategic reading of some introductory sentences of a few of the books by my fellow volunteer - a very effective form of booktalking) and eagerly waited their turn to peruse the special shelf designated for the program. I'm looking forward to seeing which books are the most popular, and hopefully reading a few myself.

Another highlight were the questions they had after our spiel - apparently they really want French toast and waffles brought in - I'm glad we have a few months to hone our breakfast menu!

What I'm Reading: Popular YA Books

It's the final week of my class and our theme this week is "What Teens are Reading Now" - while the obvious answers are Fault in Our Stars and Divergent, I figured I'd try to delve a little deeper to get some ideas for my recommendations this week. I also solicited two of our teenage babysitters so it will be interesting to see how their recommendations align (or not!) with what I find on my own.

Two great lists that helped me this week were Mashable's 12 YA Books for Your 2014 Summer Reading List and Teen Vogue's The 15 Most Exciting YA Books Coming Out This Year (don't judge...I actually found the Teen Vogue list to be a pretty thorough and thoughtful one...who knew?).

I predict I'll be reading much more YA in the coming months...there are so many books that I have come across that I can't wait to dive into!

What I'm Reading: Nutritious Books

What's a Nutritious Book, you ask? Simply put, a YA novel that a teacher could use as part of their curriculum, supporting Common Core standards, etc. As an adult reader, I actually have loved some of the ones I have come across this summer...it's great to feel like I'm actually learning something as I'm reading, and many of them have given me a much greater understanding of a time period or event that I didn't know (or let's be honest, remember) much about before.

ELA and History are definitely the predominant teachers who might be inclined to use YA novels to support their classroom activities, and as it turns out, all of my picks this week have some sort of historical basis. I have to cheat a smidge and include one of the books that I included on one of my midterm reading lists, because I just loved it so much (as much as you can love a Holocaust book, I suppose!). In fact, I really enjoyed three of my recommendations from that list, so I'm including the other 2 as Honorable Mentions, as I didn't think I could get away with recycling all three of my picks!

So, here we go...Nutritious Books for your reading (or teaching) pleasure:

What I'm Reading: Geeky and/or Scary Books

This week is my least favorite genre...and honestly a bit of a letdown after my required romance reading last week! "Geeky" is essentially science-fiction and fantasy (a bit tongue-in-cheek, I think, by my professor) and Scary obviously speaks for itself. Our course this summer is one week shorter than when it runs in either the fall or spring semester, so we were able to choose either Geeky or Scary for the week's assignment. Since my assigned book was in the Geeky category (More Than This by Patrick Ness), I decided to be consistent.

In searching for my books this week, I tended to gravitate towards ones that I might actually be interested in reading. I figure this category is the easiest to get boys interested in so I let myself off the hook. In the comments kicking off our module this week, our professor advised not to shy away from series. Which is good, because all of my choices (unintentionally) are parts of a greater set.

Here we go...

What I'm Reading: Funny Books

This week, we are focusing on funny books. This is kind of a tough one for me...it's not that I don't think I have a sense of humor, or don't enjoy laughing (though who would admit to that, I suppose!), but I am not really drawn to comedies in any of my entertainment choices (books, movies, stand up, etc.). Throw in that I am looking at books that are meant to be funny to teenage boys and girls and I'm even more out of my element. But as with anything that puts you outside of your comfort zone, it's certainly not a bad thing!

The book I was assigned to read this week was Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle, which I did enjoy, and had some laugh out loud moments. Others I have found in my searching this week are highlighted below, again in no particular order.

What I'm Reading: Award-Winners

It works out well that my prior "What I'm Reading" topic fits nicely into the required blogging of my Lit course. Each week, we'll be looking at a different category of YA literature, searching for titles published in the last 10 years or so, and providing annotations of some of the books we find.

This week, it's Award-Winners. For any of you non-library/education folks, the Newbery has been the "king" of the awards, dating all the way back to 1922, and has included such classics as A Wrinkle in Time (1963), Bridge to Terabithia (1978), and Sarah, Plain and Tall (1986). Another award list that I discovered this week, where I found some quality books was the Michael L. Printz Award. Perhaps it's because the list is newer, and also solely focused on YA books (vs. the Newbery which includes children's titles as well), but I jotted down a ton of books I wanted to read from this list. A 3rd list I focused on this week were the National Book Awards (Young People's Literature category, abbreviated as NBA further in this post), where I also found some excellent titles.

The genre I nearly always gravitate towards is realistic fiction, so I made a conscious effort to mix up what I read this week (though as you'll see, I couldn't resist including at least one in my list!). In one of our class discussions a few weeks ago, we talked about the difficulty in drawing in teen male readers, so I also made an effort to include at least one title that would appeal to them. In no particular order, here are my award-winning choices for the week:

How Should You Maintain Your Collection? (and Other Burning Cataloging Questions)

We had some interesting topics and conversations in my class discussion board this week around cataloging (go figure!). There was lots of back and forth about the feasibility of truly ditching Dewey (as I mentioned in my last blog post) and some interesting perspectives on how a librarian should add to her collection, specifically what the non-fiction/fiction breakdown should be and how this varies based on student age.

I set off on some good old internet searching to find some additional perspectives on this particular topic, and I stumbled on some great stuff that I don't want to forget when I need it:

• Keeping Your Library Collection Smelling F.R.E.S.H! - A blog post from Library Girl includes a very handy set of criteria on both why it is important to weed through your collection and how to assess which items in your collection should be tossed. Bonus: Printable handout addressing the "how"
• Mighty Little Librarian - This blog was a treasure trove of good info, so much that I officially added it  to my blog roll. The author, a middle school librarian from Baton Rouge, is another proponent of library "genrefication" (i.e. Ditching Dewey), and has a whole series of blog posts dedicated to how she accomplished this in her library. Upon further investigation of her blog, I found awesome posts on social media in education, digital citizenship lessons, and creating a March Madness bracket for the most popular books in her library. Can't wait to see what is to come!
• The End of Nonfiction - An interesting blog post from the SLJ's "The Digital Shift" points out the inherent confusion in classifying books in fiction, nonfiction and reference and advocates for new terminology that better correlates with the Common Core (one suggestion: arrange books by whether they are trying to "tell me a story" or "teach me about something)

While cataloging itself is certainly nothing to write home about, I have enjoyed these past two weeks and having the opportunity to think about the book part of being a librarian. While the technology piece is certainly important, I've also been drawn to this field because of my love of books and finding ways to share that with others, so it's fun to read about how others are making the most of their own collections. 

What I'm Reading

I had a rare 3 days away from the kids (including a very long airport delay on Sunday) so I made it through 2 of my inaugural picks in one weekend (see original post for my verdicts).

Had to return a couple of things to the public library today and perused the "Parent Pick" section while my kids played in the Children's Room.

Side note: If your library doesn't do this, you should really mention it to your librarian. There is a rolling shelf of 100 or so books that they think might appeal to parents of young kids - it's a nice mix of genres, mostly newer titles - but I always seem to find something I'm interested in.

Today's selection was:

Verdict:
3 stars. Pretty readable and decent storytelling but many of the characters were tough to relate to/empathize with and the ending kind of got a little hokey. Good vacation reading, but I don't know that I'll be rushing to read more from this author.

That and Happier at Home should keep me occupied until my next book club selection!

What I'm Reading

A happy byproduct of pursuing a career that involves books is giving myself "permission" to read more often, something I didn't always have time to do when I was working. And another happy byproduct of pursuing a career with middle school students is that it gives me a built-in excuse to check out some new YA literature, as well as revisit some of my old favorites.

My goal is to read at least one book targeted to the middle school population (give or take) as well as whatever other books I happen to be reading at the time.

Without further ado...