-
Kate DiCamillo
In case you haven’t heard this week, Kate DiCamillo was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature for 2014-15 by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. A recent creation (in 2008), the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature position raises “national awareness of the importance of young people’s literature…
-
Weeding in the Library
Due to some structural issues in our library over the past few weeks , we’ve decided to begin the HUGE task of weeding our picture book collection. Our collection is in a finite space with limited shelving and in order to add more to our collection we have to get…
-
Fallout
Fallout by Todd Strasser is written during a time in America’s history that children in today’s world know little about. Although America has been at war (officially and unofficially) for almost as long as many of these kids have been alive, this war is very different from the Cold War happening…
-
Happy New Year’s
I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year’s celebration last night! For the past few days I’ve been thinking about my reading in 2013 and my goals for 2014. Overall, I did a great job with my reading goals in 2013 – I wanted to take a closer…
-
Reading in the Wild
Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer’s Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits by Donalyn Miller with Susan Kelley is a book I would suggest to any reading teacher in elementary, middle, and high school. I first became acquainted with Donalyn Miller’s ideas about reading education when I read her…
-
The President Has Been Shot!: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Every time I read an informational text, I am always surprised at how interesting and accessible they have become in the past few years. Informational texts used to be dry books filled with pages of text that was uninteresting and not enjoyable to read, but now, all that has changed…
-
A Season of Gifts
The only time I have to listen to audiobooks is when I drive to my parents’ home (which gives a solid 5 hours in the car one-way). I picked up A Season of Gifts for my drive – it’s about a 4-hour audiobook – the perfect length for my trip! …
-
What the Heart Knows
What the Heart Knows: Chants, Charms & Blessings by Joyce Sidman is a beautiful collection of poetry that touched me in many ways and I think that is what good poetry should be able to do – touch your soul. I don’t often go out of my way to read…
-
Fun Friday – Informational Text
Last week I offered our last “Fun Friday” program of the year. We started this brand-new program in January. Because once a month our elementary school students have a half day of school. Geared toward kids in 1st – 4th grades, 25 students descend on the library from 2:00 –…
-
First Multiple Intelligences Library
I just picked up the December issue of School Library Journal and came across a very interesting article. I first focused on it because my sister is an interior designer and I thought she might find this idea intriguing and of course because it has to do with libraries, I…