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The Raven Boys
I finally had the chance to read Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys and I want to start the second book right away. I picked up The Raven Boys for a few reasons, it’s something I’ve been meant to read for awhile now and when I picked it up I was…
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Story Time Planning
I’m always curious when a new session of story time comes around to see how the adults react in story time. I am much more patient with children in story time, than I am with their caregivers. Children, especially the toddlers I hang out with, (2 – 3 1/2 year…
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“How Being a Children’s Librarian Made Me a Better Director”
I came across this article through my email or one of the many blogs I follow and I found it very interesting, partly because I’m currently a children’s librarian and also because (eventually) I would like to move into a director’s position. The article was published in this month’s issue…
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The Key and the Flame
This was my first book by Claire Caterer and it was definitely a fun-filled magical adventure for middle grade readers and it’s definitely left with an open ending for a follow-up story. Eleven-year-old Holly is always being told that she needs to get her head out of the clouds and…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…