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Sensory-Friendly Storytime Theme: Polka-Dots
Today I have four storytimes at the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit where children with disabilities go to preschool. I see a wide range of disabilities, so the best thing for me to do is bring great tried and true storytime books that are interactive and fun! The kids really loved…
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Storytime Theme: Purple – Part 2 (Yoga)
Today’s storytime used the same books from my toddler storytime on Monday and Tuesday, but were much more successful, even with 22 kids (ages 2 – 5) doing yoga! The storytime as a whole tended toward the crazy side, but the kids did a fairly great job with the yoga poses…
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Storytime Theme: Purple
This was the first storytime of the fall session and I had far, far too much planned. Because it was the first one, I had to explain a lot of who I was, how storytime works, and our storytime rules. This took up so much time that we didn’t even…
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Cybils Nominations
Nominate your favorite books published between October 16, 2013 and October 15, 2014 in the following categories: Young Adult Non-fiction Young Adult Speculative Fiction Young Adult Fiction Poetry Book Apps Middle Grade Fiction Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction Elementary/Middle Grade Non-fiction Fiction Picture Books Graphics Easy Reader/Short Chapter Books for the…
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National Poetry Day
Contrary to what I believed (Poetry Month being April), National Poetry Day is on October 2nd. Upon further research (because that’s what I do)… it’s National Poetry Day in England! That being said, I’m going to share a few of my favorite poetry books that are accessible to all ages.…
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We Need Diverse Books
I was talking with a patron who was telling me a story of their 4-year old daughter. The little girls is Black, Hispanic and White, but sadly doesn’t see many others in her small community that look like her. She has begun asking her mom questions about the way she looks after…
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"Important Life Lessons We Learned From Children's Books"
When people ask what I do for a living, many people respond with, “Have you read _________?” And that’s where I say, “If it’s an adult book, probably not. I read mostly children’s books.” And unless the person I’m conversing with is a teacher or works with children, they often…
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Book Review – "Chengdu Could Not, Would Not Fall Asleep"
Chengdu Could Not, Would Not Fall Asleep written and illustrated by Barney Saltzberg is about a small panda who should be asleep and wants to be asleep, but can’t fall asleep. And as he tosses, turns, and twitches the book has fold out pages to show just how hard Chengdu…
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Evaluating Picture Books
The Story Time Secrets: Resources for Sharing Books with Kids blog has a great post today about “10 Tips for Evaluating Picture Books.” I feel as though I’ve read a lot of middle grade novels and know (at least for myself) what works and doesn’t work – character development, setting,…
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Story Time Theme: Langauge
This is the last week of our summer story time schedule! YAY!!! We’re crossing things off the summer schedule and I have to say that I’m pretty excited take a little break until the fall session starts. Overall, even though I had a huge crowd signed up for story time…