• Lifestyle

    Neil Gaiman on Libraries

    Neil Gaiman, popular author of Coraline, recently had a lecture published on the importance imagination, public libraries and daydreaming is vital to our future. Definitely take the time to read the full lecture, posted on The Guardian’s website. This lecture that Gaiman presented, is in essence, a love letter to…

  • Activities

    Stop, Drop, & Read!

    Our library partnered with the middle school on this really fun idea called “Stop, Drop, and Read!”  We encouraged the middle school students to meet at the mall on Saturday afternoon for a Flash Mob event, but rather than singing, dancing, or the surprise engagement, we asked the kids to…

  • Lifestyle

    Choosing to Read: Connecting Middle Schoolers to Books

    Choosing to Read: Connecting Middle Schoolers to Books by Joan Schroeder Kindig is a wonderful professional resource for teachers, librarians, and even parents interested in middle schoolers and their reading habits.  Like many other professional resources I have been reading recently, Kindig argues that a reader’s choice is the most…

  • Reviews

    Open This Little Book

    This book is such a fun surprise when you open it.  I have seen this title flit across the blogs and book reviews, but I didn’t realize its structure until I opened it up and began to read.  Inside you’ll find the first on many “little” books, this one being…

  • Activities

    Fun Friday Program

    As we began making plans for this winter, I decided that we had a great opportunity to provide to our elementary age students once a month on a Friday afternoon.  Our school district gives the children a half day on a the second Friday of every month, giving the teachers…

  • Reviews

    The Book Whisperer

    The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller is definitely geared toward elementary and even middle school teachers, but I found it very interesting.  Miller makes the case that children will turn into lifelong readers, by choosing what they read and by getting in the habit…

  • Reviews

    Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to NOT Reading

    I must have been in a pretty specific mood late last week when I picked my books to read for the weekend.  Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to NOT Reading written by Tommy Greenwald has a similar feel to yesterday’s post about the book Middle School – The Worst Years of…

  • Reviews

    The Reading Promise

    I cannot say enough about the book The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma.  Let me start by giving you a little bit of the background, Alice Ozma was named for two very famous literary characters – Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Ozma…