Connecting the the library world this week….

The bad news:

If this article doesn’t make you want to scream and beat your head against a wall, I don’t know what does.

• Ugly battle has librarians in Oak Brook turning to Teamsters

Bullying education obviously did not come soon enough for Mr. Xinos!

The good news:

To counteract the bad news story… if this one doesn’t make you remember why you love being a school librarian and what it is all really about, I don’t know what will!

• Boy Lifts Book; Librarian Changes Boy’s Life

Thanks to the ISLMA listserve posts which shared both of these stories with the rest of us!

For over a year I posted at least weekly, usually twice a week on this blog. But now it has been a month! Unbelievable.

Every once in a while you get what I am going to call a “Job” year. Not job as in occupation. Job – long o sound – as in the biblical patriarch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_(Bible)

 Actually, my life hasn’t been nearly as challenging as Job who lost his children, his servants, and his fortune within days.    But it has been one thing after another for a while on both a personal and professional level.

Hopefully by next week I can actually post a book review or two… but for now, let me use this forum to say how fortunate I am to work where I do.  My colleagues are the best, and during the tough times in life they are like family.  My biological family, my church family, and my work family… I am blessed… even in a Job Year.  Especially in a Job Year.

We just returned from our daughter’s graduation from Basic Training at Fort Jackson.  She has been gone since May 12 and has spent a total of three days in our new house.  It was good to see her – we’re very proud of all she endured and learned.  My husband and oldest daughter had to return home the next morning for work on Monday but my parents and I headed for Virginia to take our National Guard girl to Little Creek Naval Base in Norfolk for four weeks of additional training at the Army School of Music.  

My husband drove from South Carolina to northern Illinois in 12 hours… but it took my parents and I three days to get home from Virginia.  My parents subscribe to the ”get off the Interstate and see something once in a while” school of travel.  Ah… the travel of my childhood!

So – this has little or nothing to do with librarianship – but we enjoyed one of our unplanned stops so much that I wanted to recommend it to you.

If you are on I-64 crossing the border between Kentucky and West Virginia, make sure you pull off the road at Kenova, West Virginia.  (Kenova – Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia)  Right downtown is the Griffith & Feil Drugstore and soda fountain.  It was just like the soda fountain of my childhood (and my father’s) at Day’s Drugstore in my hometown.  You can see some lovely photos at:  http://rickleephoto.blogspot.com/2007/07/griffith-feil.html  And you can read more about it at http://www.huntingtonquarterly.com/articles/issue65/ceredo_kenova.php and

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/business/x1103456912/Griffith-and-Feil-continues-family-drug-store-tradition .

I recommend the chocolate soda…. It is made and tastes like it SHOULD be made and taste.

Enjoy the last days of summer.

As a member of the steering committee for the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award for grades 4-8 in Illinois I enjoy the opportunity to make presentations to colleagues around the state. 

Today, while presenting in Rockford, a question arose related to “current” titles by British authors; they needed a good list of more modern works to recommend to a faculty member.  I mentioned that there are British awards and perhaps that would be a place to start.  I have searched out the official award sites and linked to them directly below.

• The Carnegie Medal &The Kate Greenaway Medal (For illustration)

  • The Carnegie Medal is awarded by children’s librarians for an outstanding book for children and young people.
    The Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded by children’s librarians for an outstanding book in terms of illustration for children and young people.

• The Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction

  • Given annually by The Guardianfor an outstanding work of fiction by a British or Comonwealth author, which was first published in the United Kingdom during the preceding year. Picture books, and books by previous winners are excluded from consideration

• Costa Book Awards(Formerly The Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year)

  • The Costa Book Awards are a series of literary awards given to books by authors based in the United Kingdom and Ireland. They were known as the Whitbread Book Awardsuntil 2006, when Costa Coffee, a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship.  The awards, launched in 1971, are given both for high literary merit but also for works that are enjoyable reading and whose aim is to convey the enjoyment of reading to the widest possible audience.  Categories include First Novel, Novel Award, Children’s book award, Poetry Award, and the Biography Award.

• Smarties Book Prize

  • Discontinued in 2008.  You can read more on Wikipedia, including a list of previous award winners.

• Booktrust Teenage Prize

  •  Be sure to see the page of “longlists” of British titles for teenagers.

If you wish to investigate further on your own, Wikipedia has a category called British Children’s Literary Awards.  Be cautioned that some awards, including the Smarties Award, have been discontinued.

And another word of caution – as a professional library media specialist I would NEVER recommend a book I had not read.  You can point a faculty member or student to a list of books for them to investigate, but I would be certain to issue a disclaimer that you know nothing about the titles and are not necessarily recommending them.  Best practice would be to interlibrary loan the most promising titles so that you can make an informed recommendation!

My impression of British Children’s Literature is that their kids are more mature readers.  The books are often quite advanced in length and vocabulary – something to keep in mind when selecting appropriate books for your students.

As a member of an award steering committee, I also found the award criteria for the prestigious Carnegie medal to be of interest.  If you haven’t thought about what makes a book good, quality literature recently you might wish to read this!

I am actually not sure how many folks follow this blog.  If you do you know I try to faithfully post each Monday and Wednesday.  But I’m going to take a short break since I am packing and moving out of a house where we have lived for 18 years.  My new mantra – storage space in a home is NOT a good thing.  We just fill it up.  Buy a home with no storage and purge, purge, purge….

Back soon…thanks for visiting!

-Marcia

How often does one re-read a college text?  How often is one happy to re-read a college text?  I realize it is unusual, but as I will be a guest speaker in a Graduate Library course  this week, I find myself doing assigned readings along with the students.  And I am thrilled that one of the assigned readings is “The Power Of Reading” by Stephen D. Krashen.

When I had to read it as a student I acquired an interlibrary loaned copy.  I used sticky note flags to mark the passages I wanted to note.  With almost twenty flagged passages I quickly knew I had to buy my own copy.  I did.  And I transferred the sticky notes before returning the ILL copy.

Krashen’s book is an overview of research – not just one project which set out to prove what it wished and discounted anything that didn’t support the thesis.  The findings in this book resonate with me.  After 28 years as a school librarian, and almost 45 years as an avid reader, I recognize the good common sense insights in this text!

Here are some of my “sticky note flags”:

“The cure for this kind of literary crisis lies… in an activity that is all too often rare in the lives of many people reading.  Specifically I am recommending …free voluntary reading.  FVR means reading because you want to.  For school-age children, FVR means no book report, no questions at the end of the chapter, and no looking up every vocabulary word.  FVR means putting down a book you don’t like and choosing another one instead.  It is the kind of reading highly literate people do all the time.” (x)

Amen!  Amen!  Amen! 

Reading improves spelling.  (More than direct instruction!) (16) 

They obviously didn’t use me in one of the studies.

Reading is the most often mentioned flow activity in the world.  Flow is the state people reach when they are deeply but effortlessly involved in an activity. (29) 

Flow….zone… whatever it is.  I hear nothing, I see nothing when I read a novel.  I did not read for pleasure when my children were little.  It wasn’t safe for them. 

Bedtime reading is recommended!  (32) 

I knew it!  My trusty under-the-covers flashlight and I knew it! So did my mom, despite her chastising, “Marcia Ann!  It is one in the morning!  Are you still reading?”

Those who read more, know more.  (35) 

This required research?

Studies show that reading is good for you.  “The research however, supports a stronger conclusion:  Reading is the only way, the only way we become good readers, develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary, advanced grammatical competence, and the only way we become good spellers.”  Direct instruction not required!  (37) 

You want to learn to read?  Read!  I was once asked what kind of speed reading course I had taken.  “None,” was my reply.  “I just read A LOT.”

Better school libraries result in more reading.  (58)

Oh yeah!  Un-hunh!  Get down!!!!!!  (We librarians knew this)

Teachers should also read along with students during SSR!  (85)

I promote this with young teachers!  Please sit down and read with your class when you are scheduled in the library.  We have a new language and reading teacher this year.  “I get to read, too?”  she said. “Well then I can’t wait for Friday!”

Children read more when they see other people reading. (85)

Funny.  The PE teacher has recently found what he likes to read – sports biographies and stuff by the ESPN guys.  (I couldn’t name you a one of them! – but he likes it!)  This teacher has noticed his two boys will sit down to read when he does at home.  “I guess this doesn’t surprise you, does it?” he asked me last week.  NOPE!

Children read more when they have time to read.  (85) 

Does Suzy really have to have an activity every evening after school?  Make your child choose between soccer, dance, and gymnastics.  Limits are healthy!

The data supporting Accelerated Reader does not exist.  (121) 

I’m doing my happy dance!!!!!!

Television doesn’t prevent reading.  (146) 

That one’s a surprise, isn’t it!

This is a book I heartily recommend to teachers and librarians.

The Power of Reading is… READING! 

Read it!

The Power of Reading: Insights from the Research. 2nd Edition.  Stephen D. Krashen, 2004.

If there is a black hole in publishing for young adults, it is good fiction books for middle readers.  Those average readers in grades four through six are neglected.  It is hard to find something well written and interesting, but not too hard for them.  “Paint the Wind” is the perfect book for this age:  the plot is interesting but not complicated; the characters are believable and realistic; the conflict is realistic but dramatic enough for the middle reader; and the setting and story details are unique but not overly exotic.

At 316 pages this is no “baby book”, but chapters are short, the font is not tiny, and best of all, the white space is more than adequate, making this accessible to average readers and a fast read for a good reader.  Occasionally the narrator changes from the main human character, Maya, to the main horse character, Artemisia.  This can be difficult for young novel readers but Ryan has Artemisia’s words/chapters always appear in italics, again, making this an accessible book.  I considered it a bonus, too, that the chapters in Aretmisia’s voice were kept to a minimum.  (It made it more credible…who really knows what a horse thinks anyway?)  Pam Muñoz Ryan balanced it perfectly.

The book finishes with a terrific glossary and two pages of information for further reading.  I always wish they put the glossary at the front of a book, however, since I think young readers discover it too late.  But perhaps putting it in the front would discourage readers…

Horse girls are going to love this book.  Librarians know who I mean… every few years we have a student (always a girl) who won’t read anything but books and novels about horses.  (I never withdraw horse novels, no matter how tattered, because the horse girls will read anything and everything.)  There is plenty of satisfying detail about riding and caring for horses included in the narrative.  And of course the wonderful glossary is there for non-horse people in case they care what a currycomb is!  Another bonus is the names of artists woven throughout the narrative.  The reader can ignore this extra detail or appreciate it further.  This again makes ”Paint the Wind” a great book for the varied reading abilities found in middle grades.

Readers may want to visit Ryan’s website:  http://www.pammunozryan.com/paint.html

The name Maya, according to the novel, means ‘a journey about to begin’.  “Paint the Wind” is a journey worth taking.  I recommend it for grades 4-7 especially.

Despite the popularity of Cornelia Funke’s other titles such as The Thief Lord, Dragon Rider, and Inkheart – this is the first of this author’s titles I have read.  And it was delightful.  (The other titles shall remain in my ‘to be read’ stack!) 

Igraine is a wonderful fantasy for young readers.  It contains satisfying adventures and all the magical elements you could wish for – yet it remains uncomplicated.  I challenge those who claim, “I don’t like Fantasy,” to try this title! 

Magical royal parents, a talking cat (when in the mood), and an enchanted castle are all classical elements, but Funke makes it all fresh!  Pimpernel Castle is guarded by gargoyles who make horrible faces at strangers and eat cannon balls and crunch burning arrows when necessary.  Stone lions guard as well; like fierce stone doorbells they roar and bare their teeth for strangers but purr like cats for family.  Giants, dragons, all make their appearances yet the story remains unique with imaginative and original elements such as the Singing Books of Magic. 

One of the strengths of science fiction and fantasy are the clear definitions of good and evil.  Funke introduces very satisfying villains in the persons of Osmund the Greedy and Rowan the Heartless.  Obviously our heroine Igraine is one of the good guys, but her help comes from a very unlikely hero, The Sorrowful Knight of the Mount of Tears (or Sir Urban of Wintergreen).  Goodness and fair play triumph, of course; yet another reason to recommend fantasy to young readers.  Fantasy and science fiction can explore many moral themes without seeming didactic.

Igraine the Brave is a top notch fantasy – fresh and funky!  or should that be Funke-y!

Among the top-ten-from-my-childhood-favorites is another book by Virginia Lee Burton, Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel.  Published in 1939, Mike is older than The Little House (1942).   I reviewed title page and copyright date on the verso with the students.  (With Easter break between  the readings of Little House and Mike most classes needed the review!) 

I prefaced the reading of the book by discussing how steam engines were the first great power machines and how they were replaced with gas, electric and diesel motors.  Again, I do not supply this information, but lead students to it with questions.  “Do we run our cars with steam today?  No.  What do we use?” 

I also pulled down a map or a globe in each class and used them to provide background on canals.  Showing them what a long and dangerous trip it once was to round the tip of South Africa or South America led to the idea of major canals.  I explained canals as a shortcut for big ships.  Again, I let questioning lead the discussion.  Students easily picked the isthmus of Panama on the map as a logical place for a canal.  I emphasized proportions and reminded them that, although the map looks tiny, it represents the whole world; the canal was a pretty big job to dig.  We looked at the Panama and Suez canals, and then I mentioned the world had many smaller canals such as the nearby Illinois and Michigan canal.

With the groundwork laid we began reading.  The book begins with Mike and the steam shovel’s career highlights:  digging the great canals, cutting through the mountains for the railroads, lowering hills and straightening curves for the highways, and smoothing out the ground for airfields.  One first grader raised his hand at this point in the book, commenting, “they’re really wrecking a lot of nature, aren’t they?”   A modern child’s take on the old classic! 

The students responded positively to this old title, just as they did with Ducklings and Little House.  The older elements of the book like the constable, telegraph boy, and milkman date the book but do not detract.  And human nature is timeless - Henry B. Swap’s ‘rather mean smile’, the school children being distracted from their lessons by the fire truck, and everyone in town thinking their idea is the best.  The students readily noticed correlations with The Little House in the artwork, such as the sun and the personification of the steam shovel.  They also insisted they saw the Little House in this earlier title’s pictures.  

A running joke in the book is that Mike claims Mary Anne can dig as much in a day as 100 men can dig in a week, although he isn’t actually sure that is true.  It was a first grader in another class who broke into the story and said, “Why doesn’t he just try!”  “Maybe he will,” I said.  We turned the page, and sure enough Mike and Mary Anne began trying to dig that cellar in one day.  The readers/listeners want Mike and Mary Anne to succeed.  Several of the classes actually clapped at the end!

I’m left wondering, is it the happy endings in these old books that illicit this response?