Picture book selections for older readers

As I sit here charged with the task of writing about picture books in the older grades, I am reminded about a phone call I received last year questioning why 10% of my order was Easy Fiction. I have always loved picture books in the classroom. When I taught English I was constantly walking over to the elementary school to get picture books. As a librarian, I am now collecting picture books for the IMC. I am lucky in that I have a couple of social studies teachers and language arts teachers that love picture books too. I also have teachers that use them for advisory and the ELL program uses them to give beginning language learners backgrounds they need. The best part about my job is now the Curriculum Director and the RTI/Literacy person are introducing picture books with the 6 Traits of Writing. This means that the higher ups are actually pushing for them to use picture books. So now I get to order a bunch of new picture books for the IMC.

The other really cool thing is that I am working on an opening day collection for a new Jr. HS and will be justified in putting a large picture book collection. As with other topics, there never seems to be enough money to buy what is needed. In fact if you searched my collection you would see that I don’t own some of the things that follow or that my teachers use.

Now for the good stuff……

Books for the collection.

Anything by Peter Sis. In fact, I would not read his The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain to anyone younger than middle school. Tibet: Through the Red Box is an honor book but holds so much information and insight.

Picture books are good for introducing time frames in our history, take for example The Bobbin Girl by Emily Arnold McCully. This is a great book for introducing the labor movement with the Lowell Massachusetts mill girl. Or events in our history: What about civil rights with A Taste of Colored Water by Matt Faulkner, or The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson. Everybody loves Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine to talk about slavery and the Underground Railroad. I challenge any of you to try to read Faithful Elephants by Yukio Tsuchiya out loud without crying! (Don’t worry,  the students will be too!)  It is a great introduction to the human side of war. There are some great biographies in picture book format to read aloud as an introduction too.

A great new book is Crow Call by Lois Lowry. This is great for introducing biographies, narrative writing or other language arts topics.

I have an art teacher that uses the Caldecott Medal winners and honor books for introduction to line, shapes, texture, etc. She also uses them to show specific mediums such as print making. A good place to add these to your collection is the Scholastic book orders or warehouse sales. Many are available in paperback.

Math teachers often uses the David Schwartz books on a million or the Sir Cumference books by Cindy Neuschwander. Don’t forget about Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith with Math Curse or Grapes of Math and others by Greg Tang. This area is becoming more and more vast in books everyday as publishers see that math topic books that are not just counting do actually sell. There is also a great series, MathStart, that includes Math skills in stories. What a great way to review or introduce concepts!

Science teachers love Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet and What Do You Do With a Tail Like That. One teacher introduces her hurricane unit with Two Bobbies. What about a weather unit with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. During an unit on the environment everybody is familiar with showing The Lorax, but I have a teacher that reads it too!

Just today the ELL teacher came and I gave her picture books on historical subjects. They were looking at all the ways history could be recorded and told! I also just finished a lesson with a 7^th grade social studies teacher. We used John, Paul, George, and Ben by Lane Smith as an introduction to the Revolutionary War. (Don’t forget to play some Beatles during a transition time).

Where do you find these? Check out displays of new books at your local book store or one of the chains. We have Borders and Barnes and Noble and I always buzz through and see what is new. If you don’t have a book store, use the chains websites. Both Borders and Barnes and Noble offer new releases and coming soon type sections.

If your school is using the 6 Traits of Writing, this website is great for lesson connections: http://writingfix.com/

For teachers, Read Write Think has some great upper grade lesson plans that incorporate picture books too. http://www.reading.org/General/Default.aspx

Several schools have databases of picture books. One that is good because you can search by theme is http://www.lib.muohio.edu/pictbks/welcome.php from the Miami University, Ohio.

Do you need backing from a scholarly journal to add books to your shelf? Check out this article from NMSA http://www.nmsa.org/Publications/MiddleSchoolJournal/Articles/September2006/Article4/tabid/1017/Default.aspx

Don’t forget your ISLMA peers or Elementary Teachers and Librarians in your town, school district or at the public libraries.

Kari L Hennenfent is National Board Certified teacher and the media specialist at Kingsly Junior High in Normal.

 

Read for a Lifetime 2009-2010

The Illinois State Library is pleased to announce information about Read for a Lifetime 2009/10.

The 2009-2010 Read for a Lifetime booklist is online at http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/library/whats_new/pdfs/readinglist.pdf

For more information about Read for a Lifetime: http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/library/whats_new/rfl.html

Contant Jeanne Urbanek: jurbanek@ilsos.net or 217-524-0050.

 

Learn about the National-Louis School Library Program

DATE: Monday, March 9, 4:30pm – 5:30pm
LOCATION: Wheeling Campus (1000 Capitol Drive, Wheeling) Room 327
RSVP: Marci Mazza, Graduate Enrollment Representative mmazza@nl.edu 224/233-2743

 

Bloomington HS Library in the News

Hats off to Keran Johnson of Bloomington High School! She organized a very special visit at her school that was sponsored by the parent teacher organization. This event made the front page of The Pantagraph and the paper’s online edition as well.

Yesterday, Abraham and Mary Lincoln paid a visit to one of the towns that has ties to Lincoln’s career as a lawyer on the judicial circuit. Students came to the high school library to meet the man and his wife and learned new information about the couple.

The article can be found online at the following webpage–

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2009/02/12/news/doc4993acaab217f241962144.txt

Good job Keran!

Lou Ann Jacobs

 

Consumer Product Safety Update

Consumer Product Safety Commission: Lead Issue Update
February 10th, 2009 | Category: Grassroots Lobbying, OGR

In discussing this situation with the ALA Washington Office attorney, Nathan Brown, we were advised that ALA’s comment letter to the Consumer Product Safety Commission offered a statutory interpretation that the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act does not apply to libraries, even if it applies to books.

Additionally, members of Congress have been telling ALA the same thing – the law was not intended to apply to books. We, therefore, believe strongly that the law does not apply to us unless and until CPSC clarifies otherwise by rule.

We have urged the CPSC to clarify that our interpretation is correct. In the meantime, if a library is aware of a book possibly containing lead at harmful levels or the statutorily prescribed levels, it should remove that book.

As we learn more about this issue, we will continue to post updates on this blog.

Jessica McGilvray, Assistant Director
ALA Office of Government Relations
jmcgilvray@alawash.org

 

A Letter about Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008

A public meeting was held January 22, and Cheryl Falvey, General Counsel for the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), stated that a decision should be made by the first week of February regarding libraries. She advised libraries not to take any action at this time, and we are hopeful that the Commission’s decision will exempt libraries.

Even with her assurances, we must let the CPSC know how important an issue this is to libraries. Please call the Acting Commissioner, Nancy Nord, at (301) 504-7901. When you call this number, wait for the automated directory to give you directions to reach Nancy Nord’s office. Explain to the Commission that it is simply impossible for libraries to remove all children’s books from the shelves and/or ban children under 12 from the library and still provide the level of service that is needed.

As always, thank you for all that you do. The only way we will be successful in ensuring that children will have access to safe books is with a strong grassroots effort. Your comments to the CPSC need to be submitted as soon as possible, so please tell all your friends and family – we need as many people as possible to communicate that this oversight could have lasting ramifications on our children and our communities.

* The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 has been interpreted to include books as a product that must be tested for lead. While it is understandable that the CPSC must protect children from toxic materials, publishers have already tested the book components and found that the lead levels are lower than the regulations require three years from now. Additionally, all book recalls in the last two decades have been because of toys attached to the books that posed a choking hazard, not the books themselves.

* Making these testing regulations retroactive would require both school and public libraries to take drastic steps to come into compliance. They either would have to ban children from their libraries or pull every book intended for children under the age of 12 from their bookshelves at the time children are fostering a lifelong love of learning and reading.

* In order to allow children and families to continue accessing critical library materials, please either exempt books from the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, accept the component tests that have already been done, or exempt all books currently in school and public libraries. This will ensure that our children continue to have access to safe and educational library materials.

Thank you for your continued support of libraries!

Sincerely,

Kristin Murphy

Government Relations Specialist

American Library Association – Washington Office

1615 New Hampshire Avenue NW

Washington, D.C. 20009-2520

Phone Number: 202.628.8410

Fax: 202.628.8419

kmurphy@alawash.org

 

Book Sale at Center for Children’s Books

The Center for Children’s Books (CCB) at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign is hosting its annual book sale February 16 through February 18, 2009. Sale hours are 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. each of these days.

Thousands of brand-new children’s books will be available for youth ages birth through high school. The titles available represent the full spectrum of children’s publishing in fiction and nonfiction: board books, picture books, easy and transitional readers, chapter books, series fiction, novels, activity books and kits, nonfiction series, mass-market paperbacks, and more.

Paperback books are $1 or $2 each, hardcover books are $5 each, and individual items are priced as marked.

A pre-sale will be held on February 15, 2009 from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Tickets for the pre-sale are $20. You must call (217) 244-9331 or email at ccb@illinois.edu to reserve a ticket. Ticket reservations will begin on February 2, 2009.

Proceeds from the sale support the successful operation of the CCB, a non-circulating collection of more than 16,000 recent and historically significant trade books for youth, birth through high school, plus review copies of nearly all trade books published in the U.S. in the current year. The CCB houses over 1,000 professional and reference books on the history and criticism of literature for youth, literature-based library and classroom programming, and storytelling. Although the collection is non-circulating, it is available for examination by scholars, teachers, librarians, students, and other educators.

For more details, contact the CCB by email at ccb@illinois.edu or by telephone at (217) 244-9331.

 

Registration Opens for 2009 AASL Conference

Registration will open Wednesday, Jan. 21, for the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) 14th National Conference & Exhibition, Nov. 5-8, in Charlotte, N.C. More information is available on AASL’s National Conference Web pages at http://www.ala.org/aasl/charlotte.

School library media specialists, administrators and supporters of school library media programs will gather for workshops on key issues and concepts taught by leading professionals. In addition to relevant educational programming, attendees of the conference will also find exciting special events, including a networking dinner cruise aboard the Catawba Queen; a unique tour of historic homes and neighborhoods in the Charlotte area; a riveting discussion on this year’s One Book, One Conference selection, Born Digital; and a thrilling tour of NASCAR Valley. AASL will also offer tours of local school library media centers and a Storytelling Extravaganza on the opening evening of the conference will feature spellbinding performances from the National Storytelling Network.

Ann Marie Pipkin, co-chair of the National Conference committee, said, “The 2009 National Conference promises to be like no other conference before, with new and exciting programming, significant and timely authors and a technology experience that is transparent and interactive.”

This year, conference-goers must register before they are able to secure housing. Registrations received on or before Jan. 31 will receive an additional $15 off of the already reduced early bird registration. Group registrations are excluded from this offer. Full registration includes admittance to all concurrent sessions, all special events, including the opening and closing general sessions, the exhibit hall, a special session with James Patterson and the AASL Closing Night Gala.

The AASL 14th National Conference & Exhibition, “Rev up learning @ your library,” is the only national conference dedicated solely to the needs of school library media specialists and their roles as educational leaders. The AASL National Conference will feature 10 preconferences, numerous concurrent sessions, more than 200 exhibiting companies, educational and school tours, a storytelling festival and special appearances by award-winning authors. For more information on AASL’s 14th National Conference & Exhibition, visit http://www.ala.org/aasl/charlotte.

 

Just Announced! Chains wins O’Dell Award

Chains (S & S, 2008) by Laurie Halse Anderson is winner of the 2009 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction.

 

Learn about the National-Louis School Library Program

Learn about the National-Louis University School Library Program
We hope that you are staying warm and snug in your libraries this winter. You are invited to join us at two upcoming information sessions in February and March at the Wheeling campus. We will be starting another sequence of courses at the Wheeling campus on Mondays during our spring quarter which starts on April 6, 2009.
 
 
DATES: Monday, February 2, 4:30pm – 5:30pm
          Monday, March 9, 4:30pm – 5:30pm
LOCATION: Wheeling Campus (1000 Capitol Drive, Wheeling) Room 327
 
RSVP: Marci Mazza, Graduate Enrollment Representative 
        mmazza@nl.edu 224/233-2743