Books Make the Best Gifts

I love to give books as gifts and this year there are some great books to give.  I read about new books daily and try to keep up with reading those I can.   Here are some lists of best books of the year to peruse:  The School Library Journal is an informative magazine for, well, school librarians and others interested in books and reading.  Their best book list  has some of my favorites this year and a few I haven't read yet. The New York Times has a list each year of the Best Illustrated Books with some that overlap.  Here are some I think would make great gifts from these lists:

Fiction

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

This basketball book is so much more than a basketball book.  It tells the story of two brothers and their love for the game.  It's told in poems that are beautifully written and lively.  

 

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee

I wrote a little about this book in a previous post. I loved the story and the language. This would be a great pick for the fantasy fans.

Revolution by Deborah Wiles

This book is the second in a 3 series set of documentary novels that tell different stories of the 1960s in America.  Great historical fiction for anyone.

  Picture Books

I love picture books, I think they are truly enjoyable for all ages.   Some of these are for your younger readers and some are for everyone.

My Bus by Byron Barton

The story is fun and full of cats, dogs and counting.  The illustrations are bright and cheerful and the story is complete.  My 6 year old loved hearing this over and over again.  It's a winner for our family.






Draw by Raul Colon
This wordless book tells the story of a boy and his wonderful imagination.  The animals in the jungle play a part in the story as does the boy.  The story is easy to follow even though there aren't any written words.  The artwork is wonderfully realistic and beautifully done.













The Pilot and The Little Prince by Peter Sis
This is a picture book for older children as well as younger kids.  The illustrations are intricate and interesting and the biographical text is arranged on the page in patterns and a style that add to the story.  There is sparser text on the page that could be read alone to tell part of the story for kids who can't sustain for all of the other information provided.  So much to know about Antoine de Saint-Exupery. 



Viva Frida by Yuyi Morales
This beautiful book has puppets and papel picado with wonderful bilingual message to follow your dreams.  Anyone who loves the art and spirit of Frida Kahlo will enjoy this book.



The Farmer and the Clown by Marla Frazee
Another wordless book telling the sad story of a little circus clown who tumbles off the train.  The farmer is delightful and kind and ends up saving the day.  The train passengers are reminiscent of The Little Engine That Could in the best way possible.  A quiet, happy book. 

Autobiography

These are two of my very favorite books of the whole year.  The story of people's lives are complex and funny and heartbreaking and these two women tell those stories with such beauty and talent. 

El Deafo by  CeCe Bell

This is a graphic autobiography.  The drawings are wonderful and the story both hilarious and touching.  Just the book for your graphic novel lovers and those who like a good autobiography.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
An autobiography told in poetry.  Each poem a memory from Woodson's life in different areas of the nation.  Growing up and finding herself while those around her help.

A Day in the Life of a Middle School Librarian

I love my job.  I love helping people find what they need, connecting people to information and books.  I love being in the community of a middle school, these are my people-the kids and the staff.  I love the hustle and bustle and the quiet time.
Here are some of the things I do all day.

The circulation desk is where all the magic happens, I can find books in the catalog that kids are looking for (John Green, John Green, If I Stay) and recommend others they might like.  I've been working on making the library as welcoming and friendly as I can because it's important to me that kids feel like the library is a place they belong. It's my job to connect my patrons with information and resources they can use.

I don't like this green shelf.  I've wanted to get rid of the first moment I laid eyes on it. I finally cleared and consolidated enough to clean it off completely.  It's my job to keep the library neat and orderly.  Usually this just means putting books back in the right place, dusting and general housekeeping but coming to a new school means making the space new.  This has been a favorite part of my job.  I'm loving how this is turning out. 

This is the "Newbery Maybe" shelf. It's my job to keep up with all the new books.  Luckily, I LOVE to read.  I get recommendations from all over blogland and I request lots of books from the public library and other school libraries to keep up with the books that aren't in our collection yet.  So far my favorite is Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff and (along with everyone else) Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacquline Woodson.

Of course it's my job to check books in and out.  Here's a stack of books coming back from a social studies class after an Ancient Egypt project.  It's important that the books get used, otherwise what good are they sitting on the shelf?

I love a good before and after story.  This is our little back room.  It's hot in the summer and freezing the winter, too far away from the stacks and computers to really work as an office and until recently it was full of junk.  My darling student aides and I have spent months cleaning it out and organizing the dead computer parts.  After salvage came and took the old furniture we had a nice, clean room!  We can use it for meetings or dance practice.

There are, of course, many other things that happen in my day.  This was today and I loved it.

Mock Caldecott Group

Our Newbery lunch group that meets on Wednesdays has morphed into a Caldecott group.  The kids who come are kids who are already reading for The Battle of the Books, kids who have LOTS of homework and extra curricular activities so asking them to read another chapter book wasn't going to work.  Instead I'm getting to do the one thing I miss the most about elementary school-read picture books! So far we've read Viva Frida by Yuyi Morales, My Pet Book by Bob Staake and The Right Word by Jen Bryant.  We also read I Am a Witches Cat by Harriet Muncaster but then realized that the author/illustrator was from England and therefore not eligible for the Caldecott.  Drat!  The tiny little world created for the illustrations in that book is worth the read.  So cool!

The puppets created for this books are beautiful, there is a wonderful video that shows the process Morales took to create the artwork for this book.  I love the message in the sparse words, English and Spanish. 

This was our group's favorite book so far.  The illustrations and story are so much fun!  I love seeing the process and artist has for creating the art work.  I know nothing about computer illustration but I love to see the product.

This was my favorite.  I LOVE Melissa Sweet's artwork.  I love knowing the story behind the "treasure house" of words Roget created and I love knowing how to pronounce his name. Here's a trailer that shows the beauty of the illustrations.

JMS Library Lunch Groups

We have started our lunch groups in the library. Students are still able to come in and read, check out books and work on homework.  In addition we have the following groups:

Monday is Makerspace
Tuesday is Battle of the Books
Wednesday is Mock Newbery 
Thursday is trailers and QR codes
Friday is fun computer games


We have been having a great time getting to know each other and setting up our clubs! Come join us in the library.

The Mock Newbery group (we'll throw in some Caldecott possibilities too) will be looking at the books mentioned here, here and here to find out which books we want to read to prepare for our vote for this year's winner.  Look for guest posts by members of our group and join us in predicting the winner!

Newbery Hopefuls

There are so many books I want to read. I have a list of books that I "should have" already read, I am a librarian after all!  Lately I'm loving reading new books, specifially Newbery hopefuls.  I guess every book for a young person is a Newbery hopeful but I get my list in a couple of places.  One is Betsy Bird's great blog A Fuse #8 Production the other is the Mock Newbery group on Goodreads. 

I just finished reading Revolution by Deborah Wiles.  It's the story of Sunny, a young girl living in Mississippi (finally being able to spell that comes in handy!) in 1964 when the "Invaders" come to her small town to help register black voters during "Freedom Summer".  The book is written spot on from Sunny's point of view as a smart, tough girl who is so confused about what's going on.  The grown ups around her discuss the events but don't talk with her directly about it, leaving her to come to her own conclusions and make up her mind about what's right and wrong.  Sunny's growth through the book is timed wonderfully, just when I was getting annoyed with her for being a kid she starts to open her eyes and see things that change her.  The non fiction elements in the book-pictures, articles and back story really add power to the plot.  I enjoyed Revolution and I hope it gets some recognition.  I loved Countdown, the first in the 60's trilogy that Deborah Wiles is writing, and was sad to see it not at least get an honor sticker. 

I read Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy aloud to my 4th grade son and we both loved it.  The voice of Ophelia and the story of the Marvelous Boy is pure magic.  The scene is set with beautiful description, Ophelia alone on her quest to save the boy in the grand and mysterious museum run by the icy Miss. Kaminski.  The book was funny without being silly and had suspense without being too scary.  I loved reading it out loud, the words were perfectly chosen and the story was paced well, marching right along to get us to the end.  If you enjoy mystery and magical characters, this book will be a treat! 
I'm not sure if it meets the Newbery criteria but it was much enjoyed in our house.

New Digs!

I love a good project.  My goals for the physical space of the library are:
Weed- this is a process that librarians both love and hate.  With the help of a great district team we will take out books that have out of date information, books that are not being checked out after living in the library shelves for more than a decade and books that are broken or damaged.  This will give us more space for new books, updated material and room for students to look through the shelves.  Make sure to visit the atrium at the entrance to the library to get some free books from our weeding project!

Decorate-We had a couple of gracious donations of posters for the library.  Candlewick Press sent us some beautiful posters with artwork from some of their recently published books.  Spineless Classics sent us three of their amazing posters, the entire text of a book printed on one page to create a lovely image.  You have to come check them out in the library, they are awesome and would make a great gift for any book lover! We are hoping to get new shelving and paint in the years to come, new carpet is already ordered for the summer.  This project is off to a great start!

30 Years Later

I am so excited to be back in middle school!  As a teacher of course.  Not a student, you could not offer me anything that would make me return to those three years of my life.  I was a Jefferson Jet 30 years ago, a nervous 11 year old trying to navigate a big school and make new friends. One of my first best friends had a mom who was a librarian.  It was through her that I fell in love with Judy Blume, I read all of her books I could get my hands on.  I still remember passages and descriptions that meant something to me then.   Now, here I am all these years later hoping to be able to get THAT book into the hands of these Jefferson Jets.  This time of life which is fraught with  moods and hormones, questions and trouble lends itself so well to my desire to help make information easier to access and understand in the library.  So glad to be here.