Painful Predictions

Battle of the Kids' Books is about to begin and just like every year, Im obsessed.  I can't remember the last adult book I read because I've been madly reading this list.  It's the first year out of the five I've participated that I've finished all of the books before the battle begins!  This has only made it harder to pick my favorites, but I tried.  I only changed my mind once.
Here are my guesses although really I'd be happy with many different outcomes.  I have to say half are my very favorites which is why I'm happy to have someone else judge.  Also, as I'm typing this I'm having second (and third and fourth) thoughts about my choices.

Round 1 Winners:
Challenger Deep
Drowned City
Goodbye Stranger
I Crawl Through It
Most Dangerous
Nest
Rhythm Ride
Symphony for the City of the Dead

Round 2 Winners:
Most Dangerous
Symphony for the City of the Dead
Challenger Deep
I Crawl Through It

Round 3 Winners:
I Crawl Through It
Symphony for the City of the Dead
Gone Crazy in Alabama (back from the dead)

The Winner:
Symphony for the City of the Dead

My favorite thing is reading the books and my second favorite is reading the judges decisions.  In contrast to the ALA YMAS where we hear the results but not the thinking behind them, in Battle of the Kids' Books the authors write beautifully thoughtful responses to the two books they judged and their thinking behind the choice.  I love the passion and the commitment, I love the suspense.  I love this much time and effort put forth for these great books.
Thanks, BOB people for putting this together!

Book Challenges

Now that the ALA Youth Media Awards have been announced I can start reading for the new year! My goal last year was 100 books and I did it!  I count every single book I read no matter how short and I'm reading like it's my job because...librarian. So, I needed something new to focus on.  A fellow librarian told me about this reading challenge and I decided to make one for our Jefferson Jets.  Lots of students are already participating.  It's a fun way to read outside of the normal types of books we choose again and again.

If you need a hard copy, stop by the library or email me and I'll get one to you. 

I'll be filling my challenge sheet up for the next couple of months with books from the Battle of the the Kids Books contenders.  These books will get matched against each other in March Madness like brackets until a winner prevails.  So much fun!

THE BOYS WHO CHALLENGED HITLER by Phillip Hoose

CHALLENGER DEEP by Neal Shusterman

DROWNED CITY by Don Brown

ECHO by Pam Muñoz Ryan

GONE CRAZY IN ALABAMA by Rita Williams-Garcia

GOODBYE STRANGER by Rebecca Stead

THE HIRED GIRL by Laura Amy Schlitz

I CRAWL THROUGH IT by A. S. King

THE MARVELS by Brian Selznick

MOST DANGEROUS by Steve Sheinkin

MY SENECA VILLAGE by Marilyn Nelson

NEST by Kenneth Oppel

NIMONA by Noelle Stevenson

RHYTHM RIDE  by Andrea Davis Pinkney

SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEAD by M. T. Anderson

X: A NOVEL by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon

Mock Caldecott 2016

This fall we've been reading LOTS of picture books to prepare for our Mock Caldecott election that took place right before winter break.  Our list of books is here.

We had fun reading the stories together, discussing theme and story and the illustrations.  It's a wonderful thing to have a collection of shared literature to refer to and discuss.  In the end we voted. It's clear that this group loves a funny book, they're 6th graders after all.

Winner: I Yam a Donkey by CeCe Bell

Honor Books: The Bear Ate Your Sandwich by Julia Sarcone-Roach and Red, Yellow, Blue with a Dash of White too by Charles George Esperanza.

You can see what other Mocks have chosen here.  I can't wait to see and share what the committee chooses!

This Year in Books

This year my goal was to read 100 books.  I did it! Click on the picture to see the books I've read.  I abandon books I don't like right away so my books are all rated pretty high.  I find books to read by reading the blogs in the sidebar and from the Goodreads groups Mock Caldecott, Mock Newbery and Mock Printz.  There are some fantastic books for gifts on this list so click the link and see what you like.  What was your favorite book of the year?

AASL Reflection

I was lucky enough to attend the AASL this year in Columbus, OH.  I'd been to a couple of other national conferences so I knew the energy and focus that was going to be required as well as the fun and excitement I was going to experience.  I learned more than I'll ever be able to implement.  Here are my main take aways:
The opening session was presented by Heidi Hayes Jacobs who challenged us with the question,

"What decade are we preparing our students for?" 
There were a few things that she implored us to do:

• Sign up for Twitter (find me @SaraCoo08365060) s to connect with other professionals and read about current happenings.
• Have students view and create quality media as part of their learning and sharing all the time.
• Carve out space at school for a green screen (I'm going to paint a green wall in a library corner), recording room and Skype area.
• Have students create their own websites where they can store all of their work.

Her talk was inspiring and left me wanting to get back to school and get started!

In the break out session "Be a Research Rockstar!" Sarah Scholl and Sarah Wein (I'm going to do a research project on the most popular librarian name and my hypothesis is that Sara(h) is the winner) walked us through their collaborative research project,

Challenge and Change using Guided Inquiry.  The website has the presentation slides and the handouts that will give you an idea of this exciting research project that led kids through finding, researching and awarding a notable person who has faced challenge and changed the world around them.   It was obvious that the project led to deep and meaningful learning for the kids involved.  The presentation was a reminder of the importance of collaboration between teachers and librarians and a reminder to create research projects that go deeper into Bloom's Taxonomy instead of "research" being questions the students can easily find the answers to in an online search.

Joyce Valenza presented on leveraging your library with evidence.  I am going to try these two ideas this year:

• Have students film (with and iPad or their phones) "their" library.  The students walk around the library filming their favorite sections and telling about what the space means to them.  These can be posted online, shown during staff meetings, sent to administrators and politicians.  
• Create a "focus group" of students and prepare questions for them to answer about the library.  Film the discussion and use it to implement change in the library based on their discussions.

THe exhibit hall was filled with vendors and lines for free books.  I enjoyed getting to know librarians from around the country as we waited in line.  I brought home a whole suitcase full of free books, signed books and ARCs.  It was invigorating and meaningful.  I'm planning on going to Phoenix in 2017, hope to see you there!

Lessons in the Library

Last week I collaborated on a unit for 6th graders studying censorship.  They had all read the book Americus and were mostly in agreement that book censorship was a bad idea.  When I attended the American Association of School Librarian (yes, that's a real thing and yes it was awesome) conference in Columbus at the beginning of the month Heidi Hayes Jacobs encouraged us to create lessons around current events and since there has been much controversy about

A Fine Dessert we decided to have the kids read the book and decide if the book was appropriate and worthwhile for elementary schools.

I first read this book over the summer and thought it was beautiful.  The story takes us through four generations of families making the same dessert, blackberry fool.  I showed the book to our Home Ec. teacher and thought it would be perfect to read with her classes before making the dessert with the class.  Then at the beginning of this school year I read it aloud to my Mock Caldecott Group and I felt uncomfortable during the slavery scene but I quickly moved onto the next book in our stack to read that day.  Soon thereafter I started to read about the concerns online and I looked back over the book and agreed that in my opinion slavery was glossed over and made to look pleasant and should have been left out of a book with this cheerful tone. 

So, that is how we ended up analyzing it with the 6th graders. 
Here's what I learned from that.  It IS indeed our job as teachers, librarians and parents to protect kids from harmful ideas.  Not in the way we usually think of with books about controversial topics but when the books are telling lies.
After I read the book aloud to the kids (something all kids love and we stop doing much too early!) and we discussed the issue of how slavery was presented, we had the students talk in their groups and vote.  About half of the groups decided that the book was an inaccurate portrayal of slavery and should not be read to young students who might then think that slavery was okay.
What shocked and saddened me were the groups who decided it should stay with the justification that at least one group in each class gave: it was a "gentle introduction to slavery". Oh no. 

We need to avoid gentle introductions to things that are horrible and unjust.  We need to avoid lying to children and ourselves about things that make us uncomfortable.  We need to talk more about these issues and not ignore the uncomfortable feelings.  We need to listen to each other.

September Book to Read

I read all the time.  Sometimes I'm reading a young adult book, every once in a while a book aimed at actual adults, occasionally non-fiction in either of the previous categories but I'm always reading something.

There are books that I love but I'm not sure how to tell anyone else about them because I'm not sure how to put into words what I loved about them without telling the whole story.  This is why I don't write book reviews.  I just like to be able to hand someone a book and say, "Read this!" and have them believe me, read it and love it.  Luckily, I have the perfect job in which to do this.  I love almost every single thing about being a school librarian and this is one of the best.  Handing books to kids.  There's a Judy Blume quote that I love, "Librarians save lives: by handing the right book, at the right time, to a kid in need."  It applies to anyone sharing books of course, not just librarians. Teachers and especially in middle school-other kids...but it's a part of my job that I enjoy tremendously.

So, this book.  Goodbye Stranger is by Rebecca Stead who wrote When You Reach Me and then won the Newbery.  Goodbye Stranger is an important book.  It's a book that shows how easy it is to make mistakes with friends both old and new and how difficult it is to navigate this whole growing up thing.  

I think it would be a perfect book for a mother/daughter book club.  You could read it together, aloud or each on your own.  You could talk about it or even have a journal back and forth about the book.

I recently saw this post on the Growing Book by Book blog about a family dinner book club.  I think this book would be PERFECT for that kind of a discussion.  I'm hoping to launch the idea at our school.  We could wear cat ears and eat cinnamon toast and drink milkshakes while we talk about the temptations to push our own personal boundaries and values to create a connection with someone else.  I'll let you know if I pull it off!

Symbaloo

I had a lot of fun putting together my ideas about how to find new books to read, order and share for the NMLA conference this month.  I also put together some resources for becoming a school librarian that I got to share with a group of brand new UNM student teachers at Bandelier Elementary School.  Here is my Symbaloo from both presentations.  I love having all of my favorite resources and links in one place.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Thanks for stopping by.

Genrefy (It's not really a word but it works)

I first read about this idea in this  School Library Journal article about ditching Dewey.  The idea greatly intrigued me because I was spending my days as an elementary school librarian constantly walking kiddos to the "books about tanks" or the "cat books" or the "princess books".  When I read in the article that they had organized the books in their library to be more user friendly I immediately loved the idea and when I love an idea I have to tell everyone about it (case in point at the moment).  Everyone I talked to about the idea was horrified. 
Horrified. 
Why, they asked, would you get rid of a perfectly good system?  The only reason I could think of is the most important reason, because it will be easier for the kids (who are the reason we have the library) to find the books they want.
I prefer to call my system genrefying because I'm not ditching Dewey. I love the Dewey Decimal System.  People think I'm joking when I talk about how much I love it. 
But, it's a system that only works for those who know how to use it and no matter how often I taught it and we sang the song the kids didn't live the system like I did.  So they might know where to find the cat books but not the dinosaur books and the numbers didn't mean anything to them.
Now that I'm at JMS and I have more time in the library with the books but the students have MUCH LESS time in the library with the books I have started the process.
I cannot explain to you how excited I am about this.  I know that it is going to increase circulation and make finding books MUCH easier for the students.
Here's what I'm doing:

I bought colored labels to stick on top of the existing spine labels, we started with the As and we are moving through the library. I'm sticking labels on the books that get returned too so there are some colored labels scattered throughout the shelves. 
I made a sign that lists our genres:
Sports
Horror
Humor
mystery
Classics
Action Adventure
Realistic Fiction
Historical Fiction
Fantasy
Science Fiction
and covered each genre in it's corresponding color. 
This will be slow going (until standardized testing closes my library for 2 months and then I'll have no patrons to speak of) and I'll make mistakes but I'm so thrilled to have started!
I'll keep you posted!

Reading Goals

This year my goal is to read 100 books.  I count ALL the books I read. So, if I read aloud to my 6 year old daughter, I count it.  If I read something for work, I count it.  A book is a book!  I am so curious to see if I reach my goal mostly because I've never kept close track of every single book I've read.  I'm going to try to do that via Goodreads this year.  I've been ok in years past at keeping track of the books I read for pleasure but not so much the books I read aloud to kids.  This will make it easier for me to suggest books to friends and parents that their kids might like.  What's your reading goal?

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.