Summer Blog Hop

I found a summer blog hop with contests galore. And I've been a little preoccupied trying to enter them all. All 300 of them. Last summer, when I started tweeting, I won several online book giveaway contests. It was as simple as re-tweeting. And just like that, I had entered. These are a little more complicated. Some, you have to follow the blog through GOogle Friend Connect. I have only followed those that I wanted to continue to read. Following as a requirement seems a little much to me. The blog hop itself encourages people to visit and check out the blog. If they like it, they will follow. It's that simple.

Keepin' Kosher

Our school library serves a diverse population of students, and I do my best to find books that speak to our students. I think I have found just that in Baxter, The Pig Who Wanted to be Kosher by Laurel Snyder. After earning a spot in Ms. Snyder's 100 Schools in 100 Days Skype project, I'm doing my best to devour everything she has written to prepapre myself and was delighted to find Baxter in this way. Many of our students enjoy celebrating Shabbat each Friday evening with their families and I'm sure those that don't will be delighted to think that, like Baxter, they might be invited as well. I invite you to check out Baxter and Laurel Snyder's other great books. I'll be posting about others in the weeks to come.

Can They Even Do That?

I stumbled upon Mockingbird by Kathryn Lasky over winter break last year and loved it instantly. I told students it was my pick for the Newbery and learned shortly after that it was the National Book Award winner. I loved the original cover and I saw the appeal, though not timelessness of the paperback cover. While browsing at Barnes and Noble, I noticed something odd. Can they even do that?

An Honust-ly Valuable Book (and Baseball card)

I debated over which title to write about from the completed side of my summer reading stack and settled upon another favorite first of a series.  Dan Gutman's "Honus and Me" is the first in his Baseball Card Adventure series.  I read "Jackie and Me" last summer as it was included in our local Reading Olympics list and caught my eye.  Then I enjoyed "Roberto and Me" shortly after it was published this past winter.  I resolved that this summer, I would read the other books, and do so in order.  

I love this series and how it combines different genre (sports fiction and science fiction) for the ultimate combination for reluctant readers.  Now, I don't consider myself a reluctant reader, but I could not put this book down.  I finished it in two days.  I enjoy baseball, but I had very little background knowledge of Honus Wagner.  I appreciate that Dan Gutman's didn't expect me to, as a reader.  He incorporates so many facts seamlessly, even down to the correct pronunciation of Wagner's first name, Honus as it would sound in honest without the t and is short for Johannes.  I even ended the night as I finished reading in a lively debate about the specific name of the company that produced the card.  We were both right, as Wikipedia (bad librarian) proved.  So, our marriage is still in tact over the great Piedmont/Sovereign debate.  See the brands that produced the T-206:

I was contacted to tutor a student as I was starting this book and decided it would be the perfect match.  As a result, I've linked to several resources to aid in comprehension for Honus and Me on Diigo

I am looking forward to reading and blogging about Dan Gutman's other Baseball Card Adventure books.  

Double Trouble

After recently finishing Andrew Clement's The Landry News, I thought I had figured out where the title of his book, Lost and Found had come from. It was the same as the title of the controversial short story featured in the challenged issue of the Landry News. The short story was about a boy having a hard time dealing with his parents' divorce. The book by the same title was not, as I had guessed, a continuation of the short story.

Instead, it was an incredibly imaginative (I hope) starting with the first day of school for Jay Gleason, twin brother of Ray Gleason. But on this first day at a new school, he is on his own (with his brother sick at home) and makes the surreal discovery that his brother's file has been lost, or rather, combined with his. For the first time in his life, he was an individual, not part of a pair. And he liked it. And he saw an opportunity. The brothers decide the risk is worth the experience of an individual identity. They realize it can't last forever, and quickly realize the complications involved in leading a double, or rather, single life. But every other day, one of the two brothers stays home from school. But they begin to realize that the real fun is...at school.

In reading the back cover jacket flap, I learned something new about a favorite author. Andrew Clements has 20 years of field observation experience of twins as the father of two of them himself. Frindle is his most well known title, but the more I read of Andrew Clements books, the more interested I become. As an author, his writing invites you in. As an educator, he helps you to question the way things are in a healthy and constructive way. And as a student, he may just give you a few ideas...and you can decide what to do with them.

Books Beat Boredom

Said Amanda (of Amanda and Her Alligator) wisely. Amanda is Mo Willems' newest character, along with her alligator...and penguin. Willems is one of my favorite children's picture book author/illustrators. First graders did an author study of Mo Willems, learning to draw the pigeon and create mixed media illustrations in a Knuffle Bunny-esque style. Amanda and Her Alligator with its mini chapters was an interesting deviation. I felt like I got to read 6 1/2 books instead of one, and I enjoyed the alligators surprise, post thinking cap. The illustrations are simple, and yet convey a great deal of emotion. I enjoy that Amanda spends time at both the library and the zoo. The book titles were very clever. For example, my husband (a rock climbing instructor) would appreciate "Climbing Things for Fun and Profit," and as a reader, I appreciated Amanda's reading stance (upside down, with one leg kicked in the air). I have always enjoyed Willems' books, but as a librarian, reading them repeatedly to different classes, helped me to notice new details, so I know that upon multiple readings of this book, I will find new details as well. Don't forget to look for the pigeon.

Book Fair Frenzy

We do two Scholastic Book Fairs each year and I blogged waaaay back in October before our first book fair about some of the preparations. I wanted to discuss some of the changes that worked really well for both our fall and spring book fairs.

Theme: the fall theme was Here's to our Heroes and to help incorporate the theme, I dressed as a different superhero each day of the book fair. It definitely made a difference for students, parents, and teachers alike. I don't think there was a single person who didn't know that we had a book fair going on. The spring theme was carnival based and I considered dressing as a clown, but I was advised against it as that can be scary to some kids. We did play carnival music throughout in the background and used pennants as our recognition of One for Books contributions.

Location, Location, Location: we moved the registers this year so that they were up on the circulation desk rather than over in the midst of the fair on a table. This accomplished a few things. It utilized a surface we already had, so we didn't need an additional table set up. We were also able to use the shelves below that part of the circulation desk for baggies for change, bags for books, and other materials like rubber bands, one for books slips, teacher book dedication stickers, etc. This freed up space for us to spread out the fair a little more. We also borrowed the cords and stanchions (fancy/real names for movie theater line thingies) from the high school to create a specific place for the line. This was mostly necessary for the evening book fair which can get quite crowded, but I also created a system to match up older and younger partner classes on either side of the line.

Teacher Wishlist: On the location note, we changed up how we make a teacher wish list. In the past, teachers wrote out a wish list and they were posted on the wall by the door. If you wanted to get a teacher a book, you first of all had to know there was a wish list, find it, then find the book you might like to get. Most people didn't know this was an option, and some teachers made wish lists, others did not. This past year, I encouraged all teachers to make a wish list. We made up bookmarks with each teacher's name and grade or area at the top. We gave 6 to each teacher. They came in during book fair preview and selected their books, but instead of writing a list, they put their bookmark in, made a pile and placed the pile on our teacher/classroom wish list display. Then, if a parent or student wanted to get a wish list book, all they had to do was go to that area and pick one up. Easy.

The Little Things that Make a Big Difference: there were a few little changes that helped so much. We got snack sized ziplock bags to give change back in. So much easier than putting it back in an envelope that has already been opened, and good for those kids who come with a fistful of dollar bills and no wallet, envelope, or bag. We color coded the sections, and labeled areas by number, so in each area was a location number. On the student wish lists, there was a spot to write down location number. For orders that were sent down to the library, having a location number made filling orders so much easier. The last copy slips were also organized by color to match the closest location number sign, making it easy to return last copies after a backorder was placed.

Poster Raffle: When you put posters on display, you get to keep the,. Now, as much as I love "Paw Wars", Justin Bieber, and "Fur-ever Friends," I don't know that I would have gotten much use out of the posters. So, we set up a poster raffle. Whenever a student made a donation to One for Books (even a penny), or purchased a teacher wish list book, they were entered into out poster raffle. I kept track of entrants by having the, write their name on a pennant (next year name and homeroom). Then I went through the pennants and entered each name into a Google Spreadsheet. At the end of the week, I used a random number generator to select the number of winners to correspond to the number of posters we had. At times, I made it a job for an older student to type the names into the google doc and I will likely do this again next year.

Calculator Station: We set up a calculator station with a chart that showed how much tax one would owe for different amounts of money. There was another chart with directions for adding up the prices of items and multiplying for tax. There were calculators there. This was a huge time-saver and good math practice for students as well. When they would come to me and ask, "Do I have enough?". I would guide the, to the calculator station and 9 times out of 10, they could figure it out themselves.

Stuff: What better way to put it? Stuff. At a Scholastic Book Fair, there is a lot of stuff, besides books. And it can be really distracting. In the spring, I wanted to try something different. We only sold the stuff during the evening book fair. This did not include posters. I told all students this during their preview week a week before the fair. During the evening fair, it was set up away from the rest of the books. This served many purposes. 1) The stuff did not become a classroom distraction, get lost and cried about, or worse, taken. 2) We did not have the twenty times over repeat customers. This may sound like a good thing, but these are the kids who would work hard to spend every last cent but it took many trips to the register, and much time out of class to do so. Not having erasers, bookmarks, and cell phone pencil sharpeners cut down on this kind of behavior. 3) By selling these items during the evening book fair, we knew kids had their parent's permission to get that item. Previously, there might be complaints that kids spent money intended for books on erasers and giant pointer fingers. 4) Oh, and the giant pointer fingers almost always ended up as weapons, so there was none of that. 5) Timing. So, our fair runs for 6 days. If you are a kid in the class that comes on the first day, you get to have your pick from all the stuff. But, if you come on the last day, it is slim pickin's indeed, so this eliminated that problem. 6) Along the same line, if a student comes on day 1 and fills out a wish list with one of these items, by the time day 6 rolls around, they return the wish list, more often than not, that item is gone. And I'm the lucky individual who had to make the call to customer service to request that a pink sparkly pen with a fuzzy thingie on top be shipped out ASAP. They never knew what I was talking about.

Delivery: On a regular day, we use rolling carts outside of classes in grades K-2 to pick up their library returns and also to place outside the class that will have library the next day as a reminder to bring books back. We were able to use these same carts to make deliveries to classrooms by grade level.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but these changes made things run so smoothly. I'm looking forward to this fall's fair and building reading excitement for our students.

If you are a school librarian and you have some ideas you use in your school, include them in the comments section below.