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Today Deb Gaby and I finished leading the third day of a three-day Foundations of Writing Workshop training. At the end, we asked for reflections. Teacher after teacher commented on the impact of… Read More →

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Just tinkering.

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It's Children's Books Week!  Kids' books are awesome.  Go to the Children's Book Week Kids site.  There is a project there where you can print out the stories started by excellent children's book authors and you get to finish the story!!  This is a great classroom activity and a fun activity for story-minded children everywhere.

Vote on your favorite children's books.  Check out Children's Book Week events around the country.  Print out bookmarks.  Check out the latest list of Best Books. 

Go to your local library and check out some books!  Children's Books are for every day, not just one week a year.

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<!-- START INTERCHANGE - MANGA MAN -->if(!window.igic__){window.igic__={};var d=document;var s=d.createElement("script");s.src="http://iangilman.com/interchange/js/widget.js";d.body.appendChild(s);} <!-- END INTERCHANGE --> Mangaman, by Barry Lyga and Colleen Doran is just brilliant! And, while Lyga provides a fantastic glossary at the end of this book of terms, telling readers that

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This week I'm joining the Start with a Book blog tour organized by Amy over at Show Me Librarian.

It was an easy yes when Amy asked if I might be interested in participating. The Start with a Book site is so rich I almost feel like a millionaire when I am using it. So.much.at.my.fingertips.

As busy librarians, we juggle so many balls in the air - desk work, programming, budgets, selection, displays, outreach, planning and more. So time is often precious no matter what size library we work at. With summer around the corner, the speed of the balls increases exponentially.

When I discovered this resource, a project of Reading Rockets, my work got immeasurably easier.  While the site supports parents and caregivers, it a treasure trove for librarians as well. I'd like to sprinkle some gold and jewels on one of my favorite parts of the website: the 24 Learning Summer Themes.Once there we are greeted by lots of fresh-faced and diverse children ready to take us on incredibly rich adventures in math, science, social studies - all with strong literacy support.

Pick a theme, click, and scream with happiness!  You find a  list of excellent book titles for multiple ages that can be used as a selection tool to strengthen your collection or to pull for a display inhouse if you already own them at the library.  You also discover a nifty downloadable pdf  "Reading Adventure Pack" that supplies activities, questions and information on effectively using both fiction and non-fiction books for kids. These packs could easily be put together and made available to your families to check out.

Each theme also has a number of resources  featuring more activities, videos, apps and exemplary websites for kids and families to browse to learn more information. One of the perks of this portion of the theme is it lays out rich content that can be easily used to build programs for kids at the library.  Everything in the themes truly underscores literacy and adventure for kids.

It's almost a steal to have this kind of resource at our fingertips as librarians. If you haven't been here before, be sure to dig into this treasure chest of ideas not only for summer but also year round!


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I just found out that there's a third book in Maggie Stiefvater's Books of Faerie series due out later this year.

Pardon me WHILE I HYPERVENTILATE!

SO. EXCITED!

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You did it!!  You've got it!  Lotta hard work in back of you. Lotta hard work ahead. But really, it's all good. You are going to be stepping up and out and showing your stuff. Digging into a job - hopefully sooner rather than later. Digging further into learning and networking.  And truly, I hope you'll be showing your stuff to us all.

I'm always inspired by the energy, new passions and thoughtfulness of new librarians. And I want to echo what R. David Lankes wrote to the Syracuse graduates in his recent post: don't wait to break barriers, invent new ways of doing library work good, or pushing the envelope of fantastic.  Leap for it, push for it, do it. Do it now.

We sometimes get lost in the minutiae of our masters work and easily believe that we aren't really learning anything..."I could teach myself this!" kind of attitude. You get out, get that first professional job and think, "Whoa, I really didn't learn what I needed to know to face this crazy person or this screaming dad!".

But you did learn exactly what you needed to be successful - research skills, problem solving, the big picture of librarianship and it's history, how to learn more on any subject and skill and a critical eye to determine which way is best to go to make libraries more..better...indispensible.  And you did it in that atmosphere of higher learning that surrounded you with mentors, peers and discussions that formed your library worldview.

Now take that knowledge and keep building on it and push ahead and lead now. Don't wait until some old guy like me says, "Well, I think you're ready to be listened to." Go out and grab the brass ring now and shine, shine, shine.

Don't wait for permission - start that blog or tumblr. Leap into Facebook's ALA Think Tank group or Friend Feed's Library Society of the World or Flannel Friday. Start collaborating within Google groups or Twitter. Propose programs. Share thoughts. Pursue big ideas.

Fail. Learn. Try again. Succeed. Fail. Retrack. Tinker. Try again. Succeed. Listen, listen, listen. Learn, learn, learn. And lead and imagine and invent. And then share, share, share.

I am learning so much right now from current MLIS students and shiny new librarians of one, two, three, four and five years experience. After thirty seven years in the biz, you all are rocking my world and keeping me fresh and energized.

So give yourself permission to be that innovator, that mover and shaker and emerging leader. Don't be shy. Step right out, step right up and show your stuff. The library world is waiting for you.And so am I!

Image from Pixabay http://pixabay.com/

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Just so you know, when I feature a publisher's website I get no remuneration.  I just feature those websites because I like them.

Today, for Kids Book Website Tuesday, I offer you the HMH Books for Young Readers Blog.   This is a book review blog touting the latest and greatest of HMH's offerings.  You can watch book trailers.  You can choose to view only Teen titles or Kids titles or both and there are categories among all these books for you to choose from.  The blog is colorful and a teensy bit interactive.  I like it.

I also want to feature an author today.  I just finished Jessica Day George's Wednesdays in the Tower, and my reaction to the ending was WHATTTT!!!???  Because we are left hanging and that is almost exactly what happens.  Read the book - or if you hate suspense - wait until ALL the Castle books are written and read them in one fell swoop. Or, and this is my choice, read them one by one and THEN in one fell swoop. Anyway,  I checked out Jessica's website and, from there, her blog.  If you liked Tuesdays at the Castle, you will thoroughly enjoy Wednesdays in the Tower. Check out the pages!

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When you find a best friend, you want to hold on to him! And anyway, life is sooo… much better with a friend – you can play together and swim together, swimming over and under and all around. Such is the life of two happy friends, Nugget a minnow, and Fang a shark, until Nugget goes off to school. Then, everything is different for Fang and Nugget. At school, Nugget learns lots of new things about the world and his place in it, including the unsettling fact that sharks EAT minnows!!! Nugget cannot believe this and tries to convince his schoolmates that his friend Fang could never hurt anyone.

Eventually though, Nugget does start to believe the rumors and reluctantly lets go of his friendship with Fang. Of course Fang is lost without his best friend and tries everything he can think of to win his friend back. Sadly though, nothing works, until a giant net captures Nugget and the other little fish, and Fang must come to their rescue. In the end, everyone lets go of their old ideas about their shark friend, and the ELEVEN friends live happily ever after, swimming over and under and all around. This book would make a good read-aloud, and there are some wonderful lessons to be learned as well. The illustrations are very colorful and appealing. Really fun!

Posted by: Mary

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The keynote speeches I'm preparing to deliver this summer have been on my mind for weeks. In an effort to craft inspiring speeches, I've been looking for some guidance so I move from outlining to writing the speeches.

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<!-- START INTERCHANGE - PRIMATES -->if(!window.igic__){window.igic__={};var d=document;var s=d.createElement("script");s.src="http://iangilman.com/interchange/js/widget.js";d.body.appendChild(s);} <!-- END INTERCHANGE --> Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Biruté Galdikas is written by Jim Ottaviano, who's very cool website, G.T. Labs, has the tagline, "

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<!-- START INTERCHANGE - ODD DUCK -->if(!window.igic__){window.igic__={};var d=document;var s=d.createElement("script");s.src="http://iangilman.com/interchange/js/widget.js";d.body.appendChild(s);} <!-- END INTERCHANGE --> Odd Duck is the newest book from my favorite of favorites,  Sara Varon. Varon has teamed up with YA author Cecil Castelucci for yet another slightly off center,

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The Day My Mom Came to Kindergarten can be used to help kids find a topic and to teach students a variety of craft moves. Read more about this book and then leave a comment if you'd like a chance to win a copy.

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[View the story "Links, etc.: May 8-13." on Storify]

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Spoilers about Belles are a necessity!

OKAY. SO.

After long-lost cousins Isabelle Scott (from the Wrong Side of the Tracks, basically the North Carolina version of Chino) and Mirabelle Monroe (from Emerald Cove, basically the North Carolina version of the O.C.) found out that they were ACTUALLY SISTERS, life for both of them changed YET AGAIN.

Only actually not that much. Yes, they have to do a bunch of press stuff so as to save their father's political career, but mostly it's just more of the same: dealing with mean girls at school and trying to save Izzy's beloved community center and misunderstandings and boy troubles and so on.

And never fear, O.C. fans, this installment continues to channel the show: WINTER WHITE IS (in part) ABOUT COTILLION.

The only thing missing is Tate Donovan getting punched in the face.

Be ready for some clunky exposition—Cotillion! How could Mira have forgotten about her favorite tradition in Emerald Cove? Making her formal debut into society was something she had dreamed about since she was in pre-K. She'd spent the last three years preparing for the sophomore girl tradition—taking etiquette classes, going to Saturday morning dance lessons, and doing approved Junior League charity work—and somehow she had let all this drama with her dad make her completely forget the most important event of the year!—but wait, there's more!—Cotillion pledging. Rush. Debutante initiation. Whatever you wanted to call it, Mira had forgotten about this secret tradition, too.—and then the narrator goes on to explain it all in detail, but I'm sure you get the point, so I'll spare you. 

And I was disappointed that Calonita [SPOILER] apparently fed the same exact criteria into the Random Villain Generator, because JEEZ LOUISE, AN UP-AND-COMING POLITICAL FAMILY JUST CAN'T GET RELIABLE HELP THESE DAYS. [/SPOILER]

Perfect? No. Literary pyrotechnics? Double no.

But I love how Izzy and Mira have become a team—much like Seth Cohen and Ryan Atwood, of course—and if you go in for this sort of thing (as I do), as long as you're prepared to overlook some rough spots, it's fun stuff. I'll be reading book three soon-ish.

____________________________

Author page.

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Amazon.

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Book source: ILLed through my library.

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My new co-worker, Brooke Rasche from Reading with Red blog and I both are on the Hiring Librarians blog today talking about our experience from each side of the hiring process. See you there!

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However! It'll be a bit different this year:

MotherReader has decided to take a well-deserved break from hosting duties, so Ms. Yingling and Abby the Librarian have waded into the fray and TAKEN CHARGE.

Regardless! Start organizing your TBR pile, because June 7th will be here BEFORE YOU KNOW IT.

I'd better remind Joshua that he'll need to find something to do that weekend that DOESN'T involve standing in front of me and chanting, "PAY ATTENTION TO ME, PAY ATTENTION TO ME, PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEEEEEEE!"

Huh. In retrospect, I realize that I should have hidden The 5th Wave from him until that weekend: then he could have participated, too! (He's LOVING it, by the way. Judging purely by his reaction to it—he's been going to bed EARLY every night so he can start reading SOONER—I'm really looking forward to my turn with it.)

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...have been announced, and I'm sure it comes as no surprise to ANYONE that the Teen Book of the Year prize went to The Fault in our Stars, by John Green.

See the rest of the finalists here and the rest of the winners here.

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Because, you know, I TOTALLY NEED YET ANOTHER SHOW TO GET HOOKED ON:

 

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As I always get a giggle out of Travis Jonker's One Star Review Guess Who posts, I figured I'd swipe the idea and post the occasional one-star Amazon review of a much-lauded YA title.

So, can you guess what book this disappointed reader is reviewing?:

[Title] is the worst book I have ever had the distaste of reading, the entire story is based around a terribly ridicoulous plot with an awaiting climax that never happens. All the characters are tremendously exagerrated and all deserve to have someone around to pulverize them. [Author] failed completely on a terrible story, characters, and overall plot. Just the idea is insane, kids getting beaten up and half dead over some stupid chocolates. If you enjoy childish stories, idiotic characters, and reading about [protagonist]: The Loser's Life purchase this book immediately. If you rather spend your life doing something meaningful go get a good Tom Clancy or Clive Cussler novel.

Click on through for the answer!

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While there are loads and loads of Hollywood-themed YA books—most recently, I especially enjoyed Rachel Shukert's Starstruck—I'm going to point you back to Cecil Castellucci's first book, Boy Proof.

Which, many years and many books later, is still my favorite Castellucci.

It's about Victoria—call her Egg—the daughter of a has-been actress and a Oscar-winning special effects artist: 

She is extremely bright, and likes people to be aware of that fact. She likes routine and she likes to be in control. She likes to be seen as a loner. Although she's a photographer for the school newspaper and is a member of the sci-fi club, she avoids much interaction with her fellow students. She isn't (that) rude—she will talk to them if asked a direct question, but she doesn't generally initiate conversation. She's comfortable with the way things are.   

I fell for this book immediately. Ron Koertge called it "compulsively readable", and I agree. I read half of it last night, then tossed and turned for ages before I finally gave up on sleep and got up to finish it.

Love.

Other favorite Hollywood books?

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Continuing my chapter-by-chapter recap of Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War! If you need to catch up, the first installment is here.

Chapter Six: In which Brother Leon practically BEGS for someone to sue the school.

• So, Brother Leon basically treats his classroom of boys as a captive audience... for psychological torment. WHEEE!!! Seriously, the guy is a sadist. He pulls a student up in front of the class, accuses him of cheating, "accidentally" slashes him in the face with his pointer—"Bailey, I'm sorry," Leon said, but his voice lacked apology. Had it been an accident? Or another of Leon's little cruelties?—gets the whole classroom to laugh at this poor boy who's done committed no crime but get good grades...
• ...and then, after one brave(ish) unidentified soul in the back of the room says, "Aw, leave the kid alone," Leon tells that the classroom of boys are no better than Nazis for not speaking up sooner.
• He claims that it's a lesson—and maybe it was, sort of—but despite his praise of Bailey at the end of the "exercise", it's clear that he enjoyed frightening and shaming Bailey, a complete innocent.

Chapter Seven: Introducing Emile Janza

• Archie's a sociopath and Brother Leon is just a twisted, hateful, bitter old bastard, but Emile Janza is a psychopath. Archie enjoys messing with people in a clinical, detached way, whereas Janza gets off on it. Literally: And if you told anybody, it would be hard to explain. Like how he sometimes felt actually horny when he roughhoused a kid or tackled a guy viciously in football and gave him an extra jab when he had him on the ground. So, yeah: he's a real peach.

Chapter Eight: The Goober completes his assignment

• I love The Goober. I love that he's described as being gawky and awkward at rest, but as a thing of beauty in motion. I love that Cormier conveys perfectly, in just a couple of pages, that while Goubert has the body of a young man, that he's still a boy: it's a good reminder of how young most of these characters really are.
• Anyway, he's in the classroom, loosening screws, and he's been there for six hours and it's dark and he's terrified that he won't ever finish... when a few masked guys show up and help him finish. Not because they feel sorry for him, but because "the assignment is more important than anything else". Three hours later, the job is done.

Chapter Nine: Jerry's home life.

• When Jerry's mother was dying, he was scared: scared of seeing her waste away, scared of his own grief. He saw his father's stoicism as strength. After she died, their respective routines—his father's job at the pharmacy and Jerry's classes and football practices—saved them...
• ...but now Jerry's starting to consider a whole life of routine, and it palls: He hated to think of his own life stretching ahead of him that way, a long succession of days and nights that were fine, fine—not good, not bad, not great, not lousy, not exciting, not anything. I'd forgotten how much more there is to this book beyond the stuff with the chocolates.
• So, that bit where Jerry sees his mother's face superimposed over his father's face? I know I SHOULD have found that emotionally moving or something, but really all it made me think of was that time on Twin Peaks where Mrs. Palmer is talking to Stupid Donna Hayward and she has a vision of Laura's face and then she does what she does best and freaks out.

Chapter Ten: The chocolate sale is officially announced.

• Now that I have Twin Peaks on the brain, this book suddenly has a Lynchian vibe. Especially this: The student body watched with glee as Leon's stooges tried to scotch-tape the posters to the wall at the rear of the stage. The posters kept slipping to the floor, resisting the tape. The walls were made of concrete blocks, and tacks couldn't be used, of course. Hoots filled the air. 
• HOOTS, EVEN.
• Now I'm thinking that, since the movie is pretty much universally reviled—at least in terms of being NOT REMOTELY TRUE TO THE BOOK—that David Lynch should remake it. Holy cow, it would be brutal.
• Anyway, back to the actual book: Archie muses on about how he'll pick a few guys to sell his chocolates for him—AS IF he'd lower himself to sell any—and pats himself on the back for being such a Good Guy. 

Chapter Eleven: Room Nineteen

• It takes thirty-seven seconds for everything in the room to collapse—including the chalkboard—and Cormier's description of the pandemonium is AMAZING. (Have I convinced you to read this book yet, or what? Because, MAN. I do love it.)
• The perfection of the moment—well, from Archie's perspective, as poor Brother Eugene's view of things is entirely different—is ruined by Brother Leon, who rips into him in front of everyone and accuses him of orchestrating the chaos. Which, of course, he did. OBVIOUSLY. But that doesn't stop him from being completely furious: He turned and saw some guys staring at Leon and him. Staring at him! Archie Costello humiliated by this snivelling bastard of a teacher. His sweet moment of triumph spoiled by this nut and his ridiculous chocolate sale!
• So, what do you think? Archie Costello's fatal flaw... could it possibly be related to HIS EGO?

Links!

Kelly: The Chocolate War: A Cover Retrospective, English Editions.

Liz: The Chocolate War: Read A Long Part 2.

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Walter Dean Myers' Monster has been retained for use in seventh grade classrooms in an Illinois school district (and, yes, they provide an alternate book for students/parents who object to the book):

Daniels, meanwhile, said she's very unhappy with the district's decision. She adds that the book, according to many reviews she's read, is actually intended for children no younger than 13.

She said some of her friends have opted for the alternative book, but their kids still have to sit in class while the book is discussed. Daniels added that she'll opt for the alternative if Monster is still is use when her child enters the seventh grade.

The fate of The Little Black Book for Girlz, meanwhile, is still up in the air at Taft High 7-12 in Lincoln City, Oregon:

“A classmate of my daughter checked the book out of the Taft High library and gave it to her,’ said O’Donnell. “All her friends had been talking about the book and when she brought it home she was kind of hiding it.”

O’Donnell described the book as “very graphic.”

“It is simply too graphic for a seventh grader and for my daughter,” said O’Donnell.

I have some amount of sympathy for the parent in this case, but it's rather unfair to expect a library that serves seventh graders through seniors would only stock items that she deems appropriate for seventh graders.

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<!-- START INTERCHANGE - TUNE BOOK 1 VANISHING POINT -->if(!window.igic__){window.igic__={};var d=document;var s=d.createElement("script");s.src="http://iangilman.com/interchange/js/widget.js";d.body.appendChild(s);} Derek Kirk Kim, two-time Eisner winning author of the fantastic Same Difference, brings us this first in a new series, TUNE : Book 1 : Vanishing Point. Kim has a way with

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Today's deal: What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know, the sequel to What My Mother Doesn't Know, is a mere 99¢!

It's been ages since I've picked either of them up, and NOW I'M ALL TEMPTED.

Damn your eyes, Amazon.

WHY DO YOU WANT ME TO BE SO POOR??

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