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Jacqueline Woodson will present the Closing General Session at the National Institute (Image courtesy of Jacqueline Woodson)

Woodson was recently named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She is the author of more than two dozen award-winning books for young adults, middle graders and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a three-time National Book Award finalist, and a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner.

Other confirmed special events include a Breakfast for Bill program with Phil and Erin Stead, Laura Dronzek and Kevin Henkes. On Thursday, September 15, David Shannon will present the Opening General Session. Attendees will benefit from an on-site bookstore where they can buy books to have signed by their favorite speakers.

The Closing General Session is free for all individuals registered for the 2016 ALSC National Institute. All special events are included in the cost of registration. Registration fees include Thursday dinner, Friday breakfast, and Saturday breakfast. For more information and registration details please the visit the 2016 ALSC National Institute website.

The post Jacqueline Woodson to Present Closing Session at #alsc16 appeared first on ALSC Blog.

ALSC announced that award-winning author David Shannon will present the Opening General Session at the ALSC National Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina. This event will take place at the Charlotte Marriott City Center on Thursday, September 15, 2016 and is sponsored by Scholastic, Inc.

David Shannon will present the Opening General Session at the 2016 National Institute (photo courtesy Scholastic, Inc.)

David Shannon is the internationally acclaimed creator of more than thirty picture books, including No, David!, a Caldecott Honor Book and his second New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year. In addition to three more David picture books, Shannon’s bestsellers include:

• Too Many Toys
• How Georgie Radbourn Saved Baseball
• A Bad Case of Stripes
• Duck on a Bike
• Alice the Fairy
• Good Boy, Fergus!
• Jangles: A Big Fish Story
• Bugs in My Hair

A native of Spokane, Washington, Shannon and his family live in Southern California.

Other confirmed special events include a Breakfast for Bill program on Friday, September 16 with Phil and Erin Stead, Laura Dronzek and Kevin Henkes. On Saturday, September 17, Jacqueline Woodson will present the Closing General Session. Attendees will benefit from an on-site bookstore where they can buy books to have signed by their favorite speakers.

The Opening General Session is free for all individuals registered for the 2016 ALSC National Institute. All special events are included in the cost of registration. Registration fees include Thursday dinner, Friday breakfast, and Saturday breakfast.

“Having David as our opening speaker will be a terrific way to kick off an awesome two-and-a-half days,” said 2016 ALSC National Institute Planning Task Force chair Emily Nanney. “David is not only an incredibly talented artist, he’s also an engaging speaker who will bring a lot of joy to attendees. We couldn’t be more excited to have him.”

For more information and registration details for the 2016 ALSC National Institute please visit www.ala.org/alsc/institute.

The post David Shannon to Open #alsc16 appeared first on ALSC Blog.

The spirit of cooperation is a natural force in humanity. Libraries can be a key community collaborator. How can you harness the power of collaborative work? The practice of neighbors helping neighbors is the genesis of a healthy and thriving community. The fire department, the post office, and the public library are a few examples of early voluntary associations that strengthened society.

What is the essence of collaboration? What are the benefits of pooling resources with community organizations, businesses, and individuals? How can you determine whether a common mission exists between the library and others?   These are some questions an upcoming 2016 ALA Editions book will explore. ALSC is helping me, as co-author, to conduct a brief survey to gather information for the book project.   If you’d like to participate, complete the survey by end of Wednesday, June 17, 2015.

Thank you,

Dorothy Stoltz  [email protected]

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Today’s guest post was written by Dorothy Stoltz. Dorothy is the co-author of a forthcoming ALA Editions book project on creating collaborations. Dorothy serves as chair of the PLA/ALSC Every Child Ready to Read oversight committee and is head of Programming and Outreach for Carroll County (MD) Public Library.

The post The Art of Collaboration appeared first on ALSC Blog.

On Friday, January 30, 2015 the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), in collaboration with the Children’s Book Council hosted the invitation-only Day of Diversity: Dialogue and Action in Children’s Literature and Library Programming. Recognizing the conversations at the event was of interest to a much larger audience than we were able to accommodate at the Day of Diversity, ALSC and the CBC Diversity Committee sponsored a follow up program at ALA Midwinter. ALSC will continue to share information and outcomes from this event widely.

On Monday, February 2nd during their Session II meeting, the ALSC Board of Directors reflected on the Day of Diversity and put together a list of commitments by the Association for the next three months and the next six months.

This isn’t the start of the diversity or inclusion conversation for ALSC, nor by any means is it the end. This list reflects the measurable next steps that ALSC’s leadership has committed the Association to taking in the short term. These steps include educational opportunities for our members and opportunities for all ALSC members to add their voice and ideas to this conversation. We look forward to your participation and feedback throughout.

Completed

• At the ALSC Board of Directors Session II on Monday, February 2, 2015 – the Board voted to move the start time of ALSC’s All-Committee meeting, during Annual Conference only, to 10:30AM – 12:00PM to allow for more participation by ALSC members at the CSK Breakfast. The Board recognizes that this may limit the amount of time committees have to work, but encourages chairs to work throughout the year virtually between meetings to disperse the workload.

3 Months

• ALSC President Ellen Riordan will host an open online Day of Diversity Forum in February 2015. Stay tuned for the finalized date and time.

• ALSC will host a free Building STEAM with Día webinar.

• ALSC will craft, and make available, a value based elevator speech about Día in order to assist youth services librarians in advocating for resources to plan Día and other multicultural programming.

• ALSC will convene a taskforce that will review multiple areas within the Association including materials, services and profession; and propose high level changes to move the diversity needle forward within children’s librarianship.

6 Months

• ALSC will complete a Building STEAM with Día Toolkit.

• Together, ALSC and the Children’s Book Council, will compile Day of Diversity survey results, resources, and participant’s personal ‘next steps’ and make information available online.

• An “action” tab will be placed on the Día website which will contain resources shared at the Day of Diversity with additional content added. Additionally, ALSC will link to these resources from the professional tools portion of the ALSC website.

• ALSC award and evaluation committee chair trainings will include a discussion about inclusion and diversity.

The post ALSC’s Next Steps after Day of Diversity appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Each year, a select diverse committee of experts from the Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature (CSMCL) identifies the best in multicultural books. The mission of the CSMCL is to provide children, teachers, parents, educators, students, and librarians access to multicultural children’s books with high literary and artistic standards. CSMCL presents the Best Multicultural Children’s Books of 2014. Enjoy! This year’s list was complied by Dr. Claudette Shackelford McLinn, Dr. Naomi Caldwell, Dr. Sujin Huggins, Ana- Elba Pavon, Lessa K. Pelayo-Lozada, and Elsa Marston.

Best Books 2014 (photo courtesy of CSMCL)

BECAUSE THEY MARCHED: THE PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN FOR VOTING RIGHTS THAT CHANGED AMERICA, by Russell Freedman, 83 pages, published by Holiday House, ©2014 (Middle school/High school, nonfiction)

BLOSSOMING UNIVERSE OF VIOLET DIAMOND: THE, by Brenda Woods, 222 pages, published by Nancy Paulson Books, an imprint of Penguin Group, ©2014 (Upper elementary school/Middle school, fiction)

BROWN GIRL DREAMING, by Jacqueline Woodson, 336 pages, published by Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Group, ©2014 (Upper elementary school/Middle school/High school, nonfiction/autobiography)

CROSSOVER, THE, by Kwame Alexander, 237 pages, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ©2014 (Middle school/High school, fiction/novel in verse)

DREAMING IN INDIAN: CONTEMPORARY NATIVE AMERICAN VOICES, edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale, 128 pages, published by Annick Press, ©2014 (Middle school/High school, nonfiction/autobiography)

FREEDOM SUMMER MURDERS, THE, by Don Mitchell, 250 pages, published by Scholastic Press, ©2014 (Middle school/High school, nonfiction)

FRIDA & DIEGO: ART, LOVE, LIFE, by Catherine Reef, 168 pages, published by Clarion Books/ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ©2014 (Middle school/High school, nonfiction/collective biography)

GABI: A GIRL IN PIECES, by Isabel Quintero, 284 pages, published by Cinco Puntos Press, ©2014 (High school, fiction)

GREAT GREENE HEIST, THE, by Varian Johnson, 226 pages, published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic, Inc., ©2014 (Upper elementary school/Middle school, fiction)

GREEN IS A CHILE PEPPER: A BOOK OF COLORS, by Roseanne Greenfield Thong, illustrated by John Parra, 32 pages, published by Chronicle Books, ©2014 (Preschool/Elementary school, fiction, picture book)

HIDDEN LIKE ANNE FRANK: 14 TRUE STORIES OF SURVIVAL, by Marcel Prins & Peter Henk Steenhuis, translated by Laura Watkins, 211 pages, published by Arthur A. Levine Books, ©2014 (Middle school/High school, nonfiction)

HOUSE OF PURPLE CEDAR, by Tim Tingle, 326 pages, published by Cinco Punto Press, ©2014 (High school, fiction)

JOSEPHINE: THE DAZZLING LIFE OF JOSEPHINE BAKER, by Patricia Hruby Powell, illustrated by Christian Robinson, unpaged, published by Chronicle Books, ©2014 (Elementary school/Middle school/High school, nonfiction/biography)

KING FOR A DAY, by Rukhsana Khan, illustrated by Christiane Kromer, 32 pages, published by Lee &Low Books, Inc., ©2014 (Preschool/Elementary school, fiction, picture book)

LITTLE MELBA AND HER BIG TROMBONE, by Katherine Russell-Brown, illustrated by Frank Morrison, 34 pages, published by Lee &Low Books, Inc., ©2014 (Elementary school, nonfiction/biography, picture book)

LITTLE ROJA RIDING HOOD, by Susan Middleton Elya, illustrated by Susan Guevara, 32 pages, published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, ©2014 (Preschool/Elementary school, fiction, picture book)

MADMAN OF PINEY WOODS, THE, by Christopher Paul Curtis, 363 pages, published by Scholastic Press, ©2014 (Upper elementary school/Middle school, fiction)

MALALA: A BRAVE GIRL FROM PAKISTAN & IQBAL: A BRAVE BOY FROM PAKISTAN, (Two stories in one book) by Jeanette Winter, 20 pages each, published by Beach Lane Books, ©2014 (Elementary school, nonfiction/biography)

NOT MY GIRL, by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, art by Gabrielle Grimard, 34 pages, published by Annick Press, ©2014 (Elementary school, nonfiction/autobiography)

PORT CHICAGO 50, THE,: DISASTER, MUTINY, AND THE FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS, by Steve Sheinkin, 200 pages, published by Roaring Book Press, ©2014 (Middle school/High school, nonfiction)

RED PENCIL, THE, by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Shane W. Evans, 308 pages, published by Little, Brown and Company, ©2014 (Upper elementary school/Middle school, nonfiction)

REVOLUTION, by Deborah Wiles, 495 pages, published by Scholastic Press, ©2014 (Upper elementary school/Middle school, fiction/biography)

SEARCHING FOR SARA RECTOR, by Tonya Bolden, 76 pages, published by Abrams Books for Young Readers, ©2014 (Upper elementary school/Middle school, nonfiction/biography)

SECRETS OF THE TERRA-COTTA SOLDIER, by Ying Chang Compestine and Vinson Compestine, 224 pages, published by Amulet Books, ©2014 (Upper elementary school/Middle school, fiction)

SEPARATE IS NEVER EQUAL: SYLVIA MENDEZ & HER FAMILY’S FLIGHT FOR DESEGREGATION, written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh, 40 pages, published by Abrams Books for Young Readers, ©2014 (Elementary school, nonfiction, picture book)

SHADOW HERO, THE, by Gene Luen Yang, art by Sonny Liew, 158 pages, published by First Second, ©2014 (Middle school/High school, graphic novel, fiction)

SILVER PEOPLE: VOICES FROM THE PANANA CANAL, by Margarita Engle, 260 pages, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ©2014 (Middle school/High school, fiction/novel in verse)

STRIKE: THE FARM WORKERS’ FIGHT FOR THEIR RIGHTS, by Larry Dane Brimner, 172 pages, published by Calkins Creek, an imprint of Highlights, ©2014 (Middle school/High school, nonfiction)

TIME TO DANCE, A, by Padma Venkatraman, 307 pages, published by Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Group, ©2014 (Middle school/High school, fiction/novel in verse)

TWENTY-TWO CENTS: MUHAMMAD YUNUS AND THE VILLAGE BANK, by Paula Yoo, illustrated by Jamel Akib, 40 pages, published by Lee & Low Books Inc., ©2014 (Elementary school, nonfiction/biography)

VIVA FRIDA, by Yuyi Morales, photographs by Tim O’Meara, 34 pages, published by Roaring Book Press, ©2014 (Elementary school, nonfiction/biography)

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Today’s guest blogger is Dr. Claudette S. McLinn. Dr. McLinn is the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature. She has been a school librarian, teacher, adjunct professor, and bookseller.

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.

If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at [email protected].

In June, when Simon & Schuster made their ebooks available only to libraries who agreed to add a “Buy It Now” option to their catalog, I was torn between two important promises libraries make to kids and families: we will do everything we can to get you the books you want, and everything we offer is free.

My library holds the line on keeping things free in many ways, even to the point of refusing to offer summer reading coupons that require an additional purchase to get that free ice cream cone. Parents value libraries as places where they know they can escape the relentless pressure to buy stuff, and our commitment to keep it so extends online.

But what happens when the trade-off is keeping popular titles out of our ebook collection? I was stumped. I spent the past few months not taking a stand, simply delaying. Looking askance at every detail of the program and trying to find a good way out of two bad choices.

So I’m thrilled now that the requirement is gone and I can welcome Simon & Schuster to our ebook offerings! Welcome Bunnicula, Olivia, Lucky, Caddie, Derek and Rush! Thanks to libraries who tried “Buy It Now” and those who didn’t and everyone who keeps lines of communication open and advocates for books and readers. Thanks Simon & Schuster for listening and being flexible and working with us to find the way.

Rachel

This month’s blog post by Rachel Wood, ALSC Digital Content Task Force & Materials Division Chief at Arlington (VA) Public Library.

We would love to hear from you. Please email us at [email protected].

Due to the ALSC Board of Directors recent action to annually award the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, the 2015 ALSC Nominating Committee is seeking recommendations for candidates for membership on the Wilder Award Selection Committee. This ballot will be voted on in the spring of 2015 and members elected will serve on the 2017 Wilder Award Committee.

Do you work with a youth services professional whose knowledge, skills and experience you admire? Do you have a colleague who can communicate clearly, critically and concisely about children’s literature? Have you served on a committee with an ALSC member who embodies our core values like respect, collaboration and leadership? We want to know about them.

Don’t be shy – if you are interested in one of these positions and possess these qualities, put your own name forward as a possible Wilder Award candidate for the 2015 slate.

The members of the ALSC Nominating Committee look forward to your suggestions!

Please be sure that your nominee’s ALSC membership remains current. Nominees who have let their membership lapse are not eligible for consideration. Also consider encouraging your nominees to nominate themselves, as this provides us with more complete background information.

DEADLINE: Sunday, August 31, 2014

Access the ALSC Nominee Form for 2017 Wilder Committee.

Andrea Davis Pinkney (image courtesy of Scholastic)

ALSC and the University of Minnesota Libraries, Children’s Literature Research Collections (CLRC) would like to remind the public that tickets for the 2014 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture featuring Andrea Davis Pinkney are available.

The lecture, entitled “Rejoice the Legacy!,” will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 3, 2014 at Willey Hall on the campus of the University of Minnesota. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. A reception and signing will follow the event. Required tickets are free for the lecture and must be obtained through the University of Minnesota website. To learn more about acquiring tickets, please visit the 2014 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture website.

The May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture is sponsored by ALSC. The lecture title honors May Hill Arbuthnot, distinguished writer, editor and children’s literature scholar. Each year, an author, artist, critic, librarian, historian or teacher of children’s literature is selected to prepare a paper considered to be a significant contribution to the field of children’s literature.

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2014 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture With Andrea Davis Pinkney
University of Minnesota Libraries, Children’s Literature Research Collections
Saturday, May 3, 2014 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM (CDT)
Minneapolis, Minnesota

The 2016 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Committee seeks nominations for individuals of distinction to present the 2016 Arbuthnot Lecture. The lecturer, who will be announced at the 2015 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Chicago, may be an author, illustrator, publisher, critic, librarian, historian, or teacher of children’s literature, of any country, who shall prepare a paper that will make a significant contribution to the field of children’s literature. Additional Information about the lecture can be found at http://www.ala.org/alsc/arbuthnot.

Nominations should include the following:

• Name of nominee
• Professional title/occupation
• Biographical sketch
• Justification for consideration
• Major publications

The committee recommends that the body of the nomination be 2-3 pages with a separate bibliography. Nominations should be submitted as an attached document to committee chair Julie Corsaro at [email protected]. The deadline for nominations is Wednesday, May 14, 2014.

ALSC Graphic Novel Reading List, image courtesy of ALSC

These Graphic Novel Reading Lists are available for students kindergarten to 2nd grade, 3rd to 5th grade and 6th to 8th grade. PDFs of the book lists are available online in full color and black and white and are free to download, copy and distribute. Libraries are able to customize the lists with their own information, hours, and list of programs before printing and distributing.

“These book lists are full of fun titles that will help to grow a child’s love for reading,” said Starr Latronica, ALSC president. “We encourage librarians to make copies of these lists available to families at their library and in their community.”

Graphic novels on this list are defined as a full-length story told in paneled, sequential, graphic format. The list does not include book-length collections of comic strips, wordless picture books, or hybrid books that are a mixture of traditional text and comics/graphics. The list includes classics as well as new titles that have been widely recommended and well-reviewed, and books that have popular appeal as well as critical acclaim.

The titles were selected, compiled and annotated by members of the ALSC Quicklists Consulting Committee.

Our guest blogger today is Liz Garton Scanlon,  author of All the World, a 2010 Caldecott Honor Book.

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As a picture book author (but not illustrator), I’ve always viewed the Caldecott Awards at some remove, as if looking through a concave lens.

The Caldecott is specifically for illustrators, after all, and so while I’m wildly admiring of (and inspired by) the recognized artists, it’s never been something for me to focus on or fret over.

Plus, getting a taste of what’s happening in the land of reviews, awards and critiques is often just distracting. Like Google alerts and Amazon rankings, thinking about what goes on inside the Caldecott committee can serve to pull our attention from work to worry, and to feed the disease of comparison. I’ve always preferred blissful ignorance.

But then, one of my own books got a silver sticker on its cover.Yipes. Suddenly it was impossible to stay in my own blurry bubble.

When you are the author-but-not-the-illustrator of a Caldecott-honored picture book, you don’t get The Call (the famous, middle-of-the-night, top-secret bombshell that, in this case, went to the exquisitely talented Marla Frazee), but you don’t get left alone, either.

You get 13 zillion emails.

You get 10 zillion voicemails.

You get flowers from your mom and dad.

You get to buy a fancy dress.

You get invited to more schools and you get to talk with more kids.

You get to sign more books.

You get handmade cards from your kids and your friends’ kids.

You get to drink champagne.

You get to go to D.C. (or Dallas, or New Orleans, or L.A.)

2010 Caldecott committee

You get to have lunch with the Caldecott committee and find out all sorts of cool and amazing things, like that some committee members have to put their furniture in storage as whole rooms fill up with books.

And, yep, you get to sign even more books.

I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t say it is an all-around lovely thing to have happen – to a writer and a book. In huge part because it means the book will not be going out of print in the next 20 minutes, and it will, by consequence, be read aloud in a lot more rocking chairs and in a lot more story-circles than it would’ve otherwise.

But it is also true that I found that tiny bit of author’s remove to be a comfort during this crazy time. I was allowed to celebrate the prize, and the incredible, jaw-dropping art that won the prize, without being the center of attention.

I was allowed to thank my lucky stars that the words in my head had come together on the page, that my editor decided to turn them into a book, and that I was paired with a brilliant illustrator who turned them into something so beautiful as to be transcendent.

I mean, honestly.

I have way more than my fair share of lucky stars.

And now here I am again, back at my desk, looking at sketches for my next few books, blissfully ignorant of everything beyond the fact that I get to write words for kids, hand them over, and be a part of something kind of magical. I know there’s other stuf

Arun Gandhi

My next book is Grandfather Gandhi, a picture book that I co-wrote with Arun Gandhi—grandson to the Mahatma. Upon learning this, I am most frequently asked, “How did you meet Gandhi’s grandson?’’ My answer isn’t a short one. I didn’t run into Arun Gandhi at the grocery store, or a dinner party. We weren’t colleagues or long lost college friends (though we now are facebook friends). What led me to meet and later ask Arun to work with me was a devastating act of violence—9/11.

In 2001, I was an aspiring author. I worked as a receptionist on the 31st floor of the World Financial Center, diagonally across the street from the WTC towers. I was there that Tuesday morning, and not only was I there, I was a fire searcher for the financial firm I worked for and was one of the last to evacuate our top floor. (For more of my 9/11 experience, see here.)

The sights and sounds of that day broke me, as it broke so many of us. In late October, still haunted by nightmares and visions of people jumping to their deaths, I attended a talk Arun Gandhi gave at Town Hall. There he spoke to a packed audience about the two years he lived with Gandhi at the Sevagram ashram as a boy. Arun stood before us and shared how in South Africa, where he was born, he was beaten by whites for being too dark and weeks later beaten by Zulus for being too light. He was aware of his grandfather’s work, and his father, Manilal’s. He lived at the Phoenix ashram. He was raised with the concept of non-violence, but that didn’t stop Arun from carrying rocks in his pockets and subscribing to the Charles Atlas bodybuilding program to build muscle for if and when he would be attacked again. Arun was not going to strike first, but he was going to strike back. That is, until his grandfather sat across from him and shared a life-changing story of how anger can be like electricity.

I sat in my wooden seat in the middle of Town Hall and turned to a friend and said, “These stories would make a beautiful picture book.” She agreed. But it was an idea for someone else. Not for me. I left Town Hall, after hearing Arun speak, stronger, less broken, and more able to forgive, albeit slowly. I took the postcard advertising the event with Gandhi’s strong and serene face, back to my desk in a new office building in midtown. (The company I worked for was displaced from downtown due to the devastation.) I continued answering phones, greeting guests, and working on my first novel. But that small thought—that Arun’s stories should be a book did not leave me.

Surely, they should be a book but I wasn’t the one to write them—I was a young white woman. I knew little about the Quit India movement or Gandhi’s work aside from feeling gratitude that he inspired Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , a personal hero of mine. I had these reasons and many more. I wasn’t published. Who was I to think he would work with me? Then, I distinctly remembering hearing my inner voice saying, “Gandhi wouldn’t see you as less than. Why should you?” But how would I get in contact with Arun? Seeing him speak was not the same as meeting him face to face and shaking his hand. In America, you needed an in—and I had no “in.”

But what I did have was being touched by what I heard from that Town Hall stage that night. It had helped me heal and I wanted, I needed— to contribute to something good. Something personal that came out of witnessing and surviving 9/11. That desire to put something positive into the world gave me the courage to lo

Imagine this setting…

It’s a lovely fall evening at the public library. A therapy dog is lounging comfortably on the floor in the children’s area. A mom and dog owner are chatting agreeably. The librarian is helping child choose a “level one” book to read aloud to the waiting dog. The child chooses a book featuring one of her favorite characters – a character who earned picture book fame, and made the leap into easy readers. It’s a pretty book with a pretty cover and a perky title. It’s a perfect combination of community togetherness – the library, the public, the volunteer, the eager reader.

by Kreative Eye - Dean McCoy CC 2.0

Everything is going, say, swimmingly? Until the goldfish dies. The girl pauses in her reading. Perhaps the fish is just sleeping? She turns the page. No. The goldfish is decidedly dead and is summarily deposited into the ground, though not without some amount of ceremony. Everyone glances around silently, awkwardly. The young girl soldiers on and finds another book, another easy reader – featuring, this time, a gym class bully. Thankfully, a certain Elephant and Piggie come to the rescue and the night ends on a humorous note – complete with newly hatched birds.

So, here is my musing, my opinion, and a query for you:

Have Beginning Readers, long the milieu of simplicity, friendship, silliness and love, taken a turn toward deeper and more complicated topics? Realistic fiction is a wonderful genre that is well represented in picture books and juvenile novels and early chapter books. Difficult topics fit well in these formats. Picture books are a shared experience, with adults on hand to answer questions, or place new situations in an understandable context. Juvenile novels are read independently, by children who have mastered the skill of reading, and can understand a concept in its entirety. The “easy reader,” however, is for a child who is often learning to understand a single word’s place within a sentence or a sentence’s place within a paragraph.

I’ve not seen too many examples of deep topics in easy readers, but I wonder, is this a trend, and if so, is it a good one? Your thoughts?

The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) is pleased to announce that its journal, Children and Libraries, (CAL) received a 2011 Apex Award for Publication Excellence.

Three Children and Technology columns from the 2010 volume year won an Award of Excellence in the category of “Writing: Regular Departments & Columns.” Members of ALSC’s Children and Technology Committee authored the winning articles: “Coloring a New World of Librarianship, Participating in the 21 Tools Program” by Gretchen Caserotti and Kelley Beeson; “Technology and Television for Babies and Toddlers” by Natalie Arthur; and “Consumerism, How it Impacts Play and its Presence in Library Collections” by Jill Bickford. The CAL columns were among 192 winners in the Writing category, which received 643 entries judged primarily on the basis of editorial quality.

“We are delighted with this honor,” said ALSC President Mary Fellows. “We’re terrifically proud of our member authors, our editor, Sharon Verbeten, and our member advisory committee for Children and Libraries. Their excellent work, like that of so many other ALSC members, is helping ALSC create a better future for children through libraries.”

The Apex Awards are sponsored by Communications Concepts, Inc., an organization that supports publishing, public relations and marketing professionals in the improvement of publications and communications programs. For more information about the awards, visit www.apexawards.com.

In two weeks, ALSC is offering back-to-back – one on Tuesday, one on Wednesday – webinars which offer great back-to-school planning ideas. Both webinars are a fantastic way to open up the school-year and a gread lead-in to a new semester of ALSC online courses, which start September 26th!

Leveling Easy Readers
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 @ 1 PM CT (2 PM ET, 12 PM MT, 11 AM PT)

Leveling Easy Readers is an examination of books focused on emergent literacy. In this webinar, participants learn the criteria for placing these materials in different levels. With strategies for selecting and organizing these materials, this session is highly valuable for children’s librarians.

Newbery and Caldecott Mock Elections Toolkit
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 @ 12 PM CT (1 PM ET, 11 AM MT, 10 AM PT)

This webinar takes you behind the process of running a mock election at your library. Mock book award programs can develop multiple skill areas, including reading motivation, critical thinking, and interpersonal communication, both for young readers and for professional staff.

[ALSC Note: A discount on the Newbery and Caldecott Mock Election Toolkit webinar is available to anyone who purchases the Newbery and Caldecott Mock Elections Toolkit digital download, now available at the ALA Store]

Fall 2011 Online Courses Announced

ALSC has also recently announced the release of the 2011 Fall Online Course schedule. Five courses are being offered, between four and six weeks long. Courses start September 26. For more information see the Fall 2011 Online course flier!

Think of how exciting your Día event will be after you take the ALSC webinar, Día 101 and add a new Día book to your collection!

ALSC is offering a $5 discount for Jeanette Larson’s book, El día de los niños/El día de los libros: Building a Culture of Literacy in Your Community through Día. This discount is only available for those who sign up Día 101.

The book, which will be available starting Friday, April 1, 2011 from the ALA Store is a great resource for librarians interested in the history and practice of Día.

Día 101: Everything you need to know about celebrating El día de los niños/El día de los libros takes place on Friday, April 1 @ 1 PM CST. Taught by Beatriz Pascual Wallace, this hour-long webinar will help prepare you for your April 30 celebration.

Spots are still available, but hurry!

Have you always wanted to be a published author? Would you be interested in writing a chapter in a new anthology designed to help other librarians? Your expertise is sought for several new books.

Are you a practicing librarian who has worked with the media, worked on National Library Week activities, written newsletters for your library, held open houses, or developed online promotions or outreach through social media? You might be interested in sharing some of your practical knowledge by submitting a chapter for a forthcoming book Marketing Methods for Libraries to be published by McFarland & Company, Inc.

Are you an innovative librarian? Have you worked with visual or performing artists to bring the arts into libraries to keep them as vibrant community cultural centers? Have you worked to encourage painters, photographers, musicians, writers, and other creative talents at your library? You might be interested in submitting a chapter for a forthcoming book Bringing Visual, Literary, and Performing Arts into the Library to be published by American Library Association.

Are you a practicing librarian who has successfully mentored students or adults? Would you be willing to share your personal knowledge about using one-to-one contact to further librarianship? You might be interested in submitting a chapter for a forthcoming book Librarians as Mentors in Librarianship for Adults and Students to be published by McFarland and Company, Inc.

Want more information? Contact co-editor Carol Smallwood at [email protected].

ALSC’s official journal, Children and Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children (CAL), is now soliciting manuscripts for its 2011 volume year and beyond.

CAL, which publishes three times per year (spring, summer/fall, and winter), is a refereed publication with a target audience of more than 3,700 children’s librarians (public and school).

Any topics of interest and import to children’s librarians are welcome. It’s a great way to get published in the profession and to share your research and program successes, as well as lessons learned, with thousands of colleagues in the field.

All academic manuscripts are reviewed by at least two peer referees in consideration for publication. Accepted articles will carry the author’s byline and a brief bio; articles are unpaid.

For more information on how to submit articles for consideration, please contact Editor Sharon Korbeck Verbeten at [email protected].

The 2011 Mildred L. Batchelder Award Committee invites you to help identify eligible titles. The terms of the award are as follows:
“The Mildred L. Batchelder Award shall be made to an American publisher for a children’s book considered to be the most outstanding of those books originally published in a foreign language in a foreign country and subsequently published in English in the United States during the preceding year.” Honor books may be named.

There are additional considerations. Eligible books are for readers within the age range of 0-14 years. Readers “should be able to sense that the book came from another country.” Books should have a “substantial” translated text since this award focuses on text rather than illustration. Books should not be unduly Americanized. Both fiction and nonfiction are eligible, but folklore is excluded.

For your information, the 2011 Award will be announced at the ALA Youth Media Awards press conference at Midwinter in January 2011 (San Diego) and presented at the Annual Conference in June of 2011 (New Orleans).

To learn more about the Award and for listings of current and past winners, see the Mildred L. Batchelder Home Page

With these terms and considerations in mind, please suggest titles by contacting me at

[email protected]

Thank you for participating in this important work of ALSC.

Sincerely,

Susan Faust

2011 Mildred L. Batchelder Award, Chair

Committee Members: Sheila Cody, Adrienne Furness, Tessa Michaelson, and Kristy Lyn Sutorius

“What was this writer thinking?!”
“Would you like to ask the writer yourself?”

Maureen Hayes knew the importance of bringing children and author/illustrator together and the impact it can have on their lives. In 2005 the Maureen Hayes Author/Illustrator Visit Award was established with funding from Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing. The award honors Maureen Hayes life-long effort to make such visits a reality. The award provides up to $4,000 towards the honorarium and travel costs of a writer/illustrator to visit a location where children might otherwise never have this amazing opportunity. Applicant must be an ALSC member, work in conjunction with other organizations, and be able to supply administrative support, facilities and visibly promote this presentation as a distinctive event.
For more information or to apply for the award, visit the ALSC Web site. The deadline to apply is December 1.

Questions? Please contact Linda Ernst, chair of the ALSC Grant Administration Committee, at [email protected].

by Lisa Taylor

I just completed another great ALSC online class, Reading Instruction and Children’s Books, taught by Kate Todd.

While I learned a lot about reading and “leveling” methods, I also learned that librarians across the country are frustrated with the publishers of “easy reader” books. Not only do they use widely different methods of classifying the “level” of each book, they neglect to tell us which method they use (Lexile, Flesch-Kincaid, whim?)!

Why is one publisher’s Level 1 book so different from another’s? I vented my frustration in this open rap to the publishers of easy readers. One of my clever classmates, Leslie Bolinger, suggested a title – “O Publisher, O Publisher, How Do You Rate?”

Librarians –

we’re a scientific bunch.

We need more to go on

than just a hunch.

We help children find books.

Some use the 5-finger rule.

We help teachers and parents

and we work with school.

“This Level 2 is too easy?

Well, this one’s just right!

Here’s another Level 2 -

Too hard! Not quite.”

Is it Lexile? Is it ATOS?

Is it Flesch-Kincaid?

Please don’t keep us guessing,

‘cause we need your aid!

Tell us how the books are leveled

all across these lands,

and we’ll make sure they end up
in just the right hands!

*******
Lisa Taylor
Youth Services Librarian
Barnegat Branch
Ocean County (NJ) Library
http://theoceancountylibrary.org/

Starting in October 2009, Book Links magazine will be published as a quarterly print supplement to Booklist, the book review magazine of the American Library Association. The complete press release is available here.

Hello everyone! Just wanted to put the word out that ALSC’s refereed publication Children and Libraries is seeking your manuscripts for possible publication in our journal (published three times a year).

While we are always seeking best practices, profiles and shorter essay pieces, we are especially in need of scholarly/research manuscripts to round out our coverage. These manuscripts are also put through a blind referee process, ensuring they are appropriate for our readership.

Previous topics published have ranged from storytime procedures to Every Child Ready to Read to literature reviews or examinations of award-winning books. All topics of potential interest to children’s librarians are welcome.

Please feel free to contact me for more information if you’re interested in submitting to Children and Libraries. I’m looking at copy now for our winter 2009 and entire 2010 year of publication.

Thanks for your consideration.

Sharon Korbeck Verbeten
Editor, Children and Libraries
820 Spooner Ct.
De Pere, WI 54115
920-339-2740

Hello everyone!I was thrilled to listen to the interview with Dr. Jaime Campbell Naidoo on the work that he is doing to reach out to Latino children, and inspired to take advantage of Teresa Wells’ gracious invitation to participate in this forum to let you know about my own outreach efforts in this area.     

I know many of you, but please allow me to introduce myself to those of you who don’t know me: I have over 10 years of experience in Latino publishing, most recently as Executive Editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books, where I managed the children’s division of the Latino imprint, Rayo. Prior to that, I was Children’s Reviews Editor at Críticas magazine, published by School Library Journal. I’ve worked for a number of publishers, both on a full time basis and as a freelance consultant, on English and Spanish language books.  

After leaving Harper, I decided that I would take all of the knowledge I have gathered during my career in Latino publishing and share it with others interested in Latino authors and books. This led me to launch VOCES (http://adrianadominguez.blogspot.com/); a blog that focuses on providing readers with what I call “an insider’s perspective” of the Latino book market. The blog breaks news on the market, highlights Latino books and authors that deserve notice, and provides relevant information on issues that affect Latinos—for instance, I recently posted some clips from ABC’s “We the People” series, which explored the demographic growth of Latinos in the US, and its impact on the country’s culture, and future. ALSC members will be interested to know that my latest post is about El día de los niños/El día de los libros! I have worked very closely with ALSC to promote Dia in the past, and I plan on continuing to do so via this new medium. I recently added a calendar of book-related events from all across the country, such as readings, workshops, and conferences that I encourage you to explore as well. I would love it if you would submit your own events so that I may list them in the calendar.    

I want to share this blog with you because through my work with ALA, ALSC, and REFORMA, I have become fully aware of the extents that librarians will go to in order to keep informed about books for the sake of their patrons! I hope that this blog provides you with some of the information that you thirst for, in particular as it relates to the Latino market, since that is a sometimes a challenging area to learn more about. So, please subscribe and support this blog and what it tries to do. And provide feedback—I am always looking for ways to make it more useful to readers. This blog’s goal is to become the place where Latino authors and books are the #1 priority. We need such a place, particularly during these tough times, that have been particular hard on the Latino publishing industry. Thank you in advance for your support; I look forward to seeing you there! 

StoryTubes - the 2-minute or shorter “my favorite book” video project sponsored by public libraries has accepted videos from across the United States and Canada in 2009. The number of contest participants tripled from last year (over 400)! Now it’s time for voters to view and choose their favorites.

This week. March 16-19, anyone can vote online for individual entries made by students in grades K – 4 and students grades 5 - 8. Just go to www.storytubes.info to vote this week and
during the following weeks:

March 23 – 26 Individual entries grades 9 and up
March 30 – April 2 Group entries grades K – 6
March 30 – April 2 Group entries grades 7 and up

StoryTubes recently was awarded the 2009 PLA Polaris Innovation in Technology John Iliff Award, which recognizes the contributions of a library worker, librarian, or library that has used technology and innovative thinking as a tool to improve services to public library users.