Libraries and Literacy

There is just something cool about new books, just arrived at the library, and never circulated. A sense of discovery of something fresh–both the content and the actual physical book. I find this particularly the case with board books, pop-ups, and touch and feel books. Once they’ve circulated a few times they are missing parts, things are broken, and the corners of the board books are chewed. To me that is cool, because it means kids are enjoying the books, but at the same time I don’t feel like really spending a lot of time looking at them. Opening a pop-up book that has all its pieces still connected and seeing them the way they are meant to be seen adds something. The other day I was looking at an animal touch and feel and pull the tab book–it was very elaborate, but because it was on the new cart all the bits were there, and the sticky touch and feel part was still sticky and not completely germy.

When I used to work in circulation, I loved to help check in the new books when they arrived. Most of them were reserved to patrons, but it was great to see all the different titles that were coming out. It made it SO much easier to perform reader’s advisory, because I know what the latest books have just come out. Lots of times I have seen books that I want come in with the new books, and even more often books that I can recommend to someone else.

At one of my libraries, we have a cart that we keep new books on for the staff to look through, which is pretty much the most awesome thing ever. Recently I’ve been given the task to create a list of the top 25 new books that we’ve received each month–an even better excuse to spend time perusing the cart. There are so many books that I don’t normally think of browsing through–such as non-fiction, but this provides an awesome opportunity.

Though I have been working in education for a long time, ugh, I haven’t been an actual student alone for some time, and never before in a distance education type of setting (unless you count my adviser being AWOL). Last semester and during the next couple of weeks, I will be trying out two different types of distance education. Since Kent State’s MLIS program is the only one in the state, it offers programs for the entire area, which means that it provides various ways for students to attend classes. Last semester I was in an on-line management class and this intersession, I am in a video conference class.

Years ago, I graded classes for an on-line class and helped with running it, so I thought an on-line class would be easy peesy. However, it was not so. Neither the work nor the readings were particularly onerous, but the direction of the class made it incredibly difficult to complete the assignments. The professor’s expectations were never fully explained, and when questioned he provided little feedback and even less personal assistance. My thoughts on this, is that it is partially due to the format of the class that makes it difficult for some people to pick up the implications of questions. In an in-person class, the teacher can see and hear the ways the students are asking and responding to directions.

Despite this, I am signed up for a video class, where the teacher is teaching a full class in Kent and a full class in Columbus. Today is only the second class, but I’m hoping that the communication will improve between the students and the teacher. In the first class, it was very difficult for the Columbus students to respond to the teacher and the Kent students. As the two classes have students at very different levels of experience in libraries, and distance in the program, it should be interesting to see how the materials are presented.

So for the rest of this week, and all of next week, I will have a practicum student to supervise and assist. While she is under the direct supervision of our teen librarian, she is all mine for these two weeks to learn about the ready-to-read after-storytime program. In addition, she will be observing storytimes. This week she is shadowing me and assisting with the activity, and is developing an activity for next week.

Lots of the time on Tuesday was spent explaining the program, its purposes, and where things were. Armed with a stack of books, she has been brainstorming ideas to do after storytime. It is a fascinating experience to work with someone else on a project that is so near and dear to me. She has a lot of great ideas, and it isn’t my position to shoot down any ideas, rather to help her see how they will fit into the program. Since I developed it, and have a sort of rudimentary set of guidelines on what doesn’t work, I some times have to say “That is a great idea–how will we encourage children to complete the whole project in the time frame?” or “Will we have time to get that all ready for next week?” Perhaps I should just let her learn this on her own, but that seems kind of mean to allow her to embark on a project that will suck every waking moment of her time and still not complete it.

Anyway, she brainstormed a lot of good ideas–and the one she settled on will be a great deal of fun. It marks an enthusiasm for the program as well as an understanding of the ways that parents use the resource. In watching parents make sets of alphabet cards to take home, she thought it would be great to provide something else they could make that they could work with. Building off of an old childhood favorite Memory, she will cut out shapes and cards and allow children to make cards with one on each to play a matching game with another card.

Tomorrow, she will work on preparing materials and pulling together books for the display–and I may have to leave her in charge for the set up of the program.

As I was perusing the new book cart on Friday, I noticed a theme running through a lot of the teen books. Some part in the back of my mind had already seen this, but it was the presence of four distinct works on this small cart that really brought home the prevalence of dystopia and post-apocalyptic societies in novels. One of my favorite recent teen novels, Life As We Knew It revolves around an environmental catastrophe and the moral and social decisions that arise as a result. Many, many more have come out over the past two years, perhaps drawing on growing concerns over the dangers society faces over consumerism, environmental degradation, technology, biological warfare, and the role of the government in our lives.
These works draw on older traditions, such as The Giver , 1984 , Alas, Babylon , Fahrenheit 451 These books reflect their societies’ concerns over nuclear holocausts, totalitarianism, social Darwinism, and the future of academia. Looking back at what precipitated these dark views of the future made me reflect on what aspects of society worry us today.

I had planned on taking home at least a couple of the new teen novels about dystopian communities, but all of them were given to customers who expressed an interest in novels like these. Even some of the older books were checked out from my pile of prospective reads. I thought I’d share some of those I did get to read, as well as the titles of some I’m hoping to read.

The four books on the new book cart were: Little Brother , The Sky Inside , GemX , The Compound . This one was on the shelf a couple of weeks ago–it also went out fast! Exodus

Since all the new books were snatched up right away, I will have to wait to review them. But I did get three older books in the genre. All deal with post-apocalyptic worlds, two with dystopian societies, and one with a world still in chaos.

The first was “Hole in the Sky” The premise was very interesting, as was the setting. The world has been devastated by a flu virus, the majority of people died. A few hid away from the virus and a few survived. Those who did contract the virus and didn’t die were left changed in different ways. Set around the Grand Canyon, the scenery is a crucial part of the story and plot, weaving contemporary concern with the environment and the damming of the Colorado with Hopi beliefs about the sacred world. While it held a lot of promise, it didn’t really flesh out the characters or fully engage the possibilities.

The second was “The Secret Under my Skin.” This book wasn’t what I expected–it was more. The premise is that the world underwent an environmental cataclysm because of the technology and greed of many people, who had to be destroyed so that anyone would survive. Thus this is a world where technology must be controlled rigidly and people must be protected from the degraded environment. I assumed this would be a book warning about the way society is headed, and it is in part, but it is a hopeful book about humanity’s ability to survive. Well written, and well plotted, this book brings together many topics that concern today’s youth.

The third book has been very popular over the past couple of years, so much so that I had to swipe this copy right when it came in, and almost ended up giving it out to a customer before I could check it out. The City of Ember is on the Middle School reading list, though it really could be read by quite young children. This book certainly lived up to its hype. At first I thought it was a lot like The Giver, but slowly it unfolded as a unique and complicated book. Ember is a planned city where everything is falling apart, but where no one has any idea or hope about what to do to fix it. Two tweens full of hope and optimism set out to discover what they can about their city and come up with surprising and intriguing information about what their city is. There are two other books in the series with another on the way.

To find out more about the dystopian teen and tween novels out there, check out my goodreads!

This is a variation on an activity we did a month or so ago–that time it was using numbers, while this involves letters. Fortunately, I learned a lot while doing the previous activity, and have the forms mounted on foam already. I also have a lot of paper cut up for the activity.

Each square features the capital and lowercase letter and two items that begin with that letter. This provides vocabulary and letter awareness practice, as well as further developing motor skills. I hope since we have children returning to the center to participating in the activities they will learn how to do this activity and develop the motor skills required.

There are lots of great alphabet books to go with this activity, and it is such a simple take down and set up. Though I plan on covering the table to prevent children from scribbling everywhere.

This week I will have a practicum student observing the activities and planning her own, so I wanted something simple that she could help with. Not that she couldn’t figure out something complicated, but so she has time to work on her program for next week and figure out where everything is and how everything works. It is so hard to go into a new system and figure out where things are and how they do things there.

Over the past few months, the children’s department has been working to improve the reading readiness center to promote the ready to read program. This has taken three forms: increasing programing, adding new resources, and changing the physical facilities.

My reading readiness activities following storytimes are a major part of the changes that have taken place over the past months. Having a staff member around to illustrate and communicate the 6 R2R skills and demonstrate ways to enhance this in interactions with their children. In addition, the library has offered R2R training for all staff and at many locations for parents and childcare providers. This week a practicum student from the local Library Science School will be observing and planning an after-storytime activity like mine for next week. I’m hoping that this experience will encourage her to incorporate these types of pre-literacy activities into her library.

Earlier this spring, the R2R center received a whole bunch of new toys to encourage narrative skills, vocabulary, and a whole bunch of other pre-reading skills. My favorite is the kitchen/market area and the toy food. The food is incredibly realistic, and has an enormous variety of foods. This allows children to learn the names of new foods and see what goes together. When I have the time, I’ll bring my bunny puppet and encourage the children to find out what food a bunny would eat. We’d discuss if bunnies ate spaghetti or bagels or cauliflower.

Just last week, we took the first steps towards improving the physical facilities–taking down the shelving units and installing new counter tops. We will be doing some more painting and installing some new shelves, and hopefully some new activities to foster reading readiness.

Lots of learning and changing going on!

Picture books are fun to share and read, but many parents, caregivers, and children think that they are something young children alone enjoy. Not so! There are many picture books that children in third, fourth, and fifth graders can enjoy. Storytelling, reading aloud, and talking about what is being read is a great way to bring students, families, and children together, learning about each other, the world around us, and ourselves. Here are some books that would be fun to share:
Top Picks for Grade School Read Aloud and Book Talks
Grades 3-4
Sacher, Louis, Sideways Stories from Wayside School
Dahl, Roald, BFG
Howe, Deborah, Bunnicula
Hale, Bruce, Snoring Beauty
Wood, Audrey, Heckedy Peg

Grades 4-5
Mem, Fox, Feathers and Fools
Kipling, Rudyard, How the Camel Got his Hump
Hamilton, Virgina, The Girl Who Spun Gold
Lowry, Lois, Number the Stars
Hahn, Mary Downing, Wait till Helen Comes

Grades 5-6
Haddix, Margaret Peterson, Running out of Time
Sleator, William, Rewind
Almond, David, Skellig
Curtis, Christopher Paul, Bud, Not Buddy
Na, An, A Step From Heaven

Grades 6-7
Hesse, Karen, Out of the Dust
Trueman, Terry, Stuck in Neutral
Enzensberger, Hans Magnus, Lost in Time
Creech, Sharon, Walk Two Moons
Sacher, Louis, Holes

Grades 7-8
Pfeffer, Susan Beth, Life As We Knew It
Johnson, Angela, The First Part Last
Anderson, Susan Halse, Speak
Woodson, Jacqueline, I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This
Card, Orson Scott, Enchantment

Working in the library, I frequently get asked for suggestions for specific age groups by parents who want to encourage their child to enjoy reading but aren’t sure what they will like or what is the correct reading level for their child. Some parents think their infant may be too young for books or too old for picture books, but there are a lot of good books out there that parents can share with their children. Sharing books and reading out loud can help children and parents grow and learn together, finding out more about each other’s likes and dislikes, as well as parents sharing their own favorite books from their childhood.

I created this list based on my own favorites, broken down by rough age group. This helped me brain storm recommendations for parents who have no idea what things their children like, and provides a quick guide to parents in deciding what type of book might appeal to which age. Both libraries that I work in have lists or databases of picture books and juvenile fiction on specific topics, so parents, caregivers, and children who are interested in fiction about dragons can have a quick resource. However, there are many parents who aren’t sure which of all the books we have are likely to appeal to their children at specific ages. They might choose one with too many or too few words.

Here it is:
Sarah’s Top Picks for Grade School Read Aloud and Book Talks
Babies
Wilson, Karma, Baby Cakes
Kubler, Annie, Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
Cimarusti, Marie, Peek-a-Moo!
Kubler, Annie, Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Weatherford, Carole, Jazz Baby

Toddler
Martin, Bill, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?
Baker, Keith, Big Fat Hen
Cousins, Lucy, Jazzy in the Jungle
Carle, Eric, From Head to Toe
Bates, Ivan, Five Little Ducks

Pre-K
Dodd, Emma, Dog’s Colorful Day
Fleming, Denise, Cow who Clucked
Wood, Audrey, Dog Needs a Bone
Carle, Eric, Very Hungry Caterpillar
London, Jonathan, Froggy Gets Dressed

Grades K-1
Feiffer, Julie, Bark, George
Christelow, Five Little Monkeys
Anderson, Peggy Chuck’s Truck
Beaumont, Karen, Move Over Rover
Hest, Amy, In the Rain with Baby Duck

Grades 1-2
Graves, Keith, Three Nasty Gnarlies
Broach, Elise, When dinosaurs came with everything
Brown, Jeff, Flat Stanley
Lester, Helen, Tacky the Penguin
Kann, Victoria, Pinkalicious

Grades 2-3
Edwards, Pamela, Dinorella: A Prehistoric Fairy Tale
Barrett, Judi, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Soto, Gary, Chato’s Kitchen
Auch, Mary Jane, The Princess and the Pizza
Dr. Seuss, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street

For my final exam, we had to identify five major themes in YA literature. This really got me thinking, for a number of reasons. One is that literary elements like themes and style are not particularly interesting to me, so it took some thinking to identify what might be a theme as opposed to any other element of a book. Another element is if there are themes that are unique to YA literature as opposed to works written for other ages? The final issue I had was with identifying works that represented these themes.

Once I started thinking about this, I had a hard time limiting my themes to only five, and an even harder time finding only a few books that could represent the wide varieties of books written within each theme. This was such an interesting question and exercise, so I thought I’d share my thoughts.

First of all–the themes that fill teen literature are the themes that are featured in all literature. Second, most works feature more then one, intertwined to illustrate how life is frequently complicated and difficult.

1. Self-Discovery
* This ranges fantasy where the main character discovers they have secret magical powers to teens who discover their own sexuality, and many more.
* Examples:

(Family/science search)
(historical-self discovery)

2. Quest
* Ranging from epic journeys in fantasy and history to realistic fiction tales of road trips and adventure quests to save the world.
* Examples:
Holly Black, Ironside: A Modern Faerie tale (Fantasy quest for answers into the world of Faerie)
Michael Cadnum, Blood Gold (Historical-quest for justice)
Annie Callan, Taf (Realistic, search for missing father)
Julie Chibbaro, Redemption (History search for religious freedom)
3. Survival
* Whether in the wild, a foreign time or land, or in your high school, the struggle to survive is a fundamental theme of YA novels.
* Examples:
Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak (In a modern high school)
Jerry Spinelli, Milkweed: a Novel (In the Warsaw Ghetto)
Peg Kehert, Escaping the Giant Wave (Environmental)
Susan Beth Pfiefer, Life as we Knew It (end of the world)
4. Relationships
*Teen books in all genres involve relationships—whether between teens and their parents, teens and their friends, and teens and their romantic interests.
*Examples:
Entire Gossip Girls series
Melissa Kantor, If I Have a Wicked Step-Mother, Where’s my Prince? (Parents and teens)
5. Isolation v Conformity
* Teens frequently are torn between the desire to be accepted and the need to chart their path. Rebellion against the establishment fit in here, as well as tales of the “popular girls” who exemplify conformity.
* Examples:
Patrick Jones, Nailed (isolation in high school)
Scott Westerfield, Uglies (to conform or resist in a futuristic world)
Karen Cushman, The Loud Silence of Francine Green (historical)
Walter Dean Myesrs, Shooter (school shooting)

This semester we had a guest speaker who came to my teen services class to talking about gaming and advocacy. To me, none of the presentation was entirely new, but was interesting to hear confirmation of some of the things I’d already been doing as part of my ready to read activities. Advocacy is a lot of things to a lot of people, and I was thinking about it this morning when I was making copies at the copy machine we share with HR. A new employee from HR was waiting for her prints to come out and I started talking to her about the ready-to-read program, how the materials I was preparing fit in, and all of the different groups we were trying to reach out to. While she is a library employee, and doesn’t have children, sharing my enthusiasm for the program and what we are doing is a large part of advocacy.

Yesterday, I was coming back from the coffee shop and encountered a young child coming from story time with his mother and younger sister. I encouraged them both to return to participate in the program the next day. The next day when they came they shared their enthusiasm with another family that came in that had never heard of the program before. They commented that they’d never had so much attention at the library before.

That attention is another part of advocacy. I love the programs that I design and hold, but they aren’t always mobbed by children right away. For one thing, many parents who are not regulars think that the table and activities are for special groups, they need to be specially invited and encouraged to participate. Some kids are scared of strangers or not in the mood, so part of my advocacy is helping parents understand the literacy skill behind the activity. That way, even if the child does not have the patience or confidence or skill to work on the activity, the parent can incorporate the skill into their interaction with the children at home.

Sometimes parents will take books with them to work on the concept at home, while other times we have an activity they can work on at home. Either way, advocacy is in communicating to parents and caregivers the importance of these literacy activities. Once parents become excited about the program, then they join in with my efforts to advocate continuing these programs.

I frequently wish I could expand my efforts at advocacy for my program, as I think many of my activities and others like them, could be incorporated into the branches with ease. So when I talk to co-workers at other locations and even in other systems, I like to tell them about my programs, and I suppose this blog even helps!