Sandy's Picks 2013 - Teen Reads

Now that the year is drawing to a close, it's time for me to look back on the books that I have read this year and pick my favorites.  According to my Goodreads account, I read a total of 74 books in 2013.  This number is down quite a bit from years past, but does not truly reflect every books that I read this year.  These 74 books do no include very many picture books (which I do not always remember to take the time to review), several volumes of a manga series or two (where I generally review the series as a whole, not each individual volume), or some self-help or reference non-fiction (which I feel a tad self-conscious about reviewing).

This is the second in a series of three posts, each covering a different type of children's book.  Today we will be looking at books written for Teens.  Because this is the collection that I order for at the library, I have read more of this type of book than anything else this year, and there have been lots of great books to choose from!

The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde
The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde has made a name for himself writing fantasy novels for adults, and he branched out to writing for teens late last year.  Set in a world much like ours but where wizards are contracted to use their magical abilities for mundane tasks, the story follows a girl named Jennifer Strange, who has no magical ability herself but is the acting manager of Kazam, an employment agency of wizards.  Unfortunately, magic is drying up and there is concern that it will disappear altogether.  In The Last Dragonslayer Jennifer Strange finds herself helping Big Magic return after a series of visions predict that a dragon will be slain.  In the sequel, Song of the Quarkbeast, Kazam's rival company challenges the wizards to a contest that will determine who will take on the role of Court Mystician, but first Jennifer must put a stop to the rival manager's shady dealings.  Both books are plenty quirky and will appeal to fans of authors like Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

Kiki Strike:  The Darkness Dwellers
Kiki Strike and her companions have finally returned in this third installment to the series, and her latest adventure does not disappoint.  Kiki travels to Paris to confront her parents' killers and finds herself caught up with the titular underground organization who tries to protect the city's underground catacombs.  Meanwhile in New York, Ananka and the other girls find themselves tangled up in their own messes, most notably with an upscale girls' finishing school.  When they realize that the two mysteries might not be so unrelated and that Kiki might be in some real trouble, it's up to master of disguise Betty Bent to travel to Paris and save the day.  Strong girls and much better-than-average writing make this latest book in the series well worth the wait.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
In 1986, Eleanor and Park find themselves sitting together on the bus.  They become friends as they share a love of comic books, and then they become something more.  The two teens know that high school romance never lasts, but are they brave enough to try anyway?  But as their relationship grows, we are reminded that Eleanor's life isn't anything close to sunshine and roses, and her complicated home life provides just the right amount of tragedy to keep this book interesting.  This novel will be appealing to a wide range of readers, and it's my top pick for this year's Printz Award.

The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider
Ezra was once his school's golden boy - captain of the tennis team, pretty girlfriend, likely to be elected Homecoming King.  But when a car accident messes up his knee and Ezra finds himself unable to play tennis during his senior year, his world is suddenly turned upside down.  He finds himself reconnecting with his less-popular childhood friend, joining the debate team, and drawn to Cassidy, a girl with a mysterious past who just transferred to their school.  I love the smart characters in this debut novel and the clever way in which they all deal with their own tragedies.

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
Josie is the daughter of a prostitute in New Orleans, but she wants more for herself than this underworld life.  She wants to go to college and really make something of herself.  Unfortunately, a mysterious death leaves Josie wrapped up in an investigation that she wants no part of but cannot seem to escape.  This piece of historical fiction is great for older teens.  It packs in lots of atmospheric details, plenty of mystery, and characters that really draw readers in.

Poison by Bridget Zinn
Kyra is a sixteen-year-old potions master, and unfortunately she is also the only one who knows that the kingdom is in some serious trouble.  Her solution?  Poison the princess, who is unfortunately also her former best friend.  When that doesn't work out, Kyra finds herself on the run from the palace guards with a tiny piglet and a very handsome boy for company.  The novel is light, fluffy, and funny.  In a genre that sometimes seems to be filled with nothing but depressing reads, a books like this is a welcome change of pace.

Tell me about your favorite teen reads of 2013 in the comments.

Also, it should be noted that this is my little blog's 300th post.  Wow!  Big thanks to my small following of regular readers, and also to the thousands of people who have stumbled upon it while looking for images, program ideas, etc.  I'd probably still enjoy keeping a record of all of the cool stuff that I get to do at my job even if I didn't have any readers, but knowing that there are a few of you out there really means a lot to me.  Sometimes it's the only thing forcing me to use the spellcheck, so thank you.

Sandy's Picks 2013 - Chapter Books

Now that the year is drawing to a close, it's time for me to look back on the books that I have read this year and pick my favorites.  According to my Goodreads account, I read a total of 74 books in 2013.  This number is down quite a bit from years past, but does not truly reflect every books that I read this year.  These 74 books do no include very many picture books (which I do not always remember to take the time to review), several volumes of a manga series or two (where I generally review the series as a whole, not each individual volume), or some self-help or reference non-fiction (which I feel a tad self-conscious about reviewing).

This is the second in a series of three posts, each covering a different type of children's book.  Today we will be looking at Chapter Books, generally written for school-age independent readers.

Doll Bones by Holly Black
Zach's two best friends are girls, and together the three of them create fantastic adventures for their dolls and action figures.  But is Zach getting too old for this kind of play?  His dad seems to think so, anyway.  Embarrassed, Zach decides to stop playing and stop being friends with Poppy and Alice.  But when Poppy insists that she is being haunted by a china doll supposedly made of the bones of a murdered girl, the three friends team up one last time to set the girl's spirit to rest.  Their adventure involves midnight bus rides, sailing down the Ohio River, and sneaking into a library after hours.  Part creep-tastic and part coming-of-age, this book really stands out from the crowd.  It's my top pick for this year's Newbery Medal.

Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman
Two kids are left at home with their father, but unfortunately there is no milk in the house to put on their breakfast cereal.  Dad obligingly runs to the store to pick up some milk, but it takes him awhile to return home.  When he finally comes back, he tells his children a fantastic story involving aliens, dinosaurs, pirates, vampires, and - of course - the ever-present bottle of milk.  This book is kind of like a ramped-up version of Dr. Seuss' book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.  It's tons of fun, and a quick read that will make you laugh out loud.

The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes
Billy worries a bit about starting the second grade.  Will he be smart enough?  Will he get along with his teacher?  Told in four parts, this story recounts a few events from Billy's eventful second-grade year, with each section focusing on Billy's relationship with a specific person.  The book is quite long in terms of its page count, but would still make a charming read-aloud story for younger kids.

Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill
Bo is five years old.  Her family is a bit unusual:  She has two fathers who work in an Alaskan mining camp, and she is friends with everyone in the town.  This episodic story tells of Bo's everyday adventures, giving lots of fresh details that really transport readers into this particular time and place.  If you like Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books, then you'll love this story too.

The Center of Everything by Linda Urban
Ruby is supposed to give a speech at her town's annual Bunning Day parade.  As she waits for her cue she thinks about all of the things that have gone wrong in her life recently.  Things aren't going well with her friends, and she especially regrets what happened with her grandmother, Gigi.  Ruby's hope is that if she does well with her speech she can fix everything.  Linda Urban does a fantastic job of writing introspective characters, and I especially loved this book.  The pacing is unique in that everything takes place over the course of only a couple of hours, using flashbacks to fill in the details that a reader needs.  Fantastic writing is the only way that a structure like this can work, and Urban really nails this one.

What were your favorite kids' reads of 2013?  Tell me about them in the comments.

Sandy's Picks 2013 - Picture Books

Now that the year is drawing to a close, it's time for me to look back on the books that I have read this year and pick my favorites.  According to my Goodreads account, I read a total of 74 books in 2013.  This number is down quite a bit from years past, but does not truly reflect every books that I read this year.  These 74 books do no include very many picture books (which I do not always remember to take the time to review), several volumes of a manga series or two (where I generally review the series as a whole, not each individual volume), or some self-help or reference non-fiction (which I feel a tad self-conscious about reviewing).

This is the first of a series of three posts, each covering a different type of children's book.  Today we will be looking at books that are generally written for our youngest readers:  Picture Books.

Journey by Aaron Becker

A girl draws a door on her bedrooms wall and travels to a fantastical world.  With her red marker she is able to travel by balloon, boat, and flying carpet until she is captured and imprisoned.  It will take a little daring and some help from a friend to escape.  The book reminds me a bit of Harold and the Purple Crayon in its theme, though the style is much more vibrant and complex.  I've had a hard time pinning down my top pick for this year's Caldecott Medal, but I think that I'll place my bets with this book.

Locomotive by Brian Floca

This train story takes readers back to the time of great steam engines, roaring down the track through the West.  I love this story for its beautiful sepia-toned illustrations.

Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great by Bob Shea

Goat was doing just fine until Unicorn showed up.  Unicorn can fly, turn things into gold, and make it rain cupcakes.  Ugh.  But what if the two teamed up?  I don't want to spoil what happens, but the phrase, "Taste my cloven justice" is part of the equation.  This book cracks me up.

The Dark by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Jon Klassen

Laszlo is afraid of the dark.  The dark lives (naturally) in Laszlo's basement, but is not afriad of Laszlo.  One evening the dark comes upstairs to visit Laszlo, and poor Laszlo has to learn to not be afraid anymore.  It was only a matter of time before this author and illustrator teamed up, and the result is subversively brilliant.  Snicket's wordy, stylized text matches perfectly with Klassen's simple, moody, stylized artwork.  Perfect.

Dinosaur Kisses by David Ezra Stein

A baby T-Rex is good at lots of things.  She can stomp and chomp with the best of them.  But one day the dinosaur observes two other animals doing something different - kissing!  She decides to try that next, but unfortunately our baby T-Rex is too good at stomping and chomping and kissing does not come easily.  The illustrations really make this story work, rendering the poor dino's failed kissing attempts hilarious.  Great toddler story.

Mr. Wuffles by David Wiesner

Mr. Wuffles is a cat.  His owner brings him a toy, but (in the way that cats are) Mr. Wuffles shows no interest.  Why should he care when there is a spaceship full of tiny aliens in his house?  The aliens are in some real trouble.  Can they escape to safety in the walls of the house?  And are the insects who live there friendly?  This wordless picture book is done in Wiesner's signature style, showing a side of our fantastic world that we humans might never think to look for.

What were your favorite picture books of 2013?  Tell me about them in the comments.

Cookies, Cocoa, and Karaoke

I mentioned in my last post that we had a bit of a Christmas party for teens at the library this week.  The event was called "Cookies, Cocoa, and Karaoke."  Needless to say, the program involved all three of those elements.

I'd had teens asking for a karaoke program for quite some time, and the Christmas season seemed like a good time for this sort of event.  There are many options out there for hosting a karaoke event.  You can rent or purchase a karaoke machine.  There are several video games that have karaoke elements, including "Karaoke Revolution" and "Karaoke Joysound."  Several elements prevented me from using either of these options, however.  Price was an issue was getting a karaoke machine since I just didn't have much money left in my programming budget.  A Wii game, such as the ones listed above, would certainly have been cheaper to purchase and easy to use since we already have a Wii here at the library.  However, I didn't think that any of these games would give us a wide enough selection of songs to choose from.  I also wanted to have Christmas songs available as options for the teens to sing and I could not find a single karaoke game that included Christmas music.

Desperate for a simple solution, I asked around on Facebook and a friend told me that she had once hosted a karaoke event using a program she had found online.  She told me that she had simply hooked her laptop up to a set of speakers and paid a small subscription fee, which gave her access to lots of songs to sing along with.  I looked into several online options like this and eventually selected a program called KaraFun to use for our event.  There is a lot to like about KaraFun and I highly recommend the program to anyone else who is planning their own karaoke event.  The software that KaraFun provides was free to download and very easy to use.  KaraFun also boasts a very large music library of over 17,000 songs, which meant that just about anything that we could think of would be available to sing - including lots of Christmas music.  There was a small subscription fee that had to be paid to allow us to access KaraFun's music library.  I paid $5.99 for a two-day pass, giving me access to the music library for more than enough time for the event.  There is also an option to pay for an ongoing monthly subscription, which would certainly be worthwhile for serious karaoke enthusiasts but was more than we needed for a one-time event.  KaraFun also has an app which can be downloaded onto Apple or Android devices.  In the end I ended up putting the app onto the library's iPad, which gave the teens the freedom to hold the iPad right in front of them to see the lyrics they needed to sing and eliminated the need to set up a more cumbersome table with the laptop.

The KaraFun program worked perfectly for our event.  The teens were pleased with the song selection, and they sang a good mix of contemporary tunes and Christmas classics.  The free software was actually very easy to use and provides users with a surprisingly large range of editing options that allows you to customize the music to your liking.  The feature that I actually enjoyed the most was the ability to adjust the volume in three different areas.  Of course the music's volume could be adjusted.  The impressive part was being able to adjust the volume of the back-up vocals (or turn them off entirely) or turn on and adjust the volume of a lead vocalist.  We ended up turning on the lead vocals but adjusting the volume to make this element fairly quiet.  This gave less-confident singers a little bit of extra guidance as they could follow the lead voice, but keeping the lead vocals quiet made the singer's voice the focal point of the performance.

In the end the equipment that I needed was fairly minimal.  I put the KaraFun app onto the iPad and hooked the iPad up to a large set of speakers.  We also had a wireless microphone hooked up to a different set of speakers, which was perhaps not an ideal sound scenario but was the best system that we could come up with given the equipment at our disposal.  At any rate, none of the teens noticed that the sound was coming from two different places so no harm done.  I had a small book cart available to be used as a stand for the iPad and where the microphone could be set between singers.  Finally, I also set up a laptop to the side of the main stage.  This allowed teen who were waiting for their turn to sing to easily browse the music library and make sure that their songs were available before stepping up to stage to sing.

Of course, there was more to this event than deciding which karaoke program we were going to use!

As the title of this program indicates, there were also cookies and cocoa to be had.  I heated up lots of water in our coffee pot and put out a tub of cocoa mix.  It was really as easy as that.  For the cookies, I actually asked my very enthusiastic Teen Advisory Group if they would be willing to help provide the cookies for this program.  I asked everyone to bring 1-2 dozen cookies to the program.  The three teens from my TAG group who were able to attend complied and there were more than enough cookies to go around.  Asking the teens to bring food is allowed by my library's policies but might not be acceptable at other libraries - be sure to check your policies before trying this.  But the fact that we were able to do this not only meant that I could save some money on snacks, but also that we got to eat some yummy homemade goodies instead of bland store-bought cookies.

The teens also spent quite a bit of time creating Christmas decorations for the party.  We hung up tons of snowflakes and made festive paper chains.  And of course, there was the awesome book tree.   Unfortunately, I neglected to take any pictures of the other decor.  Oops.

In the end I had five teens in attendance for this program.  There was much interest in the program and almost all of the handouts that I had put out were taken.  But this time of year is tricky for a lot of people as schedules fill up quickly and everyone is busy getting ready for the holidays.  I was not too surprised at this fairly low turnout, and I actually wonder if we would have had more success holding this program a week later after Christmas had ended but during the kids' break from school.  The low attendance, however, did have its perks.  We could all be very relaxed about the structure of the program.  I never had to put together a formal waiting list of singers and what songs they wanted to sing, which I may have needed to do with a large crowd.  Instead we could simply use good sense to take turns singing and we could afford to take our time between singers to find the songs we wanted.  A larger audience would certainly have been nice, but there was something to be said for the relaxed nature of a smaller program too.

Fortunately, this was also a very inexpensive program to put together, and an inexpensive program does make one feel better about low attendance.  I only spent about $13 on this program, half of that cost being the rental of the KaraFun music library and the other half being the cost of the cocoa mix.  All other supplies and equipment used were already on hand.  Even if I had needed to purchase cookies to serve for this party, the overall cost would still have been very, very low.

I would certainly plan some version of this karaoke event again for the teens again in a heartbeat.  Now that I know about the features that KaraFun offers and know how to set up the equipment it would actually be a very easy program to plan.  Perhaps we'll see a karaoke event during this year's Summer Library Program...

Book Christmas Tree

Have you seen one of those pictures of a Christmas tree made out of books?  Well, I made one of my own:

We had a teen event at the library today (more on that later).  I placed my Teen Advisory Group in charge of planning decorations for the party, and they really wanted to create one of these trees.  The books that we used ended up coming from our Reference collection.  It's a set of law resources, including state statutes, court records, and who knows what else.  The collection is almost never used, so no one missed the books while they were in use for the afternoon.  We'd originally planned to use books that we had in storage to use as prizes during summer reading or books that had been donated to our Friends of the Library group for our book sale.  But this set of books worked much better since they were all fairly thick and all the same size.  Even better, the books are green and red - perfect colors for a Christmas tree.

It was the teens' idea to find a copy of Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl to place at the top of the tree.  Genius!

Here are a few tips for anyone out there who may want to construct their own book tree:

• You need lots of books to make a tall tree.  My tree used 123 books, and they all were fairly thick (2-3 inches).  You'll need more books if your books are thinner, and fewer books if you make a smaller tree on a tabletop.  I didn't measure the finished tree, but I'd estimate that mine was about 4'8" tall (including our Stargirl topper) and about 3' wide at the base.
• Paperback books are generally much thinner than their hardcover counterparts, and they're also much slicker.  This makes them more difficult to use for a project like this.
• The tree is much easier to construct if your books are all more or less the same size.  Different sized books can make for a very interesting-looking, eclectic tree and that's lots of fun too.  It just takes a little bit of extra work to fit everything together.
• Getting the height that you need is the hardest part.  Be sure to make your layers fairly tall (I recommend at least 4-6 inches per layer), and you'll probably need to have a few layers of the same width before you start to narrow the tree.  Having three or four layers all of the same width not only gives you lots of extra height, but it also makes the whole tree a little bit more stable.  If you look closely at my picture, you'll see that my tree has 16 layers of books, with each layer consisting of two books stacked together.  The layers taper in as the tree gets taller and there are five different widths.  If I would do it again, I would actually include a few extra layers of the widest widths at the bottom  to give it more height and stability, and possibly use fewer layers of the narrower widths at the top.
• The inside of my tree is totally hollow.  There's nothing in there supporting the books as the layers become more narrow.  This was achieved just by being careful with how the books are arranged and by having several layers on top of each other that were the same width.  
• I decorated my tree very simply with a single string of white lights.  You could certainly include other decorations if you wanted, but I personally like how the books themselves are highlighted with fewer decorations.  

If Einstein Said It, Then It Must Be True

I've actually been very busy in Library Land lately, but I haven't had the time or the energy to do much blogging.  Oops!  I'll try to do better next year.

In the meantime, enjoy this lovely thing that I stumbled upon on the Interwebs:

True story.

Do Five-Year-Olds Cry?

Today the kids were off of school, so we held another Lego and Keva Open Play at the library.  At one point during the program I overheard the following conversation between two young boys who, given the conversation, I estimate to be ages five and six.


"What would you do if somebody knocked that tower over?"

"I would be really mad and I would cry."

"You wouldn't cry!  Five-year-olds don't cry."

"Six-year-olds do."

"No they don't."

"They do when they bleed."

"I don't cry when I bleed."


At this point mom looks over at the boy who last spoke quite pointedly.  Neither boy noticed or cared.

Dinosaur Poster

Today we set up a display of dinosaur books.  The display has only been up for about an hour and a half at the time of this writing, and we've already had to restock it twice.  Can't argue with that kind of enthusiasm!

One of my co-workers went into our storage closet to look for a dinosaur poster to hang near the display.  We were surprised that there was not much to choose from considering the huge number of posters we keep in storage.  Eventually she did find this gem of a poster buried at the bottom of the drawer:

Note the date at the bottom.  Wow.  I don't want to say how old I was when this poster was new, but I will say that I was very, very small.

Since this was the only dinosaur poster we could find, we decided to simply cut the date off at the bottom.  The rest of the poster is fine as is.  The illustration style isn't too terribly dated, so it works.

The Hungry Games: Catching Fur

This video parody appeared in my Facebook feed this morning:

Enjoy, and may the cookies be ever in your flavor.

STEM for Preschoolers

A few weeks ago (has it really been that long?) I talked a bit about my experience at this year's WLA conference.  Some colleagues and I were able to give a presentation at this conference all about ways to incorporate science into our library programming for preschoolers.  Oftentimes we librarians get so caught up on incorporating early literacy skills into our storytimes that we forget that there are lots of other things that preschoolers could be learning at the same time.  Our goal with this presentation was to share a few ways that we had incorporated STEM concepts (science, technology, engineering, and math) into our own programs and to prove that it really isn't as daunting of a task as you might think.

You don't need to have an impressive science background to teach basic STEM concepts to preschoolers.  At this age children really benefit from being allowed to explore the world around them, make observations and predictions, and ask questions.  In fact, STEM for small ones often looks an awful lot like play!

We can lay a good STEM foundation by working a few basic concepts into our storytimes.  In fact, many of you librarians are probably already doing this without even realizing it!  Have you ever done a storytime that was focused on colors or shapes?  What about the weather, or a certain season?  Have you ever sang a song or done a flannelboard that involved "five little somethings?"  When you do animal storytimes, do you ever talk about the animal (what it eats, where it lives, how big it is, etc.)?  Do you have puzzles or blocks available for kids to play with?  If you answered "yes" to any of these questions then you are already well on your way.

During our presentation we also mentioned a few other activities that we had tried in the hopes of expanding the audience's repertoire a bit.  The first activity, which my supervisor and I use quite often in our storytimes, is a matching game.

The idea is actually pretty simple.  First, we cut lots of like or related shapes, usually using our Ellison Die machine.  Next, we do something to distinguish different "types" of each shape.  In the first example above you can see that we had trucks of several different colors, simply reinforced by writing the appropriate color word on each truck.  In the second example we added a certain number of dots to each heart.  Usually we have four, sometimes five different types or categories for each game.  Magnets are added to the back of each shape.  When it is time for our matching game at storytime, we go around the room and hand each child a shape.  We ask parents to look at the shape with their child and talk about it.  For example, parents might talk to their children about what color truck they have, or they may count how many dots their heart has together.  After everyone has a moment to observe and discuss their shapes, we begin the matching.  We will place one shape on our magnet board and ask the group, "Who has a [shape] (truck, heart, etc.) that looks like this?"  Children who are holding a matching shape are invited to come up to our magnet board and stick their shape up with the others.  We'll count how many of that type of shape there are, make a big deal out of what makes it special (color, number, etc.), and then move on to the next "type" of shape.  This continues until everyone's shapes are on the board.  This activity is great because it incorporates lots of observation and a basic STEM concept like color or number, plus it gives the kids to get up and move around a bit.

Another fun thing to try is using a parachute:

The parachute is great because it gets kids to exercise their gross motor skills.  You can also work some basic math into your parachute use pretty easily!  If you bounce balls/wads of paper/plastic frogs on your parachute you can, of course, count the items as you add them to the mix.  You can also talk about more and less, fast and slow, up and down, and other similar broad concepts that kids need to understand before moving on to what we picture as the math and physics learned in school.

If a librarian is interested in going the extra mile in their programming, I highly recommend looking at this blog, maintained a librarian friend of mine at the Madison Public Library.  MPL is really getting into the idea of creating makerspaces at libraries, and my librarian friend has begun a related program for preschoolers called WonderWorks.  The WonderWorks program delivers a different STEM concept each week and a hands-on activity for the kids to try.

Want to know more about STEM and how to incorporate it into your library's programs?  There's plenty of good information to be found out there, but I recommend starting with this article from last month's School Library Journal.

Book Drop Excitement

Earlier this week we had the third graders from the local elementary school visit the library.  We booktalked several great reads, and then each class was taken on a tour of the library.  During the tour we visited the adult reference desk, the circulation desk, the children's room, and finally the back area of the library where patrons don't usually get to go.  In this area the kids got to see where the magic of circulation happens - how the books are checked in, sorted, and sometimes sent to other libraries.  

For the last stop of the day, I opened up the back room where our bookdrops are located so that the kids could see the slots where they drop their books off from the other side and the bins where the books land.  Generally the book drop is the coolest thing that these kids will see all day.  They're fascinated by how cold it is in this room (the slots are open to the outside, after all), how big the bins are, and they love tilting their heads to see up the slots.  

At the end of the tour, one boy expressed his awe out loud to his friends:

"I got to touch the inside of the library!"

Glad we could make your day, kid.

Swag

I just returned from this year's Wisconsin Library Association (WLA) conference.  This year the conference was held in Green Bay, WI and as always is was incredible.  I sat in on a few good sessions which gave me ideas for new things to try at the library.  I actually got to work with a few other librarians to present a session about science for preschoolers (more on that later).  I had a blast meeting up with librarian friends that I haven't seen in ages.  I went to a lunch with a great presentation by an author/illustrator that I love and got him to sign a book for me.  I even attended a program called Librarians Rock, where I got to kick back, listen to a band, and watch some librarians sing in a Librarian Idol contest.  I was at the conference for less than two days and attended only a fraction of the planned events, but it was still such a great experience.

One of the fun things about a library conference like this is that there's always an exhibit hall where library vendors come to set up booths and talk to librarians about their products.  The vendors range from book sellers to architects to consultants to database gurus.  There's always a lot to looks at and plenty of people who want to try to sell you something.  Fortunately for everyone, the vendors always come up with some good ways to get you to approach their booths and get you to talk to them.  Namely, there's always lots of good swag to take with you!

This year I actually made out like a bandit when it came to all of the goodies.  Two factors made this year's swag better than usual:  1) I made it into the exhibit hall during a time when many other librarians were attending other sessions/meetings so I had most vendors' full attention, 2) I also visited on the very last day that vendors would be exhibiting, which made them desperate to unload all of their extra stuff to whoever would take them.  Take a look at all the stuff I came back with:

This year's haul includes:  Four tote bags, three galleys from a small press, one audiobook, a preliminary list of titles from the CCBC's annual Choices list, a whistle/keychain, a pizza cutter, four pens, a BrushBot (plus a kit to make four more), a Superman bookmark, a rubber bracelet, five buttons, and lots of candy.  Not pictured:  Dozens of fliers and pamphlets advertising various products and services, business cards, and a few packages of promotional bookmarks.

That's a lot of great stuff!  I was a tad stingier this year than I was last year when it came to taking the bags and pens, but some of the other items more than made up for the difference.  The audiobook alone was a huge score in terms of monetary value, given to me by an audiobook supplier who just didn't want to take all of his display items home.  I'm also hugely excited about the BrushBots (available for purchase here), which I'm sure will turn into a great program next summer.  Everything else just seems like good things to have around - especially the chocolate.

Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading, and daydreaming

On Monday author Neil Gaiman made a speech to the Reading Agency in London.  Since then, the speech has been transcribed and shared all around the Internet.  It's actually a beautiful speech, and it explains quite well why reading, and especially why reading for pleasure, is so important for children.  The speech is a bit long, but it's definitely worth it.  Enjoy!

Monster Storytime

To get ready for Halloween, this week's storytime was all about monsters!  Here are the books we read:

When a Monster is Born by Sean Taylor, illustrated by Nick Sharratt
"When a monster is born there are two possibilities.  Either it's a faraway-in-the-forests monster, or it's an under-your-bed monster.  If it's a faraway-in-the-forests monster, that's that.  But if it's an under-your-bed monster, there are two possibilities..."  This story continues in this format, always presenting our monster friend with two possibilities.  While not really a Choose Your Own Adventure story, this book does show us that there are always different choices.  Besides, some of the options that the monster has are just plain silly.  The kids were actually enraptured by this book, and they especially liked it when the story came full circle at the end.

If You're a Monster and You Know It by Rebecca and Ed Emberley
The Emberleys has written lots of fun monster stories.  I picked this one from the bunch because it also lends itself very well to some moving and imaginative play as the kids can snort and growl, smack their claws, and twitch their tails just like a monster does as we read.  I always like to make sure that we have at least one stand-up-and-move activity during storytime since I've found that it helps to keep the kids focused, and this book fit the bill perfectly.

Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems
This is actually one of my favorite Mo Willems books of all time.  Leonardo is a terrible monster.  Not a scary monster - a terrible monster.  He's no good at scarring anyone!  So he decides to find the biggest scardy-cat kid in the world, a boy named Sam, and scare the tuna salad out of him to make himself feel better.  Needless to say, that doesn't exactly go as planned.  But perhaps Leonardo and Sam can become friends instead.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
I ended up not having time for this fourth story, but I always think it's a good idea to have an extra in your back pocket just in case.  This classic book could be a quieter, more soothing choice for your group than If You're a Monster if you think that your group needs it.

We also did a few other activities.  Credit for both of these activities belongs to one of my co-workers, who created them.

First, we had to look for Little Monster under the bed.

There are seven beds, each one a different color.  I put each of the beds up on our magnet board, secretly hiding the little monster underneath one of them.  First we counted the beds and talked about what colors they are.  Next I asked the kids to guess in their heads which bed they thought the monster was hiding under.  After given the kids a moment to make their guess, I said the rhyme:  "Little Monster, Little Monster, are you under the _____ bed?"  Fill the blank in with a color, and remove the bed of that color to reveal if the monster is under the bed.  When I did the activity, I purposely removed all but two of the bed before revealing which bed the monster was under to build suspense.  The activity can be repeated as many times as you want, hiding the monster under a different bed each time.


We also told another story using a flannelboard based on Ed Emberley's book Go Away, Big Green Monster.

In the book, die cuts reveal more and more of the monster's face as you turn the pages, and then parts of his face are taken away as the reader tells him to go away.  Felt pieces made it lots of fun to assemble and take apart the face.  Layering felt pieces is obviously a bit different than using die cuts so I did have to re-order just a couple of the pieces to make the flannelboard work easily, but no harm done there.


As always we did a craft to end our storytime.  We made monster masks!

I found a template for a cute monster mask here.  I enlarged the mask just a little bit to make it a better size (I think I zoomed in to 110%) and then printed the enlarged masks on cardstock.  I cut the masks out and cut string to tie the masks in advance, so all the kids had to do was color.  They loved it!  We had lots of scary, growling, stomping monsters at the library after storytime was all finished.

Star Wars Reads Day

On October 5 my library was able to participate in the national Star Wars Reads Day event.  The event at my library was one of hundreds of events taking place all over the country, and one of four events in the local two-county area.  It was lots of fun!  The program was fairly well attended, with an estimated 40 children and their corresponding adults in attendance.

Several stations were set up in different areas of the library, each with a different Star Wars activity to try.  The idea was that kids could wander from activity to activity at their own pace, picking and choosing what they wanted to try.

Three crafts were set up in our Community Room under the supervision of a few teen volunteers.  Generally, the crafts took care of themselves and kids could easily complete them on their own or with a parent's assistance.  The teens were mostly there to be the authority figure in the room and offer assistance if needed.

First, we did some Star Wars origami.

I copied the instructions for Yoda, Darth Vader, and R2-D2 from the Origami Yoda books by Tom Angleberger.  These designs are, in the grand scheme of origami, very easy to follow.  Yoda only requires five easy folds to complete, so even very young children were able to create some origami with a little help. No fancy origami paper required:  Angleberger's designs are all intended to be made with scrap paper, so I simply cut colored computer paper into fourths.  Crayons and markers were set out along with the colored paper so that kids could add details to their creations.


The second craft project was taken from the Star Wars Thumb Doodles book published by Klutz.

I purchased a copy of the book and set it out along with some blank cardstock bookmarks (we had some pre-cut left over from a past program, but you could easily cut your own cardstock too), stamp pads, and markers, and wipes for clean up.  The kids were invited to copy the designs included in the book and create their own bookmarks.  They did a great job!


Finally, kids were invited to make their own lightsabers using twister balloons and toilet paper tubes.  I discovered this project here.

This was a super easy project that, while appealing for all ages, was especially well-suited for our youngest attendees.  It was probably also our most popular activity of the day!  Amazingly enough, we didn't have a single popped balloon outside of the Community Room were the lightsabers were constructed.


Outside of the craft room we had a scavenger hunt throughout the library.

Ten different characters were hidden in plain sight in different areas of the library.  Each child was given a worksheet listing all of the places where they needed to look for a character.  When they found the character, they simply needed to write the name of the character next to the location where it was found.  Some of these names were a tad writing-intensive ("Chewbacca" has a lot of letters!), but very young children all had help from their parents if they needed it and no one complained at all about the writing.  Kids who turned in their scavenger hunt sheets to the Reference Desk were entered into a drawing for a few Star Wars book prizes.


We also had a big book display set up in the Children's Room.  Our smaller programming room adjacent to the Children's Room was set up as a special reading area.

I had been hoarding some of these Star Wars books for awhile in anticipation of the display, so I had lots of books ready to go.  The Darth Vader costume came courtesy of one of my co-workers whose son had dressed as Vader for Halloween the year before.  The reading area was not as well used and I would have preferred (I blame some staffing issues that made it difficult to really inform kids that the reading room was an option), but a decent number of books were checked out on the day of this program.  Good thing - the Star Wars book are the whole point of the event!


Finally, there was also an activity for adults.  Our Reference department put together a trivia contest to challenge fans of the franchise.  While the Reference department had adults in mind when they created the contest, they did allow kids to participate too.  Anyone who wanted to play simply had to answer eleven questions.  Most of these questions were multiple choice, but a handful required you to write in your answer.  The person who answered the most questions correctly won a lovely Star Wars prize pack.

All in all, the program was a great success!  Everyone seemed to have a great time.  We had decent number of kids come to the program in costume, which made it all the more fun.  Tiny Darth Vaders, Clone Troopers, Jedi, and Ewoks always make programs more exciting.  I'm hoping that we can participate in the Star Wars Reads Day event again next year - and hopefully get some of the "pro" costumed characters from the 501st Legion to attend as well!

Mother and the Last-Minute Request: A Fable

Today I took a phone call from an irate mother who was desperately looking for a book (Titanic: Coices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson).  Why exactly was this mother so angry?  It was hard to tell through the copious yelling, but it sounded like her son had waited until the last minute to tell her that he needed a book for school.

That was an interesting phone call.  As I'm looking in the catalog to be sure that the book is currently on the shelf and not checked out to a child who prepared for his assignment in advance, all I can hear are phrases like "This is so inconsiderate of you," and "You need to tell me about these things ahead of time, not when I'm trying to get ready for work."  There is very little in the world sadder than listening to a parent berate their child like this in public.  While the kid probably did deserve a good talking too, I truly wish that his mother had waited until after she was finished with the phone call.

Thank goodness we had the book in stock.  I hate to think of what would have happened if we hadn't been able to provide them with the book they needed.  I can only imagine the yelling that news would have spawned.

The moral of this story:  Do not scold your child harshly where strangers can year you.  It makes you look like the villain, not you child.

The second moral:  When on the phone with someone, please move the phone away from your mouth when attempting to have a side conversation with a third party.  Better yet, wait until the phone call is completed to speak to anyone else.  Failure to do so only leads to awkwardness.

Star Wars Origami

This is what I did at work not too long ago:

Apologies for the awkward shadows.

Star Wars origami!  From left to right:  Yoda, R2-D2, and Darth Vader.

I've been a bit busy lately planning a program in honor of the second annual Star Wars Reads Day, which will be taking place on Saturday, October 5.  This is a national event with programs taking place across the country.  If you are interested in finding a Star Wars Reads Day program near you, be sure to ask around at our local libraries, bookstores, and convention centers.

The program that I am planning for my library will feature some Star Wars crafts like the origami pictured above, a scavenger hunt, some trivia, and of course a big book display and plenty of space to read.  Watch this space for more info about the program after October 5!

Books to Be Excited About

A few weeks ago I found myself in a reading rut.  Nothing on the library's shelves excited me, and there was nothing new coming in that begged for me to take it home.

Fortunately, a recent shipment of new books and the arrival of a few holds has changed these circumstances.  I've gone from having nothing to read to being a tad overwhelmed by the good books.  Here are a few of the books I'm excited to try:

The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppet by Tom Angleberger
In case you haven't heard, I'm a huge Origami Yoda fan.  I'm very excited about this fourth volume to the series, and I'm curious to see how the kids as McQuarrie Middle School handle the return of Dwight to their class, along with the school's newly-imposed curriculum designed to raise their test scores.  Can Origami Yoda save the day again?

William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope by Ian Doeschter
It's Star Wars written in iambic pentameter, told in the style of one of Shakespeare's plays.  It's two of my favorite things rolled into one.  What's not to like?  I'm not exactly expecting brilliance out of this pastiche, but I am expecting to be entertained (and probably laugh lots and read especially clever/amusing passages out loud).

Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It by David M. Ewalt
I don't often read books written for an adult audience.  Much of this has to do with that fact that I work with children and teenagers, so I get really caught up in the books that are written for them.  But every so often a book for adults will catch my eye.  I'm curious to see what this author has to say about D&D - its history, its cultural significance, and the nerd subculture it has spawned.  (For the curious:  Yes, I have played Dungeons & Dragons.  Yes, I enjoyed it.  No, I'm not a complete loser.)

The Lord of Opium by Nancy Farmer
Several months ago it was announced that Farmer would be publishing a sequel to her multiple award-winning novel The House of the Scorpion, and I've been eagerly waiting on the edge of my seat for the book to be released.  That day is finally here!  It's been ten years since The House of the Scorpion was first published, but it remains one of my favorite books of all time and one that I regularly try to recommend to middle-school readers.  Sequels tend to make me anxious, but I'm still excited to see what Farmer has in store for Matt and his newly-inherited opium empire.

Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde
I was pretty much awed by Jasper Fforde's last fantasy novel, The Last Dragonslayer.  I was so happy that Jennifer Strange would be returning for a sequel.  If you're a fantasy fan, and if you've enjoyed books by Neil Gaiman and/or Terry Pratchet, then I think that Jasper Fforde should be the next author you try.

Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy by Elizabeth Kiem
In this teen novel, clairvoyance meets 1980s Soviet immigrants.  Intriguing, n'est-ce pas?  I love a combination of plot elements that you don't see every day.  Also, I'm kind of a fan of the cover art.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
First of all, the author's name is Rainbow.  Love it.  Second, this book sounds really good:  A girl tries to survive her first year of college after her best friend outgrows their shared love of a celebrity.  Thirdly, this book has gotten awesome reviews.  I probably should be reading another book by this same author that's gotten some early award buzz (Eleanor & Park), but this book just sounds a bit more fun.

Three Movie Trailers

I think today is a good day to watch some good movie trailers. First, a trailer for the recently-released movie "City of Bones," based on the book by Cassandra Clare:

 


 Next, a trailer for "The Book Thief," based on the award-winning novel by Marcus Zusak. This movie will be released in November 2013:

 


 Finally, the newly-released trailer for the upcoming movie "Divergent," based on the book by Veronica Roth. This movie should appear in theaters in March of 2014:

 


 I'm often hesitant about seeing movies based off of books that I enjoyed, but I'm actually pretty enthused about these book-to-movie adaptations. Anyone else looking forward to these?

Bo at Ballard Creek

Bo has two fathers, but she didn't get them in the usual way.  She also eventually gets a little brother, but he doesn't join the family in the usual way either.  This this charming story tells all about young Bo's childhood as the adopted daughter of two big, burly miners just after the height of the Alaskan gold rush.  The town of Ballard Creek is filled with tough miners and loving Eskimo families, and everyone takes a hand in raising Bo.  Over the course of a year, Bo sees her first airplane, encounters a grisly bear, helps one of her papas in the cookshack, listens to lots of records, and attends a big Fourth of July celebration.  All the while the miners are busy working, hoping that they'll hit enough paydirt to make it through the year.  Even though Bo lives in a small town in the wilderness, there is never a dull moment in Ballard Creek!

Kirkpatrick Hill's charming novel, Bo at Ballard Creek, reminds me quite a bit of Laura Ingalls Wilder's classic Little House in the Big Woods.  Each chapter of the book recounts a different episode in Bo's life and provides exquisite detail about what everyday living in this specific time and place was like.  The story is very engaging, the characters are lovable, and Bo herself is a spirited counterpart to Laura Ingalls.  As a reader I found myself especially fascinated by Bo's papas and their unique co-parenting situation.  Such partnerships may seem unusual to modern readers, but it really does make perfect sense given the time and the place.

Overall Grade:  A+

If you'd like to learn more about this book check out an interview with Kirkpatrick Hill, the author of Bo at Ballard Creek.  Hill herself grew up in Alaska in the company of mining, just like Bo does.  In the interview, Hill describes how some of her own experiences were included in the story.

Teen Summer Program Success

The 2013 Summer Library Program is wrapping up here.  Summer is always our busiest time of year, and this year it felt like especially crazy.  I've been pulling some statistics together for my Teen SLP (which I am completely responsible for) and the numbers don't like:  It really was a lot busier than last year.  A lot busier.  Here are a few of the more interesting numbers:

Total registration in the Teen SLP increased by about 24%.
Total reading done by teens increased by about 16%.
Here's the real kicker:  Total attendance at teen programs increased by a whopping 210%!  This number increases to 431% if you include all of the passive programming that I put together for this summer (none of which existed last year.

No wonder I'm exhausted!  Being around that many teenagers will do that.

There are a couple of things that point to the increase in participation this summer.  The first is that, since I'm not longer the new kid in town at this library, more of the teens in the area know who I am.  Some of the teens who know me especially well (who came to other programs during the school year, etc.) have started bringing their friends to the library and getting them to sign up for summer reading.  Peer pressure and word of mouth does wonders.

I also like to think that the increase in program attendance has something to do with the fact that I put together some awesome teen events this summer.  Enjoy a few pictures from some of these programs:

Last year's popular Ninja Training program returned with
a new and improved format...  And a new and improved
outdoor obstacle course! 

My most well-attended program of the summer was
DIY Henna Body Art.  I ordered and mixed the henna, and
the teens had the change to design their own temporary tattoos.

We did some geocaching at the library...

And found some neat prizes!

We also held a Super Smash Bros.
Brawl tournament.  We had 20 teens
participating in this modified single-
elimination tournament.

The winner of the tournament won
this awesome trophy that  I crafted
from a block of wood, an Iron Man piggy
bank, and some gold spray paint.

To finish off the summer we had an after-hours
zombie party at the library.  Most of the teens
came in costume, and so did I.  I came dressed
as one of the zombies from the hit game Plants
vs. Zombies.  All of teens understood the
reference.  None of my adult co-workers did.

LEGO Librarians

Have you seen the official LEGO librarian minifigure?

Image taken from the LEGO website, link above.

It's pretty much exactly what you expect:  Female, glasses, cardigan, book in hand, and of course a cup labeled "Shhh."  But believe it or not, this is not actually what most librarians are like!  This stereotype has been around for decades, and sometimes it seems that no one except for the librarians themselves quite realizes that the profession is filled with a lot of different types of characters.

Joe Hardenbrook, a librarian at UW-Green Bay here in Wisconsin, saw this official minifigure and decided it just wasn't enough.  He created and photographed lots of other librarian personalities and then shared his creations, along with some snarky commentary, on his blog.  It's spectacular, and it seems pretty much spot-on.  I'm pretty sure that I've encountered most, if not all, of these sorts of librarians at some point.  Enjoy!

SLP Artwork

If you haven't figured this out yet from my posts, this year our summer library program theme is all about being underground - dirt, rocks, tunnels, etc.  Every year our theme - and some corresponding artwork - is provided by the Collaborative Summer Library Program.  The overall theme is given a different tag line and a separate set of artwork for each major age group - kids, teens and adults - and the CSLP also provides program suggestions and other materials that might be useful to librarians as they plan their own summer programs.  

This year, however, I had a bit of a dilemma when it came to materials provided for the teens.  The tagline for the teens, "Beneath the Surface" was just fine.  The tagline evokes the idea that things are more complex than they first appear, which is in my mind a great way for teens to approach this topic.  But the artwork that was intended to be used for the teen program...  Well, it didn't exactly correspond with the theme.  Here's an example:

You know what I see when I look at this poster?  I see a who lot of "up" and not a lot of "beneath the surface."  There's a flying machine!  And a Pegasus!  Something at this just doesn't add up with the theme to me.

After talking these issues out with my Teen Advisory Group (who agreed that the artwork was a tad lame), we made the decision to use the tagline and artwork intended for the adult program instead.  The adult tagline this summer is "Groundbreaking Reads," which was something that all of us could get behind.  More importantly, we loved the artwork created to go with this tagline.  I'll let it speak for itself:

Yup.  Definitely made the right decision there.  

"In the Grand Scheme of Things"

Today a nanny was telling me about how the 2-year-old girl she cares for, one of our regular storytime attendees, loves Mo Willems' pigeon books (Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, etc.)  She told us that the girl actually had the book Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late completely memorized!

At one point in this book, the pigeon tried to rationalize his desire to stay up a bit later by saying, "What's five more minutes in the grand scheme of things?"  The girl's nanny told me that at one point the child's mother had told the girl that she needed to wait five more minutes for something.  The girl proceeded to respond by quoting this line from the book.  Of course a 2-year-old doesn't really understand exactly what this phrase means, which makes it all the funnier for the rest of us.  So cute.

Candy Carrot Cupcakes

I'm giving full credit for these adorable little cupcakes to one of my co-workers, who has a way of always going above and beyond what we expect when it comes to the summer book clubs that she runs.

Today our youngest book club met to read and do activities that go along with Candace Fleming's marvelous book Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!  After reading and discussing the book as a group, the kids played Garden BINGO, made rabbit masks, and ate these masterful cupcakes.  Too much cute!

Want to learn how to make these tasty treats?  Check out the recipe here. 

Soil Science

Last week I was responsible for another school-age summer event.  Our topic for the week was soil, so I chose to focus our activities not only on dirt, but also on all of the good things that grow in the dirt.

Our first activity was actually a cooking project.  We made dirt cake!  I shared a recipe for this tasty treat in my last post, and while this recipe is decadent it uses more dishes and has a few more preparation steps than I wanted for this program.  Fortunately, there are many different ways to make dirt cake and I was able to track down this simplified recipe.  This version has the added bonus of being served in individual cups, so everyone could easily pick out their own servings.  Everyone took turns with the steps by adding ingredients, stirring, and crushing Oreos for the group.  Everyone spooned the pudding mixture into their own cups and topped it with the crushed Oreos and gummy worms.  We then put all of the dirt cups in the refrigerator to set while we did our other activities.  Everyone got to eat their treats at the end of the program.

Next came our biggest project of the day:  Soil Testing.  Before we got to the testing itself, I took a few minutes to talk about soil pH and the nutrients nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium and why they are important for gardens.  I also explained that I had used a special soil testing kit to check to see if these minerals were found in potting soil that I had purchased at a garden store.  As a group we made predictions and everyone correctly guessed that the specially-formulated potting soil had a fairly low pH and had more than enough of the essential nutrients.

Then it was the kids' job to run the test themselves on a sample of soil from a co-worker's garden.  The kids divided themselves into four groups, and each group was responsible for testing a sample of soil from the garden for a different nutrient.  My co-worker had actually mentioned that her garden was not producing as well this year as it had in the past, so we expected to find that the garden was deficient in at least one resource.

To do this project, I purchased a simple soil testing kit.  We bought ours at Nasco a couple of months ago when we bought the supplies for my geode program, but these kits are readily available at a variety of other locations as well, including Amazon.  Each group was lead by a teen or adult volunteer, who helped keep everyone on task.  Each group was assigned a different test (one group tested the soil's pH, one tested for nitrogen, etc.) and a corresponding set of instructions on how to test the soil.  As a group we also made a chart that we used to compare the results of their tests with the results of my test on the potting soil.  (If anyone is curious, my co-worker's soil was severely lacking in nitrogen and potassium.)  The kids really loved this project, and I think it really helped that the experiment had actual real-life applications that they could readily understand.

My group of 2nd and 3rd graders took quite a bit longer than expected to complete both of these activities, but the group of 4th-6th graders had time for one last project.  We got some bean seeds started on damp paper towels.  I borrowed my plan for this activity from similar project I had seen on Pinterest (check it out here).  Each kid actually set up two bags (four seeds in each bag).  They were able to take one bag of seeds home to observe directly, and the second bag was left here at the library.  We taped these seeds up in one of our windows and have invited patrons to visit them daily to watch them grow.  It's kind of a nice bonus to have something here at the library that patrons can watch grow and change over the course of the next week or two.

All in all, this was a very successful program.  The kids had a great time, and they got very excited about all three of our projects.  I was very glad to have four good volunteer helpers to guide the kids directly while I floated between groups to help where needed.  I definitely couldn't have made this program the success it was without them!