List-Mania – and a Few Other Notes….

I’m looking at so many summer reading lists that I’m starting to worry that my summer reading will consist of lists!  So many lists, so little time….

Here are a few that stand out in a crowded field:

1. This article by Janet Maslin, one of the New York Times book critics, appeared in the paper on June 6. I just read it yesterday – on purpose. I love her annual list of beach (guilt- free) summer books so much that I held on to it until school was out for the summer and I could give it my full attention.  Lookaway, Lookaway by Wilton Barnhardt sounds like a good beach read, doesn’t it?  Publication date is August 20. Here’s a link to Maslin’s article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/books/beach-reads-from-stephen-king-kevin-kwan-carl-hiaasen-and-more.html?ref=janetmaslin&_r=0

2. NPR has so much book coverage that, quite frankly, I often feel happily overwhelmed.  Here’s a link to their story: 5 Great Reads for Teens. The book I added to my own list from this piece — The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence. Link to the other 4 titles:

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/11/190371764/schools-out-5-great-summer-reads-for-teens?ft=3&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20130616

3.  I love BuzzFeed’s list of “38 Perfect Books to Read With Kids.”  Perfect for this time of the year when there’s lots of time for reading aloud. 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alannaokun/books-for-kids?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly&utm_campaign=ef2fb2d0db-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0bb2959cbb-ef2fb2d0db-304433593

4. Publishers Weekly had an article about Betsey Detwiler, the long-time owner of Buttonwood Books and Toys (my favorite independent bookstore) who is retiring this summer - I was happy (and a bit relieved) to read that Buttonwood plans to stay right where it is!  Here’s the whole story:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/57703-new-owner-for-buttonwood-books.html

5. And, finally….the picture of the dog bowls at the top of this post.  My sister’s travels through Michigan included a visit to Brilliant Books in Traverse City. How “brilliant” is this? Each bowl has a book cover above it – which must be dog language to make sure they drink from the corresponding watering station. I love that Biscuit is over the small bowl.  The owners have placed the cover of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle over the biggest bowl, but I think Clifford would be the appropriate choice!

I’ve been reading Elizabeth Wein’s Printz Honor book, Code Name Verity – and it’s as good as every glowing review promised. The story of a friendship between two young British women during WWII, it is written as a series of confessions by one of the two women after she is captured in Nazi-occupied France.  I was trying to read it before Wein’s new companion novel, Rose Under Fire, is published later this summer.  

Enjoy the lists….

Zero Tolerance by Claudia Mills

I’m so happy to be reviewing books for School Library Journal!  This month’s issue includes my first review for the monthly magazine. Here it is:

As a member of the Leadership Club and an honor student at LongwoodMiddle School, Sierra Shepard helped create the banner announcing the school’s creed: “Rules, Respect, Responsibility and Reliability.” The school has established an iron-clad zero tolerance policy on weapons, but when Sierra accidentally takes her mother’s lunch bag to school, she finds it contains a paring knife. A loyal rule-follower, Sierra turns the knife in to the office, assuming that her spotless record will exempt her from the consequences of breaking a rule. That is not the case. Sierra begins a week-long in-school suspension during which she questions her assumptions about following rules, her classmates, and her parents and school administrators. Sierra also reexamines her feelings about Luke Bishop, the school “bad boy” who is more complex and interesting than she thought. Sierra is a realistic and appealing character whose story will resonate with students who enjoy stories about school and friends. The novel could also spark a discussion about the slippery nature of rules and how they are enforced. Unlike Claudia Mills’s school-based novels for younger readers, Zero Tolerance includes mild swear words scattered  throughout the book, but they seem genuine to the age of the characters. A compelling novel for middle school age readers.

One other thing for you today….

Inly’s school year has ended and our students are hopefully at home poring over their new summer reading list!  So many books, so little time…

A link to the list of books for ages 3 to 14:

http://www.inlyschool.org/userfiles/files/summer_reading_2013_final.pdf

This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

Not too long ago, on a flight between Boston and Dallas, I had the good fortune to sit next to a fellow book lover. As we flew across most of the country, we talked about favorite books and the titles in our “to read” piles. One book she recommended was This Is What Happy Looks Like, a young adult novel by Jennifer E. Smith. The title stood out because I had seen a few references to it, and as the summer drew near, I saw it on several summer reading lists. I finally had a chance to read it, and can tell you that if someone had walked onto our deck this afternoon and seen me reading Smith’s novel, they would have known “what happy looks like.” You can’t help smiling while reading the book. It’s so summery that it should come with suntan lotion and a cold beverage. But…don’t be mistaken. I’m not saying “beach read” to signal some kind of guilty pleasure without much true merit. Smith is really good. Even though I’m an adult reader who knew exactly how it would end (don’t you?), I still found myself racing to the end.

I knew it was going to be good from the first page. The novel opens with an e-mail exchange between Graham Larkin and Ellie O’Neill, the two main characters. Graham, a teenage movie star, is writing to ask a friend to take care of his pet pig….Wilbur!  How can you not love a character who has a pig named after Charlotte’s Web. Graham’s e-mail included a typo in the address box which results in his message landing in Ellie’s in-box. Ellie lives in a small town Maine with her mother, but the teenagers begin a cross-country correspondence which becomes meaningful to both of them. It isn’t long before Graham uses his star power to arrange for his film to be shot on location in the land of lobsters and blueberries.

This Is What Happy Looks Like is a delicious book. The local ice cream shop is called Sprinkles which kind of sums up the whole vibe.  What I particularly enjoyed is that the story is told from both Graham’s and Ellie’s points of view, giving the reader a peek into how each of them see their budding romance and their misunderstandings. 

One other thing that will make you happy is this article from the Los Angeles Times Review of Books. I stumbled on it while reading different summer reading lists – one of my hobbies. It’s called “Ten Things I Learned from Loving Anne of Green Gables.”  Written by Sarah Mesle, it is just a lovely piece of writing. This excerpt is a good example:

“When I talk about loving Anne with dear friends who also love Anne, we are not advocating particular novels so much as we are describing loving words, loving the past, loving names, loving Megan Follows, loving and being loved by your friends even when they don’t fully understand you, loving reading in the corner at a slumber party while everyone else watches TV, loving a long walk, loving, most of all, the ability to find a sense of place. What we are saying is that Anne was our wardrobe, our tornado — our portal to the capacity within ourselves to make the mundane world magical.”

Those words me want to cry. Mesle describes exactly what good books do - they make the “mundane world magical.”  Here’s a link to the article:

http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=1723&fulltext=1&media=#article-text-cutpoint

The Top 5 Circulating Books of the Year Were…

The school year has ended. Tomorrow the 8th grade students will make their graduation speeches, cake will be eaten, pictures taken, and the classroom pets will move to their summer vacation homes.  My library colleague and I have been checking books in all week, including a few that were due this past October! Oh well – they are always welcome back. As I looked at the towering stacks of returns, I decided to look at the most popular books during the past school year. Here are the results:

1. Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon and Dean Hale. Not the title you expected to be number one, right?  I love this graphic novel, but have to admit that I’m always amazed by its extraordinary popularity at Inly.  A student asks to borrow it almost daily.  We’ve replaced it twice – this year.  Rapunzel’s Revenge is popular because it fits into two of our students’  favorite categories: mixed-up fairy tales and graphic novels. Set in the wild west, Rapunzel uses her long hair to escape, but rather than joining the prince, she joins forces with Jack – as in Jack and the Beanstalk.

2. Mo Willems – no specific title. Literally I can pull any book by Mo Willems from our special Mo Shelf and am guaranteed a group of happy, attentive listeners.  The pigeon, Elephant and Piggie, Knuffle Bunny – our students aren’t picky. Equal love for all things Mo!

3. Ivy and Bean. Yes, our 2nd grade readers love Clementine and Judy Moody and Stella Batts and all of the other stars of early chapter books, but the appealing and fun stories by Annie Barrows are passed around, talked about, and renewed….

4. The Lunch Lady series by Jarrett Krosoczka.  Energetic, funny graphic novels featuring a lunch lady as superheroine and her sidekick, Betty.  There are students who will stop by the library before lunch and borrow a book to read while they eat.  I think it’s awesome that they are reading about lunch while eating it!

5. Rick Riordan. Percy Jackson. The Kane Chronicles. The Heroes of Olympus. Some of our readers “graduate” from the early chapter book section and proceed directly to the R section of the fiction area where they start with The Lightning Thief and move straight through the shelf.

Of course, lots of other books are loved and popular and read and re-read until they fall apart.  The Magic Tree House series and Pete the Cat come to mind. And just the other day, I encouraged a 3rd grade girl to break the mold by checking out a book that is not part of a series. It was a risk, but she boldy accepted the challenge and checked out The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes. Her verdict……two thumbs up! 

Happy Summer!

Watch Out Below!

Today was Inly’s annual Drop Everything and Read event – a whole hour of quiet in a school is a rare and beautiful thing!  I have to admit that rather than dropping anything, I picked up my camera (phone) and took a walk around to see what the kids are reading. Unfortunately, today was a grey and rainy day so they read in their classrooms instead of going outside with blankets.

Remember I said that it was a grey and dreary day. Well, check out what that did to one reader: You can’t blame him! It was an excellent nap day…

Although I didn’t drop anything, I read a couple of magazine articles after school and ran across a few interesting book-related items.

The New York Times Magazine had a short article about the author of a new fantasy series, the first line of which is: “Could an unknown 21-year-old Oxford student named Samantha Shannon be the next J.K. Rowling?”  That’s quite a build up! The first installment is called The Bone Season, and according to the article it’s the first of a seven-part series about a “19-year-old clairvoyant named Paige Mahoney, who roams the streets of London, circa 2059, until the secret police send her off to a penal colony that looks a lot like Oxford.”  Release date is August 20.

I was also drawn to the June issue of Real Simple. It’s hard to pass up a headline which reads: “50 Books That Will Change Your Life.”  I could totally relate to Lois Lowry’s description of reading The Catcher in the Rye: “It opened up a world that we hadn’t felt invited to.” That’s exactly how I felt. Reading Salinger’s classic novel in Dayton, Ohio in the late 1970s, it felt like I was reading about people who lived on the moon! Here’s a link to the Real Simple list:

http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/entertainment/great-books-00100000101474/page3.html

If You Have a Minute This Weekend….

If you find yourself with a few spare minutes between graduations, weddings, and general early summer frivolity, here are a few things to check out:

1. NPR’s Morning Edition had a segment about children’s books that may inspire a road trip. Mara Alpert, a librarian from the Los Angeles Public Library, had some excellent recommendations, including Take Me Out to the Yakyu by Aaron Meshon about a boy who goes to baseball games in both America and Japan. A road trip to Japan could be tricky unless you have a boat or a plane, but going to a baseball game is as simple as finding the local Little League park!   Here’s the link to the story:

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/31/177930647/mara-alpert-s-favorite-books-for-kids

2. I’m totally addicted to this website that my son told me about – Humans of New York. Here’s the link:

http://www.humansofnewyork.com/

The site has nothing to do with books, but looking at all of the faces makes me think of my favorite characters. Every person has a story, and Humans of New York reminds me of our shared humanity and how many ways there are to experience this journey.

3. Finally, how cool is this bookcase designed by artist Ron Arad….

One way to shelve books is by the the author’s home state.  The Minnesota shelf would be interesting – books by F. Scott Fitzerald, Louise Erdrich and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman all together.  And Ohio would be represented by Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting.  It could be a confusing way to locate books, but a good way to study geography!

Have a good weekend….

What Are Kids Reading?

The title of the report was too intriguing to pass up: What Kids Are Reading: The Book-Reading Habits of Students in American Schools. Renaissance Learning, the sponsoring organization, is “a technology-based educational company with a primary focus on accelerating K-12 learning.”  The magazine-style publication arrived quickly, but I put it aside until my deck was open for the summer, and I had some uninterrupted time to read – with an icy Starbucks beverage in hand!

Not too many surprises, but always interesting to get a sense of the reading landscape. Here’s what I learned:

- Kids read what’s on the big screen. During the 2011-2012 school year, they read The Lorax, The Hunger Games, and high school students read The Help.

- Motivating kids to read is a “result of the interaction of three conditions: 1. a student’s interest and experiences, 2. a book or article that matches those needs and interests, and 3. a student’s success in reading.”  Every good teacher and school librarian knows this, but there are days when connecting all of those dots can be tricky. For me, the challenge is a student who wants to read “up.” Because their friend is reading The Lightning Thief, they want to read it.  The risk is that the student isn’t successful with the book – which naturally further discourages an already struggling reader.

- “High-interest books motivate students to read.”  No news there, but take a look at much of the nonfiction being published for elementary students and you will see this in action. I met with a sales rep recently and was struck by how many pages of informational books look like they have been covered in photos and post-it notes. Engaging and interesting, yes. The upside is that sometimes the web page-like design of these books can spark an interest or inspire connections. The downside is evident when a student is presented with more complex text. When a student asks for research assistance, I start by giving them a few books. Almost every time, when I point out a relevant chapter, their response is: “do I have to read all of that?”

- The data from Renaissance Learning includes “book-reading records for more than 8.6 million students from 27,240 schools nationwide who read more than 283 million books during the 2011-2012 school year.”  A pretty good sample size!   So….what books are they reading?  The report breaks it down by grade level and between 1st and 8th grade, the results look like this:

- First Grade – Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss  (a few Biscuit titles make are in the Top 10. Biscuit is an awesome puppy – and very popular with Inly students who are learning to read.)

- Second Grade – Green Eggs and Ham is #1 here too, but followed by Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff

- Third Grade – Interesting. Diary of  Wimpy Kid books hold the first SIX slots on the list. But, if you separate the girls and the boys, a different story. For boys the Wimpy Kid rules. Girls – The top five books include Charlotte’s Web and a wonderful picture book, Boom Town by Sonia Levitin.  Clearly, the girls, in this case, are, as Charlotte would say, “Terrific!”

- Fourth Grade – The Wimpy Kid rules!

- Fifth Grade – The Wimpy Kid continues his domination, but Katniss Everdeen is starting to creep up the list.  The Hunger Games is #4…

- Sixth Grade – Wimpy Kid and Katniss Everdeen. But other titles for grade 5 and 6 include The Lightning Thief, Hatchet, Holes, Harry Potter, and Frindle

- Seventh Grade – Finally, The Hunger Games takes the #1 position!  But the Wimpy Kid is still there, along with The Outsiders and many books by Rick Riordan

- Eighth Grade – same story with the addition of Twilight, Matched, and The Giver

Just for fun, after reading the report, I asked our 1st and 2nd grade students to name their favorite books. The responses included Dr. Seuss and Biscuit, but also….Mo Willems!  Any book by Mo Willems would take the top spot at Inly. The Pigeon books, Elephant and Piggie, Knuffle Bunny. There is no limit to the love our students have for these characters. As my sample group gushed about Mo Willems’ books, one student said: “Don’t forget Frog and Toad.” Forget two of the greatest characters in the world of children’s books? Never!