Good morning

Here's a link to my book reviews in today's News Tribune. I read Eating Up Gladys to the Ladybugs and Superstars, and Oscar's Half Birthday to the Ladybugs. They liked both of them but especially Eating Up Gladys. Many times when we sit down to read, I'll hear: "Read a funny book."

I will admit that I shamelessly use your children to help me evaluate the books that I write about. And my book reviewing job provides an endless rich source of new books to share with our students.

Seabury kids are one of the reasons I wrote so enthusiastically last year about Steve Jenkins books. (Actual Size, What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?) I even mentioned Seabury in that review. Here's that passage:

"One of my jobs is librarian at Seabury School, a private school for highly capable children in Northeast Tacoma. I read "What do you do?" and "Actual Size" to our preschool class of 3- and 4-year-olds and our kindergarten class. All were captivated.

The younger children wanted to read both books again, so I let the preschool teacher check them out. The kindergartners wanted them, too, so I promised they were next in line.

The preschool teacher had to read the books every day. The day the class had to relinquish them to the kindergarten class, several children cried. There was a special circle time called to talk them through it."

I'm just finishing reading a novel to the Navigators that I wrote about at the end of last year. It's called Project Mulberry, by Linda Sue Park. I wanted to try it out on them because she uses the unusual device of having the main character and author have conversations between the chapters. I liked it, but some other reviewers didn't, so I decided to see what the kids thought. They love it. I wasn't going to read the whole book to them, but they were captivated It's about a pair of friends who raise silkworms for a 4-H-type project. It deals with all kinds of other issues: friendship, racism, writing. Last week I brought in a couple of silkworm cocoons I found at a knitting store. (Park won the Newbery for A Single Shard.)

I don't often read novels to classes because having them once a week it takes too long to finish a book. But they love it when I do. As they do when classroom teachers, or anyone else (you included) reads longer books to them – even after they can read for themselves.

Talk to you soon

Shhh! A research secret

My next post was going to be about Books for Boys, but since I left my folder from the PNAIS conference at school and I'm home now, I'll switch to another subject I've been wanting to share with you.

I will be talking to your kids (Sharks and up) about the amazing resources available on public library Web sites. All you need is a library card. I've given the Navigators the assignment of memorizing their library card numbers (or getting a card if they don't have one, then memorizing the number). A prize is involved (one Navigator has come through, so far, but I think she still had hers in her head from last year). That way they don't have to carry their cards to school and take the chance of losing them.

The bigger prize is what we can do with those numbers.

I live in Tacoma, but have cards for both Tacoma and the King County Library System. They have a reciprocal agreement, so you can get cards for both if you qualify for one. KCLS has agreements like that with many cities.

Back to the databases. Doing research on a database is very from different bouncing around on Google or other World Wide Web search engines (though we will work the the older students on how to do that more effectively, too). The libraries have paid big bucks to subscribe to databases, with the help of our taxes. Depending on the choices made by the reference librarians at each library system, they can include encyclopedias, wonderful reference works geared toward children and adults on science, art, history, biography, geography, etc., newspaper and magazine articles, and much more.

I worked with the kids last year on taking advantage of public library databases and am getting ready to start again this year. It's tricky though when I just have my library card number to use (and a little less ethical). You probably would have enjoyed watching me run from computer to computer last spring re-entering my card number. "Guys! Don't close the library page. Just minimize it if you want to go somewhere else!"

Whatever we do with the databases at school, they're also great resources at home and fun to explore. Take a look. Here's a link to an index of to a group of King County databases the librarians label homework resources: KCLS Homework Databases

And at the Tacoma Public Library: Tacoma's Homework Databases

I'd suggest bookmarking these pages. (Have you bookmarked the library blog yet?)
I like King County's databases best of the two. If you live in Tacoma, it's easy to get a King County card. You do have to physically go to one of their branches though. Federal Way Regional is closest to Seabury.

It's easy to get to the databases from the library home pages (see links at right). Other Puget Sound library systems have databases, too, including, Puyallup, Pierce County and Seattle. So do universities – and the public school districts. Maybe there are other students in your families with access. Their librarians/teachers should be teaching them how to access the databases and use them. I say "should" because I'm not sure my two Tacoma high school students have a clue that they just need a password to get into encyclopedias, newpaper articles, etc. online. I'll check with them later and happily eat my words if they do!

Two more quick things I'll mention.There's something called Washington State Newsstand in the databases. If you go into that one and do a search for Rebecca Young and News Tribune, you can read any of my children's book reviews.

You don't need a library card number for this: KCLS also has a good Homework Help page with links to Internet resources divided by subject. I'll put this on my permanent links to the right. Check out KidsClick!, too, in the links at right. It's the same type of thing done by UCBerkeley librarians. It's another resource that I show our students. Both are designed to guide kids to good Web sites that have been "vetted" by librarians. (Some do have commercial content, though.)

Next I'll ask the Beacons and Sharks to memorize their library card numbers. (The other thing we can do from school is reserve books for them online if they need something for a book report or research that we don't have at Seabury.)

Talk to you soon.

Housekeeping details

Because this is a place that's technically open to anybody on the Internet, for safety reasons, I won't use details that will identify Seabury students. I might occasionally use first names, but I'll even try to avoid that.

If you comment, I'll ask you also to be careful about identifying children. Thanks. If you have a question specific to your child, e-mail is a better idea. If I think it's of general interest, I'll answer it here, but without identifying details. Make sense? The blog is not that easy to get to if you don't know the address, so we probably don't need to be too paranoid, but better safe than sorry.

Comments would be great, though.

You can ask questions: "How many books can the Beacons check out each week?" "Do you know of any good sports novels for girls?" "Is Captain Underpants really okay for my first-grader to read?"

You can tell me about books your family has discovered. (I didn't know about the "Droon" books until two Seabury families clued me in!)

I'm sure this will be an evolving process.

Talk to you soon.

Hellooo Seabury!

This is an idea I got at a PNAIS (Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools) Librarians Workshop on Friday. One of the speakers talked about how easy it is to use Google's free blogger service.

I thought "Hmm. I've been looking for a way to better communicate with Seabury families about all kinds of things. Reading ideas ... links to Web sites ... wish lists for the library ... volunteer needs. This might be a great way to do it."

This first entry is just to test the waters. It's late at night and I've just finished my shift at my other job (Copy desk at The News Tribune). So I don't have too many profound things to say.

I'll just mention that the conference Friday was mostly good. There was a great session on Books for Boys. I'll share some of those ideas in future posts.

The picture book author Nina Laden also spoke. Her best-known book is The Night I Followed the Dog. She showed us a wonderful DVD that Weston Woods just finished based on her book Roberto, the Insect Architect. It's only available to schools and libraries through Scholastic. ($59.95 ... yikes!) I'd like to figure out how to get a copy for the school. It's that good.

Here's a link to Laden's Web site, so you can see who she is and so I can try out putting links on here. She loves terrible puns; her newest book is called Romeow and Drooliet. She was a great speaker.

ninaladen.com