Family Read-Alouds
Had a parent e-mail and ask for read-aloud chapter book recommendations that would engage a bright 4-year-old and at the same time keep her 7-year-old Seabury's brother's interest.

This was my list, If you have other suggestions, please add them in the comments.

Edward Eager is terrific. Start with Half Magic. It's clever enough to keep the older child entertained and fun enough for the younger one. Four brothers and sisters find a magic nickel that gives them half of what they wish for. So they have to be creative in their wishing. Eagar wrote a series of "magic" books that each have a twist, including Magic by the Lake, The Knight's Castle and The Thyme Garden.






Some other ideas:

Mary Poppins, by P.L. Travers
James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, by Bruce Coville
Dragon's Milk, by Susan Fletcher
Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, and/or sequels if you've seen the movie. Though the book is pretty different.
Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White. A book no child should miss.
All About Sam, by Lois Lowry. Very funny.
Superfudge, by Judy Blume. Also funny.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Magic Carpet

We've got a brand-new rug in the library. There was quite a bit of excitement when the kids discovered it. It's cozy for read-aloud time and also corrals the younger classes a little better. As you can see here, kids also like it for free-reading. It gives us one more nice spot in the library to stretch out, or curl up and READ!


With all the comments of approval, there was only one student with this reaction: "It smells just wonderful!!" He spent the next few minutes inhaling. Hopefully no one came home high on carpet fumes that night.


I bought the rug with proceeds from the fall Scholastic book fair. Usually I take the profits in cash, but of course they give you a better deal if you take "Scholastic dollars." So I took a bit of the money to buy the rug from the instructional catalog.

Stop by and see it, and smell it, too, if you'd like!

Medal Winners

The winners of the 2010 Newbery and Caldecott Medals were announced this week and, for once, the results weren't a surprise to most people in the world of children's literature.

A book many people had been rooting for, When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead,  won the Newbery.

It's a terrific book and not only because it pays homage to one of my childhood favorites: A Wrinkle in Time. It's written from the point-of-view of a 12-year-old girl in 1970s Manhattan and involves mysterious notes that appear to come from the future, her mom's impending appearance on the $20,000 Pyramid, shifting friendships and a seemingly impossible tangle of plot threads. But it does get untangled. The conclusion is harrowing, thrilling and moving.

Unlike some other years, it's a Newbery book that will be easy to get kids to read.
Here's a quote from the Newbery committee Chair Katie O'Dell:
"When You Reach Me is an exceptionally conceived and finely crafted work of fiction that will engage and satisfy readers for years to come.”

The Caldecott Medal went to The Lion & the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney. It was a choice that was one of the least surprising of many in recent years of Caldecott medals.

This is what Caldecott committee chair Rita Auerbach had to say:

“Pinkney’s stunning watercolors add new dimensions to an ancient tale in a book which is sure to become a beloved classic."

Here's a link to my News Tribune review of this amazing book.

All the World, by Marla Frazee, and Red Sings From the Treetops: A Year in Colors, by Joyce Sidman, both also exquisite, were named Caldecott Honor books.

Here's a press release from the American Library Association that tells more about this year's Newbery, Caldecott and the selection process.

The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, for beginning reader, went to Benny and Penny in the Big No-No! by Geoffrey Hayes. There were four Geisel Honor books: I spy Fly Guy! by Tedd Arnold; Little Mouse Gets Ready, by Jeff Smith; Mouse and Mole: Fine Feathered Friends, by Wong Herbert Yee; and Pearl and Wagner: One Funny Day, by Kate McMullan.

Newbery Honor books are: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, by Phillip M. Hoose; The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jaqueline Kelly; Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin, and The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg, by Rodman Philbrick.

For these authors and illustrators, winning a Caldecott or Newbery (or many other of the awards announced this morning) is as good as a Golden Globe or Oscar. It means their books get those shiny gold or silver stickers on the cover and now will probably NEVER go out of print.

Many other awards were announced at the American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting on Monday, including awards for graphic novel, recorded book and others. Here's a link to a list of all the winners.

Talk to you soon,

Search me!
The second graders are my last class of the day on Thursday and they always leave me happy - and slightly dizzy.

It started last year and, this year has turned into a full-blown phenomenon. They are little masters at looking up books on the computer catalog and then finding them on the shelves.

Every class has its own personality and one thing that drives these second graders' early mastery of this skill is their intense interest in nonfiction. That's a characteristic of many Seabury kids, but these second graders are united in their passion for amphibians, space, science experiments, rocks, World War II ... I could go on and on.

Their feet don't even touch the floor at the computers, but there they are.
"I need to find 590.9 TAY!!"
"Where's 597.8 MAR!?"
"Hey, I was using that computer!"

We have a really great catalog/circulation program from the Follett Software Company. It's got a component called "visual OPAC" that's more user friendly for the younger kids. I introduce it at the first-grade level. I've included a couple of screen shots of what it looks like, but if you ever want to come in an explore it yourself, I'd love to show it to you. The kids know to look for the OPAC icon on the desktop. OPAC stands for Online Public Access Catalog, by the way. I've answered that question a few times.

Talk to you soon