Books and Reading Storytime

Books

Family Storytime (Sept 5)

Hooray for Books!

by Brian Won

I'm Not Reading!

by Jonathan Allen

The Wonderful Book

by Leonid Gore

Preschool Storytime (Oct 6)

Where Are My Books?

by Debbie Ridpath Ohi

I'm Not Reading!

(see above)

The Book Hog

by Greg Pizzoli

Songs and Movement

Hello, Hello

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

I Know a Chicken [Shakey Egg]

Laurie Berkner

with egg shakers

My Hands Say Goodbye

Magnet Board

Bookworm, Bookworm come out and play

What color book are you reading today?

Open Ended Activity

Create a book

supplies provided: paper cut into quarters, stapler, stickers, crayons

Optional Books

(I kept a stash of books in case I got called to do an outreach)

Lola Loves Stories

by Anna Quinn; illustrated by Rosalind Bearshaw

Chicken Story Time

by Sandy Asher; illustrated by Mark Fearing

Book!

by Kristine O'Connell George; illustrated by Maggie Smith

Bear's House of Books

by Poppy Bishop; illustrated by Alison Edgson

My Book Box

by Will Hillenbrand

Books Always Everywhere

by Jan Blatt; illustrated by Sarah Massini

I Like Books

by Anthony Browne

Picture Books to Help Grieving Children

 Here is a link to blogpost I wrote for my library district about Childhood Grief Awareness Month.  It's more than just a list of books to read to children who have lost someone, but categorized different death/grief picture books and when to read each kind.

Fall Favorites

Because it can be tricky doing storytimes around holidays. 

I love fall and the holidays in the fall.  But after an experience of a family leaving storytime when I started reading a Halloween book (and then they didn’t come back the next week…or the next…or ever) I have avoided reading any holiday specific books during my regular storytimes.  Although the District doesn’t have a policy against doing holiday themes in storytimes we want to be aware and inclusive of all our families and I never want another family to walk out of my storytime because of a holiday book!  Many of our outreach storytime visits discourage any holiday themes.  So instead of Halloween and Thanksgiving books here are some of my favorite fall themes for storytime!

• Apples
• Dressing Up
• Food/Eating
• Gratitude/Saying Thank You
• Hibernation/Animals in Fall
• Leaves
• Pumpkins
• Spiders
• You Don’t Scare Me!  (Books about being brave)

 A few books to consider:

Super Rawr! (by Todd H. Doodler)

Just What Mama Needs (by Sharlee Glenn)

Apple Farmer Annie  (by Monica Wellington)

The Apple Pie Tree (by Zoe Hal)

Before We Eat: From Farm to Table (by Pat Brisson)

Snip, Snap! What’s That? (by Mara Bergman)

A few rhymes and fingerplays you can use:

Dress-Up 
A pretty princess wears a crown
Bunny's ears flop up and down.

A beautiful ballerina dances round and round,
A butterfly flies without a sound.

A cowboy with his boots and horse,
A doctor with a stethoscope.

I like to dress-up and to pretend,
On my own or with a friend!

5 Little Pumpkins
5 little pumpkins sitting on the gate
The 1st one said, "Oh, my! It's getting late!"
The 2nd one said, "There's a chill in the air"
The 3rd one said, "But we don't care"
The 4th one said, "I'm ready for some fun"
The 5th one said, "Let's run, run, run!"
The whooooosh went the wind
And out went the lights
And the 5 little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Fall Riddles
Beneath your feet you hear them crunch

Then they get raked up into a bunch.

What are they?  LEAVES

This drops off trees and there it lies

Til someone baked it into pies

What is it? APPLE

This stands in the field and scares a bird,

But it doesn’t say a single word.

What is it? SCARECROW

It’s cold in autumn, if it blows

It swirl the leaves to make a show.

What is it? WIND

Of all the flowers this one’s queen

When yellow petals and seeds between.

What is it? SUNFLOWER

It’s big and orange and quite a catch

When you pick it from the patch

What is it? PUMPKIN

My all-time favorite fall book:

The Little Old Lady who was not Afraid of Anything  (by Linda Williams)

Why Just a Board Book?

Hey, George! a new book by Sandra Boynton is so cute and clever, but it only comes as a board book.  Why??  I would love to share this story in preschool storytime, but as a board book it's just too small to read.  And I think preschool children would get a kick out of George's secret. 

Here, George!

by Sandra Boyton; illustrated by George Booth

Maybe I'll have to ask a coworker to make me a flannel based on the book!

Book Tasting Event with 3rd Graders

On Tuesday, May 30th I hosted our first ever Book Tasting event!

If you're not familiar with the idea of "Book Tasting" it is an opportunity for kids to spend a minute or two with a book that has been selected by a teacher or librarian.  After looking at/reading a page or two of the book the child is asked to rate it on how much they think they might want to read it.  Then they move to the next book, spending a minute or two with each book and so forth.  Ideally kids would "taste" at least 20 books and hopefully find at least one that they might enjoy reading.

I pulled in over a 100 books to look through that I thought would be appropriate for 3rd--going into 4th grade.  I tried to get books that would reach all reading levels and hopefully something that would reach each kind of reader.  After looking through the books I developed seven "categories" of books and put 8 books into each category.  I had to pull in some additional books to even it all out.  I was very pleased with the categories and the variety of books--topics, format, reading levels.  (See below for the categories and book list).

Each book got a "flag" of which category it was under so kids could more easily find the book in the menu.  I put the physical books in the same order as they were listed in the menu to also help the kids more readily find the book in the menu.

I had 50 chairs set up with around our meeting room; each chair had one of the books on the menu.  I knew the kids wouldn't get around to all the books, so I put books out that they would see at least three from each category.  All the books in each category in order, then the seven categories in order around the room.  [Animals:  The Big Move, Challenging:  The City of Ember, Graphic Novel:  CatStronauts, Great Author:  Tom Angleberger...]  This helped all of us more easily find the book title on the menu.

The menu was printed on 17x22 paper, folded twice.  Each page had a one category with the book titles listed.  Each title had a face scale for kids to fill in as to how much they think they might like to read the book.

The kids walking over from the nearby school for the Book Tasting!

Here I am explaining  to the kids the process before we head in for the Book Tasting.

The 3rd graders enjoying looking at the first set of books.

A book menu with two books "tasted".  One got a full smiley face (I really want to read this book!) and one smiley face (I think I would like to read this book)

We did about 20 "rounds"--so each student got to see at least two books from each category.  It took longer than I had hoped for each book.  Using tables would have helped, but we just didn't have the room!

My "last minute idea"--that I didn't get to do this year, but hopefully can do in the future, is to offer a free paperback book for any student to brings their Book Tasting Menu back during the summer.  I think our Friends would pay for some books from the Scholastic Warehouse Sale.

After our 20 or so rounds I gave the kids about 5 minutes to walk around the room and look at other books that were available.  Then they had about 10 minutes to browse the library before heading back to school.

A few students enjoying Garfield after the book tasting.

Book Tasting Menu

Animals
The Big Move (Commander in Cheese) / Leavitt
Clover's Luck (Magical Animal Adoption Agency) / George
The Mouse and the Motorcycle / Cleary
A Nest for Celeste / Cole
Obi: Gerbil on the Loose / Delaney
Rescue on the Oregon Trail (Ranger in Time) / Messner
Sasquatch Escape (Imaginary Veterinary) / Selfors
The World According to Humphrey / Birney

Challenging (200+ pages)
The City of Ember / DuPrau
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library / Grabenstein
Familiars / Epstein
Hercufleas / Gayton
Legendtopia: The Battle for Urth / Bacon
Loser / Spinelli
The Magic Thief / Prineas
The Terrible Two / Barnett & John

Graphic Novels
CatStronauts: Mission Moon / Brockington
The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo / Weing
El Deafo / Bell
The Great Pet Escape / Jamieson
HiLo: The Boy Who Crashed to Earth / Winick
King of Kazoo / Feuti
Little Dee and Penguin / Baldwin
Varmints / Hirsch

Great Authors
Tom Angleberger -- Inspector Flytrap
Judy Blume -- Tales of the 4th Grade Nothing
Beverly Cleary -- Ramona the Pest
Andrew Clements -- Frindle
Dan Gutman -- Babe & Me
Gordon Korman -- Swindle
Lois Lowry -- Number the Stars
E. B. White -- Charlotte's Web

Informational
National Geographic Kids Alanac 2017
Can You Survive the Jungle? / Doeden
Guinness World Records: Incredible Animals
It Can't Be True 2 / DK
Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome / Montague & Novak
Orangutan Orphanage / Eszterhas
Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White / Sweet
Together Forever / Quattlebaum

Pairings--Books + Audio Visual
Because of Winn-Dixie (+DVD) / DiCamillo
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (+Playaway) / Dahl
The Cricket in Times Square (+CD) / Selden
The Indian in the Cupboard (+DVD) / Banks
James and the Giant Peach (+DVD) / Dahl
Masterpiece (+CD) / Broach
The One and Only Ivan (+picture book--Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla / Applegate
Stubby the War Dog (+CD) / Bausum

Series
39 Clues / various
43 Old Cemetery Road / Klise
Billy Sure: Kid Entrepreneur / Sharpe
Blast to the Past / Deutsch
Boxcar Children / Warner
Geronimo Stilton / Stilton
I Survived / Tarshis
Myth-O-Mania / McMullan

Children's Book Week

Children’s Book Week is May 1-7.  I know, for us doing stoytime every week is Children’s Book Week!  But it does give us a reason to celebrate the wonderful books out there with great stories, great illustrations, and a great way for adults and child to bond.

Children’s Book Week is an annual celebration of books for kids and teens.  It was launched in 1919 and is the longest-running national literacy initiative in the country. This year is its 98th anniversary.

In connection with Children’s Book Week they have a Children’s Choice Book Award through The Children’s Book Council!  I love looking at books that children have chosen as their favorites!  Although they start with K-2^nd many of the books are appropriate for storytime. Here are some from the past few years that I have used (or would be fun to use) in storytime.  

Don’t Wake Up the Tiger 

by Britta Teckentrup

Peep and Egg:  I’m Not Hatching

by Laura Gehl; illustrated by Joyce Wan

Monkey and Duck Quack Up!   

by Jennifer Hamburg; illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham

Found 

by Salina Yoon

The Pigeon Needs a Bath!

by Mo Willems

 You can find full lists on Children’s Book Council here.   

Summer Reads

We haven't had our book club all summer...but here are the books I've read, re-read, or listened to since June.

The Candymakers (re-read)

Wendy Mass

The Secrets of Solace (audio)

by Jaleigh Johnson

The League of Unexceptional Children (audio)

by Gitty Daneshvari

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain

by John Boyne

Unlikely Warrior: A Jewish Solider in Hitler's Army (audio)

by Georg Rauch

Weekends with Max and His Dad

by Linda Urban; illustrated by Katie Kath

We will not be Silent: The White Rose Student Resistance Movement that Defied Adolf Hitler

by Russell Freedman

The Beautiful Pretender

by Melanie Dickerson

The Goose Girl (audio; re-read)

by Shannon Hale

Princess Academy (audio; re-read)

by Shannon Hale

Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow (audio)

by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Pax (audio)

by Sara Pennypacker

May Book Club

We are trying a lunch book club to see if it fits into our schedules better.

Mysterious Benedict Society

by Trenton Lee Stewart

Check the awesome website!

Front Lines

by Michael Grant

Ratscalibur

by Josh Lieb

Sin Eater's Daughter

by Melinda Salisbury

Infinite in Between

by Carolyn Mackler

For fans of The Fault in Our Stars

Roller Girl

by Victoria Jamieson

The books I shared:

All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook

by Leslie Connor

Perry has been raised in a low security prison.  He is a happy and well-like kid-some in the prison refer to him as their "Sun".  When a new county district attorney discovers this highly unusual situation he is determined to help Perry...but does Perry need his help?  A sub-plot: Perry needs to find out the truth of his mother's conviction she won't tell him.  Bonus: Perry is helped by the local librarian.

Time Travelers [Gideon the Cutpurse]

by Linda Buckley-Archer

An older series that's been on my "to-read" list for a long time!  Just after they met Kate and Peter are sent back in time to 1786 England where they meet the notorious Tar Man who steals the anti-gravity machine that had brought the children to the past.  They are befriended by Gideon, cut-purse and gentleman, who assists them in their quest to retrieve their machine and get back to their time.

Summerlost

by Ally Condie

A tender story of Cedar Lee facing living in a new town a year after the death of her father and brother.  She befriends Leo and they "work" at the local college's Summerlost Festival (similar to a Shakespeare on the Green).  Together they set out to earn enough money for Leo to take a trip to England and to solve a mystery surrounding a former Summerlost actress.