Young Adult Lit

Read Across America

Today was a great day.  We celebrated Read Across America.  I know what you're thinking.  That day was yesterday. Yesterday we had a little ole benchmark to give.   But I would like to know why we have to designate a special day to read.  Why can everyday be Read Across America day?  On my way to school, I started thinking about our kids and reading scores.  I would really like to do a study where I track a few kids around all day and record the amount of time they actually spent engaged in the act of reading.  I think I might already know the answer. 

I follow Kylene Beers on Facebook and Twitter.   Tonight she posted a couple of very powerful statements.  First she said, "Reading at the right Lexile level will never be as important to a kid as reading the right book."  This is such a powerful statement. It breaks my heart when I have a kid come in the library and I share a book that I think he/she might like to read. Then the kid says, "I can't read it because it is below(or above) my level." I'm very tempted to take a pen and mark through the level and say, "Hmmm. How about that. It's on your level now."  The other day, I had a kid come in looking for another book in the Here's Hank series.  He had already read two or three of the books.  He checked out another Here's Hank, and about three minutes later he was back.  He said he couldn't check out the book because it was below his level.  He told me his level was a 4.0 - 5.0.  The book was a 3.9 (According to Accelerated Reader).  I was this close to changing the level.  I know you can't see my hand gestures, but it was just a smidgen.  When I asked him what he liked about the books he said that they were funny, easy to read, and he could actually finish it.  That was the right book for him.  There are only about five books in the series.  Once he has read all of those we can move on to something else. On my list of books to read is Reading Ladders:  Leading Students From Where They are to Where We'd Like Them to Be  by Teri Lesesne.  I think this guru along with Kylene will provide some powerful documentation to my argument. 

The next thing Kylene posted was this beautifully written ditty about reading.   I love it so much, I would get it in a tattoo.  Well, I'm not really a tattoo kind of person, but I would have posters made and plaster them in every teacher's room and every administrator's office.  I have much to research before I can really start my rant on this subject.  So for now, I will just pass along the good stuff I find from the experts.

 

 

 

Now back to the fun day we had today.  We started off the day with 30 minutes of DEAR time.  Everybody read including secretaries and Coach!   In honor of Dr. Seuss, my principal brought her dog and read What Pet Should I Get? by Dr. Seuss to every class.  That was 26 times.  Teachers and students dressed up as their favorite book character.  We had a couple of kids from the Baseball Card Adventure series, Fern from Charolette's Web, and the spy from Evil Spy School just to name a few.  I asked one student who she was dressed as and she told me Esperanza.  I told her I loved that book.  She said yes, it was a very emotional book.  Oh, and you will be glad to know we found Waldo! I can just imagine all the little book talks that went on today when a kid asked, "Who are you?"

 

 

I adored Ms. Porter our paraprofessional  who dressed up as Maddy from Bayou Magic by Jewell Parker Rhodes.  Ms. Porter was a walking talking book commercial all day long. She even carried the book around to show and share with the kids.  Every time a kid asked who she was, she whipped out the book and did a book talk. 

 

 

 

So here's to reading E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y!

 

Happy Reading!

 

 



Youth Art Month

Who knew March is designated as Youth Art Month? Not me, that is until I read the February issue of  Library Sparks. After reading that issue, I got to thinking. Why not host three after school activities involving an art project. I'm not an artist, so I had to turn to my friends at Pinterest and YouTube to help me out with some ideas. This week's lesson centered around Seurat and pointillism. The lesson went well, and I think the kids learned something.  For a display in the library, I featured biographies about famous artist as well as fiction literature.

 

Author Mike Venezia has written a series of biographies called Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists.  Some of the greats he has written about include DaVinci, Monet, Picasso among many

others.  These books serve as a great introduction of artists to young readers.

 

                            

 

 

 

Happy Reading! (and Painting!)



Scraps

One of the 2015-2016 Bluebonnet nominees was the book called Scraps: Notes from a Colorful Life by Lois Ehlert. After sharing the books with the students, I held a collage contest at the library. We had some wonderful entries.

When I held up the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, written by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault with illustrations by Ehlert, I was surprised saddened at the amount of kids who did not know about this book. I read this book so many times to my own children that - 25 years later - I still have it memorized. When I looked at the faces of the students that knew the book versus the faces of the students that did not, I'm pretty sure I could tell who were the better readers. I'm not saying this one book is the key indicator of a successful reader. I'm saying that I'm willing to bet a bucket load of Oprah's money that the kids who know this book also know other books. They probably know nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Their parents probably read to them. They were probably in a classroom where teachers read aloud to them. They probably have been to the public library or even a real book store.

If I were in charge of the world, every newborn would be sent home with a bag of books, a gift certificate to a book store for more books, and a library card for even more books in addition to all that other stuff they need to survive. And the parents would have to pinky swear to read every single day to their kids. And teachers would have to pinky swear to read aloud every single day to their kids. And administrators would have to pinky swear to stand back and let it happen. And lexiles and reading levels would go away. But I will leave that topic for another day.

My Reading Life