21st April Thank You for Libraries Day

Thank You for Libraries Day is 21st April, a dedicated time during the year to express our gratitude for libraries' existence. They represent equal access to information and resources for all providing a safe space for anyone to get news, use a computer, join a book club, do a school project or do homework! With the help of passionate librarians, you can delve deep into any given topic from history, science, literature, poetry, and arts without financial limitation.

As a dedicated Library aficionado I write about libraries often, as recently as the 11th of this month when I wrote about the library that made me, but I can't let an opportunity like this go by, as I am back at school now and doing my bit to enthuse students about reading, researching and just generally enjoying what the library has to offer this term.

Read one of these books about libraries and smile...

14th February Library Lovers Day

Today was fun! We gave each class a book wrapped in red paper with a card wishing the students and teacher a happy day and suggesting they read the book together. Students and teachers came to thank us and say how much they enjoyed their story. What did I give them? Books set in a library or with a very proactive librarian, of course.

There are four of each grade Kindergarten to Year 2 and one 5 day a week preschool class:

Preschool 

•  Reading Makes You Feel Good by Todd Parr and I Like Books by Anthony Browne.

And in library today I read them

• Carlo and the Really Nice Librarian by Jessica Spanyol

Kindergarten 

• The Book Hog  by Greg Pizzoli

• A Book for Benny by Judith Koppens and Maria Meijer

• Little Bo-Peep's Sheep by Cressida Cowell 

• Have You Ever Ever Ever?  by Colin McNaughton and Emma Chichester Clark

And in Library lessons today we read The Book Without a  Story  by Carolina Rabei

Year 1 

• Library Lily by Gillian Shields and Francesca Chessa

• The Children Who Loved Books by Peter Carnavas

• But Excuse Me That is My Book by Lauren Child

• Little Nelly's Big Book  by Pippa Goodhart and Andy Rowland

Year 2 

• Boo Loves Books by Kaye Baillie and Tracie Grimshaw

• Ronan the Librarian by Tara Luebbe, Becky Cattie and Victoria Maderna

• So You Want to Build a Library by Lindsay Leslie

• Wolves  by Emily Gravett

 

Feel free to use this idea with your classes next year!

4th April School Librarian Day

It is School Librarian Day! Great! There should be one, but it should say School Teacher Librarian Day so that it acknowledges the difference between what a librarian does and what a school librarian might do that is different from the usual job description of a librarian.

There are masses of picture books celebrating libraries,  librarians and their virtues and they start with a very young audience. See Lola at the Library and Carlo and the Really Nice Librarian, but there's not as many that celebrate librarians in a school setting.


My Library has two series and really the school teacher librarian is a bit 'scary' in both.
There's The Library Dragon by Carmen Agra Deedy where Miss Lotta Scales is a dragon who protects the Sunrise Elementary School's library books from the children, but when she realises the books are meant to be read, she turns into Miss Lotty, librarian and storyteller. I have a doll of the dragon who when turned upside down and her dress is repositioned turns into Miss Lotty. The students like the doll more than the stories but are happy to borrow the book in order to take the doll! In the sequel Return of the Library Dragon, just as in real schools now, someone orders that the books in the library could go and be replaced by computers. Miss Lotty bursts into a fiery rage in order to ensure that the books will remain and children will be able to READ. This book's story creates 'fiery' discussions among the students.

 The other series about a school librarian, Mrs Skorupski and her fourth grade class, starts with Our Librarian Won't Tell Us Anything. It is written by Toni Buzzeo who is a School Teacher Librarian. There are four books in the series covering all aspects of her job. To all my fellow teacher librarians have a wonderful day!

While weeding the shelves, I found another teacher librarian this week in Mary Ann Fraser's series about I.Q. the pet mouse in Mrs Furber's classroom. In I.Q.Goes to the Library the class go off to the school library and Mrs Binder the teacher librarian introduces the class to all that is on offer at the library.

School Libraries Matter

19th April Melissa Sweet

It is Melissa Sweet's birthday and as she is a favourite illustrator of mine I have written about her on this blog many times before. Recently I discovered that I had incorrectly celebrated her birthday on the 18th April so I need to write about her birthday again in order to correct my mistake.

Seeing this illustration from Google images which is in fact from Melissa's blog, you can understand why she would be a favourite with any librarian. Her kind of art, some of which, makes extensive use of collage appeals immensely. I first discovered her books when Jane Yolen's Baby Bear books became so popular with the children in my library, but then I went looking for more books by her and discovered that there were a large number of other titles in the library, such as Moonlight,  Love and Kisses, all the Charlotte books and the wonderful Carmine.

More recently when I began a unit of work using picture book biographies with my Year 2 Book Club I discovered more Melissa Sweet titles such as The Boy Who Drew Birds,  Balloons Over Broadway, and Girls Think of Everything and more recently I purchased two new books to add  to this unit Brave Girl  and Mrs Harkness and the Panda.

The best way to learn more about Melissa is to read her own writing on her website and her facebook page because you will see there all the things she is involved in. I was so envious when I read that she had recently done a workshop at the Eric Carle Museum. I wish she had been there the day I visited. I would even have forgone the blue sky, long green grass and heavily fruit-laden apple trees I saw, for the snow and kite flying!

Now I  need to order Spike  (so I can use those wonderful bookmarks) and A Splash of Red to add to the biography unit. And I need to hound the publisher to get Baby Bear's Books  back in print. It is one of the few books that has 'walked' from my library, so you know it is good. Must dash, off to go bike riding or walking by the beach with my librarian friend. see bikes and librarians are important!