Baby book shower

A friend of mine who is a happy new grandmother sent me a wonderful photo of her 2 1/2 week old grandson being read Dr Seuss's Ten apples up on top by his father, and the look of rapt engagement was a delight to see.

This new baby will grow up a reader for sure, and in fact his mother's baby shower was a baby, book and barbeque shower and everyone brought a new copy of their favourite book – either one they had read to their children or their own favourite. What a great idea - starting off a new reading lifetime with a library of literary treasures !

I'm sending him All the world by Liz Garton Scanlon and illustrated Marlee Frazee which is my latest, favourite "welcome to the world new baby" book.

http://books.simonandschuster.com/All-the-World/Liz-Garton-Scanlon/9781416985808

"It's hard to imagine a cozier and more spacious world. At once a lullaby and an invigorating love song to nature, families and interconnectedness." -- Kirkus Reviews, STARRED

Into the book - comprehension strategies

I posted about this website last year - a useful resource when talking to students (primary) about ways to get more from reading - but have just recommended the downloadable pdf posters with each strategy simply defined to a librarian asking for just this thing for display in the library, so thought I would mention it again...
Into the book - http://reading.ecb.org/index.html

From the website :

Into the Book is a reading comprehension resource for K-4 students and teachers. We focus on eight research-based strategies: Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and Synthesizing. Try the online interactive activities, or click below to find out how to get our engaging 15-minute video programs.

Behind the Lesson provides information and teaching resources for each strategy. Watch our 10-minute professional development videos and explore the Web site for lesson plans, video and audio clips, downloads, and more.

What does a good library tell you about a school?

A post from Doug Johnson on his Blue Skunk blog, shared on schoolibs by Carole Gardiner from Queens High in Dunedin this morning

http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2010/1/24/what-does-a-good-library-tell-you-about-a-school.html

"Had I any say in the decision, my grandsons would never attend a school that did not have a good* library program. You can tell a lot about a school's philosophy of education - in practice, not just in lip service - by what sort of library it supports."

He then goes on to list 12 beliefs demonstrated by a school with a good school library...

* Good = professional and support staff, adequate materials, articulated curriculum, pleasant physical plant, up-to-date technology.

It brings to mind an apposite quote from Harold Howe, II (1918-2002), former U.S. Commissioner of Education, in an interview "On Libraries and Learning":

"What a school thinks about its library is a measure
of what it feels about education."

School Library Journal, February 1967, v. 13, p. 28.

Meg Rosoff - Bride's Farewell

I think Meg Rosoff would be one of my favourite authors, I've just recently discovered her - every book so readable, so different from the other, so well-written, so thoughtful...

The latest one I've just finished is the romantic, coming of age novel The Bride's Farewell (Viking, 2009) - published as an adult book but for me a definitely a great YA fiction title.


This book is set in 19th century England, and tells the story of Pell, a young woman who steals away in the night to avoid an inevitable marriage and the children, hard work and limited life that it seems to prescribe. She leaves, with her horse, and, unexpectedly, a younger brother, and the hope of finding a different life, but through the adventures and vicissitudes ahead of her, it is clear the links to her family are far from broken.

Amazon has some good reviews, and here is a youtube link from Penguin with Meg talking about the book.

Here is a link to an interview with Meg Rosoff from The Guardian - with some reading from the book, and talking about the books' inspirations and personal connections.

You can tell Meg loves dogs, and horses, and words... Her prose has a wonderful cadence.

"It was a tangle of a family, for better or worse, a right complexity of children, all knotted up with love and jealousy..."

"Pell's father's family were clergymen of the worst sort: charming, immoral, and unkempt, with livings too small to keep a family and behaviour unbecoming men of God."

"For those poor souls who can only think of the terrible fear and danger of a runaway horse, think of this : a speed like water flowing over a stone, a skimming sensation that hovers and dips while the world spins around and the wind drags your skin taut across your bones..."

Here is Meg's blog http://www.megrosoff.co.uk/blog/

Habits are learned. Visit the library.

A 30-second video from the Finnish Library Association. It's delightful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eITfhOwyTU&feature=player_embedded

Shaun Tan, Astrid Lindgren and Bologna

Shaun Tan is the 2011 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award winner, with its NZ$1 million prize.

On Shaun's wonderful website he writes an account of being told he had won, and what it means for him... http://www.shauntan.net/news1.html

And from the Astrid Lindgren Memorial blog which has more reports about the award, there is also a giddy 60 second video of the Bologna Children's Book Fair which might have to do for some of us until we actually get there one day !

Karen Bonanno and school library management

Check out Karen Bonanno's website with various useful presentations, articles and resources she shares... http://www.schoollibrarymanagement.com/index.html

"schoollibrarymanagement.com is dedicated to the information specialists, teacher-librarians, school librarians, library media specialists, and those who work in school libraries worldwide, who are passionate about making a difference to student learning."

Karen held a webinar on school library advocacy in February this year, and her presentation is available here "7 Successful Strategies to Develop your Advocacy Toolkit"

Strategy 1: Identify a memorable message
Strategy 2: Capture killer statistics
Strategy 3: Gather startling facts
Strategy 4: Source quotable quotes
Strategy 5: Find remarkable stories
Strategy 6: Massage the media
Strategy 7: Leverage the network

Her presentation finishes with the tag : Collaboration, Community, Contribution - Build the Tribe.

I'm planning on joining her April webinar this evening - A point of view on Digital Literacy.

The Good Word Junior - tv programme

This was a great programme, and thanks to TV on demand, if you missed it you can watch it here...
http://tvnz.co.nz/the-good-word/good-word-s3-special-video-4045647

Some highlights :

Barbara Woods, Deputy Principal Viscount Primary School, talking about their Book Club
"We knew we had teachers in classrooms doing wonderful jobs at teaching reading but they weren't actually - a lot of them - readers themselves, and we knew that to be a superb teacher of reading you actually need to be a reader yourself...
We quickly found that we could discuss these books with our very good readers in the school and so we brought students on board into book club and now teachers and students discuss literature together..."
Some students spoke about their "first chapter test" to see if a book was going to be a starter.

Other aspects which caught my attention :

• An interview was with librarian Lois Huston at Hebron Christian College - "We don't force them to read, we want them to read for fun !"
• The power of series fiction - finding not only a great book but a great series to hook into...
• The fun and benefits, challenges and rewards of taking part in Wayne Mills' Kids' Lit Quiz
• "I like reading, and it makes me smarter so that's a positive!"
• The "home run book" effect - wonderfully described by a student who talked about the competition she had with her friends to be the first to read a chapter book, at age 6 - her book was Dahl's Matilda. Another student described a home run book as "the perfect book, their favourite book in the whole world, and they read that and after that they love reading..."
  

The next segment followed a similar theme with Antonia Prebble talking about Jane Eyre - her ultimate, all-time, favourite book, as well as a childhood home run book, George speaks by Dick King-Smith - a title I read to my niece this last January, and we enjoyed it.

Finlay McDonald took one of his childhood favourites - Swallows and Amazons - the first "book that switched on the reading light" in his head, a book which "took you out of your world and into another"... It received mixed reviews from a contemporary audience !

Finlay went on to interview Brian Falkner (his key writing ingredients : adventure, suspense, humour) and Mandy Hager who emphasised the need to be truthful in her writing.
Bernard Beckett was interesting talking about 11 and 12 year olds "reading up" - entering teenage world, a world they aspire to, getting pleasure in discovering things for the first time.
Bernard Beckett, a high school teacher, spoke about the main threat to teen reading for pleasure being the pressures of assessment and homework - more of a threat than electronic distractions. So, in a nutshell - ban homework and make books fun again.

Finlay summed up with these guidelines for creating teen readers :

• make them laugh,
• make them the heroes
• be honest about their lives
• keep grownups out of the action
• don't force them to read

Kate de Goldi spoke about her memory of childhood "story records" - known by heart.

Fleur Beale spoke about writing, and the relationship between inspiration and more prosaically, "bum glue" - ie, just sit and write ! She also advised "Anybody wanting to be a writer has to read - you can't really be a writer unless you read.. and then you have to write... and people should keep everything they write, and date it, it will be a a resource for later..."

So, lots to check out with Emily Perkins on The Good Word, Junior.

Good news for NZ schools re EPIC

Communication from Paula Banks, EPIC manager re MOE renewal of their support of EPIC for NZ schools for 2011...

"This is to let you know that the Ministry of Education has just notified me that they will be re-newing their subscription to EPIC on behalf New Zealand schools for 2011.

Another exciting development is that 3 new resources are being added to the subscription. These have not been added yet as I am working through the set-up with the vendor and TKI, but once they have been, I will send an e-mail out to let you know.

The new resources are:

Global Resources In Context http://www.gale.cengage.com/pdf/facts/GML26709_GIC_K12.pdf (A media rich, content driven, easy to use e-resource that brings balanced information to students seeking to understand international issues and news headlines by tying together news, global viewpoints, reference, country information, primary source documents, video, statistics and more.)

Science In Context http://www.gale.cengage.com/pdf/facts/Science-In-Context-Factsheet-K12.pdf (Science In Context features authoritative information for assignments and projects, and provides detailed coverage of popular subjects. Subjects range from earth science and life science, to space, technology, mathematics, science history, biography and more.)

Educator's Reference Complete http://www.gale.cengage.com/pdf/facts/ERC.pdf (This comprehensive resource for teachers covers multiple levels of education from preschool to University and includes information on virtually every educational specialty.)

If you are not using EPIC in your school, particularly secondary school, you are missing out on a useful resource. See other posts on this blog for ideas of how EPIC has been promoted...