Jacqueline Woodson at ALSC Mini-Institute

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Our Closing Session speaker at today’s ALSC Mini-Institute was Jacqueline Woodson.

She talked about how in view of what today is, that it’s good to be with librarians.  We have to transform silence into action, and Libraries do Transform.

We can have empathy for those we disagree with because we all know what it is to have fear.

Begin a conversation across misunderstanding.

Memory keeps her moving forward.

Keep hope in the room and in your lives.

Don’t forget to vote at the local level, too.  We do have the power to create change.  It’s important to hold onto history.

We had a mini-Institute because we decided not to meet in North Carolina.  She said, “This country has always messed with bathrooms.”  She’s deeply proud of the Institute organizers for taking a stand, as a person deeply committed to making this place safe across lines.

These conversations are disruptive, but healing.  Healing begins by being willing to talk with people.

Conversations can begin in the library.

You’re so much stronger than you think you are — because look at the history that got you here.

Writing is a way of healing, a way to make sense out of this journey.

When you tell your story, some will be eager to hear who you are.

Carmen Agra Deedy at ALSC Mini-Institute

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Carmen Agra Deedy was our lunchtime speaker at ALSC Mini-Institute today, so I didn’t take notes.

But I can tell you what her talk was about:  Storytelling!

And she told stories to tell us about storytelling.  She kept us laughing, on the edge of our seats, and deeply moved in turn.

She also read from her wonderful new picture book, The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet.

The power of words mean everyone can talk.  We each fight the good fight.  In the end, where is your voice?

There is a time to be silent and a time to speak.

There are always those who resist being silenced.

May we be among them!

Early Literacy at ALSC Mini-Institute

Uncategorized 2

Going to ALSC Mini-Institute Break-out Sessions was a little overwhelming, because many of the programs presented seemed way beyond the scope of something I could do in my own library.

But I came away challenged, inspired, and invigorated.  I was reminded of the need out there and that Librarians are shining lights and touching people’s lives.

I recently got put as the only librarian on a Neighborhood School Readiness Team — so I chose as my focus programs about getting children ready for Kindergarten, “ECRR: The Next Generation,” “Fighting Intergenerational Literacy,” and “Kindergarten Bootcamp.”

All of them had a focus on teaching parents how to get their own children ready for Kindergarten.  They all have a lot more staff to devote to their programs than I do at my branch — but I think I can move in that direction, and it’s nice to see what big things can be done.

Just a few things that jumped out at me:

From Denver Public Library, I loved their summer activities for Early Literacy, especially their series of Saturday activities with passive programming that’s out all day:  Things like a Box Day (creating things with cardboard boxes), a Mo Willems Day, and Going on a Bear Hunt Day.  They create a setting where the kids explore and play and talk, and the parents get to talk with other parents and be there with their kids.

They also have Play and Explore Centers for babies and toddlers.  Again, the children play and the parents talk.

They’ve got a “Little University” program, mostly bringing in outside groups, but teaching the children in various topics.

They’ve got some YouTube videos of Early Literacy tips with a tip at the beginning, and then an example of carrying it out.

I love what they do with Early Learning Spaces — including 52 activities in English and Spanish, which they put out to do in the library.  An example was a Color Hunt.  (“Look for anything green….”)

They’ve got a central library of Early Learning materials.  I liked the idea of taking giant Legos to outreach events.  Kids can play with the giant Legos while the parents talk with the librarians at the table.

I liked the Mailbox that moves around the library, with varying prompts.  Children write letters to librarians.  Prompts can be as simple as “Say something kind.” Or for MLK Day, “Write about your dream.”

Their approach to parents is: “How can we partner with you?”  They might ask parents to write down a life goal for their child, and then point out that we’re working on that right now.  They honor parents as lifelong curious learners.

The next speaker, Jonathan Dolce, talked about doing Intergenerational Family programs to combat illiteracy.  They meet once a week for six weeks.

He showed books representing diversity and inclusion.  They talk about the books together and do activities based on the books — He gave us examples like making guacamole, watching author interviews, and dancing together.  They call it Family Reading Connection.

The Kindergarten Boot Camp with Phoenix Public Library is a 7-week program targeting children who haven’t gone to preschool, helping the parents learn how to help them get ready for Kindergarten.

All their outcomes are about the parents’ behavior.  And the curriculum was developed based on the state standards for Kindergarten.  They developed it with a staff member who is a former Kindergarten teacher.  They have a program for certifying the additional staff who offer the program.

Between all three of these programs together, I tried not to get overwhelmed, but I was prompted to think about what ways my own library can do more to help parents actively prepare their children for Kindergarten.

Picture Book Collaborators at Breakfast with Bill at #alamw17

Conference Corner 2

Today was my first day at ALA (American Library Association) Midwinter Meeting and the ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children) Mini-Institute!

I’ve agreed to blog about the conference for ALSC, so my conference posts will happen in both places.

I was extra excited to go to Breakfast for Bill this morning, because I wore my Kevin Henkes t-shirt that says “Share Books With Friends”!  And I got a picture with him afterward.

The breakfast featured Kevin Henkes and his wife Laura Dronzek, as well as another married couple, Erin Stead and Philip C. Stead.  All four of them were delightful to listen to.

Some highlights:

Kevin said that a high school teacher told him, “I wouldn’t be surprised if some day I see a book with your name on it.”

He’d always known he wanted to be an artist, but that inspired him.  If someone else believed in him, it made it easier to believe in himself.

On the other hand, for Erin, art school professors discouraged her because they said she needed to do her art differently.  But her husband kept her going.

For Philip, a teacher handed him a pamphlet showing how Where the Wild Things Are was made.  That made him realize making picture books was something you could do.  He had a single-minded mission from there on out.  (Erin commented, “Phil has this ability to will things into happening.”)

Talking about process, Kevin said that he reads his picture book texts again and again and again.  Good picture book texts are like poetry, but they’re also like theater.

Both Kevin and Philip talked about the joy of letting go of a picture book text and passing it on to another artist.  (This is less easy to do when the illustrator is their wife.)  They both get excited to see what the other will do with it.  Erin thinks it’s easier for them to do because they’re illustrators themselves.  They are able to let go of their vision of the work and completely give it over.

Talking about specific books, Philip said he doesn’t like the question as to whether Ideas Are All Around is a book for children or adults.  It’s a book for some children and some adults.  As a kid, he was nervous about coming up with his own ideas, and it would have been nice for him.  Coming up, he’s doing a book called All the Animals Where I Live, which is its spiritual sequel.

They talked about Erin’s book coming up called Tony.  Philip found the text in a local paper in Nashville.  It’s a lovely and simple poem, and he thought it was the perfect picture book text, leaving exactly the right amount to the illustrator.  When they contacted the paper, the author had just passed away at the age of 96.  But their publisher was able to get the copyright.  It’s Philip’s favorite book Erin has ever made.  (We saw some of the art and it’s just lovely.)

Kevin and Laura have a book coming out, In the Middle of Fall.  It’s a companion to When Spring Comes.

Then questions came from the audience, so responses are a little more disjointed.

I like this quotation from Philip: “I’m consistently floored by how special a picture book is to a child who doesn’t have books at home.”

They were asked for titles of 3 picture books they’d give to every child if they had the chance.  They went with titles from their childhood.

Philip:  The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats; Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, by William Steig; and Swimmy, by Leo Lionni

Erin:  The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats; Frog and Toad Are Friends, by Arnold Lobel; and Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak

Laura:  The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats; The Little House, by Virginia Lee Burton; and Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Kevin: The Little Fur Family, by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Garth Williams; Is This You? by Ruth Krauss, illustrated by Crockett Johnson; and Rain Makes Applesauce, by Julian Scheer.  

The last question got Erin talking about a new book that she’s not allowed to talk about, but check a big newspaper this weekend!  She started writing it two years ago, but there’s a character who’s a bullying tyrant.  It has a message that seems timely:  “Be nice to each other, for gosh sakes!”

It was a nice way to wrap up a lovely time with people who love the works of art that are children’s books and respect the child reader and want to bring light and goodness into the lives of children through their work.

Review of A Poem for Peter, by Andrea Davis Pinkney, pictures by Lou Fancher & Steve Johnson

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review, Poetry 0

A Poem for Peter

The Story of EZRA JACK KEATS and the Creation of THE SNOWY DAY

by Andrea Davis Pinkney

pictures by Lou Fancher & Steve Johnson

Viking, 2016. 52 pages.
Starred Review
2016 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Children’s Nonfiction

This is a picture book biography — in poetry form. And the narrative poem is written addressing Peter, the hero of the classic picture book The Snowy Day.

We’ve got all the details of Ezra Jack Keats’ life. His parents were immigrants from Poland, and he grew up in Brooklyn, knowing about poverty and discrimination. Even as a child, he wanted to be an artist, and his father found ways to get him paints. There are a couple of special pages when he discovered the Brooklyn Public Library.

It tells about the art scholarship he won and had to give up when his father died of a heart attack, then about his struggles finding work during the Depression — eventually getting to work as an artist with the Works Progress Administration. Then he served in World War II, but after the war had to change his name from Jacob Ezra Katz to sound less Jewish in order to get work.

When Ezra started writing and illustrating picture books, he’d noticed there weren’t many picture book scenes like those in his Brooklyn neighborhood, nor many children who looked like his neighbors.

I especially like the pages when Peter is created and the book is born.

Peter, child,
you brought your stick.
Yes, you did.
Smack-smacked at a tree.
Some say you were whacking
at ice-packed intolerance,
shaking it loose from narrow-
minded branches.

When prejudice fell,
you rolled it, packed it,
put its snowball in your pocket
of possibility,
where it melted away.

Peter and Ezra,
you made a great team.
Together you brought a snowstorm
of dreams.
A blizzard of imagination.
Flurries of fun!

And soon readers called for
more of where are you?
And between you two,
the one-of-a-kind snowflakes
kept falling.
Onto sweet pages
of brown-sugar good.

More neighborhood friends.
More books with kids who
answered where are you?
with here we are!

The art is lovely as well, with many images of Peter straight out of Ezra Jack Keats’ work and lovely snowflake pictures, as well as a variety of images illustrating Ezra’s life.

penguin.com/YoungReaders

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Nanette’s Baguette, by Mo Willems

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Nanette’s Baguette

by Mo Willems

Hyperion Books for Children, 2016. 36 pages.
Starred Review
2016 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Picture Books

Hooray! A new Mo Willems book! With new characters!

Mo Willems recently spent significant time in Paris, so some of his recent books have a French theme. Nanette’s Baguette is a story with all the fun of any Mo Willems book about a frog who gets to go buy a baguette all by herself for the very first time.

My one quibble? Frogs with teeth able to Krack into baguettes? Okay, it’s odd, but he makes it work.

The book is full of –ette rhymes, and they are done well and add to the humor.

Here’s the beginning:

NANETTE!

Today is a day Nanette won’t soon forget.

Today,
in the kitchenette,
Mom tells Nanette
that Nanette gets
to get the baguette!

Baguettes are warm.
Baguettes smell wonderful.

Getting to get the baguette is
Nanette’s biggest responsibility yet.

Is Nanette set to get the baguette?

YOU BET!

When Nanette gets the baguette, it indeed is warm. It indeed smells wonderful. And there sure is a lot of it….

Or at least there’s a lot of it for awhile.

After much drama, here’s the scene when she gets home:

“Where is the baguette, Nanette?” asks Mom. Did you forget?”

Nanette did not forget.
Nanette is upset.
Nanette is beset with regret.
She sweats.
I ATE THE BAGUETTE!

Mom is understanding and kind. (I love that Mom’s hug is as warm and wonderful as a million baguettes.) They go back to get another baguette. But that baguette, too, is warm and smells wonderful. This time Mom is the one who’s tempted….

The illustrations in this book are amazing. A note at the back explains, “The images in this story are comprised of photographed handcrafted cardboard-and-paper constructions digitally integrated with photographed illustrations and additions.” On the back flap, there are some small pictures of Mo Willems creating it, so you can see the small village with the creator standing behind it.

I was going to say that the pigeon isn’t hidden in this book – and then I found him in a clever place. So that will please Mo Willems’ many fans.

Again, I’m not so sure about frogs. I wouldn’t be sure they actually are frogs except for the pictures on the wall in their house. (Teeth? Really?) But his simple cartoon characters always do work. As always, I like the way he can put so much emotion into such seemingly simple faces.

And it begs to be read aloud. So much fun as it rolls off your tongue! I’m definitely using this book for my very next storytime.

Nanette’s Baguette may be Mo’s best yet!

pigeonpresents.com
hyperionbooksforchildren.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of How to Bake Pi, by Eugenia Cheng

Mathematical, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

How to Bake ?

An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics

by Eugenia Cheng

Basic Books, 2015. 288 pages.
Starred Review
2016 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 Nonfiction

I have a Master’s in Math, so I love math books for a general audience. Besides, my math degree is very old by now, so a book like this taught me about a whole field of mathematics I hadn’t known about before. And it’s written by a woman!

She had me from the Prologue, where she debunks some math myths and begins with a recipe. Here are some parts I especially liked:

Cooking is about ways of putting ingredients together to make delicious food. Sometimes it’s more about the method than the ingredients, just as in the recipe for clotted cream, which only has one ingredient — the entire recipe is just a method. Math is about ways of putting ideas together to make exciting new ideas. And sometimes it’s more about the method than the “ingredients.”

Here’s about the myth that you have to be really clever to be a mathematician:

Much as I like the idea that I am very clever, the popular myth shows that people think math is hard. The little-understood truth is that the aim of math is to make things easier. Herein lies the problem — if you need to make things easier, it gives the impression that they were hard in the first place. Math is hard, but it makes hard things easier. In fact, since math is a hard thing, math also makes math easier.

Here’s talking about what it’s like to do research in math:

It’s true, you can’t just discover a new number. So what can we discover that’s new in math? In order to explain what this “new math” could possibly be about, I need to clear up some misunderstandings about what math is in the first place. Indeed, not only is math not just about numbers, but the branch of math I’m going to describe is actually not about numbers at all. It’s called Category Theory, and it can be thought of as the “mathematics of mathematics.” It’s about relationships, contexts, processes, principles, structures, cakes, custard.

Yes, even custard. Because mathematics is about drawing analogies, and I’m going to be drawing analogies with all sorts of things to explain how math works, including custard, cake, pie, pastry, donuts, bagels, mayonnaise, yogurt, lasagna, sushi.

True to her promise, she begins each chapter of her book with a recipe, and uses the recipe to illustrate the math about the recipe on the conceptual level.

Abstract Algebra was always one of my favorite fields of math, and Category Theory is a level of abstraction higher. What could be cooler than that?

But if the idea of extreme abstraction doesn’t get you as excited as it does me, think of it as math concepts explained through recipes. That conveys better how friendly this book makes the concepts.

She has analogies for almost everything. Here’s where she explains what abstraction is:

Abstraction is like preparing to cook something and putting away the equipment and ingredients that you don’t need for this recipe, so that your kitchen is less cluttered. It is the process of putting away the ideas you don’t need for the present purposes, so that your brain is less cluttered.

Here’s her explanation of proof by contradiction:

Imagine trying to “prove” that you really need to boil water to make tea. You would probably just try to make tea without boiling the water. You discover that it tastes disgusting (or has no taste at all) and conclude that yes, you do need to boil water to make tea. Or you might try to “prove” that you need gas to make your car go. You try running it on an empty tank and discover it doesn’t go anywhere. So yes, you do need gas to make your car go.

In math, this is called proof by contradiction — you do the opposite of what you’re trying to prove, and show that something would go horribly wrong in that case, so you conclude that you were right all along.

I think this book is truly beautiful. And I suspect it might provide glimmers to people who have never before seen beauty in math at all. If that’s not enough to appeal to potential readers, well, it has recipes.

basicbooks.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Ms. Bixby’s Last Day, by John David Anderson

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Ms. Bixby’s Last Day

by John David Anderson

Walden Pond Press (HarperCollins), 2016. 300 pages.
Starred Review
2016 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Children’s Fiction

Ms. Bixby’s Last Day is both a middle grade boys’ caper novel and a heart-warming tearjerker. How did John David Anderson manage to pull that off?

We’ve got three viewpoint characters, best friends Topher, Steve, and Brand, sixth grade students in Ms. Bixby’s class. One day, Ms. Bixby tells them she’s got to take a leave of absence a month before school’s out. She has cancer. They’re planning a class party for her last Friday, next week.

Topher has a taxonomy of teachers.

There are six kinds of teachers in the world. I know because we classified them once during indoor recess. First you have your Zombies: those are the ones who have been doing it for a few centuries, since Roosevelt was president — the first Roosevelt, with the broomy mustache from those museum movies….

Then there are the Caff-Adds. Brand calls them Zuzzers. You can spot them by their jittery hands and bloodshot eyes and the insulated NPR travel mugs they carry around with them….

Then you have your Dungeon Masters. The red-pass-wielding ogres who wish paddling was still allowed in schools. The kind who insist on no talking, whether it’s reading time, work time, sharing time, lunchtime, after school, before school, the weekend, whatever. You are supposed to just sit still and shut up….

Then you’ve got your Spielbergs. They’re not nearly as cool as Steven Spielberg. We just call them that because they show movies all the time….

My personal favorites are the Noobs. The overachievers. Fresh picked from the teacher farm. With their bright eyes and their colorful posters recently purchased from a catalog and the way they clap like circus seals when you get the right answer. They don’t stay Noobs for long. They get burned out pretty quick. A year. Maybe two. I don’t think it’s the students’ fault, though. I blame the system.

The last kind we simply call the Good Ones. The ones who make the torture otherwise known as school somewhat bearable. You know when you have one of the Good Ones because you find yourself actually paying attention in class, even if it’s not art class. They’re the teachers you actually want to go back and say hi to the next year. The ones you don’t want to disappoint.

Like Ms. B.

But then on Monday, it turns out that Ms. Bixby is already out, with a substitute in her place. Brand, Steve, and Topher make a plan to go visit her on Saturday. But then they overhear some teachers saying that Ms. Bixby is getting moved to Boston on Saturday. They are going to have to skip school to visit her on Friday.

They devise a plan to sneak off the school grounds, ride buses, pick up the specific items they need, and make it to the hospital. Everything that can possibly go wrong with their plan does go wrong. That’s the middle school boys’ caper part of the book. Sadly, I found myself laughing quite hard at their bad luck and, in a few cases, poor judgment. Though how they deal with each setback approaches brilliance in places.

As they narrate their journey, each boy also gives the readers memories of Ms. Bixby. We find out how she noticed them and saw them for who they are. We learn why they chose these specific items they need to bring to her. We also learn each boy’s back story and how they really needed someone like her in their lives.

This book made me think of my first college roommate, Colleen Jenks. Colleen was teaching high school English before she died of brain cancer. Truly, teachers get to touch lives in ways that will never be forgotten.

This book is, as Brand would say, frawesome (freaking awesome)!

johndavidanderson.org
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of 23 Minutes, by Vivian Vande Velde

Contemporary, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

23 Minutes

by Vivian Vande Velde

Boyds Mills Press, 2016. 176 pages.
Starred Review
2016 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Teen Fiction

I loved this book. Yes, there’s an unlikely assumption at the beginning, but since it’s the set-up and they never tried to explain it, it’s very fun to think about what you would do in that scenario.

15-year-old Zoe has the ability to turn back time for 23 minutes. She doesn’t know why she has this ability or how it works, but she’s figured out what she can do. She has to put her arms around herself, without touching anyone else, and say out loud “Playback,” and she will be put back to 23 minutes earlier.

Once she has done this, she can keep redoing those 23 minutes, keep resetting to the same time – for ten tries. But if she once lets 24 minutes go by, or if she uses up her ten tries, she’s done and can’t go back.

Zoe has found that 90% of the time, trying to redo things makes them worse.

But the book starts with a situation Zoe has to try to change. She gets caught in a downpour and goes into a bank to get out of the rain. The people in the bank look at her askance because of her blue hair and the way she’s dressed. One youngish man, though, is kind to her.

But then a bank robber starts holding up the bank, and he ends up shooting the kind man in the face. Zoe has to try to fix this.

Her first try, she borrows a cell phone from someone on the street and calls the police. (Teens who live in a group home aren’t allowed to have their own cell phones.) A lot more people end up getting shot that time.

Next she tries warning the bank guard. That doesn’t go well, either. Eventually she figures out she needs to get the kind man’s help. But what can she say to win his confidence?

This book reminded me of the movie Ground Hog Day, except that Zoe knows the number of iterations is limited. I like the way she learns things in one iteration to use in the next.

The book is dedicated “to those who try to make things better for at-risk children and teens,” and Zoe is indeed one of those teens. I like the way the book shows her trying to do what’s right, despite the reactions of people around her. I also like the way the kind man’s character is revealed to be consistently kind, even though different things happen in each go-round, and he’s tested in different ways.

Of course, totally apart from the wonderful story, it’s fun to speculate what you would do if you had that power. What moments would you be able to fix? It’s easy to understand Zoe’s perspective that it’s usually not, actually, a good idea.

She found out about her ability when she was thirteen. That was when she learned the rules. Here’s why she was somewhat slow about changing things when the bank robbery started:

But she has not had good luck with this sort of thing in the past. She spent way too long on it at thirteen – she thinks she may have spent years playing back various moments when she was thirteen, trying to fix things, despite the fact that, really, nobody can fix being thirteen.

In the two and a half years she’s had this ability, playback has cost her more than it’s gained, and Zoe has come to think of her life as being like one of those choose-your-own-adventure books – one where it’s best to read through once and settle, because the choices only go from bad to worse.

Most of all, this is a thrilling, dramatic story with a life-or-death puzzle to solve and characters you come to love.

VivianVandeVelde.com
boydsmillspress.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own copy, sent to me by the publisher.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?