Category Archives: Children’s literature

Children's literature, Library events

Tad Hills visit, part 2

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I just went through my email inbox and deleted all the email correspondence that led up to Tad Hills’s visit to the library yesterday.  Yowsa.  There were at least 25 emails – communications with Tad, with the teachers at the elementary school in Northborough that he visited yesterday morning, and with the woman in charge of author appearances at Random House.  It’s amazing how much work an event like this is for all concerned, and deleting those emails made me wonder whether the patrons at the library have any understanding of what’s involved in setting up library events.

That aside, the event was a huge success.  Only about 40 parents and kids attended, which was disappointing (at least 20 people stood us up!), but they were a fabulous crowd.  Tad is a rare combination of a talented author/artist and born teacher.  He read from a special giant version of Duck, Duck, Goose, then brought out a felt board with scrambled felt pieces on it.  He held up each piece and talked to the kids about its shape (circle, rectangle, banana that swallowed a grapefruit), then assembled the shapes together on the board to make – Duck!  Even better, once Duck was fully assembled, he showed the kids how he could change Duck’s expression with tiny adjustments, like shifting Duck’s eye pupil, or moving and molding Duck’s eyebrow, or changing the angle of Duck’s beak and head.  Even though the kids in the audience were mostly quite young, they were transfixed by these transformations.  And I really appreciated seeing someone else work with a felt board and felt pieces, since this is something entirely new to me that I’m trying to bring to my storytimes (I definitely learned a lot from watching Tad, most importantly that I need to slow down my felt board presentations and have more fun with them).

Then Tad put the felt board away and got out a watercolor pad and paints and painted Duck for the kids.  Duck is standing happily in some grass, with a blue sky overhead, and Tad very generously signed the painting “To my friends at the Harvard Public Library – Tad Hills.”  Roy has promised me that we’ll get a frame for the painting and hang it in the children’s room (I was originally advocating for the painting to go in my office, but that would be a bit greedy of me…).

For me, there were two best parts of the day:  meeting Tad’s mother, who drove out from Boston to see him, and the enthusiastic reaction of one of my favorite fifth graders to meeting Tad.  Tad’s mom (and Tad) are distantly related to Jim, and it was fun talking to Joanna about Jim’s uncle Jack and his father Ned, and also talking to her about the Bullard Farm, which I’ve only been to once but now would love to visit again.

And that fifth grader?  She and a friend from the same grade came up to me and asked, tremblingly, whether there was room for them to attend.  Of course, I said, and as I said that, this fifth grader spotted the copies of Duck & Goose on the table in front of me.  “That’s the BEST book!” she exclaimed, and I smiled and pointed out Tad to her, saying, “Why don’t you tell him that?”  As she realized that Tad was Tad, her eyes got huge, and she ran over to him and yelled, “You’re AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!”  Then both girls ran out of the room, and came back within about a minute with multiple sheets of lined paper and begged Tad for autographs.  Of course he obliged, and even did little drawings for each girl and for several other girls who appeared out of nowhere.

Thanks, Tad.  Everyone had a great time, and we all really appreciate your driving from New York City (and back again last evening!) to visit our library!!

Children's literature, Library events

Tad Hills visit

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Tad Hills is coming to the library this afternoon to read from his books (including the New York Times bestseller Duck & Goose), and I’m hoping for a full house.  It’s been many months since planning for this event began, and I’ve advertised it in every way I can imagine, including an open invitation to other children’s librarians in the state.   If you’re not signed up for this event, and you’d like to attend, please do feel free to just drop in:  we’ll make room for you!

See you this afternoon!

Book groups, Children's book reviews, Children's literature

Crispin: Cross of Lead

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The 5th grade book group met last Tuesday afternoon to discuss Crispin: Cross of Lead by Avi, and the result was an example of how a great book can generate a great discussion.

Crispin has inspired an incredible fan base in this book group, and two of the girls have been so enthusiastic and effusive in their praise of the book that they have led many of their classmates (kids who do not belong to the book group) to find and read the book and its sequel.  As a fantasy-weary adult, I am thrilled to see so many young readers excited about a work of historical fiction, and I decided that it would be fun to steer a chunk of our discussion towards the historical core of the book.

But before we discussed the history behind the fiction, the group first shared their favorite parts of the book with each other.  The character of Bear topped the list of favorites, and we talked a bit about his personality and how lucky Crispin was to find/be found by Bear.  And it became clear from our discussion that one major strong point of this novel is the contrast between Bear and John Aycliffe, and the way that contrast creates a dynamic tension in the story.  The group members loved the forward-moving action of the story, but also appreciated the way that the slower moments of the book build Crispin’s back story and help readers better understand his character (for example, some kids mentioned at first that they were a bit bored by the start of the story, but as we talked, we came to a consensus that Crispin’s character would be difficult to appreciate if we didn’t have a sense for what a non-entity he had been his entire life).

After a bit, I transitioned the discussion over to an examination of the historical aspects of the book.  Some of the kids were not entirely sure what “historical fiction” means and how it differs from “realistic fiction,” so we spent some time puzzling out a working definition of the term historical fiction.  Once that was under our belt, we talked about which aspects of the story were based upon actual history, and which parts were fiction.  Though this discussion won’t translate well to this blog post, it was incredibly productive and enlightening for most (if not all) of the group members, me included. 

The meeting ended on an enthusiastic upbeat; and the very best part, for me, was that there was not a single mention of Harry Potter for that 45 minutes.  Blissful.

Book groups, Children's literature, Young adult literature

Book lists

After talking with my brother, the blogging genius, I have added a new page to this blog.  Titled “Book Lists,” this page is a compilation of the books that I have been using with my book groups over the past two or so years. 

There are several items of note concerning the book lists, which I also mention on the book list page:

~ Not all of the books on the list are books that I have actually used with my book groups.  Some of the books are ones that I had proposed to my groups, but they have not chosen to read.  Some are books that we will be reading in the upcoming months. 

~ The majority of books on the lists are new (published in the last few years), though there are some classics included.

~ I do not use discussion guides in my book groups (see the book list page for details on why I choose not to), and so I do not provide discussion questions for the books on the list.

~ I will update the lists periodically.  At the moment, my book groups have chosen their books through January, and all of those titles are on the lists.  We will pick the titles for February through June in December, and I will add those books at that time.

~ Some will think that the books on my lists are at a high level for the grades listed.  This is due to the composition of my book groups; my library is in a very literary town, and the kids who belong to my book groups are strong readers.  See the book list page for more details on this subject.

~  Not all of the books we have read for book groups have been successes.  I try to write a post on each book title summarizing the group discussion; to find these posts, search by the book’s title. 

Enjoy the book lists – I hope that they are of use to others!

Children, Children's literature

The State of Reading Today

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In my tenure at the library, I’ve facilitated quite a few book discussions for children and teens, and there has been one universal ingredient in all of those discussions.  It doesn’t matter the age of the book group members, or the book that is on tap for that meeting:  each time in the last two years that I have sat down with a book group, the conversation has turned at some point to Harry Potter.

The Harry Potter books have irrevocably, and I would argue harmfully, shaped the way that children and teens today read.  I should make it clear that I am not a snobbish hater of Rowling and her work, but my personal opinion is that Rowling’s strength lies in her plotting and overall vision for the Potter series, not in her writing style.  When library patrons, adults and kids alike, rave to me about what a fabulous writer Rowling is, I cringe inwardly.  How can an author who regularly produces wordy, under-edited 800 page tomes be considered a fabulous author?  Her plots are terrific, her fantasy world engaging, but her writing, in my opinion, borders on miserable dullness. Continue reading The State of Reading Today →

Book groups, Children's literature, Teaching

The Diamond in the Window

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(This won’t be my best blog entry, since I have a screaming horrible headache, so please do forgive…) 

The 5th grade book group met yesterday, and we had a fantastic meeting.  Nine kids were in attendance (a tenth had to miss the meeting due to soccer practice, and an eleventh joined the group as the group was meeting – he’ll attend next month).  As I’ve mentioned many times before, this month’s book was one of my personal favorites, The Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton.

Based on past book group meetings, and on comments I’ve heard from the kids in the weeks leading up to this meeting, I was really, really afraid the kids would hate the book, and that they would have difficulties with the non-linear plot development.  I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon concocting ways to discuss the book and delve into its more philosophical elements.  So our group discussion was a very happy surprise for me.  The kids all loved the book, passionately and completely, except for one boy who had not finished it because he thought it was realistic fiction (hmmm – go figure on that one).

One girl had memorized a line from the book:  “Beware how you paint yourself!  Carve yourself well!”, which led to a wonderful discussion of the mirror dream and what it means.  Another girl opened her book and read aloud the lines that Uncle Freddy had cross-stitched for his family’s Christmas gifts:  Longfellow’s “Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime and, departing, leave behind us footprints in the sands of time,” Thoreau’s “Fish in the sky,” Emerson’s “Hitch your wagon to a star.”  The kids had not figured out that “H.D.T” stood for Henry David Thoreau, or that “R.W.E” for Ralph Waldo Emerson, but that’s of little consequence, since they each processed the meaning of these phrases and now these phrases are a part of each child’s subconscious.  That’s the beauty of this book, that it serves as a bridge from children’s literature to the literature of the Transcendentalists, and in so doing creates a foundation of knowledge that can be drawn upon later in life. 

Surprisingly, the kids did miss two things that I thought for sure were obvious: when I asked them a pointed question (the kind I usually try to avoid), no one knew that I was refering to the role of Louisa May Alcott in the story.  And when we were discussing the dream about the line of great men leaving footprints in the sand, I asked them “Who was the man who left the greatest, deepest footprints in the sand, and who passed on the brightest light to Mrs. Truth?”  Not one child in the group knew who that man was.  I had to tell them, “Ummmm, it was Jesus.”  Which prompted one child to cry out:  “It’s a RELIGIOUS book??!?!”  Which led us to discuss that no, it’s not a religious book, really, that this dream is about the impact one has on the world: that one person can be so full of truth and vision and goodness and intelligence that his or her impact on the world is lasting, and many other people walk in the virtual footprints left by that one person. 

We also talked a bit about literature in general, for the benefit of the two kids who joined the group yesterday and therefore had not read the book.  The general literature discussion quickly became a one-ups-man-ship contest – “I read way above my grade level” and “I have to read REALLY thick books because I read so fast – a skinny book like this doesn’t last me long enough!”  Cringing, I subtly put the brakes on this conversation, and we talked about the value of literature, as opposed to its size and speed and “level.”  I picked a random passage from TDITW and read it out loud to the group as fast as I possibly could.  Several kids giggled and said, “huh?  What did you say?”, to which I responded, “Exactly!  When you’re reading a book really quickly, that’s probably the speed at which you’re reading.  When you read that fast, you’re getting the plot line, but you’re not picking up on the beauty of the language and the deeper meaning of the words.”  And then I read the same passage again, slowly and thoughtfully, lingering on the longer, more delicious words, stopping to contemplate, out loud, the meaning of the phrases.  I saw a lot of virtual lightbulbs go off over the kids’ heads at that moment.

It was the best book group meeting ever.  We all had a fabulous time, and it was hard to pack up and leave.  And the one boy who hadn’t finished the book shyly asked me to renew it, since he thought he’d like to keep reading it, after all.

Children's literature, Librarianship

Catching up

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I’m working a split shift today because of tonight’s movie night, and have decided to make use of the few in-between hours to catch up on my review reading.  My goal is to wade through all of those un-read review journals before I go on vacation in two and a half weeks – a worthy goal, to be sure, but perhaps an unachievable goal.  We’ll see.

As I said to Lisa yesterday, I’m spending my entire monthly budget, and I’m getting all the best books out there, as well as keeping up with new volumes in the many, many series that we’ve committed to at the library.  I don’t feel that I’ve missed out on any books…but then that stack of review journals stares at me. 

Perhaps the real issue here is that the internet has changed the way book buying happens.  I read many children’s literature based blogs which keep me up to date on current great offerings, and also tap into many “best books” lists.  I also pay careful attention to the books that my library’s patrons request, watching for reading trends that I see in those requests.   In addition, I’m lucky enough to work at a library that has a review feature in the online catalog, so if I hear of a book that sounds interesting, I use our catalog to check the reviews that have been written about it. 

In addition to these online resources, I make periodic trips to my local independent bookstore, the fabulous Concord Bookshop.  There I can find books that don’t necessarily appear in review journals, yet have great merit, and I am able to thumb through the books to make my own judgement about them.  Last Sunday I scribbled the titles of many terrific books in my pocket calendar,then took the calendar to work and looked up reviews of all those books online.  I also picked up a BookSense flyer, the children’s edition, and systematically went through and looked up each of those books.  Several of the BookSense recommended books received excellent reviews from VOYA, the Horn Book magazine, Booklist, etc. 

My technique seems to be working, if the case of Gregor and the Code of Claw by Suzanne Collins is any example.  I perused Collins’ website months ago and preordered the book so that it was on our library shelves on the earliest possible date.  For about two months, we were one of only three libraries in my region to have the book; I even purchased a second copy because my library’s patrons were clambering to have it.  Clearly my system worked, in this instance.

So what I’m getting at is that I’ll still keep plowing through pages of print copy, and I’ll catch up on all those reviews, but there are now so many other ways to find great books.  I suspect we’ll all have to modify the way that we search for books in the coming years.

Children, Children's literature, Summer reading

“Happy Harry Potter Day!”

That was at the head of a note that Nanette, our cataloger, left me on the CD-book version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Nanette had come in early Saturday morning, even though she wasn’t working that day, in order to finish processing the CD-book (there hadn’t been a record in the system for her to attach to when she worked on Thursday).  Nanette was also the chosen person who handled and processed all of our Harry Potter copies.  As I might have mentioned before, and as any children’s librarian knows, I had to practically sign away my first-born child in order to receive the books before the release date.  And as any librarian knows, if you don’t receive the books before the release date, there’s no earthly way the books will be ready to be checked out on the release date, since they need to be covered, stamped, book pocketed, and entered into the catalog. 

Nanette was the perfect person to cover these books, though, since she confessed to having absolutely zero interest in the books.  No temptation to peek, since she really doesn’t care.  And thus, my totally subliminal fears that came out in my nightmares of Wednesday night were totally put to rest.  Thank you, Nanette.  🙂

But what of Harry Potter Day itself?  I knew I couldn’t compete with any of the big stores that were throwing huge bashes and selling books at 12:01 on Saturday, so I chose to run a very low-key event.  I found gobs and gobs of trivia quizzes, which I copied and stapled and arranged around the story room tables.  I sharpened dozens of pencils (to use on the quizzes), and I set up the special Harry Potter bookmarks that I “won” through a regional lottery.  And I set up raffle tickets and a raffle box for a copy of the new book.  No food, no decorations (not on our brand-new walls), no music, no goody bags.  The minimalist Harry Potter day.

A couple of dozen kids and their parents trickled in and out of the room from 11 AM to noon.  Some of the kids had dressed in costume as their favorite characters.  Some of the kids had a great time doing the trivia.  And some of the kids were clearly disappointed in my low-key party.  Oh well.  But when it came time to raffle off the copy of the book at noon, there was a rapt audience.  I shook that box up, down, and sideways, until the raffle tickets were well-mixed, then I announced to the gathered crowd that I sure hoped the winner was in the room, since it’s always a disappointment when I draw a winning ticket and the person isn’t in the room.

And then…drumroll…I drew the ticket.  “H— R— B—,” I announced, as I looked right at HRB’s older sister.  It took a couple of seconds for M—, the older sister, to process the news, then she started jumping up and down and screaming for her sister — and then she went running out into the children’s room, looping around the room looking for her sister, crying “Rosie! Rosie! Rosie! You won! You won! Rosie! Rosie! Rosie!  You WON!!!!”

It was the most joyful reaction I’ve seen in a long, long time, and it TOTALLY made my day.  Happy Harry Potter Day!!!!!

Book groups, Children's literature

Artemis Fowl

The 5th grade book group lobbied hard for Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer to be the book for their summer meeting, and we finally had our discussion about it on Monday afternoon.  Uncharacteristically, only four of the eight kids in the group showed up (must be summer), which inhibited the discussion a bit.  M—, a bright and well-spoken young man, openly expressed his frustration that the conversation wasn’t as lively with fewer people.  He missed having eight people waving their hands in the air, anxious to be heard.  He also missed the three boys who didn’t attend on Monday, leaving him as the only boy in the group.  (Luckily he has healthy self-esteem, and being the only boy didn’t really faze him one bit.)  But we had a good conversation about this highly popular book, and I feel like I better understand why it and the rest of the books in the series are so popular. 

While I enjoyed reading the book, it’s not the best or most memorable book that I have read recently.  When my brother saw the book on my coffee table two weeks ago, he said that he had been disappointed in it, that it hadn’t lived up to his expectations, and I agree with that view.  Artemis Fowl  is definitely engaging, and the plot moves along at a good clip, but I couldn’t quite see why this series has reached phenomenon status with kids.

Silly me.  Within the first few minutes of discussion at the book group, the kids made it abundantly clear to me why they love the series:

1) The protagonist is a twelve-year-old criminal mastermind.  Or, as M— put it, “He’s 12!  And he’s a mastermind!”

2) Artemis Fowl has a bodyguard.  M— announced that he would also like a bodyguard.  “How cool would that be?”

3) Action.  The plot nevers stops moving.

4) Technology.  T— talked at length about being intrigued by all the advanced fairy technology.

5)  Holly Short, a girl fairy with brains and attitude.  The girls especially liked Holly’s character.

A— did mention things she really didn’t like about the book, the most major of which is the book’s structure.  A— hates (and I do mean hates) that the story keeps flip-flopping from Artemis’s storyline to Holly’s storyline, then to the storyline back at the fairy base camp.  She prefers stories that “flow” in one even unbroken narrative line.  So we talked a bit about style and structure and how authors assemble their books.  It will be interesting to see how A—‘s views on literature change as she enters 6th grade in the fall.

All in all, the meeting was a success, despite the low attendance, and I better understand the popularity of these books (rather an essential part of my job).

Next week, the Teen Book Group will be discussing Monsoon Summer.

Book groups, Children's book reviews, Children's literature

Green Glass Sea

Yesterday was the last fifth grade book group of the school year (though we’ll have one meeting in July), and it was the best yet.  This group of kids has evolved so much over this year, and they are now the most thoughtful, well-spoken, intelligent, and respectful bunch of fifth graders that I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. 

Our book was The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages, a piece of historical fiction about the building of the atomic bomb in Los Alamos.  Dewey, the main character, is ten when the story starts in 1943; we begin with her being transported out to Los Alamos to join her scientist father who has been working there for a while.  The story continues up to the dropping of the first bomb on Hiroshima, and a sequel is in the works.

The kids loved the book.  And I mean LOVED the book.  This really surprised me, since I had kind of pulled a fast one on them to even get this book into the mix for a group discussion (they had summarily rejected this book in favor of a cowboy story, and I was regretfully going along with their choice until I figured out there weren’t enough copies of the cowboy story available, and I snuck The Green Glass Sea back in).  The group is half girls, half boys, and everyone really liked the misfit, nerdy character of Dewey.  The girls loved that Dewey is a pioneer, a girl who excels at science and experiments, and that she doesn’t care about what other people think of her.  The boys respected Dewey’s intelligence, and one commented extensively on how being a “nerd” isn’t necessarily a bad thing.   

Another member of the group, who I swear is better educated and more intelligent at the end of fifth grade than I am now, got us into a conversation about the differences between boys and girls.  The conversation arose because I mentioned the tension between the pair of married scientist characters in the book (the wife begins to have serious misgivings about using the bomb on civilians, while her husband is too wrapped up in the excitement of scientific success to see her point), and Aaron commented that boys grow up playing with soldiers and loving war, while girls are more peaceful.  There was some bristling of other group members as he said that, but eventually we were able to discuss that yes, there are some differences between men and women, and that we also need to be careful not to make blanket, stereotypical statements about any group.

Peter, another group member, then said: “It’s really not fair that men can get drafted to go to war, but women can’t.  Everyone’s equal, so drafting should be equal, too.”  A lot of eyes opened wide, as the truth of that statement hit home.  Then Peter started to talk about the cruelty of the atomic bomb, and how hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed.  Which started an excellent conversation about war and why the atomic bomb was created in the first place.

We covered so much ground in our conversation that it would be hard to remember all of the group’s insightful comments; and this post would become more than long.  So let me just finish with a comment from Jill:  she told us that her teacher had informed her that this book was too difficult for her, and that the fifth grade library book group shouldn’t be reading it because it would be too hard for fifth graders to understand.  Jill was incensed by her teacher’s comment, and so she finished the book that weekend and then wrote a voluntary two-page summary and critical analysis of the book, which she turned in to her teacher on Monday morning.

No word on the teacher’s reaction…