At the start of the year, wanting to build our reading culture, a few teachers and I formed a reading culture committee. For our first action, we decided to survey the students about their reading. We would use their responses to determine our next steps. With the bribe of being entered into a raffle for homeroom cookies, over 70 of our 200+ middle schoolers responded, and here are their responses. For questions about “other” responses, if the responses were minimal or uninformative, I omitted the results here.
Anything else you’d like to say about your reading?
• I love reading, and I read mostly young adult fiction, fantasy, or romance. I don’t read as much as I used to because of the amounts of homework. • I love to read and it is fun to see all the different ways the author wrote the book. • I love finding out the answers to the mysteries performed by the book and author!!! • I love reading ([My friend] made me write this, but it is true) • I like reading adventure books and mystery books. • I read a lot and like reading! but sometimes other things get in the way. • I love reading especially when I need a break so I might join the focus club. • No but I want to know why we are doing this survey. • I get thirty minutes of reading time, because I listen to audiobooks in the car. I get no actual reading time at home, because [of other obligations]. • I really like to read on my own, but when someone tells me to read, I feel like I don’t want to read anymore. • I like reading, but do less if I have too much other work or activities. • I like writing books. • Nothing about reading, but I love cookies! • I especially love historical-fiction/fiction.
Conclusions We can see that for students who read, while regular print books are still the most popular reading material, they are also reading multiple other formats. I find that encouraging, and hope by listing all of those options as reading, students who might not have considered themselves readers will re-think that.
Many students do not read a whole lot each week. We found their reasons telling, as the top two were too much homework and too many other obligations. Based on this, we decided we needed to find them more time to read at school. We are planning a “drop everything and read” wellness event, in which they will all read in their homerooms for a block. In addition, students who choose not to join an affinity group will instead join a “drop everything and read” group during fortnightly affinity group meetings. We are also working on setting up an evening for student writers to read from their works, since so many are writers.
Building reading culture is certainly a marathon! It’s especially so when all of us are so busy that our reading culture group finds it hard to meet. However, we are moving forward bit by bit, and plan to keep at it. If you have some great ideas that have worked at your school, please add them in the comments!
When I first heard about escape rooms several years ago, I thought they sounded like an amazing activity the kids would love, but I doubted my ability to put one together. Then a teacher approached me with the hope of running a Harry Potter escape room, so I started doing some research. After finding a librarian who had created such a room, Beth Bouwman of the Somerset County Library System in NJ, I got her permission to duplicate her escape room. She sent me all of the details, the teacher purchased props and locks, and everything went well. During the pandemic, I adapted that escape room into an online version. Instead of the usual Google Forms style, I used a Google Slide with added, clickable images, so it wasn’t a linear experience.
Later, I borrowed several escape room plans from Erica Testani, a Virginia librarian: Babysitters’ Club, Wings of Fire, Percy Jackson, and Taylor Swift. At that point, I had facilitated enough escape rooms to attempt creating one of my own. I started with another Percy Jackson one, and just finished a Keeper of the Lost Cities one. While the rooms take a lot of prep, set up and break down time, the kids love them and I enjoy the creativity of putting them together.
Want to create a room of your own? Here are some hopefully useful tips.
Plot
Start with your theme, perhaps a popular book series to connect with the library, or some other aspect of popular culture. Then you need a starting point. What are the kids trying to find, or do? Did Percy lose Annabeth’s baseball cap? Do you need to complete a Taylor Swift Lover House with icons from all of her eras? Did Kristy’s little sister go missing and you have to find her? It doesn’t have to be a weighty goal! The premise should include the first clue. I generally do a linear escape room, in that the boxes must be opened in a certain order, so the starting clue is key.
Boxes
My escape rooms are more like solving a series of boxes with different types of lock. I generally go with five or six boxes. If you have a kit from Breakout.edu, you probably have some boxes already, but I’ve also repurposed sturdy gift boxes and plastic containers, using a drill to make holes for the locks.
Locks
You’ll want a variety of locks. If you have a Breakout.edu kit, you’ll likely have a multilock, which is really useful because you can change out the wheels and use it as a word lock, color lock, or directonal lock. I also have additional word locks, number locks (three and four digit), and key locks. VERY IMPORTANT: Because you can change the combinations of your locks, be SURE to label each lock with its current combination before putting it away after your escape room event is over!
Puzzles
Here’s where you can go crazy! Codes, ciphers, runes, jigsaws, maps, clues in blacklight (you need the pen and the blacklight), auditory clues that must be replicated, riddle-poems, baking soda snowballs to be melted with vinegar, Jeffersonian wheel ciphers, red-film clues, edible clues, liquid clues, color clues, pretty much anything you can think of. Tactile clues are great; our kids spend so much time on screens that things they can touch and manipulate are welcome.
Décor
This will obviously vary with your theme, but doesn’t need to be elaborate. Posters, books, props, some red herrings. Consult with students if you’re less familiar with the material, and source items with the help of other teachers. Our theater’s costume closet has supplied a lot of décor for me, as has one of the Latin teachers (a Roman helmet for Percy Jackson). A science teacher helped me by three-D printing a lightning-bolt cookie cutter. Other teachers have responded to my queries for things like a kid’s xylophone and a “thinking cap.” All of the teachers were happy to be asked and enjoyed the opportunity to participate.
Scheduling
One of the drawbacks of doing an escape room is that it doesn’t work well for more than a few kids at a time. My ideal group size is five, maybe six, so everyone gets a chance to participate. When we had a scheduling glitch and I ended up with too many kids, I divided them into two groups and they alternated solving the clues. Because I have small groups, I need to run several sessions of each escape room, and multiple setting up/breaking down times does add more time overall. Plus, to ensure that the kids solve the room in the space of the lunch block, I usually have to give them a lot of hints.
Sharing
I am happy to share any of my escape room setups, and Erica gave me permission to share hers as well (with credit). If you’d like to run any of these, or you have additional questions about setting up this type of escape room, feel free to contact me. If you have one you’d like to share, please also contact me—I’m always looking for new ideas!
One of my orientation sessions with our 5th graders covers citations. To start, we talk about what citations are, why it’s important to cite your sources, and what sort of information citations include. While I mention that formatting is important, I tell them we won’t worry about that today since our NoodleTools software formats for us. Instead, we focus on finding the elements of citations for different types of sources, because different sources need different types of information. I want them to come away from the lesson knowing that: 1. You cite your sources to give credit to the creator, and so other people can find your sources; 2. Different types of sources require different types of information in citations.
I love to gamify my lessons, so I start by dividing the class into two teams. They then compete to assemble a twelve-piece puzzle featuring a blank country map, and correctly identify the country. I created the puzzles by printing out country maps blank except for capital cities. Then, I colored in the selected country to distinguish them from the surrounding countries, laminated them, and cut them into twelve symmetrical pieces. I’m sure there’s a more impressive, less craft-y way to do it, but my handmade puzzles work pretty well!
To earn puzzle pieces, each team must fill in twelve forms, guiding them to twelve different sources. They may work together, or individually. The source is listed at the top of the form (which, to exactly no-one’s surprise, they rarely read), and I provide blanks for the specific information needed for that source. After years of struggling with computers that wanted to update right in the middle of a lesson, wouldn’t log on, lost database access, etc., I threw my hands up and now use only printouts and print books.
I post or set the materials around the classroom, grouped by type: print books, website pages, eBook pages, database article pages, and online encyclopedia pages. On the printouts, I highlight the labels for information the students need, though they still struggle with it. Especially in the last couple of years, I found that students can’t identify a magazine or newspaper title on the database article printouts, even highlighted—I need to clarify that “source” = magazine/newspaper title for my chosen articles.
Once the students have completed a form, they bring it to me to check. If they have completed it well, I give them a puzzle piece for their team. If they have missing or incorrect information, I send them back to find it. They are welcome to help others on their team. Once they have completed the forms, they work on completing the puzzle, and looking up the capital city to identify the country. I always hand out the piece with the capital on it last!
This lesson has held up pretty well, though I do find myself making it easier/more obvious each year, mostly to streamline the game to ensure we finish on time. I did notice that this year, the students struggled more with the puzzle than in years past, and I noticed that they also struggled in a session that involved filling out a blank library map. I wonder, is students’ overall spatial awareness is declining? In any case, I don’t expect them to remember details from this lesson. If they come away knowing what a citation is, that they need to cite their sources, and that different sources require different information in citations, then they have completed their first step on the citation road. How has your teaching of citations changed in the last few years? Please write it in the comments!
At the start of the year, I have eight thirty-minute sessions with the fifth grade, to introduce them to the library and its resources. This year, I decided to swap out one of our sessions for an intro to AI. I started with a fifteen-minute lesson from Commonsense Media, but for the other half, I wanted to try something I read about in a Knowledge Quest article. The article’s author showed students a human-written poem and an AI-written poem, and discussed differences. As I could not locate the article, I decided it would be appropriate to have ChatGPT write the lesson plan as well as the poems, and I would adapt as necessary. Here is the lesson plan I ended up with:
Objective: Students will compare and contrast a human-written poem and an AI-written poem that explore similar themes, examining the style, tone, and emotional depth of each. Materials:
Two short poems expressing similar themes (dreams) o One human-written (“The Dream Keeper” by Langston Hughes) o One AI-generated poem
Printed copies of both poems for each student or displayed on the board/screen.
Chart or Venn diagram for comparison.
Lesson Breakdown:
Introduction (2 minutes) • Teacher: “Today, we’re going to look at two poems: one written by a person and one created by a computer program, called AI (Artificial Intelligence). We’ll compare them to see how similar and different they are.” • Briefly explain what AI is and how it can be used to write poetry. o This is generative AI o I gave it the prompt to write a poem in the style of the author of the human-written poem, of about the same length, and with the same theme
Read the Poems (3 minutes) • Do not reveal which is the human-written poem • Read the first poem aloud, encouraging students to listen for emotions, imagery, and tone. • Read the second poem aloud. Ask students to listen carefully for similarities and differences compared to the first poem.
Group Discussion (4 minutes) • Ask students to share their initial thoughts on both poems: o “Which poem do you like better? Why?” o “What feelings or pictures come to mind when you hear each poem?” o “Do they sound similar or different? How?”
Comparison Activity (4 minutes) • Teacher: Lead students in filling out a comparison chart or Venn diagram. o Similarities: Themes, structure, words, or phrases used. o Differences: Tone, emotional depth, word choice, or if one feels more “natural” than the other. • Prompt questions like: o “Do both poems talk about the same idea in the same way?” o “Does one poem feel more personal or emotional?” o “Which one uses more descriptive or creative words?”
Vote (1 minute) Teacher: Have students close eyes and vote on which is the human-written poem Reveal how they did
Closing (2 minutes) • Summarize the discussion by highlighting that AI can write poetry, but it may sound different from human writing because AI doesn’t experience emotions the way people do. • Encourage students to think about how both human creativity and technology can create interesting things.
Assessment: • Participation in the discussion and completion of the comparison chart or Venn diagram.
For the poems, I chose a Langston Hughes poem, since the 5th grade teacher loves Langston Hughes and shares his poetry with the students. I directed ChatGPT to write a poem in the style of Langston Hughes with the theme of dreams, and no longer than ten lines. Here are the two poems:
A Dream on the Wind
By ChatGPT
I heard a dream whisper, soft and low, Telling me where I ought to go. “Climb,” it said, “the mountain high, Touch the stars in the endless sky.”
But when the day brings shadows near, Dreams fade, held back by fear. Still, the dream calls, steady and strong— A hope, a wish, a waiting song. I rise, I run, I will not stay— For dreams will lead me all the way.
The Dream Keeper
By Langston Hughes
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
When asked which poem they preferred, the students almost universally chose the AI poem, citing its flow and rhyme. We didn’t get to the Venn diagram as there wasn’t board space for it, and the teacher stepped in to help the kids see the differences between the two. The kids were quite perspicacious, once they really focused. However, about half did not identify the human-written poem when we voted.
For the next class, I decided to change out the poems so that the teacher wouldn’t be familiar with the human-written poem, either. I found a short poem called “Grandfather,” by Syrian-born poet Mohja Kahf, and directed ChatGPT to write a poem of similar length, with similar themes, in the style of a modern Middle-eastern poet. While I cannot reprint her poem, as it is still copyrighted, you can find it in The space between our footsteps : poems and paintings from the Middle East, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, c1998). Here is the AI-written poem:
Whispers of Time
By ChatGPT
I hold time in my hands like sand, slipping through each creased finger— you see it in my eyes, the years, the suns that rose and fell.
I was once like you, running toward a horizon too far to catch, but now, I sit with the dusk, listening to the world slow.
I wish I could gift you the patience to wait for the wind to tell its story— but youth is fire, burning for tomorrow, while I learn to love yesterday.
Again, most of the class preferred the AI-written poem to the human-written poem, and actually, the teacher did too—and said he felt very conflicted about that. After we discussed the poems, though, almost everyone identified the human-written poem. Specificity is one of the commonalities I noted with both of the human-written poems as opposed to the AI poems.
While it was a successful and interesting lesson, I find that I, too, am conflicted about the results! If any of you have tried a similar experiment, I would love to hear about it in the comments.
Last month, I covered (no pun intended) books about female-identifying kids’ struggles with excess body hair. This month, I thought I should cover some male-identifying kids’ puberty struggles. Many books address the emotional struggles, with a side of the physical struggles, but I couldn’t find too many with a strong focus on the physical struggles. I suspect there are many more than I found, but the issues are embedded in the story as a whole and don’t merit their own subject heading. If you know of other titles that address these issues as part of the story, write them in the comments! Summaries from Worldcat or GoodReads.com.
“The voice actor for a hit animated series, thirteen-year-old Nikhil must find the courage to speak out about what’s right when a group of conservative parents protest his openly gay status.” –Publisher. Note: Nikhil’s voice is changing, which means he can no longer play the character he loves so much, and he’s struggling to face that reality.
“Still struggling with a home life edging on the poverty line, Rex can’t afford to buy the acne medication or deodorant he needs, and bullies are noticing Rex’s awkward transformation.” –GoodReads.com.
“As twelve-year-old Duane endures the confusing and humiliating aspects of puberty, he watches a newborn bird in a nest on his windowsill begin to grow and become more independent, all of which he records in his journal.” –Publisher.
“Thirteen-year-old Bobby Connor is a normal adolescent boy–at least he hopes he is–just trying to survive middle school. But it seems he’s being foiled at every turn, and even his own body is conspiring against him. And when his math teacher is seriously injured from the shock and fright of witnessing just how out of control Bobby’s changing adolescent body is getting, he starts to worry he’s anything but normal.” –Publisher.
“Jack Sprigley isn’t just a late-bloomer. He’s a no-bloomer. It’s nearly the end of Year 8, and with puberty still a total no-show, Jack’s in serious danger of being left behind by his friends. But then he comes up with a plan to solve all his problems. It’s simple: all he has to do is fake puberty…” –GoodReads.com.
“Inspired by the angelic sound of Yutaka’s voice, [his middle school] choir eagerly accepts him into their ranks. But when Yutaka’s voice begins to change as he enters puberty, the journey ahead will be one of self-discovery and reflection for not only himself, but also for those around him.” –GoodReads.com.
“Unable to accept or explain his family’s newly acquired wealth, his growing interest in sex, and a friend’s shoplifting habit, a thirteen-year-old finds the pains in his stomach getting worse and worse.” –Publisher.
“When Jay starts eighth grade with a few pimples he doesn’t think much of it at first…except to wonder if the embarrassing acne will disappear as quickly as it arrived. But when his acne goes from bad to worse, Jay’s prescribed a powerful medication that comes with some serious side effects.” –GoodReads.com.
Short story collection. Specific story: “How a Boy Can Become a Grease Fire.” A boy likes a girl, and his friends decide to help him with his BO, dry skin, and chapped lips, as well as accompanying him to her house so he can ask for her number. This one was just funny, and sweet/obnoxious of the friends. Those middle school crushes are aptly named.
As someone who grew up at a time when Judy Blume’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret was one of the only middle school books even mentioning menstruation, it’s refreshing to see somewhat of a proliferation of titles to help menstruators through this coming-of-age milestone. You can see some lists here and here. I’m hoping the next puberty-concern authors will bring into the light is body hair. Society levies such immense pressure, especially on those identifying as female, to eradicate any hint of body hair beyond eyebrows, eyelashes, and head hair. As someone whose genetics “blessed” her with an excess of body hair, which I’ve spent years and untold dollars painfully removing, young-me would have found such comfort in a “Margaret” book for body hair. I think there is hope, as I did find a few books when I went searching, but only a few. If you have more to add to this list, please do! Summaries from publishers/Worldcat. Links to GoodReads.com.
“High school debater TJ Powar, after she and her cousin become the subject of an ugly meme, makes a resolution to stop shaving, plucking, and waxing, and prove that she can be her hairy self and still be beautiful… but soon finds this may be her most difficult debate yet.” –Worldcat.
“A biracial Indian/Caucasian girl is nervous to begin middle school, especially since her mother is now the breadwinner of the family, her best friend may no longer be a bestie, and the appearance of the seventeen hairs over her lip that form a very unwanted mustache.” – Publisher
“Follows the endless humiliations, unrequited obsessions, and all-consuming friendships of fifteen-year-old Evia Birtwhistle as she leads a body-hair positive revolution at her school.” –Worldcat
Laxmi’s Mooch. Shelly Anand, author. Nabi H. Ali, illustrator (Picture Book)
“After Laxmi’s friend Zoe points out the hairs on her lip, Laxmi is very self-conscious until her East Indian parents help her to accept and celebrate her appearance.” –Worldcat
“Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in Panem’s Hunger Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weight survival against humanity and life against love.” –Publisher
I was sitting at my desk as the year wound up, students and faculty scattered to the winds, wondering what to write about for my July blog post. It was then that I heard my colleague, who was busy in the stacks, chortling away. Like me, she’s an inveterate audiobook reader, so I knew she was listening to something (rather than plotting nefarious pranks involving fake books and glitter bombs, not that I’ve ever thought about doing that, nope, never—do you know what glitter abatement costs? Me neither, but I can imagine my admins’ response to receiving that check request…). While I enjoy many books with humor, it takes a lot to get me laughing out loud, so a book with that capability becomes a precious favorite. Thus for the lazy days of July, what could be better than a book that makes you laugh so hard you re-separate a rib cartilage injury from your teens (for example)? Here are my favorites, starting with MS books and moving to YA and Adult books. I’ve included either my own GoodReads summary or a publisher/WorldCat summary, and a link to my full TL;DR GoodReads reviews. Please share your own favorite laugh-out-loud books in the comments!
The war started over Poptarts. Maybe. Whatever; the start doesn’t matter so much as what followed. Claudia and Reece were out to get each other, and things just keep escalating. There was the fish episode, and the ill-conceived video episode, and the Megaworld episode…where will it end? Told by Claudia as an audiobook, with frequent interruptions to add in text threads between the parents, chapters by Reece or just commentary by Reece, and other characters as well.
It’s 7th grade, and Rahul, an Indian-American boy from Indiana, has a pretty good life. He’s got great parents, an extended “family” of other Indians and Indian Americans who’ve known him forever and love to feed him, a wonderful grandfather who lives with them, a younger brother who can be annoying but is basically ok, good grades, and a super-best friend in Chelsea. But there are down sides, primarily Brent, the local bully, and his football cronies, one of whom used to be a friend of Rahul’s, but they drifted apart. Lately, though, Rahul finds his eyes keep drifting back to Justin, and he doesn’t know why. He does know that he’s feeling the need to be “best” at something, though, and his attempts are both hilarious and painful to watch. He’s gamely supported by his parents and Chelsea, but more and more Rahul finds himself pushing everyone away, and has developed some worrisome OCD habits. 7th grade is not turning out to be his best year…but is there a way to save it?
Ninth graders T.C., Augie, and Alejandra tell the story of their most excellent year. During this year, they all fell in love (Augie first had to realize he was gay, and T.C. had to stop taking dating advice from his dad), fought for social causes (T.C. taught Alejandra how to spam the Senate to get a baseball diamond built at Manzanar), performed brilliantly onstage (Augie’s interpretation of “Too Darn Hot” brought down the house), adopted a deaf six-year-old foster kid obsessed with Mary Poppins (he kept expecting her to come rescue him), and generally grew into their potential.
My Lady Jane. Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows. (YA)
Let’s face it: Tudor history has needed a reboot for a long time. Everyone knows all the scandals and battles and wives and what have you. Time for something new. Imagine that the world includes two kinds of people; those who can turn into animals, and those who can’t. The Tudors include many of the former, including Henry VIII (a lion who eats messengers). Because humans are human whatever their shape, there’s tension between the two types of people, which is about to come to a head. Henry VIII is gone, and his sickly teenage son Edward is on the throne, but dying slowly of ‘The Affliction.’ In a moment of weakness, he is persuaded to do two things: order the marriage of his book-loving cousin Jane Grey to the son of his most influential counselor, Lord Dudley. Gifford (or G, as he prefers), is a fine young man–when he is a man. From sunup to sundown, he’s a horse. So, Edward orders Jane to marry G, then appoints Jane his successor. What do you think the odds are for Edward at this point? Well, better than in the history we know, is all I can tell you.
“Stop. I won’t let you take your trousers off in the middle of the street. That is a terrible idea.”
“Right. Well. Shall we keep kissing until we think of a better one?” In the 1700s, 18-year-old Henry Montague, Viscount of Disley, is a terrible rake. Expelled from Eton, he spends his time drinking, gambling, and tumbling in and out of bed with boys and girls rather indiscriminately, all while nursing a painfully unrequited crush on his best friend Percy. Their last hurrah–and Monty’s last chance at his inheritance—Is a year-long Grand Tour, at the end of which Monty and Percy will likely be parted forever and Monty will be stuck at home with his monster of a father. Despite being saddled with a “bear-leader” determined to make the boys—and Monty’s younger sister Felicity, who will be dropped off (most unwillingly) at finishing school)—behave, it doesn’t take Monty long to make some spectacularly bad decisions (nudity and theft are involved) that have them fleeing Paris. Beset by highwaymen, the three young adults lose their guardians and their possessions, and then find themselves being pursued across Europe by armed guards (thanks for that, Monty). Will they survive? Will Monty and Percy ever get together? Will Felicity sell them both to pirates for being SO annoying and useless? Stay tuned…
YOLO Juliet. Brett Wright, William Shakespeare (YA)
“Imagine: What if those star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet had smartphones? A classic is reborn in this adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays! Two families at war. A boy and a girl in love. A secret marriage gone oh-so-wrong… and h8. A Shakespeare play told through its characters texting with emojis, checking in at certain locations, and updating their relationship statuses.” –WorldCat.org
Linus Baker is different than all of the other drones—uh, case workers—at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. For one, he’s been there 17 years. For two, he actually cares about the children in the orphanages he investigates. His job is pretty much his life. He’s 40 something and lives alone with a cranky cat and nosy neighbor, and only vaguely dreams of more. So when he’s assigned to spend a month on an island, investigating the highly classified Marsyas Orphanage, he’s puzzled, dubious, nervous, and very slightly excited. The children on Marsyas are like nothing he’s ever encountered—a female gnome who wants to bury him in her garden, a tentacled green blob who wants to do his laundry, a sprite who wants to turn him into a tree, a wyvern who wants all his buttons, a were-pomeranian who hides from him, and, of course, the antichrist who loves doo-wop. Then there’s the master, the enigmatic, kind, slightly rumpled Arthur Parnassus, who sees something in Linus that he’s never seen in himself.
Elliott’s mother left when he was young and his father basically stopped living—and stopped being a father—at the same time, leaving their snarky, too-smart, redheaded son to bring himself up, and he’s not doing the greatest job. He knows he has an abrasive personality and has no friends. Then a strange woman takes his class on a field trip to a, well, a field, and Elliott can see an immense wall the others can’t. He’s offered the chance to attend school in the Borderlands beyond the wall, and, having nothing to lose, he takes it; maybe he’ll get the chance to see mermaids? The camp that serves as a school for the Borderlands guards is nothing like what Elliott thought it would be, and he flat out refuses to be in the Guard side of the training because violence never solved anything—he’ll do the Council training course instead. His loathing of violence doesn’t stop him falling madly in love with a gorgeous elf called Serene Heart in the Chaos of Battle (“That’s so badass!”), and he pledges himself to her immediately, which doesn’t turn her off because in elf culture, women are the strong ones and men stay at home and embroider. Elliott’s not thrilled with most of the other recruits, including the impossibly charismatic Luke Sunborn, who reminds Elliott of all the boys who have everything and like to bully the kids who don’t—including Elliott. Unfortunately, Luke and Serene have already bonded over their love of sports and battle and everything else, and Elliott will have to put up with Luke if he wants to stay close to Serene. And so begin their years of training.
In the 1940s, Brooklyn Jewish kid Joey is plagued by nasty bullies and the lack of a father. He decides that Charlie Banks, third baseman of the NY Giants, will become his best friend and fill that gap. Through cunning, deceit, and smarts, he finds Charlie’s address and starts writing him. Charlie is less than thrilled, but just can’t seem to shake Joey. There’s just something about this persistent, annoying, resourceful, fearless kid that Charlie (like many, many others) can’t resist, much as he might want to. The book consists of their letters and notes, Joey’s notes to his local best friend Craig Nakamura, Joey’s report card (Obedience: F), letters to Joey from the White House Press Secretary in response to Joey’s letters, letters from Hazel, the Ethel-Merman-hating singer who is Charlie’s “Toots,” and so much more. Life is exciting and profane and sad, and a world war is just on the horizon.
“This is the story of Arthur Dent, who, seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, is plucked off the planet by his friend, Ford Prefect, who has been posing as an out-of-work actor for the last fifteen years but is really a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Together they begin a journey through the galaxy aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with the words don’t panic written on the front. (“A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.”).” –Publisher
Gus sometimes wonders how this got to be his life. He runs a video rental emporium (who even rents videos anymore? Very few people, which is still more than Gus wants to interact with) in a tiny town in Oregon, he has an accidental albino ferret named Harry S. Truman who goes everywhere with him (you really don’t want to deal with a pissed-off ferret if you don’t), he reads encyclopedias for fun, has a flip phone and no internet, can quote all the Oscar winners in any category for any year, and his “best” friends are three elderly, possibly-sisters-possibly-polyamorous-lesbians who drive Vespas and wear pink leather jackets (I think). It’s an okay life, it is, really, but he can’t even quantify how much he misses Pastor Tommy, his sweet, loving, outgoing, usually-totally-stoned father. Gus doesn’t interact with many people, and he’s beyond awkward when he does, so when he encounters Casey, an asexual stoner hipster who seems to think Gus is beyond awesome, Gus is completely flummoxed. Maybe the Internet could teach him how to be a normal person?
Hapless time-travel historian Ned Henry is in search of a horrendous Victorian artifact called ‘The Bishop’s Bird Stump,’ as part of a project to recreate Coventry Cathedral exactly as it was before it was bombed in World War II. Unfortunately, Ned has been doing so much time travelling that he’s suffering from time-lag, which disorients its sufferers and starts them quoting melodramatic poetry. Ned needs a rest, but the project’s financer, Lady Shrapnel, is ruthless in her pursuit of perfection–and the historians who will get it for her. Ned needs a safe place to recuperate, so travels to the Victorian era for a peaceful holiday drifting down the Thames River. Of course, nothing goes as planned, and Ned is soon embarked on a hilarious series of misadventures closely related to those encountered by the hapless heroes of Jerome K. Jerome’s hilarious ‘Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog.’
“Set to have a vacation away from her home life and the tax man, young barrister Julia Larwood takes a trip to Italy with her art-loving boyfriend. But when her personal copy of the current Finance Act is found a few meters away from a dead body, Julia finds herself caught up in a complex fight against the Inland Revenue. Fortunately, she’s able to call on her fellow colleagues who enlist the help of their friend Oxford professor Hilary Tamar. However, all is not what it seems. Could Julia’s boyfriend in fact be an employee of the establishment she has been trying to escape from? And how did her romantic luxurious holiday end in murder?” –Publisher.
The town of Caerphilly, VA, finds itself in a unique position this July; their rat of an ex-mayor mortgaged the town buildings then fled, at which point the ‘Evil Lender’ evicted all town employees from the buildings–except for Mr. Throckmorton, who barricaded himself in the courthouse basement with his beloved Archives. Unbeknownst to the Evil Lender, there is a secret tunnel into the Courthouse, through which those town residents in the know have been ferrying supplies and information to Mr. Throckmorton for the past year. Now, though, the Evil Lender seems to be stepping up its efforts to get Mr. Throckmorton out–including getting him accused of murder. It’s up to blacksmith Meg Langslow and her town friends to find out the truth and save not only Mr. Throckmorton, but the whole town.
Travis and Craig met at boarding school and fell in love their senior year, 1978. After a passionate summer together in NYC, they went to the opposite sides of the country for college, and fell out of touch. Travis became an unorthodox professor of American literature, who asks his students about Alexander Hamilton and baseball, as well as what to do about his 27th boyfriend. Craig becomes a lawyer, falls in love with Clayton, and they’ve been together 12 years. Then Travis finally has a revelation in 1998 that Craig is The One for him, and starts off on a picaresque journey to find him and get him back. What does Craig think about that? Well, that would be telling…
“‘We agree that we are overworked, and need a rest—A week on the rolling deep? —George suggests the river—’ And with the co-operation of several hampers of food and a covered boat, the three men (not forgetting the dog) set out on a hilarious voyage of mishaps up the Thames. When not falling in the river and getting lost in Hampton Court Maze, Jerome K. Jerome finds time to express his ideas on the world around—many of which have acquired a deeper fascination since the day at the end of the 19th century when this excursion was so lightly undertaken.” –Publisher.
As I followed the “reading culture” thread on the listserv last month and scrawled lists of related books I need to investigate, it got me thinking about all the ways I read nowadays. More specifically, I thought about how differently I read now than I did when I was a kid. When I was the age of my current students, reading meant a print book, or maybe an article in a print magazine or newspaper. Now, though?
In the morning and evening, as I get ready for work or bed, I listen to audiobooks. I also listen to audiobooks on long car trips. For short trips, I prefer podcasts, though often that means reading-adjacent storytelling podcasts like The Moth or StoryCorps.
Professional articles I mostly read on my computer, though my school does subscribe to print versions of SLJ and Hornbook, which makes for a nice break from staring at screens all the time!
In my father’s last years, I called him daily to read him articles from The New York Times, Smithsonian, or BBC Travel, all of which I read on my computer (though I do maintain a print subscription to Smithsonian).
I review books for SLJ and Kirkus, and these days, I read all those on my computer.
For travel, or for books I need to read as soon as possible, I have a Kindle, or the Kindle app on my phone.
Before I go to sleep, I catch up on Webtoons, and read fanfic recommended by my friends’ kids or my students.
And yes, I also still read print books and graphic novels!
I’m sure that most of your reading lives are equally diverse, and I can only imagine what my students’ reading lives include! So often I think our students don’t consider themselves readers because they don’t read print books except for class, but they may well devour (or write!) hundreds of thousands of words of fanfiction online, or listen to serial stories on podcasts, or read articles in areas of interest online, etc.
So how do we celebrate all kinds of reading as we build a reading culture at school? Chris Young mentioned a few things in their recent post on using Beanstack to foster a culture of reading, with Book Bingo that included articles and audiobooks. That’s a great start! Perhaps I could start the year with a board inviting kids to write down all the ways they read, and then work from there? Perhaps I’ll get amazing ideas from books about reading culture, as well. I don’t yet know how I’ll approach it, but I know I want to take into account all kinds of reading.
Tell me in the comments all the ways you and your students read!
Covers of all the books I read in the last twelve months, flanked by my favorite Webtoons.
Welcome to the final post in this series. In part one, I covered the demographics of the authors who responded to my survey, and logistical planning for an in-person visit. In part two, I covered preparing for and promoting an author event at your school. In this final post, I will cover ensuring your author visit goes smoothly on the day. As always, many thanks to the authors who took the time to respond to my survey!
Day-Of Logistics
Asked how a librarian can make a visit day go smoothly, most authors ticked all the boxes: Keep a communication device handy in case of issues; Meet the author at the check-in point; Escort the author wherever they need to go; Make introductions; Help with any tech needs/issues; Have water available; Facilitate signings with post-its and extra pens.
In the “other” option, Margriet Ruurs suggested: “Display books on a table so kids can see the relationship between the books, the speaker and the slideshow/talk.” Kirby Larson said: “The more communication, the better!” Kelly Jones added: “I don’t need to be escorted (I know you’re busy!). But it helps if the office is aware that I’m coming and can tell me where I should go.”
Make It Special
Here are some examples of librarians who went the extra mile and made the author visit really special.
Martha Brockenbrough: “Not only did Terry Shay have the cheerleading squad, he had every kid outside with little signs to welcome me. It was over the top, but definitely incredible. The excitement made me feel good, but more important—it made the KIDS pumped for what was to come.”
Margriet Ruurs: “If they do all the things listed above, it’s awesome. But often that’s not the case and you have to make the best of it for the students’ sake. It’s a great gesture when the principal attends a session and sets the tone for the importance of reading in the school.”
Phoebe Fox: “With everything an author brings to a visit, it is especially helpful to have a parking spot reserved near the library or area of presentation.”
Dianne White: “Librarians who have prepared the kids and teachers by talking about the visit ahead of time, sharing books, and helping kids and staff get excited about the value of author visits make for the best overall experiences.”
Kirby Larson: “At one middle school in Arkansas, the librarian worked with the cafeteria to have food that was suggested by my books! Amazing. I am so grateful when librarians provide extra water for me and a little sweet snack in the afternoon; I appreciate being introduced to the principal; I’m always touched when there’s a little welcome swag bag in the hotel room. Honestly, I’m so appreciative of how hard librarians/teachers are already working; I am in total awe of all the extras they do to connect kids with books and their creators.”
Kelly Jones: “I appreciate it when librarians prepare students for my visit, but I also really love hearing any follow-ups! It’s been wonderful to hear about classes who’ve continued the writing exercises we talk about and create their own stories, or libraries who’ve created ways for students to share the stories they create with each other.” In addition, “If there’s a practice you use for library time or assemblies that works well with your students, please tell me! For instance, one library often used a “stop and share” practice for the kinds of exciting questions I was asking students to think about. The librarian would ask the question, then students would have one minute to discuss it with a neighbor before we moved on. When the librarian stopped my presentation to explain, it was a perfect addition—something I could use with that school and with others!”
Lily LaMotte: “The cafeteria serving the students lunch with the recipe from my book… I’ve also had a teacher in West Palm Beach make a whole diorama on stage. Other librarians decorated their libraries. Another teacher had a contest where students wrote essays about why they wanted to come to a small group student lunch with me.”
Dori Hillestad Butler: “I love when I pull into a school parking lot and see a sign that tells me where to park. (I especially liked the ones that said VIP AUTHOR PARKING—I’ve been to several schools that did that.) A librarian in Oregon had read that I like Diet Dr. Pepper and had a couple bottle of it (nobody has Diet Dr. Pepper on hand!). One of the best school visits I ever was in Colorado–the kids wrote a play based on one of my books and then performed it for me.”
Cautionary Tales
Sometimes, visits don’t go so well, unfortunately. Here are some (anonymous) examples, and reasons why.
“I would say that most visits are always wonderful, but I did have a visit last year that was close to the end of the school year. The multi-purpose room was full of stuff that had been recently been moved there because the year was coming to an end. There was a lot of last minute cleaning up and making room for the classes to fit. It left me with the feeling that the author visit was more of an after-thought and the assembly was just a way to occupy the kids for a short while, rather than an enrichment to the educational experience.”
“One school (a middle school) left me alone with the kids to do a workshop. For the entire period. And one of the kids basically wrote [inappropriate fiction] and then read it out loud. It’s not my job to deal with that. Now I have a line in my letter of agreement that says “author will not be left alone with students,” which is probably a good idea for any kind of liability as well.”
“I once did six visits in a day (too many), and the school didn’t provide me with lunch. I would have brought my own had they told me there wouldn’t be lunch. It made for a hard day.”
“I’ve been very lucky so far in that I haven’t had any bad visits. The only one that I can think of that didn’t go well was a virtual visit to a library during lockdown. Unfortunately each attendee was trying to get onto the facility’s WiFi from their own laptop while outside the building because they weren’t allowed in because of the lockdown. But the tech issue wasn’t the librarian’s fault. And it was the pandemic so it was a time for everyone to be more flexible than normal.”
“My presentations, in the end, are always very well received. But if there are no books displayed, no art based on books, no enthusiasm about the visit – it is much harder to achieve a positive atmosphere.”
“Though I work very hard to engage kids, if they have no idea who I am or why I’m there, it can be a slog for me to help them get the most of the presentation. I can overcome tech issues or other things but adequate prep really helps the school get the biggest bang for their buck.”
Annoyances and Frustrations
The authors gave insightful responses about things that specifically annoy or frustrate them on visit days, which I present anonymously.
“I once had a principal want to meet with me before the visit to make sure my visit would be OK for his students. I’m a published author. I do school visits regularly. I used to teach at a high school. Asking for more time and, in a sense, justifying my presence is pretty uncool.” This author added that, in addition to unprepared students, having disengaged or absent teachers makes it impossible for the teacher to build on the author’s lesson, which is intended to support the curriculum. Especially if teachers are absent, “it feels as if they want me to entertain their students for an hour and that’s it. But that is not how author talks work. A good author presentation is not reading from your book. Anyone can do that. It is sharing the excitement about writing, planning, editing – making kids want to write, too!”
“When there is no introduction made, it feels very awkward to introduce oneself.”
“Requests to do additional presentations after the contract has been set/settled are hard to deal with but, truly, I know things come up at the last minute. We’re all doing our best, that is for sure!”
“Very noisy outside environments (for instance, a really loud class on the other side of an air wall in a divided gym) can be hard to overcome.”
“It can be difficult to quickly adapt and give the students the experience I’d like them to have when the tech arrangements we agreed upon aren’t available after all—for instance, no microphone or working projector for a full-school assembly.”
“I also prefer for teachers to support students asking me questions during the Q&A, even if someone else has already asked it, or it might embarrass the teacher (such as, how much money do I make). I believe that students are trying to imagine themselves in a writer’s shoes, and trying to connect and be seen. I have answers for these situations that everyone can learn from without anyone’s attempt being shut down.”
“Before: Not getting a schedule, not getting a response from my host if I email, not receiving my signed letter of agreement back in a timely manner.”
Final Thoughts
Margriet Ruurs: “Whether it’s local or around the world, sharing your books in schools and libraries is awesome. And keep in mind that it makes it financially possible to stay home and write during other times. Author visits support the writer on so many levels.”
Kirby Larson: “I am so grateful to the teachers and librarians working so hard every day in their buildings. Though a school visit with me might not work out/fit their schedule or budget, I am in awe of all the ways they work so hard to connect kids with books and their creators. So a huge thank you to our wonderful educators!”
Last month, I found myself wondering how authors viewed in-person visits, so I sent a survey out and heard back from eight authors. Last month’s post covered the demographics of the authors who responded, and logistical planning for an author visit. This month, we cover preparing students for author events, and promoting those events.
Preparing Students
“School visits work their strongest magic when students are prepared for the author’s visit,” states Kirby Larson. If an author is coming to visit your school, you want to prepare the students so they and the school can take full advantage of that visit. How do you do that? The type of visit will probably determine your preparation in terms of teaching the book(s) or doing read-alouds for younger titles, but you can prepare in many other ways. Dori Hillestad Butler suggests students engage in some writing or drawing to prepare, then post those writings/drawings as additional promotion. She says: “I especially like to see those on the walls—and I always take time to stop and read every one!” Martha Brockenbrough adds: “The more the kids know about the author and book beforehand, the better!”
Kirby Larson thoughtfully expanded her response to say: “Learning about me and my books ahead of time certainly strengthens connections between my writing advice/experience and the students’ internalization of that information. School visit prep provides context for the students. In addition, when teachers participate in the school visits (ie, do not bring their phones, laptops or papers to correct to the sessions), they are sending a strong message to the students about the value and importance of the information the author is sharing. And it is so helpful if the librarian/teacher tells kids in advance that I can’t sign bits of paper (or body parts); I do provide a book mark template with my autograph so every kid can have that.”
Asked for other advice on making sure a visit goes smoothly, most authors checked all the boxes: Make sure teachers/kids have the schedule; Double check on necessary tech; Have payment ready to go/already sent; Be prepared for book sales (contact vendor; get volunteers); Regularly check in to make sure teachers/students are prepared.
In the “other” column, Margriet Ruurs urges: “Share my books with students. I have been in schools where the students had no idea what was happening. If a librarian and teachers are prepped, it makes the impact of an author visit that much greater. We’re not just there to entertain for an hour but to leave a message of ‘books are important, and fun and interesting’!” Kirby Larson recommends that librarians: “Make connections between the author’s work and what the students are working on/learning about.” Kelly Jones advises that librarians “double-check that any substitute teachers know what’s planned—I once had a class miss a school presentation because no one had told the substitute.”
Promotion
Another aspect of preparing your students and your school community is to promote your author visit. How can you best do that? Any and all ways, from the author’s perspective! Mount book displays in the library and elsewhere, promote the visit on the school’s website, communicate with parents and students, post on social media, and do booktalks. Other suggestions included contacting local newspapers, creating a countdown bulletin board, and setting out a box to collect student questions.
Doing It Right
I asked the authors for examples of librarians who had knocked it out of the park in preparing for/promoting their visit, and here are their responses.
Martha Brockenbrough: “Terry Shay at North Tama in Traer, Iowa. …He really prepared the kids well at every age level and assembled a squad of cheerleaders for my paperback Cheerful Chick.
Margriet Ruurs: “A Kelowna, BC librarian approached me for her school, but I explained that travel is too much for one day. She then promoted a possible visit to all local schools. She did not just pass that on to me, but arranged a two week schedule for schools, in a logical order, and made sure all schools have all information on dates, times, equipment and more. It’s awesome when a local librarian coordinates all that.”
Dianne White: “When the kids are excited, I know teachers and librarians have been talking about the visit ahead of time. When that happens, kids are always going to get more out of the experience.”
Kirby Larson: “For a recent week-long visit in a school district near Houston, the hosting librarian asked me for particular photos from which she created an “About Kirby” slide show that was made available to all of the schools involved prior to my visit.”
Kelly Jones: “I remember one library’s display—they had a big posterboard with photos of students, teachers, and staff holding books they were recommending. The week of my visit, the librarian was holding my book—a proud moment for sure! She told me everyone really enjoyed recommending books and having their pictures taken.”
Lily LaMotte: “I did the summer reading program kickoff for the Olathe, KS library. I don’t have the details of her promotion but we had a full house in their auditorium. If you mean a school librarian, I’ve had so many wonderful visits with schools. Kids were prepared and many of them had read my books or were using them in their classroom. The cafeteria at a school in Lewiston, ME even made a recipe from my book for the students’ lunch the day of my visit. So amazing!”
Dori Hillestad Butler: “A librarian in Cedar Rapids, IA, painted HUGE (5 foot tall!) pictures of my books and displayed them ahead of time. A librarian in the Chicago area had worked with the kids to make posters that said: ‘Here is what we know about Dori Hillestad Butler, Here is what we don’t know about Dori Hillestad Butler, Here is our plan to find out more: come to her presentation!’ (That’s directly out of my King & Kayla series.)”
Next month, how to ensure that your author visit goes smoothly on the day.
