I studied for my MSLS degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the early 1990s, and loved my time there. It’s where I met my forever-friends (we Zoom weekly and gather annually), where I learned how to rent an apartment and pay state income tax (who knew that was a thing? Everyone else but me? Ok, then…), and where I earned the degree that started me off on a 30+ year career in school libraries.
My roommate and me in front of UNC’s library school during our first year. I’m in the hat and blue turtleneck (which I still own!)
My library school forever-friends and me in front of the same building a couple of years ago, when we were all visiting North Carolina.
When I was looking at schools, UNC was the obvious choice. The campus looked gorgeous, the town was small, and the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) offered me not just a graduate assistantship in the art library, but tuition remission to in-state level. Because I have always felt so indebted to the school, I have been a regular if small-potatoes donor ever since graduation.
Nevertheless, I was surprised to be contacted in January by the Assistant Director of Development at SILS, wanting to set up a Zoom call so she could thank me personally for all my years of donations, and “find out more about why you have given to SILS so consistently.” While I suspected she might want to ask for more money—I’ve worked in independent schools for 30+ years; I know what a development office does!—I did feel that a Zoom call was a small thing to ask.
I quite enjoyed the call. The young woman who interviewed me did not ask for money; she really did ask why I donated consistently, and asked for details about my time at SILS. So I talked about the professors, including the one that drove us all so crazy I actually turned into one of those kids who acted up in class for the first time in my life, and the classes, and life at UNC in the early 1990s. It was fun to reminisce, even if to someone who probably wasn’t born until at least 2000!
Some weeks after that, the Assistant Director for SILS let me know that the Assistant Director for the Graduate School at UNC would be in Seattle and would love to get together with me. This assistant director told me: “I am particularly interested in hearing about how your time at Carolina prepared you for your career as a librarian.” At that point, I felt I had to let her know that if she was after a big donation, a school librarian was the wrong person to ask!
She kindly responded: “We truly value our alumni and enjoy hearing about their experiences, particularly learning how their degrees have influenced their lives and careers. We’re always looking for alumni to be advocates for Carolina. There are numerous opportunities for engagement (networking and mentorship, for example) and many ways to support our efforts aside from donating.”
As getting away for coffee during the day is awkward, as you all know (plus I hate coffee), I invited her to visit the school. She did, bringing me a bag of Carolina swag, which I thought was nice of her. I showed her around the school and around the library, then we sat in the back room for an hour and talked. We chatted about how libraries have changed in the years I’ve been a librarian, advice I would give new librarians, and much more that I now forget because my brain is like the metaphorical iceberg with penguins and a few of those penguins got pushed off.
I do know I appreciated the opportunity to reflect on all I’ve done and all I’ve learned since I left grad school. I also appreciated that someone really was willing to travel 3,000 miles to talk to me and other Carolina grads about our careers! Since then, they recently contacted me to ask if I’d be willing to talk to SILS students interested in school libraries. I said if the students are willing to talk to someone at the far end of their career, of course I’d be happy to.
Probably many of you are already involved with your own colleges or graduate schools, but if not, it might be worth checking out what you could do for them as an alum, if you enjoyed/appreciated your time there. No matter where you are in your career, you are probably in a position to offer advice to nascent school librarians, and goodness knows, these days they need all the help they can get!
In September of 2023, I did a blog post about Webtoons. While I don’t want to repeat all the details, I did want to update a couple of my lists.
First, more Webtoons that are now available as traditional graphic novels. This is not an exhaustive list, just the ones I’ve personally read. Though these are mostly aimed at YA and adult audiences, Raven Saga, Cursed Princess Club,Punderworld, and Froggy are fine for middle school.
Nothing Special by Katie Cook. Fantasy, Humor, Drama, Coming of Age
“In the grand scheme of the worlds at large, Callie thinks she’s nothing special. Sure, she’s friends with the ghost of a radish and her dad owns a magical antique shop–but she’s spent her life in the human world. Her dad won’t let her join him on his collection trips in the magical realm “for her own protection”, so she’s only caught glimpses of that world through the gates of the town where her father’s store is. On her seventeenth birthday, Callie goes home with her friend Declan to find her home in disarray and her dad missing. Signs of a struggle point to the portal to the magical realm and when there are signs, you follow them. Now it’s up to Callie, Declan, and Radish to band together and bring him home. As they face creatures good and bad, and all sorts of adventure, Callie and Declan may just find out that they are both special in their own ways after all.” –GoodReads.com.
Acception by Coco Ouwerkerk. Coming of Age, School Story, Humor, Drama, LGBTQ+
“It’s the start of a new school year at Apollo High and Arcus just moved from England to the Netherlands. With his rainbow-colored hair and love of all things fashion, Arcus is anything but your average teenager. He’s an upbeat independent thinker, proud fashionista, and like the rest of us, is looking for a few friends to call his own. This won’t be easy for Arcus, because his best options for friends are prickly goth Maud and self-centered queen bee Iris.” –GoodReads.com.
“Navier Ellie Trovi was an empress perfect in every way — intelligent, courageous, and socially adept. She was kind to her subjects and devoted to her husband. Navier was perfectly content to live the rest of her days as the wise empress of the Eastern Empire. That is, until her husband brought home a mistress and demanded a divorce. “I accept this divorce… And I request an approval of my remarriage.” In a shocking twist, Navier remarries another emperor and retains her title and childhood dream as empress. But just how did everything unfold?” –GoodReads.com.
In the Pastel Kingdom, Princess Maria is so beautiful that birds and animals regularly help her get ready. Princess Lorena is so beautiful that she always wakes up surrounded by flowers. Prince Jamie is so beautiful that he radiates light and sparkles. And Princess Gwen, her family’s beloved treasure, always wakes up with an opossum chewing on her green hair. She looks nothing like anyone else in her family, but because their father is so restrictive (but warm and loving—he adores his children), and because her siblings and her father adore her, the kind-hearted and generous Gwen has no idea there’s anything different about her. That is, not until their father decides to betroth all his daughters to the sons of his crony, the king of the Plaid Kingdom. And his sons are so hot that Maria and Lorena—who have never been allowed to date—are frothing at the mouth to be married. The prince intended for Gwen is equally hot, but when they meet, he’s not as thrilled as his brothers, to say the least. When Gwen finally learns that some people—like Frederick—think she’s ugly, she flees to the forest, and accidentally encounters the Cursed Princess Club. Even though she doesn’t have a curse, they take her in, and her life starts to change.
“Once upon a time, in a land of fairy tales, lived a girl and her grandmother, protected and secluded from the rest of the world. When her grandmother is taken by a mysterious boy, Wen must travel to the outside world to save her, but the world isn’t as magical as she once thought, and danger lurks around every corner. With the help of her friends, will Wen be able to solve the mystery of the boy with the ravens? And more importantly, will she be able to solve the mystery of her past?” –Webtoons.com
Morgana and Oz by Miyuli. Fantasy, Adventure, Drama, Romance
“What happens when a struggling witch meets an angsty vampire? Either love or war. Morgana belongs to a long line of witches, and Oz to the rival vampire clan. After a chance encounter . . . and maybe a few stray spells . . . these two need to find a way to work together, or risk all-out war between coven and clan. It’s a Romeo and Juliet story where a boy and a girl from two rival clans, one a vampire and one a witch, meet cute, like each other, but then the girl makes a serious mistake and turns the boy into a cute kitty.” –GoodReads.com.
Punderworld by Linda Šejić. Fantasy, Adventure, Drama, Romance
“The classic tale of Greek mythology, but 100% more awkwardly relatable. Hades is the officious, antisocial ruler of the Underworld; Persephone, daughter of Demeter, is an earth goddess of growth and renewal—they’ve been crushing on each other for the past two centuries. But when a festival (and a little liquid courage) present an opportunity to put an end to their Olympian will-they-won’t-they, a meddlesome pantheon and several titanic misassumptions threaten to give every god in the sky the wrong impression… and leave their romance dead before it can bloom.” –GoodReads.com.
Castle Swimmer by Wendy Martin. Fantasy, Adventure, Drama, Romance, LGBTQ+
“From the moment Kappa tumbles into existence on the ocean floor, his life’s purpose is already decided for him: He is the Beacon, a light to all sea creatures, and destined to fulfill their many prophesies. In high demand and under immense pressure, Kappa quickly realizes that fame and glory are small compensation for a life of predetermined self-sacrifice. Unable to resist the call of destiny due to a magical yellow cord that appears from his chest and pulls him inexorably to any sea creatures he swims by, Kappa ultimately finds himself drawn to the Shark kingdom, where he is immediately imprisoned. The Sharks’ prophecy states that the curse maiming their people will only be lifted once their prince, Siren, kills the Beacon. But when Prince Siren decides to defy fate and help Kappa escape, Kappa realizes that there might be more to life than fulfilling endless prophesies, leading to a raucous adventure as big and unpredictable as the ocean itself—and a romance that nobody could have predicted.” –GoodReads.com.
Floatby Katie Marchant. Drama, Romance, Coming of Age
YA. “Waverly Lyons has been caught in the middle of her parents’ divorce for as long as she can remember. This summer, the battle rages over who she’ll spend her vacation with, and when Waverly’s options are shot down, it’s bye-bye Fairbanks, Alaska and hello Holden, Florida to stay with her aunt. Coming from the tundra of the north, the beach culture isn’t exactly Waverly’s forte. The sun may just be her mortal enemy, and her vibe is decidedly not chill. To top it off? Her ability to swim? Nonexistent. Enter Blake, the (superhot) boy next door. Charming and sweet, he welcomes Waverly into his circle. For the first time in her life, Waverly has friends, a social life, and soon enough, feelings . . . for Blake. As the two grow closer, Waverly’s fortunes begin to look up. But every summer must come to an end, and letting go is hardest when you’ve finally found where you belong.” –GoodReads.com.
Froggy by Paige Walshe (expected 8/25)Fantasy, Humor, Drama, Adventure
Froggy has hilarious and sometimes touching or annoying adventures with friends and frenemies around his pond. This looks like a book for kids, and it would be fine for kids, but there’s a lot of humor and found family and character quirks that will appeal to any age. I’ve been reading this on Webtoons, and if I see there’s a new episode of Froggy up, I save it for the last of the Webtoons I read that day so I end my reading on a cheerful, comforting note.
I have updated my extensive list of favorite Webtoons, and to add to my 2023 top ten list, here are an additional ten that I have recently loved.
YA. Architecture major Jeb rooms with his best friend Todd. There’s just one problem… Jeb’s secretly a gargoyle! Between studying, partying, and a bad ghost problem, will Jeb be able to keep his true identity a secret? [Completed]
Note: This is hilarious, and also features a delightful platonic bro-mance between Jeb and Todd, who is the best roomie ever!
YA. Hidden from the world for centuries that seemed like years, nonbinary Virgo Elowen learns that magic is illegal, the Fae are stronger, and star-sign-blessed Realta have been forgotten—or have they? [On hiatus]
Note: This has its roots in Celtic as well as Zodiac mythology, and has great LGBTQ+ representation.
YA. Navier was the wise empress of the Eastern Empire, until her husband brought home a mistress and demanded a divorce. In a shocking twist, Navier remarries another emperor after the divorce. [In progress]
Note: This is a highly popular Webtoon, and includes violence that could bother some readers, and fanservice that can get a little spicy!
Lady Liar by Maripaz Villar. Historical, Humor, Drama, Romance.
YA. Adara, a lower class girl whose only love is money, comes up with the perfect plan to get her dream job: she’ll pretend to be a refined lady to be hired as a companion for a wealthy family. [Completed]
Note: This is laugh-out-loud funny, and the romances are sweet and only mildly spicy.
YA. Introverted and grumpy, college student Kang Dae spends most of his time alone, and prefers it this way. Then he gets a friendly and bubbly neighbor named Bo Seon. Suddenly, his life takes a different turn. [Complete]
Note: This is a sweet, mildly spicy, slow-burn romance. There is some trauma in some characters’ pasts.
YA. New girl Eliana befriends Football Captain and most popular boy at school, Levi, as well as lone-wolf and outcast, Marco. She’s finally got the friends she always wanted, but what will she do when she finds out they hate each other? [In progress]
Note: This is high school drama to the max, and includes some serious depression storylines that might trouble some readers. While commenters are urging a throuple, it hasn’t quite happened…yet?
YA. Balls, operas, beautiful ladies in silk and muslin, footmen, cadets, love, champagne, Parisian sunsets, alleys, funny pranks and walks, Schubert’s waltzes, Indian tea aroma, poems in thick volumes and the sparkle of unfamiliar eyes… [In progress]
Note: This was originally on Canvas, but has rebooted to Webtoon Originals and so only a few episodes are available, but it is a much longer story. The artwork is incredibly beautiful!
YA. A shy witch in her quiet forest cottage. A surly dwarf in his blacksmith’s forge. Both seeking solace in their respective refuge, but both aching for more. [On hiatus]
Note: This is a heartwarming story about recovering from trauma through a loving relationship. Ivy is more than shy—she has PTSD from her past.
YA. Lewis has perfect grades and a packed schedule—but no time for himself. Then he meets Fern, a deaf new student who captures his attention and challenges his routine. As feelings grow, Lewis begins to question his people-pleasing ways and may finally learn to love himself. [On hiatus]
Note: It’s unusual to have any disability representation in Webtoons, so this one is welcome!
YA. Reborn as a villain in her favorite novel, Suna—now Edith—vows to live kindly and rewrite her fate. But her marriage to Killian, who loves another and distrusts her family, threatens her hopes for a happy ending amid rivalries and romance. [Complete]
Note: This was recommended to me by a 6th grader! It’s fairly spicy, and does include some violence.
Our seventh grade English teacher, Kacie Simpson, always comes up with great projects connected to the books her classes read. This year, after reading S.E. Hinton’s classic, The Outsiders, pairs of students created these “Body Bios.” Each poster depicts a character from The Outsiders, alongside visual metaphors and quotes to represent their inner character and history. Below is a sample “Ponyboy” poster, by Angie and Yihan, with all of its parts explained.
Kacie says that even the kids who weren’t great artists learned from the work. For instance, one student drew a character as a square, because he thought it was funny (or perhaps had played too much Minecraft!). Ms. Simpson told him he had to have a purpose behind his choice of shape that connected to the book. Giving a presentation was part of the assignment, so when he presented to the class, this student connected the shape to the character being strong like a rock, which showed Kacie that he’d actually put some thought into it. Here are a few more samples of the posters.
Sodapop by Ellie and Lucas.Two Bit by Amber and Phoebe.Dally by Cecilia, Lade, and Angela.Sodapop by Daksha and Riana.Darry by Avni and Ashleen.Johnny by Hannah and Ferris.
When a parent asked if I could contribute some booklists to a weekend cultural fair she was planning, I was thrilled. The event offered an excellent opportunity to further the library’s promotion of reading culture at the school, as well as to share our dedication to building a diverse collection. In addition, it provided motivation to review and reflect on our previous collection development efforts. As I’m passionate about building a diverse collection, I decided to go overboard, knowing I could use the results in future aspects of my work. I focused on two things: 1. Our vision of having mirror, window, and sliding glass door books, as described by Rudine Bishop Sims. 2: Avoiding a “single story” collection, in which, for example, we only had Jewish books about the Holocaust, or Native American books about the frontier.
In the end, I brought the following lists, items, and links to the fair:
Printed articles about mirrors/windows/sliding glass doors, and the “single story.”
Two poster-sized grids, one for middle school fiction and one for upper school fiction. These featured diversity on one axis and genre on the other. I filled the grids with covers of relevant books from our collections, either print or eBooks. I felt proud that out of about 162 books, only three did we not own. I wanted to demonstrate that if you wanted a fantasy book with Native American characters, we had it. If you wanted a horror book with characters with disabilities, we had it. I realize that the categories are broad strokes, and you could get more and more granular, just as with a diversity audit. In addition, what if you wanted a science fiction book featuring a Black character with a disability? So the grid is not perfect, but it was a start to represent what we value in building our collection.
Double-sided printouts of the grids with only the titles and authors.
A LibGuide featuring all of the books in tabbed boxes, with summaries and links to the eBook if we had it. I created boxes organized by diversity and by genre. The LibGuide also included the DEI list for parents and families, and other sources of diverse booklists.
Bookmarks created by my colleague with a QR code to the LibGuide.
A cart with thirty middle school and thirty upper school books, plus a scanner so I could check out books at the event.
I ferried many of the items to our Campus Center on the Friday before, including the cart of books, my easel with the two grids, and the booklists. On Saturday, I arrived early with the parents who were setting up. They assembled a cornucopia of tables representing various cultures, including a ton of delicious-smelling food! The event itself was lively (and tasty!), and I did get on the “stage” to present a one-minute explanation of what I’d brought. Though I didn’t get a lot of attention, I talked to a number of people and checked out a few books. I now have the grids posted in the library, and hope my work will be featured in one of our weekly parent newsletters. I really enjoyed the opportunity to consider the diversity of our collection, and look forward to using what I’ve learned to further build a collection that will best serve our students.
Overlake’s seventh-grade English teacher, Kacie Simpson, is passionate about reading. “Establishing a culture of reading, where students are excited to read, has been something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” she says. One issue she considers is how students can find good books to read. She knows parents also wonder about this, as they often request book recommendations for their children. While Kacie loves reading, of course, she knows that, “collectively, my students have read more books than I have.” Thinking how she could harness this resource, she decided to create a classroom “display where students could give book recommendations and share the types of books they are interested in with their peers.”
For her display, she created a large wall poster of a bookshelf. Next, she printed blank book spine templates in different sizes, to vary the height of the “books” and make the shelf arrangement look more natural. Students copied or recreated the spine of a book they would recommend to their classmates, choosing the template that made the most sense for the book. For in-class work, Kacie provided scissors and colored pencils, though several students also worked at home to have more time and add more detail.
While the students worked in class, Kacie noticed a lot of “great conversations about books.” She heard many positive comments, like, “Oh, I love that book!” That worked well for her goal of instilling in the students the knowledge that “the best source of what to read is their peers,” because seventh graders know what other seventh graders tend to enjoy reading. In the finished spines, Kacie found it interesting to see that fantasy was the most popular genre by a mile, and that Rick Riordan scored as the most popular author. The titles that surprised her the most were the non-fiction titles Blue Chip Kids, by David Bianchi, and Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari, books that she doesn’t “always associate with 12-13 year olds reading.”
When students finished the spines, Kacie organized them roughly by genre on the poster “shelves.” To add to the display’s welcoming appeal, Kacie added a picture of her cat sleeping on a shelf, as well as some “additional decorative touches.” As a librarian, I love it, and think it was an amazing project!
Partial Booklist
Note: I couldn’t read all of the titles, which is why this is partial
Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir
The Martian, Andy Weir
Scythe, Neal Shusterman
Space Case, Stuart Gibbs
The hunger games, Suzanne Collins
Catching fire, Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
The ballad of songbirds and snakes, Suzanne Collins
Atherton:the House of power, Patrick Carman
One piece, Eiichiro Oda
The ultimate hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, Douglas Adams
Legend, Marie Lu
Foundation, Isaac Asimov
The lion of Mars, Jennifer Holm
The giver, Lois Lowry
Ready player one, Ernest Cline
Iron widow, Xiran Jay Zhao
Animal farm, George Orwell
Home body, Rupi Kaur
What if?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Randall Munroe
Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari
Little white lies, Gemma Townley
The naturals, Jennfer Barnes
The inheritance game, Jennifer Barnes
The final gambit, Jennifer Barnes
Spy school, Stuart Gibbs
One of us is lying, Karen McManus
Five survive, Karen McManus
A good girl’s guide to murder, Holly Jackson
The land of stories: the wishing spell, Chris Colfer
The Penrose Series, Tony Ballantyne
Wings of fire, Tui Sutherland
Throne of glass, Sarah J. Maas
The theft of sunlight, Intisar Khanani
The tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo
Keeper of the lost cities, Shannon Messenger
The school for good and evil, Soman Chainani
The hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
Harry Potter and the sorcerer‘s stone, J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the half-blood prince, J.K. Rowling
Summoner 3: The Battlemage, Taran Matharu
Red queen, Victoria Aveyard
Heartless, Marissa Meyer
The lost hero, Rick Riordan
The house of Hades, Rick Riordan
The lightning thief, Rick Riordan
The sea of monsters, Rick Riordan
The last Olympian, Rick Riordan
When you trap a tiger, Tae Keller
Two Degrees, Alan Gratz
The silent patient, Alex Michaelides
Ink and ashes, Valynne Maetani
Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown, Steve Sheinkin
Front desk, Kelly Yang
Seaglass summer, Anjali Banerjee
Out of my mind, Sharon Draper
Simon sort of says, Erin Bow
The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid
Far from the tree, Robin Benway
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello‘s library, Chris Grabenstein
Blended, Sharon Draper
If he had been with me, Laura Nowlin
The Explorers Academy: the nebula secret, Trudi Trueit
Restart, Gordon Korman
Darius the great is not OK, Adib Khorram
Imogen obviously, Becky Albertalli
Wonder, R.J. Palacio
Posted, John David Anderson
The summer I turned pretty, Jenny Han
Prisoner B, Alan Gratz
Projekt, Alan Gratz
Grenade, Alan Gratz
The book thief, Markus Zusak
Little women, Louisa May Alcott
Pride and prejudice, Jane Austen
World in between: based on a true refugee story, Kenan Trebincevic, Susan Shapiro
I’ve been running Battle of the Books for over thirty years, at my various schools. Though the books changed from year to year, the format remained the same: two hours, rounds of twenty questions, each question phrased, “In which book…” with the answer being the author and title.
Over the last few years, though, I have made some changes. First, I joined with two other local schools for the competition, which cycled between the schools for several years. Then, many of my students decided not to participate because they didn’t want to miss any class time, especially the half a day required for a field trip to another school. With the gracious acceptance of the two other schools, we moved to a virtual Battle, but my students declined to participate because a two hour Battle still meant missing a class. So I split the Battle into two parts on two different days, one a preliminary with just my students, and one the virtual final with the other schools. That way, participants only missed study halls. In addition, I shortened rounds to ten questions, and the winning two teams from the prelims went on to the final Battle with the other schools. Problem solved, right?
Yeah…no. I was still struggling for participation.
A couple of years ago, after National Geographic ended GeoBee, our 7th grade social studies teacher devised his own GeoBee. He hosted it during an assembly block, and it was lots of fun! Changing up the formats of the rounds, he also made it team-based rather than individual, which worked well. I wondered if I could do something similar with Battle of the Books.
I started by running a Battle of the Books club in which students would help determine which formats would work best. I surveyed the kids about these possible options, suggestions coming from both me and them:
Jeopardy
Pictionary or charades round with book titles
Relay: Teams at opposite ends of a space, teacher in the middle. One person from each team runs to the teacher. Both get the same question on a slip of paper, then run back to their team to consult. When the team has an answer, someone runs to tell the teacher. Points for most correct answers and fastest time.
Traditional format
Kahoot
Quiz Bowl: Teams, each student has a buzzer, question asked to the group, first to buzz in gets to answer. Correct answer leads to an additional question.
Mini-Rounds: A person from each team starts out, a round of four questions is asked, whoever buzzes in first gets the question. After four questions, a new person from each team replaces former person.
Breakout Box: There’s a box with several locks on it. Each lock is worth a certain number of questions. [I hadn’t worked out any more than that.]
Snowballs: Questions are crumpled into balls and teams throw them at each other. Every question caught is one the team gets the chance to answer.
Academic Whiz Kid: Each student on a team gets a round of questions only they can answer. Individual scores add up to form the team score.
Scavenger hunt: [No clue how this would work!]
Escape-room type clues: [No clue how this would work!]
Blook-It: Online. I haven’t looked into this yet, so it would need some testing out.
Gimkit: Online. I haven’t looked into this yet, so it would need some testing out.
After testing a few of these, I settled on traditional format, Jeopardy, Kahoot, Relay, and possibly Pictionary, depending on time. To further entice participants, we dropped the list from thirteen to eleven books, and instead of requiring participants to read at least three books, we lowered the bar to one.
I usually run a “mock” Battle of the Books during announcements to raise interest, and the mock Battle with different formats went well; I did get more sign ups than in previous years. Time for me, the other librarians, and generous colleagues to start reading the books, writing up the questions, and planning the rounds.
It was when I set about reformatting traditional questions into questions for Jeopardy, Kahoot, and relays that I realized…wow, this was going to take a lot longer than I thought! Because I run a required 5th grade Battle plus the voluntary 6th-8th grade Battle, I had to create eight Jeopardy rounds, six Kahoot rounds, five relay rounds, title Pictionary, and eleven traditional rounds. It took hours and hours, and I would definitely ask for help if we do it again!
I got a test run of the format with my 5th grade, who all participate. Though it was a little chaotic, 5th grade generally is, and the only format that didn’t work very well was the relays. The students participating enjoyed it, but the non-participants didn’t get to hear the questions, as they would with the other rounds, so they were bored. Plus, even though we’d formatted the questions so that every slip of paper listed every possible title and author, with boxes to tick off, the judges checking the slips had to check the answer key for everything. That meant that working out the score took almost as long as the round, so all the kids were bored and the teacher was stressed out trying to finish. I decided that when I ran the relay rounds in my 6th-8th prelims, the non-participating teams would do the scoring.
So, my 6th-8th prelims ran smoothly, right? Yeah, no. Despite as many reminders as I could manage, a third of the students forgot or decided to ghost, which meant the teams were so unbalanced I had to reshuffle on the fly. No one was really happy about it, but we struggled on. Then a few of the missing students actually showed up because they remembered, so we had to shuffle the teams again, and again no one was really happy with it. At least the technology worked!
My plan for the relay rounds failed, because the kids weren’t any faster at scoring than the teachers, and most were completely confused. So, note to self, never do relays again. In the end, we couldn’t come up with any winning teams to go on to the finals, because the teams had been so shuffled. I told the kids to let me know if they wanted to participate in the final, and I put together two teams from that list.
On to the final! As this was virtual, there were all the usual headaches of trying to remember our Pandemic knowledge of Microsoft Teams meetings, Polycom cameras, and sharing screens. One of our new tech staff worked hard to get it sorted out for me, with all the various inputs and outputs, sound, screen sharing, microphones, etc. This time, all of my students showed up on time and the other two schools signed on at the right time as well.
Everything went great until we got to the Jeopardy rounds. No matter how much I tried, I could not get the screen to share without showing all the answers. I ended up reading the questions off my phone, which was far from ideal, but the kids gamely rolled with it. The template I used also had a glitch in that followed links didn’t change color, so I never knew (in any of the Battle sessions) which questions had already been chosen, and the system I came up with instead didn’t work well and students felt it wasn’t entirely fair. The Kahoot went off without a hitch on our end, but was apparently glitchy for the other schools. We multiplied the Kahoot scores by .009 (90 being the highest possible score in a traditional round) to bring them into line with the other scores. In Jeopardy, each question was worth the same number of points, for fairness’ sake.
So, would I attempt multiple format again? Probably not for the three-school Battle, due to the complicated technology issues. For Battles on campus, the kids seemed to enjoy the new formats, so I’d probably try them again if I can solve these problems: 1. The time and effort needed to convert the questions into different formats. 2. Getting students to show up at the right time and place.
And that’s all the wisdom I have, folks! (For certain values of “wisdom,” anyway…)
One of the skills I teach to incoming fifth graders is how to use our online catalog. The lesson is brief, so I start by going over how to access the catalog, how to search and filter/narrow by wild cards or phrase searching, and how to interpret the catalog record. Necessary, but boring!
A former librarian had spiced up the practice part of the lesson by using a story full of blanks to be filled with words from catalog searches based on clues. I liked the idea, but thought the story—‘Mr. Dewey’s Naughty Boy’—wasn’t exactly riveting. So I wrote my own story, tailored to our catalog, though I’ll admit I had to add a couple of no-copy records to the catalog to make it work (#Sorry-Not-Sorry).
When I introduce the story, the class and I do the first blank together, so I can show them the process. I emphasize how to interpret the clue so they know what to look up, and emphasize that they should find the most unusual word in the clue to use as a keyword rather than laboriously type in the entire clue (which they still do, because, of course. #FacePalm). Then I pass out slips with one clue on each, and the students work in teams to solve them. At the end, I read the story aloud, calling on them to fill in the missing words.
Below is the story, and here’s our catalog: see how you do! (And if you just want to see the completed story, click here.)
The Scene: The police received an emergency call from the Overlake Library. When they arrived, they found the library abandoned. Windows and doors were smashed, computers tipped over, and books lay all over the floor. The books had been ripped apart and mangled. What happened?
Clues from Eyewitness Accounts
1. It was a normal day in the library until all the students heard a strange sound, like a:
__________________________________
Title of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book by Laban Hill
2. The students in the library heard hundreds of voices shouting for:
________________________________
Title of a book by Sherre Phillips
3. When the horde descended on the library, it sounded as if someone had taken too literally:
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The first six words in the title of a book by Rain Newcomb
4. The police received an emergency phone call from someone who said the library was being attacked by:
__________________________________
Creatures from a baseball book by Paolo Bacigalupi
5. All of the students thought they’d get famous if they became:
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Title of Emmanuel Guibert’s only nonfiction book(call number 070.4)
6. Each student in the library whipped out a:
____________________________
Technology in the title of a Myth-O-Mania series book about Persephone
7. Ms. McCandlish shouted over the chaos. “Don’t worry! I have a book called…”
____________________________
Title of a book by Max Brooks (look him up as an author)
8. After Ms. McCandlish told the students what to do, each threw a:
________________________________
Title of a book by Karen Brookfield
9. One student threw:
_________________________________
Title of a book by Clive Upton
10. The creature ate the book and started spouting:
_______________________________
Title of a book written or edited by “Peter Washington”(be sure to use the quotation marks!)
11. One student threw:
________________
Title of a book by Alessandro Taverna
12. The creature ate the book and became a:
_____________________________
Last name of the author of Under Shifting Glass
13. One student threw:
_________________________________
First three words in the title of a book by Terry Lee Stone
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!
