Fiction Genrefication

I have long been in favor of genrefying fiction collections so students will be better able to find books they know they will enjoy. With our school, we took the plunge starting in the fall of 2019, and here are the steps we went through to complete the process.

1. Genre Stickers

We started with our middle school fiction, and for step one, added genre stickers to every book. Although we had stickers for fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, adventure, humor, historical, realistic, romance, sports, and graphic novels, we combined realistic, romance, and sports into one “realistic” section when we moved the books. We also kept graphic novels intermixed by genre, but in their own separate collection.

2. Tally Books

For step two, I went low-tech, though I’m sure there are more sophisticated options out there! I printed out a form with spots for each genre, then took a clipboard and pen and went into the collection and did a hand-count of titles in each genre. That gave me a rough count (assuming some books were checked out) of the numbers for each section.

3. Estimate Shelf Space

I estimated how many feet of shelf space each section would need, based on number of books plus extra space for growth. Then I measured our shelving, which, as you can see from the image (MS Fiction in purple), is divided into a number of different places and sizes of shelf. I noted how many feet of shelf each unit contained, front and back for double-sided units, and then figured out which section would fit where. For many of our shelving units, continuing to a second unit would create a non-intuitive flow, so we avoided that as much as possible.

4. Move Books

We moved books during winter break, when no students were around; we had the three library staffers plus one volunteer. Starting with the shelves on which our alphabetized collection started, we moved all the books from the shelf space needed for the new section up to the tops of the shelves, leaving them in order. Then, using book carts, we went through the whole collection and pulled all the books for the new genre section. As our fiction was already in alphabetical order, pulling them by genre sticker did not disrupt that order and allowed us to move them to their new shelves without much reshuffling. I believe eventually we each started moving different sections, which worked so long as the books removed from the shelves to make space for the new sections went to the top of the shelves in order. The process went reasonably quickly, and I think we moved the collection in a couple of days.

Here are some photos of our current genrefied collection.

Humor on the left, the start of Fantasy on the right

One side of the Fantasy collection

Graphic Novels and Thrills & Chills

Realistic and Adventure

5. Change Location in Catalog

The part that took the longest was changing each book’s sublocation in our Follett Destiny catalog. We all worked on different sections over a couple of months, going book by book.

6. Signage

We are still working on the ideal signage for the collection. Currently we have small labels above each rank of shelves, and larger signs on the endcaps, but students still ask where a section is (though they have no trouble finding the graphic novels!). Here is a sample of the cool signs Andrea designed, though we think the genre title needs to be a little larger, and arrows would be helpful.

7. YA Fiction

The procedure for genrefying our recently completed YA fiction section was spearheaded by my colleague, Andrea. It started with a previously-finished diversity audit that included the genres, then adding genre stickers to all the books. As I had done with our middle school fiction, Andrea mapped out the YA fiction according to genre, with some genres like humor getting lumped into realistic. With a volunteer, she moved books by pulling out genre-stickered titles to put on carts in alpha order, then consolidated the remaining books to make room for the new section.

8. Conclusions

I’m really happy with how the collection turned out, and while the pandemic has made it difficult to assess whether circulation has increased as a result, it has made it easier for students to browse their favorite genres and find some new books to try.

Creating a children’s collection in a high school library

I don’t think our high school library is unique in getting requests for children’s materials from time to time. Whether for young families living on campus or our students tutoring young kids from our local community, we’ve had a number of picture and chapter books on hand for years.

This year, 2 members of our library team decided to formalize this collection and did so by harnessing the power of  Week Without Walls (WWW), an annual event when all Senior School students & staff perform volunteer service in our area, including some sites on campus. 

One month prior to WWW, a team member emailed staff & posted a notice in the parent newsletter, asking for donations of books suitable for up to 12 years of age; 10 families donated a total of 203 books.

When the week arrived, 4 students were assigned to this WWW group based on their shared passion for reading & children, and over the course of 8 hours:

  • Reviewed donations; a handful of books didn’t make the cut based on physical condition and appropriateness
  • Created a variety of materials to support the collection including identification stickers (items aren’t barcoded so the stickers highlight where they are to be shelved) and dividers noting their creative and unique categories, such as “Kids in Charge” and “Interactive” (pop-up books and I Spy), “Guide for Life”, along with some traditional genres.
  • Colourfully painted book ends (seen above)
  • Bookmarks that celebrate and encourage reading 

Initially, the students were keen to catalogue the books so that they’d be searchable in our database but time didn’t allow for this, although it was great to have students get a glimpse of how much goes into this detailed behind-the-scenes work.

I’m grateful to work with colleagues who created such a meaningful initiative for our students and for students who enthusiastically embraced the opportunity!

#BookTok: the collection development tool I never knew I wanted and now refuse to live without

I love TikTok. Like, I really love it. Years from now, when we’re all sitting around talking about what got us through the COVID era, TikTok will be one of the things at the top of my list. It’s brought me so much comfort, joy, and humor. It’s a place I’ve returned over and over for solace and escape. For the year we were remote-teaching, it was pretty much daily that I would call out to my family  “I’m taking a TikTok bath!” and then disappear for an hour into the bubbles, aromatherapy, and TikTok trends that would soothe my weary soul. I don’t create any content, but I follow hundreds of creators, from gardeners to miniaturists to satirists to frustrated and exhausted educators. I’ve learned to hack my instant ramen, make super spicy chile paste, and marinate mayak eggs. I’ve witnessed epic thrifting hauls and seen women sewists craft exquisite period costumes. I’ve found daily affirmations and asmr creators that bring my anxiety down three notches in an instant. I’ve learned new vocabulary and word origins, toured ruins, and been exposed to obscure historical trivia. I’ve seen a lot of talking dogs. It’s been a safe haven and a gift.

Little did I know that this habit would also lead me to one of the best collection development tools ever – #BookTok! If you are not familiar, BookTok is a community of readers, book lovers, collectors, preservationists, sellers, and librarians who make videos about what they are currently reading, what’s on their tbr lists, their favorite books, their least favorites, you name it. BookTok occasionally includes controversies, just like any social media community, but mostly it’s just a lovely place to learn about new (and old) titles and authors. In some cases it has even driven books onto bestseller lists or revived the popularity of older titles. In many cases, my students have read books because they’ve seen them on TikTok, so it’s also been an unexpectedly effective readers’ advisory promotional tool that I am super grateful for. I love it!

Here are some of my favorite BookTokkers and why I find them especially informative in terms of collection development.

@the.ace.of.books

This booktokker reads a lot. She posts frequently with weekly reading updates, and also sometimes does one-off posts about specific titles or addressing questions she receives in the comments. She sometimes talks about how her ADHD and ASD inform her reading choices, which is a great way for me to think about how to best serve my neurodivergent student population via collection development. I really love the variety of titles she reads. While she is perhaps primarily a fantasy reader, she also reads poetry, nonfiction, literary fiction, memoir, and more. Also, because of her popularity, she often receives ARCs or other gift boxes from publishers and subscription services, which means I’m also kept up-to-date on what’s in the hopper in terms of new releases.

@schizophrenicreads

This booktokker also reads a huge number of books, though he focuses almost exclusively on nonfiction. He reads widely across subject areas. Most of his picks are very current, which is helpful to me because I sometimes think keeping track of new nonfiction releases is like drinking from a firehose. He makes great connections between titles, often talking about how one book he recently read reminds him of another, so many of his videos offer multiple points of entry for thinking about nonfiction curation. He also values excellent writing, not just interesting content, and so is a really good source for essayists and literary nonfiction.

@bookpapi

This booktokker is an independent bookstore owner (Golden Lab Bookshop). He’s an excellent source for titles by authors of color, and particularly Latinx/e authors. He talks a lot about decolonizing book collections and intersectionality, and so regularly offers alternatives to mainstream titles that, while good or popular books, are representative of the dominant culture rather than exploring marginalized voices. His store’s website has really nice curations, and he offers a BIPOC Lit mystery subscription box, which is cool.

@schulerbooks

This is one of many independent bookstore BookTok accounts. I like this type of account because of the “book challenge” structure of most of their videos. One person working in the bookstore will issue a challenge to their coworkers to find a certain type of book – scariest book, book with the best ending, book that made you cry, etc – and then you get to watch all the bookstore employees go find their books and give a short ‘book talk’ about why they chose it. This is great for me for a few reasons. One, I get to hear about new books. Two, I get ideas about fun curations or displays for my library because of the challenges they do. Three, I get a glimpse into how independent bookstores organize their collections, which is helpful as I consider ways to genrify and de-Dewey portions of my collection.

There are SO many great BookTok accounts out there, I couldn’t possibly list them all. I’ve encountered so much variety and diversity on this app, and of course I didn’t even scratch the surface with this post. I’d love to know what your favorites are and why you like them!

Around the World in 80 Books

I find upper school programming a delightful challenge, so this year I debuted a program for our upper school community to promote global reading. This year-long program–Read Around the World–started as a riff on Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, encouraging students to read books from a curated collection of books from 80 different countries.

Why? Well, in 2019, according to Statista, the top 4 US publishing companies published 98,800 new titles–a mere 737 of those titles were published in translation, fewer than 1% (0.74%). Even among those works in translation, there is not nearly the diversity one might hope for. Though there were 52 original languages of publication, 79% of the titles translated were translated from a European language, 14% from Asian languages, 7% from Middle Eastern languages, and a mere 0.2% were translated from an African language. Think of all the books we’re missing out on!

I know I’m preaching to the choir when I claim that through reading we are able to work towards eliminating what author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls “the single story” and the proliferation and reinforcement of stereotypes. The problem with a single story, she notes, is the way that it “creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.” Furthermore, there are many stories that go entirely unheard when we read and engage solely, or primarily, with literature that is written by U.S. or British authors for American and British audiences in English.

That same data did make this program a challenge–to add exciting global literature to our collection that may not be readily found in our traditional lists, to read as much of it as possible, and to keep things equitable. To facilitate the latter, I selected a number of books from each continent proportionate to the number of countries within that continent.

To provide boundaries to the massive curation project that this otherwise could have become (it was big enough as is!) I gave myself the following criteria:

  • Works of fiction (most were novels, but there were some other formats too–poetry, short stories, graphic novels).
  • The author needed to be from the country and, when possible, currently residing there; there are certainly countries with extensive censorship and authors in exile. Ex-pat and immigrant authors will be another program for another time. I also preferred authors writing for their own country-folk as an audience, so I was often getting books in translation. Furthermore, in formerly colonized countries, I sought out indigenous authors.
  • They needed to be recent–most of the books were from the past few years. In a couple cases I had to dig deeper in time in order to meet my other criteria, but this was not the time for “classics;” I wanted students to be reading fresh works.

In the end, the list included 105 books from 81 countries, which allowed some elements of choice (some countries had 2 books to choose from) and permitted the inclusion of sequels. 

Digital Passport

Once I had the books, it was time to make it a program. For fun, I gamified it through our school’s LMS (Canvas) by creating a class for the program and badges for each country through Badgr, which allowed the process to be pretty automated once it was all built. In order to get students into the program “course,” they were invited to apply for a passport from the main library page through a link that added them to the program course. From there, they can get their passports stamped (with the badges) for each country from which they read a book. Badgr provides a dashboard so participants can see their badges/passport stamps, and what badges/stamps all other participants have earned. Students can also earn badges like “Globe Trotter” for getting a stamp from each continent and “Region Rover” for sweeping a stamp for every book in a continent. I’ll award prizes at random throughout the year by drawing a name from anyone who is participating, as well as at the end of the year to whoever reads the most globally. 

In addition to the gamification, the global books are on display all year organized by genre, with a rotating featured display each month of a particular region. This keeps the books visible while also allowing me to put fresh subsets in front of our community in new ways through the year so the program doesn’t get stale.

Europe books on a display. Covers from earlier displays (North America and Oceana) will be joined as the year progresses.

We’re only mid-year but I’m calling this one a success already. So far, books from the Read Around the World program have 66 checkouts. For one semester, I’m thrilled. Perhaps more tellingly, our global books account for a full 25% of all fiction checkouts so far this year (through January 1). I’ve also tried out new tools for gamification, acquired great books for our collection, and personally read books from Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, Barbados, Nigeria, China, and Vietnam. I have more regions yet to visit!

Do You Have?

It sure would be nice, I imagine, to work in the Acquisitions Department of the Library of Congress. With a collection of some 138,000,000 items, it makes my struggles seem small.  Each of us, in the context of our library, has to make choices about what stuff to have in them. Often, those choices either start or finish with the question, how much does it cost? And depending on when or why you might be considering that purchase, you might also ask – what benefit does the purchase provide to the library and your school community?

Thomas Jefferson Building Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Photo Credit: https://www.loc.gov/visit/online-tours/

Depending on how long you’ve been dealing with your library budget (if you do), you will have noticed a large shift from your physical collection line items to your database subscription ones. Perhaps you’ve also decreased your magazine subscription budgets, too? Maybe, like me, your institution doesn’t wish to change the conventions of their master budget categories and you find yourself allocating certain costs that only resemble the actual nature of the expenditure. (Is an audiobook service a book or an online subscription?)

Our library is a small one – both in size, staff and, because of our school size (1.5 librarians for 350 students, grades 9-12), relative scope of services. Our budget has, largely, been sufficient. In my ten years here, however, it has been constant – that is, up until this year when I was asked to decrease spending by some 6%. The effort of looking closely at expenditures and where I might need to be more frugal has brought to the fore some of the questions I regularly ask when considering costs.

Is this something the library should have because any school library worth its salt should have it? Or is this something the library should have because it will be used/leveraged to such a degree to make that a value-added proposition? Should I order this book because a patron will read it but maybe they’ll be the only person to do so? Or should I buy a book that we think someone will read it but that perhaps no one will ever read? (I’ll also note that we are very lucky to have an endowed book fund that provides about 50% of our annual physical book budget.)

On a more positive note, as I have reduced costs in areas that were under leveraged, I have been able to allocate some of those funds toward initiatives for which I might otherwise not have had funds. This year, we are trialing a couple of new services that I didn’t, in the past, feel we had funds for. One is the Kanopy movie service and another is Overdrive’s Audio/eBook platform, Sora. We were able to redistribute some of our funds from the too little used Infobase Classroom Video on Demand to help cover those costs. While CVOD is a great resource, my failed efforts to successfully promote it and for it to be used couldn’t justify – within our budget restrictions – keeping it.  We also were able to add more digital newspapers (e.g. Wall Street Journal, Washington Post) when we stopped using the NewsBank platform. Again, Newsbank is a great resource, but only if it actually gets used!

This photo doesn’t exactly go, but it’s really cool…
Photo credit: https://flic.kr/p/cSKA8y

So here I am, nearly 67% of the way through my budget year with approximately 70% of my budget spent. It’s at this time of year I begin to think about purchases we made that didn’t get used to the degree I’d hoped. I also consider how to allocate what funds we have left to give our library patrons both what they want, what they ought to have, and what we hope for them to be able to benefit from. I know we won’t always have everything that everyone asks for, but we hope that we’ll be judicious with our allocations such that people can still make requests that we can fill and that not too many people will be unable to get what they need. And hey, if there’s a little money left over, I wouldn’t mind getting one of those seasonal affective disorder lamp visors…. I am seriously looking forward to daylight savings.

Hurry up, spring!
Photo credit: https://flic.kr/p/nJGF2c

We See You #aislsi2019

What a great pleasure it was to attend my first summer institute, put together by the phenomemal team at John Burroughs School in fabulous St Louis!

Our two days together were founded on the importance of acknowledging who we are so that we can participate in conversations about who others are. Having a diverse library collection allows for a wide variety of representation reflecting a range of human identifiers – reflecting diversity of content not equality of numbers.

So much important content was covered, I can’t do it justice here, so I simply offer some nuggets from the valuable presentations, engaging activities, phenomenal panels and all the wonderful ensuing conversations. (Thanks and credits below)

Deep Dive into diversity in the library

Defining diversity

I appreciated learning about “The Big 8” identifiers (most common but not exclusive and can be adapted as relevant), which offer such a useful framework:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Mental & physical ability
  • Socioeconomic status 
  • Race (skin colour)
  • Ethnicity (cultural/geographic background)
  • Sexual orientation
  • Religion

There was good discussion around the importance of recognizing which identifiers are more visible than others, and how that visibility affects our decision-making.

Representation matters

“That teenage feeling of being social awkward, the strangeness of finding love for the first time, the importance of discovering lifelong passions, and being supported by loving famiies – none of these things are exclusive to white, straight cis people and so should not be relegated to white, straight, cis characters.” – Sadie Trombetta Bustle Jan 31/18

Cue mike drop.

Booth’s work on mirrors, windows, and doors is more relevant than ever. What are my readers looking for? What will they find in our collection, and what won’t they find? 

Student Voices

One of the most amazing parts of #aislsi2019 was a panel of 12 teen readers who spoke with us about why they value representation in our collections. They were honest, articulate, and appreciative of how their librarians support them, as well as being well-read in such a wonderful variety of genres. Everyone listening left with some serious insights and solid recommendations.

It was interesting to hear that their defaults for finding good books are Google searches and asking their librarians for suggestions; they really reinforced my goal to better train my students on meaningful use of our catalogue (and how it differs from our databases). It was also great to hear how much these students appreciated curated lists for different types of representation.

Diversity Audits

I truly appreciated the time to wrestle with the logistics of preparing and performing a diversity audit. It is critical to set a goal that is uniquely relevant to our library, and achievable (it was immediately clear that there are many rabbit holes to be avoided if I want to complete an audit in the foreseeable future). Don’t be afraid to set narrow parameters to keep the audit manageable, and carefully consider the timing of the audit in your school year.

A variety of models were offered:

  • using a print checklist vs using a Google form to populate Google sheets or your own version of one or the other
  • auditing print books by hand vs auditing online (looking at a catalogue records) vs doing an audit of recent book orders

I’m excited by how local and creative I can make this process – loved the suggestion about doing an audit of a book display. I also appreciated the encouragement to start with the end in mind; think about how you’ll want to manipulate your data so that you get the data you want in a format you can use.

Diversity Audit IRL

On Day 2, we had a good chunk of time to test an audit out. We reviewed a great variety of possible goals, and with encouragement to choose a couple specific to us, we set out to independently audit a small group of books (from an available selection of print, or accessing our own through our catalogues).

I chose to audit the first 20 audiobooks in my library’s Overdrive fiction collection. Keeping in mind that this is a VERY subjective process, I chose a very small sample size, and this is my very first time doing this, I share the results in the spirit of collegiality (with a red face and gigantic face palm):

50% feature white male protagonists
30% feature white female protagonists
15% feature female protagonists of colour
15% feature indigenous protagonists
15% feature protagonists with a disability
75% written by white authors (male/female equally represented)
10% written by authors of colour
10% written by indigenous authors
40% offer own voice

I have some work to do, people.

Everyone present was very encouraging, reminding each other to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Engaging in this process will be of benefit to those we serve through our libraries, however imperfect our first kick at the can may be. I truly appreciated doing this in such a judgement-free zone (although found it hard to silence my inner critic).

Thank you to hosts, organizers and presenters Linda Mercer, Jennifer Gosnell, Jennifer Jones, Jennifer Kinney, Jennifer Millikan, Marybeth Huff, Kate Grantham and everyone else who made this happen – it was truly meaningful time together. John Burroughs is a beautiful school and St Louis is an amazing city! #gocardinals

PS: I highly recommend attending SI in the future – it was lovely having post-school time to delve into some amazing PD without being distracted by what was happening back at school 🙂

How do you solve a problem like picture books?

When I worked in the children’s room of a public library, picture books were some of our biggest movers. Adults and children would come in and take out armfuls, anticipating times spent reading together or looking through the pictures, telling stories of their own making. I hoped for some of the same circulation numbers when I became a school librarian. In my fantasy, students in the lower elementary grades would come in and beg to take home more picture books – or come in during free time and swap out the books they just got a few days before. Well, I’m not sure what it’s like in your elementary libraries – but that scenario has not happened in mine. Yet.

I was chatting with a fellow school librarian recently and picture book circulation came up. “Do your picture books circulate?” I asked.
“Not much” she answered.
“Mostly teachers?”
“Yes,” she replied, “and few with the popular characters like Fancy Nancy or Pete the Cat.”
“Sigh”.
“Sigh”.
That conversation replays in mind constantly. There are times when I wonder if I’m just not choosing the right books for my audience. Maybe I should require the PreKs and Kindergarten to only get picture books – after all, those books are made for them! Not only can they be used for pre-literacy and literacy activities, the stories are created explicitly FOR their enjoyment.

What to do? What to do? “Sigh? Sigh.” Following are some ideas to possibly help make those picture books move. Granted, picture books may never circulate like they do in public library – AND IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. Most school libraries are missing the second half of the dyad – the parent or guardian or babysitter that takes the child to the public library in the first place. It just makes our job ‘more challenging’ as we get those picture books to move.

Do a thorough weeding
Are your shelves stuffed? Do not underestimate the power of a good weed. Be heartless. If it hasn’t moved much in 10-15 years, it probably isn’t going to move next Get rid of anything worn. Put the worn or dated books that circulate on a list to repurchase (unless the last time it circulated was five years ago). If it bothers you to weed, take a note from Maria Kondo, thank the book for its service and let it go. Depending on your school policy, you could offer teachers first choice then put the rest in a ‘free book’ cart for students and/or find a local library or charity to benefit from your largess. If your shelves look crammed and full, students aren’t enticed to browse for that perfect picture book.

Explicitly teach that displays are for students
Have you ever set up a book display with the purpose to create circulation on some items and have students ask permission to take a book? I have. Now I make sure that I mention during library time that displays are for taking. If you have some displays that need to have books stay and some that allow circulation, it may help to let students know which ones they can take books from or offer to place a hold on a book that needs to stay in your library for a while.

Offer read alikes for picture books
If your story time has a theme or an author focus, make sure students know of picture books that share the same theme or author. I would often put up a small floor display by my reading chair of read alikes or an author’s other works, allowing students to look at them during book choosing time.

Partially ‘genrefy’ your picture book collection
While my inner feminist bristled whenever a girl asked me for a princess book, (“wouldn’t you like this one about a female astronaut instead?”), it’s hard to fight the power of the pink. Whether it’s just the holidays, or princesses, or firefighters, using spine labels or separate locations may help those picture books circulation more.

Extend circulation to parents
Again, this is up to your school’s policies, but parents are the ones gathering the picture books in the public library. Whether you stay open a little later or earlier a few days a week, advertising to parents that they can grab picture books while they’re waiting may help with circulation numbers and provide a needed service to time strapped parents.

Provide a box of books to classroom
Why do you rob banks? Because that’s where the money is. Sutton’s law can also apply to the classroom. Most students only go to the library with their class. While that’s all well and good, their chosen books tend to go home. What if you had a box of books that live in the classroom rotating the selections every few weeks? Not only are you getting some of your picture books to see the light of the classroom, you may be helping a stressed out teacher find something for a child to do when they have finished an assignment early. Granted, some teachers may want nothing to do with this, but I’m sure you can find a few that would be willing to try this with you. Especially if you try to match the books with curricular themes.

Now I’m looking for your input. What are some of the ways you’ve helped increase the circulation of picture books? Let’s get these books where they belong…in the hands of the students!

Celebrating student choice by giving them the $$$

Last year I wrote and received a grant from my state school library association to allow an eager group of students to select books to purchase for our library. Inspired by David Barrow’s Student Book Budget project, I created a Librarians-In-Training group composed of about a dozen 3rd and 4th grade students. Their task was to survey the student body to gauge reading interests, analyze the results to determine goals for book purchasing, browse book catalogs and meet with vendors to select books to purchase, and finally, make tough budget decisions about what to actually buy. 

By giving students the power to choose, I saw them become thoughtful problem-solvers and decision-makers, focusing on the wants and needs of the many, rather than their own personal desires. This is, after all, their library, and they should take part in the process of selecting books for it. At the end of this project, students were able to see the results of their efforts – books actually purchased for the library. Best of all, students took pride and ownership of the new materials selected for the library.IMG_9720

So, how did we do it? Slowly and methodically!

At our first meeting, I talked to students about my job as librarian – how to select books, what to consider, where to look for books, etc. We discussed our diverse student population and focused on the need to choose books for ALL readers. This led into the sharing of my simplified selection criteria pulled from my Collection Development Policy: community need, quality, appropriateness, and diversity.

We then moved into talking about creating selection goals. What kinds of books should we buy? Well, in order to answer that question, we first needed to find out what kinds of books our Lower School students wanted! I created a simple Google survey for our Librarians-In-Training to fill out and critique.

BookSurvey

They spent the next week helping our student body fill out the survey during lunch recess. They emphasized the fact that we would most likely buy the books and genres that students suggested.

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After the surveys were done, we met back as a group to analyze the results and create selection goals focused on specific genres or types of books. I created charts and graphs to illustrate the survey’s results and let students discuss the findings.

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Time with this group ended and another picked up where we left off a few weeks later. Armed with our selection goals (which later changed to account for my recent purchases), we then explored two sources – Follett Titlewave (and print catalogs) and our local independent bookstore. We were lucky to have our independent bookseller come to us to share a box full of the latest and greatest children’s books (which we pre-selected together earlier in the week, selection goals in mind). Students browsed the books and created yes/no piles for purchase.

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After two weeks of compiling our lists and making sure we stayed on budget, I placed the final orders! Students were buzzing with excitement and couldn’t wait for the books to come in. Our bookstore order arrived first, and students helped process them after I cataloged them. The Follett order came in over a month later, and students were anxious to get these books on the shelf already!

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And this is where we are now. The Follett books just went on the shelf yesterday (!!!), and there is still more work to be done. I would love to have some of my Librarians-In-Training create a promotional video for the new books. I would also like to find a way to track checkouts of these new books, so that at the end of the year, we can analyze our success. But for now, I consider this project a win.

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Reading in the new year

As January begins to unfurl and we all return to school (hopefully) refreshed and ready to tackle the second half of the school year, I wonder if anyone else is left in this odd sense of reading purgatory. I love compiling “Best of 2015” lists at the end of the year (and blogged about it here), and of course, I also love hearing about and reading brand new books anytime of the year. But January, for me, is the trickiest reading month because I am trying to both read the best books from the previous year (especially in anticipation of the ALA Youth Media Awards next week) and stay on top of new releases.

Since I’ve already written about the former, I thought I’d share with you some new books coming out in the next few months that I’m looking forward to. This is a completely subjective list based on my favorite authors, personal interests, student influences, and starred reviews (found on this excellent spreadsheet here). I’ve linked to the Goodreads profile of each book so that you can read summaries, reviews, etc. (and so that you can be spared my giddy ramblings of why I already heart these books). Please share your own in the comments!


beafriendBe a Friend by Salina Yoon
Hardcover, 40 pages
Expected publication: January 5, 2016 by Bloomsbury USA Childrens


Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics by Chris Grabensteinmrlemoncello
Hardcover, 288 pages
Expected publication: January 5, 2016 by Random House Books for Young Readers


frankencrayonFrankencrayon by Michael Hall
Hardcover, 40 pages
Expected publication: January 26, 2016 by Greenwillow Books


paxPax by Sara Pennypacker
Hardcover, 304 pages
Expected publication: February 2, 2016 by Balzer + Bray


saltotheseaSalt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
Hardcover, 400 pages
Expected publication: February 2, 2016 by Philomel Books


princessinblackThe Princess in Black and the Hungry Bunny Horde by Shannon and Dean Hale
Hardcover, 96 pages
Expected publication: February 9, 2016 by Candlewick Press


amulet7Amulet 7: Firelight by Kazu Kibuishi
Paperback, 208 pages
Expected publication: February 23, 2016 by GRAPHIX


keytoextraordinaryThe Key to Extraordinary by Natalie Lloyd
Hardcover, 240 pages
Expected publication: February 23, 2016 by Scholastic Press


maybeafoxMaybe a Fox by Kathi Appelt
Hardcover, 272 pages
Expected publication: March 8, 2016 by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books


booked
Booked
 by Kwame Alexander
Hardcover, 320 pages
Expected publication: April 5, 2016 by HMH Books for Young Readers


What are you looking forward to reading/purchasing this year?


Edited to add: On the heels of my post, School Library Journal publishes a gorgeous 16-page pdf of upcoming releases here – http://www.slj.com/downloads/sneakpeek2016/. Happy browsing!

Books for Discussing September 11th

One of the bonuses of being a librarian and a mother, is that my daughters often try to surprise me with books I am not familiar with when they come home from a trip to our public library. One Saturday this summer, I arrived home to find a library book selected by youngest daughter on my desk. I am a native New Yorker and I believe she picked out the book because of its setting, noted in the title.

New Yorks BravestI dug into New York’s Bravest, pouring over the lush illustrations by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher. I immediately found myself captivated by the story of a man whose legend was larger than life. Mose Humphreys had overwhelming strength and character, and an unyielding sense of duty. His life ultimately ended in the line of duty and the narrative brought me to tears. Through the story I also gained a deeper understanding of the connection and sense of community firefighters have not only in New York City, but in all areas where we live today.

The book includes a historical note about the origins of this tall tale. And fittingly, the book is dedicated to the 343 New York City firefighters who lost their lives while saving others on September 11th. After researching the book I also found that Mary Pope Osborne included a longer, different version of this legend in her collection American Tall Tales. New York’s Bravest is a gem and reading the book aloud I believe would prompt great discussions with young children about the job firefighters do and the risks they take to save others.

FireboatMaira Kalman uses the history of New York City and a detailed description of the John J. Harvey Fireboat launched in 1931, to set the stage for the incredible work the boat did in the hours after the attack on 9/11.

The theme of citizenship, which resonates so clearly in this book, provides a way to discuss the events of September 11th with children. Maira Kalman describes the events and the response from New Yorkers by writing:

“The news spread. The city had been attacked. Everyone was terrified. But people were brave. The entire city sprang into action. Firefighters and police officers and doctors and construction workers and teachers and cooks and children and parents. The mayor was strong. He said, “We will all work together. We will not be broken.”

Fireboat TowersThe illustrations are remarkable. Maria Kalman’s signature colorful, warm style and captures the people who experienced the day and their steadfast determination, working together to repair the city.

14 Cows for AmericaA Maryland Black-Eyed Susan picture book nominee, Carmen Agra Deedy’s 14 Cows for America provides a unique, global perspective on the events of September 11th. In her collaboration with Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah, the author uses the vehicle of storytelling to communicate the events of the day paired with beautiful, evocative illustrations.

“There is a terrible stillness in the air as the tale unfolds. With growing disbelief, men, women, and children listen. Buildings so tall they can touch the sky? Fires so hot they can melt iron? Smoke and dust so thick they can block out the sun?”

Yet, from the story it is clear that no matter how great our differences, we are empathetic. The response from the people in a small village in Kenya and their touching gift of fourteen cows for America define the essence of the Maasai – a people, “ …fierce when provoked, but easily moved to kindness when they hear of suffering or injustice.” This book also provides a stepping stone for broadly discussing ritual, cultural values, and immigration.

In the concluding note from Kimeli Naiyomah he writes, “The Maasai wish is that every time Americans hear this simple story of fourteen cows, they will find a measure of comfort and peace.”  We are fortunate as Librarians and teachers to utilize books like these that provide a conduit for healing and way we can remember September 11th, 2001 and move forward.