Ten Days Ago….

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Lana

These wonderful authors and illustrators won some awards….and now we continue reading them, again and again and again, and sharing them with our students, and discussing them, and loving them.

The first image is showing who I hoped would win…2/6 isn’t bad I suppose…

We had a competition with students and four of them chose Finding Winnie which went on to win the Caldecott Medal. Two students voted for Roller Girl, which has been really popular; our kids love graphic novels, and it won a Newbery Honor Award.

Life Long Learning

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Lana

Speaking of life-long learning….I am learning that I am spending WAY more time reading wonderful blogs these days, than I am trying to build my own blog. When I first began blogging in 2006, I had a captive audience (of eighteen!!!) students AND their parents, (wow, we’re up to nearly 60 now) including my principal, oh and my mother of course!

While I’d love my blog to have a wider readership now that I am working with more like 1,000 people a week once you add students, parents, staff and a few of you ‘out there’; I’m starting to realise I don’t have the skills to engender a decent ‘fan-base’… My writing has not been good enough to warrant people coming back for more; I lack regularity and focus, and I don’t express my opinion as much; I deliver information, but I sit on the fence about it.

One of the places I head to first when looking for book ideas is to Mia at Pragmatic Mom as she always has so many excellent lists. There are also of course masters I’ve followed for a long time like Mr. Schu at Watch. Connect. Read and Colby Sharp and the great gang of four, Donalynn Miller, Cindy Minnich, Katherine Sokolowski and Colby Sharp over at Nerdy Book Club. I LOVE reading these blogs and many others, I spend hours a week reading reviews, learning about new books, perusing best book lists and watching great book trailers and author interviews.

So this paragraph should be about my new goals, how I am going to make my ‘Rocky-style’ comeback and start delivering, start fresh, begin again and be better and brighter than I was back in my 2008 blogging hey-day. Nahhhhhhh, just can’t get my head around it right now.

I’m totally nuts over reading the other amazing posts people have to offer, and at some point, the urge will come to become one of them. Until then…

Check out these great photos from the library this month. We’ve been having a ball promoting Newbery and Caldecott like crazy; chatting, sharing, reading and tallying our results…Voting started today and finishes Monday (American Sunday) in time to be calculated and announced after the big reveal on February 2nd.

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Hook Line and Sinker

Posted on January 13, 2015 by Lana

I have a confession to make. I am an addict, a junkie… I am a sucker. You see the problem all began when I read Bridge to Terabithia at the age of 10. That was it for me, only grade 5, and I was hooked… and ever since, well, it’s just been a slippery slope.

I tried to resist…. I taught High School Drama, Middle School English, even 5^th grade for a while, but in the end, once an addict, always an addict. Two years, five months and 15 days ago, I finally succumbed to my addiction; I caved, I succumbed and I became a librarian.

Now, I am surrounded by my addiction. Everywhere I look, books, more books, picture books, poetry books, non-fiction and fiction, graphic novels and biographies, you name it, I’ve got it. I go to sleep thinking about them, I dream about them, and I wake up thinking about them, and then, the best part… I get to look at them all.day.LONG!

My favorite part of the year is the month of January, and that is saying something, because nearly every day is a wonderful day in my job, but the best, absolute, COOLEST part of being a librarian is the month before the American Library Association Awards are announced.

All year long I follow incredible blogs like this one, For Those About to Mock, and these ones, School Library Journal’s 100 Scope Notes and AFuse8Production, as well as keeping my eye on lists like this one on Goodreads and the delicious Calling Caldecott from The Horn Book.

Towards the end of the year, I salivate over lists like these from the New York Times and School Library Journal. I plow through twitter and instagram following librarians and authors and seeing what they like and why, and generally, just start seeing what is buzz buzz buzzing around everywhere…

As always, I am totally in awe of the picture books produced by incredibly talented authors and illustrators this year; wordless picture books have again played a huge part in re-defining the library read aloud. After an unprecedented three winning honors for last years Caldecott Medal, (Flora the Flamingo, Journey and Mr. Wuffles… I wondered if we’d seen the peak of their success, however with gems like Draw and The Farmer and The Clown being considered this year, I’m thrilled this genre is still riding the wave.

However as well as books with no words, we got to enjoy Novak’s gem this year, The Book with No Pictures… wasn’t that a lot of fun, and whether you believe it is a contender of not, it’s certainly earned its place in the sun along with some of my favorites this year such as The Jacket and A Perfectly Messed Up Story, which you can read about here. I also loved Gaston and of course Sam and Dave Dig a Hole by two of my ‘librarian crushes’, Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen. As for Baby Tree… LOVE IT!

So over the next few weeks, the aim is to share as many of these treasures, and all the delightful Newbery contenders I’ll write about soon, with as many students as possible, allowing them to read all they can before having their own mock Caldecott vote the week before the announcement on February 2^nd.

7 days to go, 7 days ’til we know…

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Lana

In a way, I can’t wait ’til this time next week, when I can start sharing with the students who won the 2014 Newbery and Caldecott Medals, but another part of me really enjoys the energy and enthusiasm the countdown produces.
Right now, the classes are buzzing, arguing, debating and defending their choices with vigour… once the decision is made, I suppose there will be a new kind of buzz; again, more arguments as to why they think the decision made was right or wrong… But as for now, they OWN their choices, and they are shouting them loud and proud.

As for me, I am reading through those books like crazy… but none have jumped out at me the same way Applegate’s Ivan did this time last year. I am however, loving MANY of the picture books I’m reading (so much faster!) and can’t wait to see who takes that. Some of my favourites are:

The Dark by Lemony Snickett
I’m a sucker for Klassen’s illustrations, and I think the story is really well done, so suspenseful.

Journey by Aaron Becker
Wordless books are aplenty this year with Flora the Flamingo, Mr. Wuffles (practically wordless) and the heart-wrenching Bluebird by Bob Staake, however it is Journey that gets my vote; what an amazing creation. The early pages took me back to one of last year’s favorites, Hello Hello by Matthew Cordell.

Doug Unplugged by Dan Yaccarino
Again,I’m reminded of Hello Hello; “Dan Yaccarino’s funny story of robot rebellion is a great reminder that sometimes the best way to learn about the world is to go out and be in it.”

Now, check out Ms Lau’s students reading the Caldecott’s this morning, and see what they voted for this morning…

Ethan H: Blue Bird
Maddie: Blue Bird
Lizzie: Nelson Mandela
Daniel: Blue Bird
Han Rei: Blue Bird
William: Blue Bird
Jerry: Journey
Charlotte: Blue Bird
Oliver: Night Light
Malu: Blue Bird
Yolanda: Blue Bird

Here is a great list from the Horn Book blog with many of the books listed that we are lucky enough to have been reading this week.

Who will Win Newbery and Caldecott Gold?

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Lana

Only 11 sleeps to go until the Newbery and Caldecott Medals are awarded on January 27th.
We are running a competition in the ES Library to see if anyone can correctly guess both of them, see the end of this post for details. In the meantime, take a look at just a FEW of the possible winners here…

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Win a KISS from Mrs. Power if you can correctly guess the winners of the 2014 Caldecott AND Newbery Awards…

To enter…
*You must have read part or MOST of both books you pick…

*Fill out the entry form and put it in the box

*BOTH books must be the winner of the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott Medal… not just Honor Awards.

*You can pick any books published in 2013, they don’t have to be books you see in our library.

*Entries open 8 am Mon 20th and close 3 pm Fri Jan 24th *Votes Tallied Mon Jan 27th
*Winners announced Tuesday Jan 28th

Example of Completed Entry Form

Your name: Kimbra Power
Your class: 1CN or PK4 or KPH or 4KK

Name of picture book you think will win the Caldecott gold medal:
This is not my Hat by Jon Klassen

Name of book you think will win the Newbery gold medal:
The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

—————————————————————————————–

Answers to your questions

1. Can more than one person win?
Yes, that is possible, if so, I will give kisses to other winners too.

2. Can I enter more than once?
Yes, you can enter up to three times.

3. Are there prizes for the runners up?
Yes, there will be smaller prizes for students who choose correctly either the Newbery OR the Caldecott Winner.

4. Do the books I choose have to be in the ES Library?
No, the books and book posters inside and outside the ES Library are just SOME of the books that might win. The winning books could also be in the MS Library, or not in our school at all yet. Read my blog post http://sites.saschina.org/kpower/2014/01/07/and-the-winner-is/ or more recent posts to see many other lists of books that are also being considered.

5. Do I need to put the author’s name?
No, you don’t NEED to, but it will help us to be clear, so put it if you know it.

6. Will I really kiss you?
What do you think?

Many of you ask me how the Newbery is chosen, here is where you can read about it…

Essentially…

1. The Medal shall be awarded annually to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children published by an American publisher in the United States in English during the preceding year. There are no limitations as to the character of the book considered except that it be original work. Honor books may be named. These shall be books that are also truly distinguished.

2. The Award is restricted to authors who are citizens or residents of the United States.

Here is how the Caldecott is chosen, the main difference being that this is for a picture book…

1. The Medal shall be awarded annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published by an American publisher in the United States in English during the preceding year. There are no limitations as to the character of the picture book except that the illustrations be original work. Honor books may be named. These shall be books that are also truly distinguished.

2. The award is restricted to artists who are citizens or residents of the United States. Books published in a U.S. territory or U.S. commonwealth are eligible.

The Hits just Keep on Coming!

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Lana

I had a GREAT day today, one of those… I love my life…I love my job, I’m so so lucky kind of days! Reflecting on its success…I got to do several of the things I love:

*Share amazing books with students

*Share amazing books with teachers

*Check out amazing books to parents, teachers and students

*Order new and wonderful books to add to our collection

It’s not EVERY day I get to do these things, and so joyfully… some times the ‘behind the scenes’ life of a librarian can get me down, but not today, today, everything rolled along beautifully.

I’d love to share with you some of the amazing books I’m sharing with kids, and some of the clever lists and sites I find them on.

This is one of the great blogs I follow, from School Library Journal, and in this post, Jonathan Hunt shares what is getting the votes and where from…

You can see from this list, how spread out the categories are; you’ve got non-fiction/picture books/chapter books all packed in to one great list, so you need to then sift through and find out which books are for you. We have nearly ALL of these books in the library, aren’t we lucky?

Today I read these books for the first time; and the second and fourth graders LOVED them.

The Boy who Loved Math, which was an amazing book to compare and contrast with the wonderful On a Beam of Light which you can read more about here in this great post by the Book Jeannie. I’d learned and taught about Albert Einstein before so it was fun for me to learn something new about Paul Erdos, (pronounced Air-Dish). I loved sharing with the kids about the author’s style and the similarities and differences between the books, and what made them such great non-fiction picture texts. The students were able to talk about the various elements, such as the detailed information at the back, giving us even more items of interest about the amazing lives of these two important men.

We then went on to read the book I think will be hard to beat in the Caldecott Stakes… The Dark, by Lemony Snicket. As illustrator Jon Klassen won Caldecott Honor AND Medal last year for authoring and illustrating This is not my Hat and illustrating Extra Yarn, it will be interesting to see if he will come up trumps again this year.

Meanwhile… Look which book was the best selling book across all print formats in 2013…. Can you guess?

Nielsen BookScan Top 20

1. Hard Luck (Wimpy Kid #8) by Jeff Kinney (Abrams/Amulet)
2. Inferno by Dan Brown (Doubleday)
3. Killing Jesus by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard (Henry Holt)
4. Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander (Simon & Schuster)
5. The House of Hades by Rick Riordan (Disney-Hyperion)
6. Divergent by Veronica Roth (HarperCollins/Tegen)
7. Jesus Calling by Sarah Young (Thomas Nelson)
8. Sycamore Row by John Grisham (Doubleday)
9. The Third Wheel (Wimpy Kid #7) by Jeff Kinney (Abrams/Amulet)
10. Happy, Happy, Happy by Phil Robertson (Howard Books)
11. Allegiant by Veronica Roth (HarperCollins/Tegen)
12. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (Knopf)
13. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Dutton)
14. Things That Matter by Charles Krauthammer (Crown Forum)
15. Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (Scribner)
16. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner)
17. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
18. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James (Vintage)
19. Si-Cology 1 by Si Robertson (Howard Books)
20. Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath (Gallup Press)

While I’m obsessing over lists, here is another of the New York Times Ten Best Illustrated books of 2013…. which was posted on the amazing School Library Journal… Always one to follow. This list is GORGEOUS!

EIGHT of these have arrived this week, the others are on their way!!!

My Brothers Book Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

9780062234896 0 Spread Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

My Brother’s Book by Maurice Sendak (Michael de Capua Books/HarperCollins Publishers)

Ballad Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Ballad 1 Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Ballad by Blexbolex (Enchanted Lion Books)

Jemmy Button by Jennifer Uman and Valerio Vidali (Templar Publishing/Candlewick Press)

The Dark Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

The Dark 1 Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

The Dark by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Jon Klassen (Little, Brown and Company)

Holland Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Holland 1 Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Holland by Charlotte Dematons (Lemniscaat)

Journey Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Journey 1 Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Journey by Aaron Becker (Candlewick Press)

Fog Island Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Fog Island 1 Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Fog Island written and illustrated by Tomi Ungerer (Phaidon Press)

Jane the Fox and Me Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Jane the Fox and Me 11 Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Jane, The Fox and Me by Fanny Britt, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press)

Locomotive Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Locomotive 1 Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Locomotive by Brian Floca (Richard Jackson/Atheneum)

Nelson Mandela Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Nelson Mandela 1 Gallery: The New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Childrens Books of 2013

Nelson Mandela by Kadir Nelson (Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins Publishers)

And the winner is…

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Lana

My favourite time of the year is coming up in the Library… The ALA library awards will be announced on January 27th 2014.

Many people wonder how books are judged… if you want to learn more about that, the ALA site tells you all about the judging criteria for awards like the Newbery and the Caldecott Medal.

I’m fortunate at SAS to have a wonderful team around me who support our purchasing of the latest and greatest books. This school year, I’ve also acquired many ‘mules’ who are able to bring me back new books for January to accompany the many we have digitally on kindle and ibooks. The books I’ve been buying come from the lists below… so if YOU want to keep your eye on the prize… have a look through the following links to see how many books you have read.

I’ll be spending January’s library time discussing with students the best of the best, and what makes them so.

Check out these great sites today so that you know what’s being discussed, what’s hot, and what may win the 2014 awards. Remember, so far, these sites just share books they think might be included in the Newbery and Caldecott discussions… as for now, nobody knows for sure which books will make it all the way through, but these lists give great indications about books that have created a lot of buzz this year.

I’ll start you off with a nice small list from the School Library Journal which includes a couple of my favourites; If You Want to See a Whale and The Thing about Luck.

How many of the books above have you read? Come and check one out today… 69 new books JUST arrived!

I’m proud to say that ALL of the books on this next long list will be in our library as of January 8th… which is quite an achievement considering we live in China and many of them are newly released (thanks mules!)

If you’re a non-fiction lover, you’ll enjoy this post which ponders that not many non-fiction books have grabbed our attention this year, however, imagine the irony if a book about Randolph Caldecott won a Newbery prize…

Another list I’ve done my very best to purchase all of is this one from the ALA looking at the 2013 Notable Book Nominees. I know that 5th grade teacher Mrs Rekate LOVED Escape from Mr Lemoncello’s Library and will wonder why that isn’t noted (it came out five days later), but quite a few of the other books she’s read recently made it onto the list… so check it out if you haven’t done so yet.

We’ll have all of the actual books listed here by your first school day in 2014, and we already have them on kindle, so check out this short list and make sure you read as many as you can by January 27th… I’m sure at least one of these will make it all the way!

Goodreads has a wonderful selection of books listed here, with full information on each. Sign up for goodreads, and you can start keeping a great ‘real-life’ journal of what you’ve read, what you want to read and what you’re reading.

Wayyyyyy back in January, the amazing Jonathan Hunt from School Library Journal made some predictions about books he thought would stand out this year. Having served on the Newbery Committee in the past, his advice is always to be taken.

Finally, my list wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t check out what Horn Book had to say. I love seeing how many of the blogs I follow list the same books; when the same trusted reviewers point me towards a certain book time after time… I just know I have to read it, and better still, share it with YOU!

Finally, I can close some of the tabs I’ve had open for weeks…. which drives Mr Power crazy!

Happy New Year 2014 and get ready for the Year of the Horse beginning on January 31st.

the barefoot librarian

Kimbra Power

Tag Archives: Awards