Mrs. D In the Library

  Tarshis, Lauren. (2021). I survived: The Galveston Hurricane, 1900. New York: Scholastic Inc. Genre: Children’s Series, Historical Fiction Summary: This book is another installment of the I Survived series. This story is about a hurricane that hit Galveston Island in 1900. Because of the lack of technology and ability to spread word fast, the inhabitants of the island are blind-sided but what was supposed to be just a big rainstorm. Charlie, the main character, was one of the first in the town, after Mr. Eddie, an old man who had survived the last major hurricane to come through the island, to have suspicions that this storm wasn’t going to be what the paper predicted. What happens, though, is even more “impossible” than young Charlie could even imagine.   Comments: After chapter nine, My son and I couldn’t put this down. The end of each chapter from then on was a cliffhanger leaving us wanting more. We just had to know what was going to happen next. Was everyone go...

My family and I recently participated in a virtual program with the Princeton Public Library . This program is part of their Lit Lab where they blend reading with making. It was really fun and actually perfect as we decided to do this Lit Lab at the end of my kids and I's 10 day break together.  The program centered around the book Thankful written by Elaine Vickers and illustrated by Samantha Cotterill. Thankful  is about a young girl and her family who, once winter sets in, create a paper ring of things that they are thankful for. Each spread of the book is a different set of things to be thankful for during the long, cold winter.  After the librarian, Katie, read the book aloud, she provided us with a step-by-step tutorial on an activity we could make at home. The activity was to make a paper chain of our with what we  are thankful for. As we completed this activity, we all decided that we need a lot more paper (I cut us each out 8 strips) in order to cover ...

Lowry, L. (1989). Number the stars . Laurel Leaf. Genre: Children's Historical Fiction Summary:  This book takes place in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1943 and is the fictional tale of two best friends Ellen Rosen and Annemarie Johansen navigating life in World War II. The Nazis are stationed everywhere and food is scarce. When word gets out to the synagogues that the Nazis are going to start rounding up all of the Jews, The Johansen's take in Annemarie and Peter (Lise Rosen's former betrothed fiancé before her untimely death) takes her parents somewhere to evade the roundup. Mrs. Rosen takes the girls to visit her brother Henrik. Eventually Ellen and her parents are reunited before Henrik takes the Rosen's to safety. This is not before Annemarie has to carry out a dangerous task that will ensure the safety of their voyage. Comments: First, I must say that I am jaded by historical fiction of World War II. I kept waiting for the book to take a turn and be laden with the all ...

  Recently, my group and I were assigned to read  Guts  by Raina Telgemeier. Afterwards we had to lead a book discussion together. Being an adult reading children and other youth literature is really a unique experience. To come together with other adults to do a book discussion on this type of literature holds, surprisingly, a lot of potential for incredible discussion without the need for one person to take the lead. This is exactly the experience I think me and my other group mates had.  During the discussion we highlighted a handful of the most poignant pages that we found to be both our favorites and also found to be rich with opportunity for incredible conversations and teachable moments with the target audience (children). Below are three of the pages that we discussed: The highlight of this discussion no doubt lay in the other book recommendations in this genre (graphic novels for children) from my peers. Here is the list: Looking for Alaska and  The Fau...

  Spread of Evaluation of Graphic Novels at My Local Library So for this evaluation I went to my county library's website to search the materials they offered. It is an extensive library system that provides services across a fairly large area so I wanted to see that there was not only quality graphic novels offered but also that there was decent quantity in good condition in order to best serve the population.  I narrowed down my search to fiction graphic novels for children. The search yielded over 2,000 results. I searched through about 55 pages to find the first 18 graphic novels that were of quality content. The last handful, I did a google search for popular graphic novels for kids. I wanted to see how many copies were offered of these as a lot of them are award winning. As the spread shows, the more popular the graphic novel, the copies that were available to the county at large.  I would say that I was impressed with the size of the collection. I have seen this co...

This morning I had the opportunity to hold a brief interview with my former elementary school librarian, Ms. Murray. (Fun note - she is also now both of my childrens’ elementary school librarian as they go to the same school I did!) Ms. Murray is in her 20-something year of holding this role so she had a lot of insight to offer.  First, we discussed her day to day. She teaches 7 classes and has both a lunch and a prep period - this is a pretty standard schedule for a public school educator in the state of NJ due to laws. What was surprising, though, was that she now only fills this role part-time. She states this is due to the smaller district size. However, the district isn’t much smaller than when I was there and she was full-time then. So, she now splits her time between being an in class resource teacher (she is also certified special education) and as the librarian.  Ms. Murray plans for instruction in a variety of ways. Always first, she is sure to align what is being ta...