Accelerated Reader-Help or Hindrance?

Valarie Budayr has started a conversation about the benefits and the downside of the Accelerated Reading (AR) program on her website Jump Into a Book. Read the article and put in your two cents.

Happy Birthday Edgar Allen Poe

In honor of the 204th birthday of Edgar Allen Poe, the Salt Lake County Library Services’ provides the pun of the day

For the Queen impaired, a word play on ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

Hat Tip: Reading is Fundamental

Dav Pilkey Interview

Well, never say never! Captain Underpants books are something I never thought I’d write about on this blog until I heard a radio interview with the author and a librarian this morning. It turns out that Dav Pilkey was a struggling  reader when he was a kid. As an adult, he wanted to write books that even kids like him would read. You can listen to the interview here.

Two Authors Who Sum Up My Ideas About Children’s Books

From the Tumblr blog of Amanda Patterson via Imagination Soup is a quote from John le Carre: “The cat sat on the mat” is not the beginning of a story. “The cat sat on the dog’s mat” is.

This should ring a bell for tutors using the PALS program!

And from the What Kids Are Reading blog a C.S. Lewis quote: “A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest”.

Abe Lincoln’s Dream

Just in time to coincide with the movie “Lincoln” is a book by Lane Smith called Abe Lincoln’s Dream. Several times before momentous events , Abe Lincoln had a dream where he had seen himself “In an indescribable vessel moving rapidly toward an indistinct shore”. The last time he had this dream was the night before he was assassinated.

The story starts with several White House dogs who refused to enter the Lincoln Bedroom. Many people thought it was haunted. A young girl, named Quincy, gets separated from her school tour group and comes upon a tall man in a stovepipe hat standing over the Gettysburg Address. Just to interject a fact into this story, on the White House Tour, you don’t go anywhere near the Lincoln Bedroom. The tour is confined to the first floor of the Executive Mansion. Now back to the story. Quincy asks the man if he is lost, but he said, “No” as he walked through a wall. This is where the author inserts the first corny joke (actually a pun) about ghosts and fibs. Quincy tells him that his joke is very silly. Then Lincoln tells her about his troubling dream. Quincy keeps up with him as he paces the floor, taking four steps to his one. He asks her “Do you know how LONG a man’s legs should be? “No’ she replies. “Long enough to reach the floor”. He is still restless and worried about the country. She suggests he go out of the Executive Mansion to see what has changed since 1865. He did the flying and she answered his questions as they toured the country and even took a flight to the moon to see the American Flag planted there. When they returned, Lincoln took her back to her tour group and this time she had a knock-knock joke for him. Lincoln thought it was a silly joke.  That night Quincy had a dream about a tall man in a black hat on a boat moving towards the sun with a smile on his face.

 

The Sonoma County Library has several copies. We have looked at a  2011 Caldecott Honor book from Lane Smith called Grandpa Green and a book by Judith Viorst that he illustrated, Lulu and the Brontosaurus.You can listen to an October interview with the author here

Win a Visit to Your School by Jan Brett

How would you like children’s book author, Jan Brett,  to come to your school next year? The third annual win a visit to your school or library by Jan Brett Facebook Contest has started. It ends April 8, 2013. Is is simple to enter. Go to Jan Brett's Contest page, click like. A form will pop up. It asks for your first name, your e-mail address, the name of your school or library, the city, state and zipcode. That’s it. I entered this contest last year and had maybe a half dozen posts from Jan Brett  since. One entry per person. The 2nd to 10th place prize is 10 Jan Brett books and the 11th to 100th prize is a signed Jan Brett poster.

Jan’s visit would be sometime in the 2013-2014 school year.

Jan’s website has games, videos, coloring pages and cards. You can also find out about her books and find out how she writes and illustrates her books by reading her blog. Her next book is called Cinders, A Chicken Cinderella.

BOB Books

BOB Books, sets  of  beginning phonics based readers, are helpful for developing reading skills. The first five books build skills, each set of books building on the skills learned in the previous set. A set contains 8-10 readers and/or activity books. They follow pretty closely the skills being taught in the California Treasures reading program in the first grade.  The stories are not great literature but they can provide the just right books a beginning reader needs.

 

 

 

The  Sonoma County Library has sets of the BOB Books. Costco carries them and they are available through Scholastic. For more information about the books and how to use them go to the BOB Books' website.