What's Happening at the BSS Library?

We are big fans of Oliver Jeffers here at BSS.  We all love  The Day the Crayons Quit  that he illustrated, as well as the sequel  The Day the Crayons Came Home .  And  Stuck  is simply hysterical (when a boy's kite gets stuck in a tree he throws everything he can find at the tree to get it out, but of course all those things get stuck too!). So I thought I would share  Once Upon an Alphabet: Short Stories for all the Letters  with 4th Graders.  This book is no ordinary alphabet book. Jeffers writes a very short story for all the letters, some which connect with the other stories.  The student loved picking out details (sometimes tough to spot) that connected to the other stories in the book.  It was a lot of fun!

4th through 6th graders took the What Kind of a Superhero Reader Are You? survey during library classes this week.  This survey is found at  http://www.abookandahug.com/reader-assessment , and is supposed to match children with a reading type and give book suggestions to match.  I told the students a ten question survey cannot accurately describe every readers' tastes, but some of them were very surprised how accurate the results were!  My main goal was for them to see the types of books recommended on the abookandahug.com website, which has many suggestions based on genre as well as age (picture book readers all the way through high school).  A fun way to learn about all the different books waiting for them!

Aliki has written many fabulous nonfiction books, and I chose Mummies Made in Egypt for 6th graders to help introduce Ancient Egypt, their next social studies unit.  Ancient Egypt and Greece are very popular with middle school students, especially since the publication of Rick Riordan's series such as Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus, and the Kane Chronicles. Students know so much about the gods and goddesses they have read about in these series. And what's not cool about mummies? I can always count on a few groans and "ick!"s when they describe how the deceased's brain is removed through the nostrils, and when it describes how the person's bodily fluids are drained into a container as the body dries out.  Good stuff. And they are horrified to learn that people would rob the tombs, since the chambers were full of gold and jewels.   Very cool indeed!

The New Girl...and Me by Jacqui Robbins has a lot going for it.  Great, humorous, illustrations by Matt Phelan, a school story kids can relate to, and an important message for everyone.  Shakeeta is new kid in class, and her teacher Ms. Becky said to make sure that everyone makes her "feel at home." Mia does not understand how somebody can feel at home while at school, and Ms. Becky responds that is a phrase we use when we want to make someone feel comfortable and welcome.  Well, the students don't exactly make her feel welcome when someone calls her a name and then the whole class laughs.  Then she's not allowed to play soccer with the other children, and a boy tells her she looks like an iguana. Mia really wants to get to know Mia, but she doesn't know how.  But she takes the first step and asks her about her iguana, and asks if she needs help tying her shoes.  It gets the two talking, and they get along great and begin to laugh and play together. ...

Since it is the year of peace at BSS, I've been choosing many titles where characters demonstrate the act of peace.  Who better to exemplify this trait than Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person to ever have won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Many students have heard the name Malala, but did not know of all the details of how she stood up for the rights of girls in Pakistan to be educated.  How she spoke out against the Taliban taking away her basic right to an education.  How even a bullet to the head did not stop her or silence what she had been fighting for.   Instead of fighting back when her school was closed, she wrote a diary of her experiences which was published as a blog by the BBC.  This blog was read around the world, and others began to support Malala's plight. What an inspiration for children to hear about Malala's life story, and what a positive role model for our students to speak up for their beliefs in a peaceful fashion.

During his last year as pastor at BSS, Fr. Tim asked me if I had ever read the book Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed .  He said it was a fine example of how one person doing a kind deed change the world. I purchased the book in honor of Fr. Tim the year he was leaving, and to celebrate our year of peace at BSS,  I've been reading the book to some of my classes. Mary is just an ordinary girl, but when she picks some blueberries and leaves them anonymously for her neighbor, the woman is delighted and uses the berries to bake muffins for five people. The five people that receive her berries are touched by her kindness, so they in turn do a kind need for five more people, and so on.  At the end of the book when I ask the students how many people's lives were changed by all these kind deeds, they guess a hundred, or a thousand.  When I show them the last page with the chart showing the number of people helped, they are amazed! They find it hard to believe that o...

We talked about riddles this week in second grade, and read Spot the Plot  to test our knowledge of famous children's books.  This book gives clues of classic children's books and the students had to guess what the riddle was about. The students were amazing!  They were able to identify such books as Charlotte's Web, Madeline, The Polar Express, and The Tale of Peter Rabbit . They have obviously been listening to what has been read to them over the years. Watch this video clip from the book’s author, J. Patrick Lewis, to hear a riddle or two! ( http://www.teachingbooks.net/book_reading.cgi?id=5596&a=1 )