The end of the year always brings best books lists. This year we offer several of our own, including one devoted to nonfiction for secondary students; feel free to add your suggestions to the end of the list—we'd love to hear about your favorites.
Our other features this month include multimedia resources from TeachingBooks.net to celebrate the holiday season; sumptuously illustrated editions of Rapunzel; an interview with Steve Sheinkin, the author of The Notorious Benedict Arnold; John Green on the Internet as a source of inspiration; books about space exploration; and some how-to help for grant writers.
Until 2011,
Daryl Grabarek,
Editor, Curriculum Connections
dgrabarek@mediasourceinc.com
P.S. Have you seen our School Library Journal's Best Books for 2010? After months of reading and debating, we narrowed our list down to 62 titles.
After the Movie
Reveling in Rapunzel
The free-spirited, lushly locked heroine of Disney's recent animated blockbuster film, Tangled, has long been a fairy tale favorite. Though the Brothers Grimm story has been re-imagined, the movie version conveys many of the essential plot elements: a maiden isolated in a tower; a sorceress who is both mother figure and captor; those gorgeous and ever-useful tresses; a burgeoning romance; and a protagonist who takes her first steps into adulthood.
The movie is sure to fuel interest in this enduring tale and send captivated fans to library shelves. Ranging from picture books to novels, from retellings to variations and reinterpretations, the titles featured here can be shared aloud, read independently, or used as the basis for classroom studies. more > > >
Related TeachingBooks.net resources >>>
Nick's Picks
Nick's Picks: So Many Holidays, So Little Time
Students study the holidays celebrated in families and communities around the world to learn about traditions and cultures different from their own, and to honor the diversity in their own communities. For young students, literature is often a portal into these cultural explorations.
TeachingBooks.net's database contains thousands of multimedia resources about the books and authors studied in K-12 environments. This month, we are pleased to offer a selection of materials to expand discussions about the upcoming holidays. more > > >
Interview
Benedict Arnold: The Bruce Willis of History
Steve Sheinkin likens Benedict Arnold to a Bruce Willis character 200 years before Hollywood invented the loose-cannon action figure. Sheinkin, a former textbook writer, tried many times to get stories about Arnold into the history books. When his editors rejected them, the author stowed them away in a file.
In The Notorious Benedict Arnold, Sheinkin finally had his chance to tell the tale of this multifaceted man whose name today is synonymous with the word "traitor." Here the author explains his long fascination with Arnold, and why it is important that young people know about the complex personalities that wielded influence in the formation of our country. more > > >
Required Reading
Noteworthy Nonfiction for Secondary Collections
What nonfiction titles did you add to your secondary school and library collections in 2010? While a number of books received a good deal of attention, including several by authors well-known for their contributions to children's and young adult literature, there are also some less-heralded gems you won't want to miss. Read about a few of our favorite 2010 titles. more > > >
Too Good to Miss
On a Mission: Exploring the Wild Black Yonder
So you conscientiously fanned the sparks of interest that last year's 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's historic mission kindled by laying in a copy or two of Brian Floca's incomparable Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 for your younger readers. And for your middle- and upper-grade students you purchased Andrew Chaikin and Victoria Kohl's Mission Control, This Is Apollo: The Story of the First Voyages to the Moon and Alan Dyer's sumptuous Mission to the Moon, with its DVD of contemporary video clips and features.
Good for you ... but what will you offer to fan that interest into roaring fascination? more > > >
Behind the Books
John Green on...Inspiration in the Community
Although my books could not have been printed if it weren't for trees, they would have been utterly impossible to write without the Internet. Paper Towns, for instance, is built around this weird cartographic phenomena wherein mapmakers intentionally put fake place-names on their maps. There was some research into this practice before the Internet, but it took the crowd-sourcing talents of the web to reveal how widespread it is.
But to me the Internet is not only a source of information; it is also a source of inspiration.
Similarly, the writing of my first novel, Looking for Alaska, was dependent on the Internet. The book involves famous last words—a subject about which I would know very little, if it weren't for the dedicated amateurs who combed newspaper archives and biographies and then posted their findings on listservs and blog sites.
Professional Shelf
Winning Grants
While libraries have seen an increase in activity during the past two years, most have also experienced budget cuts, staff layoffs, and reduced hours. So how can they continue to serve their communities and provide the materials and programming that patrons need? More than ever before, libraries are investigating private and federal funding. In Winning Grants, Pamela H. MacKellar and Stephanie K. Gerding show the way. more > > >
In this Issue
Full Steam Ahead : Steampunk recommendations for elementary through high school
Listen to National Book Award winner Kathryn Erskine on her name
Trackin' Trailers: A book trailer made for bibliophiles
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