Professional Reading

Designed to assist teachers and librarians in their search for worthwhile and appropriate sites for students and classroom materials, this copious volume surely succeeds. The book, based upon the author’s popular and successful Web site of the same title, provides readers with a companion resource that offers quick access to specific sites, including new listings. Chapter one begins with guidance in performing serious Internet use, such as outlining the search, performing research in text-based materials to locate specific keywords prior to accessing the Internet, utilizing special online Google features such as performing a “proactive” search, requesting notification from Google News and Google Alerts, requesting available newsletters sent out via email, and subscribing to listservs and RSS feeds from subject-related blogs. A brief discussion of the benefits of using a subject directory as opposed to keyword searches leads to suggestions on how to integrate history Web sites into the classroom by linking to technology frameworks and various teaching strategies. Successive chapters include over 1000 sites grouped by topic or period such as the age of European discovery, the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War II, world religions, history through art and museum sites, and maps and geography. Each listing gives the name of the site with a starred rating, its URL, a brief description, resource type, and grade-level recommendation. Many of these sites provide a variety of useful teaching resources, as well.–Susan Shaver, Hemingford Public Schools, NE

In this well-thought-out autobiography, Hughes sets aside ego and concentrates on the events, people, and arts that have influenced her life and work. Along with personal anecdotes, she discusses the history of children’s literature and gives her own philosophy of children’s books–a philosophy that has grown out of her own childhood, her role as parent, and her experiences as an author and illustrator. This professional memoir has a coffee-table-book format. It is filled with full-color and black-and-white photographs, sketchbook entries, book illustrations, and paintings. All of the artwork has excellent placement and is accompanied by explanatory and identifying captions. This is a beautiful book for anyone interested in children’s books.–Carolyn Janssen, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, OH

Quick tales in storytellers’ pockets are like money in the bank. They fill in when programs are delayed, and when class periods are cut short or interrupted so that lengthier stories are no longer suitable. These events occur so often that most seasoned tellers always have a Plan B in their preparations. This collection fits the bill with participation, animal, origin, riddle, romance, strange, trickster, and moral tales from around the world and for all ages. MacDonald provides sources and variations as the stories have traveled throughout different lands and cultures. She uses her own experiences to provide hints for telling to audiences of different ages. Her practical guidance enables newer as well as veteran tellers to proceed confidently with these engaging stories. A useful addition for reading or telling at schools, libraries, community centers, religious schools, and at home.–Judy Sokoll, Florida Storytelling Association, Naples

Selverstone gives sound advice for advocating inquiry-based research, especially for hot topics that are most interesting to students. She advises library media specialists on what constitutes controversial topics, how to collaborate with teachers to foster critical thinking, and how to gain administrative support for this kind of program research. Most of the suggestions stem from Information Power and how to incorporate it into library programs. The author includes models of inquiry-based research techniques that allow students to enrich their curriculum study as well as develop their understanding and respect for different viewpoints. The rest of the book is divided into nine broad categories, and, within them, more specific topics that suggest journal articles, Web sites, and books to direct students to unbiased information that presents both sides of the topic. For example, “Biology/Health” has sections on abortion, birth control, cloning, evolution, and medical marijuana. Selverstone includes an introduction to the topic for library media specialists and collaborating teachers. She stresses the importance of having access to all types of information like unfiltered accounts for accessing the Internet as well as books and databases; while unfiltered accounts may be out of reach for some libraries, the philosophies and ideas presented make this book an ideal purchase to promote and foster collaboration with the school communities in which many of us work.–Lori E. Donovan, Thomas Dale High School, Chester, VA

Andersen celebrated joy and goodness with images of light, warmth, fluidity, beauty, and transcendence. He also plumbed the depths of despair and alienation with images of darkness, cold, immobility, ugliness, and sadistic punishment. Children exposed to his stories long remember their disturbing, evocative power. Tatar has selected 24 stories that show both sides of the 19th-century Danish storyteller and satirist. She divides her collection equally between “Tales for Adults” and “Tales for Children,” including Andersen’s best-known works as well as those that may be less familiar. Tatar and Allen provide fresh translations of Andersen’s tales intended to encourage reading aloud, but their fluid, conversational tone occasionally lapses into current slang. While Erik Christian Haugaard’s Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories (Doubleday, 1974) sets the standard for translation, this splendid new volume offers readers an abundance of background and context. Annotated with copious and informative notes, illustrated with reproductions from early illustrators–among them Harry Clarke, Kay Nielsen, and Edmund Dulac–the book features a critical introduction, a sketch of Andersen’s life, thumbnail biographies of Andersen’s illustrators, excerpts from 30-odd accounts of reading Andersen by people as diverse as Charles Dickens and Claire Bloom, and an extensive bibliography. Generously sized, with handsome page design, the book invites adults to read and discuss Andersen’s tales with children. Scholars and college students will also find it valuable.–Margaret A. Chang, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams

See what’s popular with children in various areas of the country. Our new column, “What Are They Reading for Fun?” appears twice a month in SLJ’s online newsletter, Extra Helping. Sign up at www.slj.com.