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Forget about our reviews. And pay no attention to those ALA awards. If you want to know what books kids are really excited about, check out our newest Extra Helping column, "What Are They Reading for Fun?" Twice a month, SLJ’s Marlene Charnizon is heading out to work those circulation desks (figuratively speaking) and report back on which titles are getting checked out and which have the most holds.
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| Interview |
| R. J.'s Wish Comes True: A Library for Rollinsford, NH |
 At the tender age of 10, all R. J. Bolian wanted was a public library for his small New Hampshire town. Four years—and many donations—later, the now-14-year-old is about to get his wish. Rollinsford—with a population of 2,500—will soon open its very first library in a local mill.
SLJ spoke with the eighth grader (whose initials stand for "Robert Julius") about his inspiration—and how he's managing with all those donated books sitting in his home.
Most kids your age are busy with their Nintendos and MySpace. What motivated you to start a library?
I read that we were the only town in Stratford County that didn't have a library. I told my mom that I wanted a library. A group of people would meet at different people's houses. Then, I think it was a year ago, the mill owner offered us space free for one year. So we're moving stuff in right now. We have about 50 million books all over the place. [R. J.'s parents, Charles and Donna, say the actual figure is closer to 5,000.]
read more... |
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| News and Views |
| CA Librarian and Aide Head to Cambodia for Kids' Books |
When California librarian Susan Taylor needed new books in Khmer, the language of the local and rapidly growing Cambodian community in surrounding Long Beach, she scoured Brodart for foreign language titles. The library supplier had just four.
She phoned libraries in Los Angeles and San Francisco. They had either no Khmer books or just a few. She checked out a promising tip about an "Asian" bookstore in La Jolla but discovered that it stocked only English titles for adoptive parents of Cambodian and Chinese infants. read more... |
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| S & S Launches Blogfest with 10 YA Authors |
About 100 young adult authors will be ready and waiting for young readers' questions as part of a two-week "Pulse Blogfest" taking place March 14–27.
Sponsored by Simon & Schuster, the blogfest will feature Scott Westerfeld, author of the "Uglies" series; Kate Brian, author of the "Private" series; Ellen Hopkins, author of the novels Glass (2007) and Burned (2006); and Holly Black, author of the teen novels Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale (2002) and Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale (2007), and coauthor of the middle-school series Spiderwick Chronicles.
read more... |
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| Remarkable Reads |
| Snake Surprise! |
While snakes fascinate some kids, others recoil in horror. Share the facts with them—while there are about 2,700 species of snakes, only 375 are venomous. In the United States, ten species are listed as threatened and seven species are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. So the snakes have more to be worried about than humans do! For an easy and fun activity, compare the illustrative styles of the books below, then have kids do their own snake portraits.
ARUEGO, Jose & Ariane Dewey. The Last Laugh. illus. by authors. Dial. 2006. Tr $12.99. ISBN 978-0-8037-3093-9.
PreS-Gr 2–Framed cartoon-style and paced like a read-aloud, this funny and thought-provoking wordless book is guaranteed to make a big impact. Readers will soon see that Snake is being a bully, trying to scare anyone who comes along. read more... |
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| What Are They Reading for Fun?
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In this semimonthly column we ask librarians and teachers—and maybe even kids—to tell us which titles are hot in their library. Here are some of the first responses.
Herman Sutter, St. Agnes Academy, Houston:
Reading for pleasure is on the rise. The fiction works that are flying off the shelves are: Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series (Little, Brown), Ann Brashares's "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" books (Delacorte), and Melissa De la Cruz's "Blue Bloods" novels (Hyperion), as well as Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty (Delacorte, 2003) and Jack Gantos's Hole in My Life (Farrar, 2002). They are also checking out nonfiction titles, David Von Drehle's Triangle: The Fire That Changed America (Atlantic Monthly, 2003), Eric Larson's The Devil in the White City (Random, 2003) and Thunderstruck (Crown, 2006), and Philip Short's Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (Holt, 2006). read more... |
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| Librarian's Internet |
| Invent Now! |
| www.inventnow.org/ |
| February 11th is National Inventor's Day. Celebrate it this year by showing students this Web site created by the folks at the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. To begin, all kids have to do is create their world, either by registering or taking the tour. Each building they add to their world contains tons of games and other activities that will spark their creativity. For instance, in the "Design" building kids can design a room, a toy, a tile, or a garden. In the "Entertainment" building kids can build a boy band, make their own comic book, or design a board game, and in the "Environment" building kids can build a volcano, tumble trash, or go on the great bug hunt. When kids finish an activity, they earn points and their world
changes and grows—very cool! Show teachers the three printable PDF resource guides (at the bottom of the page under "Parents & Teachers") for ideas on how to use this site in class. Finally, if kids are interested in the people and inventions in the Inventors Hall of Fame, they can visit www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/1_0_0_hall_of_fame.asp.—Gail Junion-Metz |
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| Library Services Supervisor - Adult/Young Adult |
City of Durango
Durango, CO
Provides leadership for the development and implementation of programs for adults and young adults and for staff in transitioning to new roles as we move into a new 42,000 sq ft Library scheduled to open in fall 2008.
To see all positions available through the SLJ Career Center, click here...
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