It's Wednesday! What's happening in the Sommer Library?

Our Spring Scholastic Book Fair starts NEXT WEEK!

There will be lots of popular titles for all ages, as well as posters, craft kits, and journals!  Proceeds from the fair help purchase supplies for the library and our Bluebonnet Breakfast, pay for author visits and professional development, and books for our students!  

Want to have fun "playing store" and help out with the fair?  Sign up here!  

There was testing going on in the library on Tuesday, so we had lessons in the classrooms and library in the lobby!  It's fun to see classes as they pass by on their way to specials and lunch.

Read-alouds/ lessons this week:

Kindergarten is exploring the Depth and Complexity icon of unanswered questions as we read A Hungry Lion or a Dwindling Assortment of Animals by Lucy Ruth Cummins.  We have a lot of questions about this story!

First graders have checkout only this week.  The other half of second grade is exploring the life of astronaut Mae Jemison and the racial/ gender barriers of the 1960s through Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed.  We are using our Depth and Complexity icons of "multiple perspectives" and "over time" with this book.

The second half of third through fifth grades are participating in the district student climate survey.  Our Bluebonnet Award Nominee readers from these grades are currently voting for their favorite book from the list; we'll announce our grade level and campus winners next Wednesday!

See you at the book fair next week!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

The girls' read-together group of our library's fifth grade Book Lunch Bunch thoroughly enjoyed Bad Unicorn by Platte F. Clark, but said they were ready for another realistic fiction book next.  I found a new-to-me choice in our literacy library:  The Thing About Georgie, by Lisa Graff.

Only four chapters in, and I already know a few things about Georgie.  He's in the fourth grade; his best friend is Andy; his parents are professional, classical musicians; he's been teased his entire school career by Meanie Jeanie; and he has dwarfism.  What I don't know is who is writing the intro to several of the chapters, intros with exercises like touching your left ear with your right hand over your head in order to understand the things Georgie is unable to do because of his condition.  It's an effective way to take a step into Georgie's world, even as we read how typical his life is in so many other ways.

I'm anticipating an interesting discussion about abilities and disabilities and what it means to "fit in" when I meet with this Book Lunch Bunch next month.

It's Monday!  What books have you read with characters of different abilities and challenges?  Did they change or broaden your perspective on disability?

It's Wednesday! What's happening in the Sommer Library?

Our Spring Scholastic Book Fair is right around the corner!

Proceeds from the book fair help fund author visits, our Bluebonnet Breakfast, books for students and the library, library supplies, and professional development.  Sign up to volunteer here ; volunteers earn ten Scholastic Dollars for two hours of helping out (limit one voucher per volunteer family)! 

This week in the library:

Kindergarteners are discussing inclusion and feeling safe at school with All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold, illustrated by Suzanne Kaufman.

First and second grades are being inspired by Mae Jemison's childhood dreams of becoming an astronaut with Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed, illustrated by Stasia Burrington.

Third through fifth grades are giving the district their opinions on everything from homework to school safety by taking the student climate survey.

Bluebonnet voting starts tomorrow through January 30th!  Third through fifth grade students who have read at least five 18-19 Bluebonnet Award nominees and turned in their signature pages will receive a voting ID card and an invitation to visit the library to cast their ballot.  May the best book win!

Photo by Steve Webel, https://www.flickr.com/photos/webel/2399023471

to the volunteer shelvers, Watch D.O.G.s, and staff members who help keep our library running!  Every book shelved, form filled out, and sticker applied is greatly appreciated!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

Martin Luther King, Jr Day is a school holiday for students and staff, so I get extra time to read today!  

One of my New Year's resolutions is to take advantage of our local library more often, and I did just that this weekend.  Here is my reading pile for the next two weeks:

The top book by Ross W. Greene, The Explosive Child, was recommended by a fellow librarian as a great resource for helping students.  Eat Move Sleep is by Tom Rath, a motivational writer.  I like his writing style and practical advice that is based on tons of dutifully annotated research.  (Librarians like nonfiction authors who cite their verifiable sources!)  The bottom two books, It's Not About the Money by Brent Kessel and Abundance by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler are financial literacy books recommended by an author/ businesswoman I follow.

I'm on a nonfiction reading jag right now!  What are you reading this long weekend?

It's Wednesday! What's happening in the Sommer Library?

For a "short" month of school, our December was a busy one!

January is off to a running start!

Kindergarten will be starting a new PBL unit soon, so we are reading I Like Me by Nancy Carlson to begin discussions about what we like about ourselves.

First grade has check out only this week, and the other half of second grade is getting to hear After the Fall:  How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again by Dan Santat.

The other half of third through fifth grades are completing their mid-year library skills review.  Ask your student about the name of our e-library system, and how they can make a reading list on it.

Our spring book fair is right around the corner!  Sign up to volunteer for a shift here. We need help with decorating, set up, running the fair, and taking it down.

All Schlitterbahn Waves of Pages Reading Program reading logs are due this Friday, January 18th.  Be sure to turn it in to your teacher!

All Bluebonnet reading program signature pages are due next Tuesday, January 22nd!  Get them in so you can vote for your favorite!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

Our school library has a large collection--over 20,000 items!  This is my sixth year as librarian at Sommer Elementary, and I'm constantly discovering new-to-me books on the shelves.  I searched for this week's book because I get to see the author and illustrator up close at our state library conference in April, and was happy to see the series in our fiction section.

The Mercy Watson series by Kate DiCamillo is a large print, illustrated chapter book collection for early readers.  The repetitive text helps beginners feel successful as they giggle with the idea that a pig can sleep in a bed in a house and have buttered toast for breakfast.  Chris Van Dusen's illustrations are exaggerated, bright and cheerful.  The story is meant to be silly, as Mercy the pig is given much more credit than is due to her...but as long as there's a happy ending, does anyone really mind?

I now have another series to recommend to my readers who are ready to bridge the gap between picture books and chapter books.  It's Monday; what series do you remember enjoying as a beginning reader?

It's Wednesday! What's happening in the Sommer Library?

New Year, new books!

Welcome back from Winter Break, Sommer Stallions!  We are happy to see you in the library for your regular classroom visits this week.  There is a new face to greet you at the circulation desk--Ms. Betsy Melton!

Ms. Melton is our new library assistant, and comes to us with years of experience helping other librarians in RRISD schools.  We are happy to have her on board; be sure to introduce yourself when you pop into the library!

Reminder:  ALL books that were checked out before Winter Break are due this week!  This includes science fair experiment books, which must be renewed if you need to keep them until the competition is over.

Speaking of the Science Fair--the library will be closed for student checkouts next Monday, January 14th for science fair judging.

This week's lessons:

Kindergarteners are learning some life lessons via Oliver Jeffers' book Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth.

First and second grades are listening to the fractured Mother Goose story After the Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again by Dan Santat.

Third through fifth grades are reviewing our library expectations and skills with a Nearpod lesson on our iPads.

On display this month:  books about winter, weather, and the seasons; author Russell Hoban and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats; and science fiction.

See you soon in the stacks!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

Welcome back from Winter Break, students and teachers!  Hope your time away from school was filled with reading for FUN!  Mine was!  Here are the two books I finished over the break--neither of them for our little ones, but definitely suitable for young adults on up.

Mystery in White: A Christmas Crime Story by J. Jefferson Farjeon was one of Santa's Christmas books to the family this year, so of course I had to read it!  Published in 1938, it has an Agatha Christie vibe to the writing.  The period parlance  of the characters took awhile to get used to, but once I did it seemed delightful, despite the murders and mystery.  And I love a whodunit with a tidy ending!

Speaking of tidy endings...my next fun read did NOT have one!  Luckily, the sequel comes out on my birthday this year.

At over 500 pages, I thought Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone would be a one-and-done novel, but I was wrong.  After traveling through the fantasy country of Orisha with diviner Zélie, her kosidan brother Tzain, and a rogue princess in hopes of bringing magic back to the diviners, I was left with more questions than answers.  This book has everything for fantasy lovers--make-believe places drawn from African lore, exotic African language, origin stories steeped in magic, adventure, plot twists and turns (and a fair amount of bloodshed), and a touch of romance.  It had me looking at my white curly hair afterward hoping for a spark of magic to fly from my fingertips.  Embedded in the fantasy is a serious message about power and prejudice, which Adeyemi discusses in the author's notes.

It's Monday!  What did you read over Winter Break?