4th and 5th Grade Book Club Finale - with special guest star

For our finale for the book club this year, we read a really fun mystery. All the kids loved it and several want to read the rest of the books. I call that a smashing success!

We read The Potato Chip Puzzles book, which features Winston Breen who loves to solve puzzles. He's in luck as there's a contest for middle school students hosted by snack guru Mr Simon. He's king of potato chips. He's offering one school $50,000 if they can solve all the puzzles during the competition. Winston's excited about the opportunity, but then things get out of hand. Sportsmanship goes out the window as it's clear there's a cheater in the competition. Cam Winston and his friends solve the puzzles in time?

My Thoughts:I really enjoyed this fun mystery - not only were there puzzles to solve, but there was also the identity of the cheater to uncover. Lots of action and excitement over solving these puzzles. The three friends joked around a lot, but they could be serious too. I liked how they were unhappy with their leader when he displayed unsportsmanlike conduct and how they helped out their fellow teams. I liked how they worked together to figure out the puzzles and how they weren't afraid to speak their minds. Plus the puzzles were really fun and challenging!

Our book club thoughts:
They liked there was a lot of action - right from the beginning.
They liked the puzzles
They liked the mystery
They liked the settings of each location and how unique they were

We were lucky enough to Skype with Eric Berlin for a few moments.

We asked him lots of questions and we learned:

He LOVES puzzles and wanted to write a book he would have enjoyed as a kid

As a kind, he spent money at the Scholastic Book Fair buying puzzle books and mysteries

He would spend recess solving puzzles

He wrote his first book on construction paper with a crayon in the first grade

He wanted to write about drawing the line in sportsmanship - what are the gray areas of cheating.

As part of the clues, he created scenes around each clue. The sun translated into the sun wheel which translated into the Ferris Wheel (which was one of my favorite scenes in the book)

Thanks Eric, we had a GREAT time talking with you and reading your book! 

Teen Passive Programs

Do you have passive programs at your library? Do they work?

In all honestly, they haven't quite worked for me in previous times. But I'm hoping to change that this summer. I'm trying to focus on fewer programs, but more exciting ones.

Hopefully the passive programs will gain interest. As I'm doing a Zombie/Monster program with Groundbreaking Reads, that will be the focus. I'm going to try monster art, zombie playlist, zombie wordle, and skull art.

I'm hoping the skull art will be in the vein of Giuseppe Arcimboldo and his seasonal paintings

I'm giving small prizes for these contests and I hope to use the material for decorations at our finale event. Is there anything else I should consider?

Thanks for helping! Plus if you've had a successful passive program, will you share it in the comments?

Books with Strong Mothers

With Mother's Day just around the corner, here's a few books that great to share. There are plenty of books with terrible mothers, mothers who have died, or nonexistent mothers. Often parents are taken out of the equation to move the plot line. These books contain a strong mother figure:

Are You My Mother: I read this over and over as a kid and LOVED it! A look at one bird trying to find his mother after falling out of his nest.

Just Me and Mom: I loved this series - and how Little Critter was so mischievous!

Mother-Daughter Book Club: Four 6th graders and their moms start a book club. in the first book of the series, they read Little Women (another book with a strong mother figure).

Princess Diaries: Mia and her Mom have a great relationship; it's normal even though Mia discovers she's an heir to the throne of Genovia.

Percy Jackson series: Percy and his mom have a very strong bond.

Harry Potter series: Mrs Weasley mothers everyone and worries about them all.

What other books are there featuring strong mothers?

Blue Chickens Galore!

Monday April 29th was an incredible day here, we hosted Connecticut author Deborah Freedman in a special author visit to (almost all) of our public school kindergarteners and each one went home with a signed copy of her sweet 2011 book, Blue Chicken! (If you haven't read this book yet, you can easily create a free account and read the online version at We Give Books ) How can you resist with this stunning cover?

This day was a true collaborative effort and it all started with a Early Childhood Reading Grant from Target to support more author visits at my library. If you haven't applied for a Target grant and you have a store in your area, you should definitely look into it this opportunity. It was my first grant attempt and I found it to be quick and easy, and all online.

Once we received the grant, I started to think about which author would be a good fit for our community. I had recently fell in love with the oh so charming Blue Chicken and was delighted to hear that the author was from our state. We truly are fortunate in Connecticut to have a group of talented authors who love to share books and their process for creating with kids. This project would never have happened to this scale without the early and ongoing support from Deborah Freedman! She was wonderful to work with and was as committed as I was to getting as many books into as many student's hands as possible.

Once we had the author and our book, I contacted the publisher to get a price on purchasing enough books for all of the kindergarteners in our public schools (which turned out to be close to 400 with both AM and PM classes!) Even with a substantial publisher discount for giveaway materials, we were still not quite there. I brainstormed with my colleagues and followed the good advice of reaching out to our district's superintendent. We are fortunate to have grown a positive relationship with our school district, so the superintendent was happy to collaborate on this event and support us in purchasing the remaining books.

Once we knew that we had the support to go forward, the next few weeks were a whirlwind of activity. We ordered all the books (which the author hand signed for each student) and placed bookplates in each copy, created activities to supplement the author presentation, and worked out the logistics of having 6 different schools with over 180 kindergartners arrive to our downtown library.  Thankfully, the coordinator of the school media specialists arranged all the bus transportation and contacted the schools to arrange for permission slips. Even with a snag in logistics (the PM kinders couldn't get bused to the library), we quickly regrouped and decided we would travel to as many PM classes as possible. Throughout it all, library staff and volunteers worked diligently to organize the details of the day.  

We learned some lessons along the way, but overall we are so proud of our efforts! With 392 kindergartners in our city, we were able to visit 346 students that day and deliver books to the remaining ones.
  

     

Free Comic Book Day

Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day (celebrated the first Saturday in May)

Each year, we try to partner with our local comic book store and hand out a few comics. I leave them at the YA desk and anyone's free to take some.

 For more information about this day - check out their website.

Does anyone else do this? Is it popular with you?