My entry for Nonfiction Monday today hosted by http://applewithmanyseedsdoucette.blogspot.com/ is from A+ Books (Capstone Press). Making a Jack-o’-Lantern, Step-by-Step by J. Angelique Johnson fills a need for families who might not have the generational knowledge being passed down we did growing up. It is also an excellent example of K-1 sequencing skills, relative position words, and ordinal [...]

#3 Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Puffin, 1999. ISBN:  9780141310886, 208 pp. Publisher’s Description: Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won’t talk to her, and people she doesn’t even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But [...]

#4 Harry Potter and The Sorcerers Stone (Book 1) by J.K. Rowling. Scholastic Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780439554930, 310 pp. Publisher’s Description: In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry, an orphan, lives with the Dursleys, his horrible aunt and uncle, and their abominable son, Dudley. One day just before his eleventh birthday, an owl tries [...]

We have the opportunity to do something or to do nothing. This is a pivotal moment for school libraries. When you look back in time, will you remember this as another day where you just clicked through this message from Lynne Bradley and did nothing more? Please join me in contacting your Senators. We school librarians [...]

1.  Don’t give up. Just because you cannot attend this year, doesn’t mean you aren’t involved and cannot be connected. AASL members will be able to follow along with tweets, blogs, and more about the Annual Conference in Minneapolis. Check out the website to see what is in store. There is the Conference Ning http://aasl11.ning.com/, [...]

Nonfiction Monday – Zombies. What? Didn’t I just write that this was Nonfiction Monday where we usually incorporate factual information on a variety of social, scientific, and economic issues? Yes, I will focus on science today, but with it being the month of October and Walking Dead appearing on my TV screen (thanks to my [...]

Have you taken the pledge? NEA’s Bully Free: It Starts With Me pledge? It’s easy to do.  It’s important to do. Every week I speak to a different adult about the experiences they received from bullies in school. Those scars are deep but you can be the “one” person in someone’s life that helps them focus [...]

Just a tiny note today to ask if you remember ordering books from the paper book clubs teachers send home? Were you one of the fortunates who agonized over each title, finally carefully filled in their order, saved their money, and proudly handed the teacher the thin slip of paper? Did you wait never knowing [...]

Today we are rounding up the best in nonfiction for youth.  Thanks to the bloggers who contribute. Recently I have been presenting Nonfiction New & Needed. I chatted with school librarians at the Tennessee Association of School Librarians and also the TAMS (Tennessee Association of Middle School) drive-in Conference.  As I share with them why [...]

Typical day. Get up. Shower. Put on my red pajamas and head for school. What? You didn’t do that?! Weren’t you participating in the Jumpstart’s Read for the Record day?  My school joined in this sixth year of Reading for the Record. Every class came to the library and the reading specialist and I shared [...]