Welcome to Library
Lions interviews. Author Aimee Reid is
stopping by LL this month to share her books and her
Library Love.
Aimee is a mom, children's author, former teacher,
avid reader, and library lover. Her book, Mama's Day with Little Gray is
published by Random House Children's Books. Aimee's next book, Welcome
to the World, will release from the Nancy Paulsen imprint of Penguin
Random House.
School Visit Library
Love When I was a Cub Thanks to the wonderful Beginners Books series from
Random House and regular storytimes at home, I was reading when I entered
Kindergarten. My teacher discovered this about me when she noticed me squatting
by the classroom shelves, turning pages and moving my lips. She asked me to
read the books to her, which I did. At first, she thought I had memorized them.
Gradually, she realized that I had read all of the books in our classroom
library.
[Beginners Books from Random House]
My teacher called home and arranged to take me to
the bigger school library so that I could pick out more books to read. Wow! I
clearly remember looking up, up, up at the tall shelves filled with books of
every size and description. "How many books can I take out?" I shyly
asked. "As many as you like, dear," was the answer. I'll always be
grateful to that teacher for noticing my appetite for books and feeding it.
More
Library Love From the moment my first book sold, I knew that I
wanted to have my book launch in a library. I wanted to throw a party to which
everyone was welcome. I wanted to celebrate all that is good about connecting
children with books. And my wonderful local library system said yes!
We had a wonderful time! Friends new and old enjoyed
music from a local children's musician. We read and made crafts and sang and
rejoiced. So many people came to enjoy the fun that we couldn't all fit in the
room at once! No matter— we ran two programs so everyone could be included.
This spirit of offering welcome to all is a key reason why I love
libraries.
Author's
Roar Libraries are equalizers. As a former teacher, I
have at times been keenly aware of the disparity between the high level of
resources--computers, books, and enrichment opportunities--available to some
students from their homes versus the restricted supports available to others. I
was proud to be a part of a public education system that offered learning for
all regardless of socio-economic status. I can tell you this: books and access
to knowledge are essential. We need to make certain that all students can readily
find the resources they need to thrive. What better way to do this than to keep
school libraries healthy and pay librarians to be the expert guides our
children need? I am proud to roar out my support for libraries.
A
Lion's Pride of Programs
NYPL Lion
Libraries are places of discovery and opportunity. I
enjoyed taking my children to story times when they were younger. Now that I am
a children's author, I love visiting libraries. My visits are highly
interactive. After all, I learned from those wonderful librarians who
entertained my children!
At a recent library visit, the children and I moved
like elephants and chanted elephant poems. We got creative with elephant crafts
and tried on elephant tattoos. The children (and the adults) loved meeting Mama
Gray and Little Gray in the form of my wonderful Folkmanis puppets. Finally, we
read my story together. What a rich time of connecting to story and to one
another.
Let's
Link Up
Aimee's blog, Good Books to Share, celebrates the good that sharing children's books
brings to the world. Follow along to gain inside information from children's
authors and illustrators and hear about how sharing children's books has
changed people's lives for good.
Thank you, Aimee for sharing your books and your
library love with us.
Love Libraries? Give a Roar in “Comments” below.
Note to Librarians: If you’re a Youth Librarian
working in a school or public library we’d love to hear about you and your
library. Contact Janet at jlcarey@hotmail.com
for an interview slot. The calendar for 2015 is currently wide open J
Note to Authors: If you’re interested in Roaring for
Libraries on this blog, contact Janet at jlcarey@hotmail.com
for an interview slot.
Welcome to Library Lions interviews. Author, Debby Dahl Edwardson, has joined us today to Roar for Libraries!
Debby is the author of My Name is Not EasyMarshall Cavendish/Amazon 2011, A National Book Award Finalist. (Click HERE to hear Debby reading from the book at the National Book Awards)
We'll explore more of Debby's books below. First let's hear her Roar for Libraries!
Library Love When You Were A Cub
One of my earliest memories is a vivid memory of standing before a tall wall filled with books. I didn’t know how to read but I understood, even then, that books contained codes, keys to stories and invitations to wonderful journeys. Oh how I longed to crack those codes and accept those invitations! As I grew older, I discovered that books were indeed passports to new worlds and I savored the experience of getting lost within the covers of a book.
The smell of a library was like an exotic tonic to me.
Today, when I sign books for young readers, I often write, “Read the world!”
More Library Love
I often wish I had chosen to be a librarian because libraries feel like home to me and, in fact, many of my writer friends are librarians. When I visited my daughters at Dartmouth a few years ago and walked into Sanborn Library, with its deep easy chairs, sheltered spaces and green vistas (with afternoon tea!) I thought for sure I had died and gone to heaven. In my theology, heaven looks a lot like a good library.
I guess you could say that libraries are at the metaphorical center of my world; a visual representation of my place in the world. I live in a very remote area of the country—Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost community on the North American continent. We are far from the publishing centers of the world but we do have a good library and I’ve have had the privilege, over the last 35 years, of watching this library grow from a one room collection of books in the front of a Bingo hall to a spacious and beautiful facility overlooking the stunning tundra of the high arctic.
Tuzzy Library is now a consortium library serving a region the size of Minnesota. I always feel a sense of homecoming when I walk into this library.
The walls of my home look like libraries too!
Author’s Roar
Funding for libraries, especially school libraries, is currently under threat. As an author, what are your thoughts about that?
Oh dear. Don’t get me started. I tend to get rabid on this subject. I have testified at the state level about library funding, blogged about it and ranted about it at the local level as president of the school board.
Libraries are the foundation of education. With commercialized reading programs that turn reading into something akin to a health check up involving testing and probing and the prescriptions, it should be no surprise to any of us to learn that we are turning out fewer and fewer students who read for the sheer joy of reading and are able to engage in the critical thinking a good book engenders. Why can’t people understand that there is only one prescription for turning children into readers and lifelong learners? It’s an old one but it still works.
All it takes to turn a child into a reader is one good book. And all it takes to connect children to books is one good library and one good librarian. Every school should have this as a bare minimum because every child deserves it. It is the promise of public education and the fact that we are moving further and further away from this promise should be a call for national concern. If we are not willing to fund libraries, we will get what we pay for—or fail to pay for.
A Lion’s Pride of Programs
I write from a remote and marginalized culture, the Inupiat (Inuit) culture of northern Alaska. My first two novels, Blessing’s Bead and My Name is Not Easy, were historical novels set within this cultural context. I happen to believe that the history of Native American peoples should be taught in every school in the country. Maybe teachers don’t teach it because they never learned it themselves and it is hard to find books that portray it in ways that are accurate and authentic. I hope that my books help fill in this gap in some small way. I have appeared in libraries from Hanover, New Hampshire
(Hatsy MacGraw, writer and librarian at Bernice A Ray School in Hanover, New Hampshire),
to Ketchican, Alaska and I am forever grateful to the librarians who read, blog about and book talk my books for the benefit of both students and their teachers. And I thank those who have hosted my visits. I know it makes a huge difference when students get to meet a “real” live author. It makes books come alive for them, I think, and it validates their own writing, as well.
Librarian Erin Hollingsworth and Poet Joan Naviyuk Kane.
I’d like to give a special shout out to Alaskan librarians who have put two of my three books on Alaska’s Battle of the Books list. We Alaskan children’s writers are not a huge group and I love knowing that our books are celebrated in Alaskan schools. I always say that books are both mirrors and windows. The window that opens the world of reading for a young child must also be the mirror where that child first sees his or her own reflection between the covers of a book.
Marginalized cultures and communities often have few books that serve as mirrors for young readers and reading rates reflect this. I am glad to see that my books, thanks to the help of librarians, are reaching these readers. And I am glad to see, as well, that my books are opening the world up a bit wider for readers everywhere, again thanks to librarians.
I recently spoke at the Pacific Northwest Library Association convention. I was grateful for the opportunity to talk about one of my passions—multicultural literature and the growing multiracial/multicultural face of this country. During this talk, I showed the cover of my book, Blessing’s Bead.
Blessing’s Bead is the story of an Inupiaq girl but the cover features a photo of a girl who does not look the way we expect an Inupiaq girl to look. Some people thought that perhaps the cover of this book was “white washed” by the publisher. In fact--as I told the audience at PNLA--this girl is Inupiaq. She is my own daughter and is part Inupiaq and part white.
To me, her photo is reflective of the new multiracial face of America. I was heartened by all the people who came up after my talk to share their diverse multiracial and multicultural heritages, heritages which we are just beginning to see, in increasing numbers, reflected in books. My thanks to those librarians who celebrate these books.
In closing, I have one parting memory from my time at the National Book Award ceremony in New York City where I was honored as a finalist for the National Book Award for my book My Name is Not Easy.
Debby with author Nikki Grimes at National Book Awards.
What an honor it was sit at Cipriani’s that November evening surrounded my many of my own writing heroes and mentors—people like John Ashbery, whose poetry was one of the beacons along the long and sometimes dark road of my writing apprenticeship. My heart was filled with gratitude at the fact that I had been invited to sit at the table with such a distinguished audience, to watch a writer like Ashbery accept the 2011 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In introducing Ashbery, Ann Lauterbach mentioned the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstration, which was happening right across the street from where we sat. “We are occupying Wall Street,” she announced and everyone cheered.
May libraries, books and book people continue to occupy our hearts and minds!
Thank you, Debby, for your terrific interview! It was an honor to have you here on Library Lions.
Love Libraries? Give a Roar in “Comments” below.
Note to Librarians: If you’re a Youth Librarian working in a school or public library we’d love to hear about you and your library. Contact Janet at jlcarey@hotmail.com for an interview slot.
Welcome to Library
Lions interviews. We Raise a Roar for libraries and for the outstanding librarians
serving children and young adults in schools and public libraries across the
U.S. Please Roar today’s guest, Gwyneth Jones – AKA The Daring Librarian!
We’re
so happy to have the Daring Librarian here with us today. Gwyneth’s many
accolades include: Library Journal.com Innovator Movers &/Shakers of 2011, Edublog
Awards Nominated Best Librarian Library Blog 2011, Nominated Best Individual
Tweeter 2011. Here's her cool portfolio!
Gwyneth
works at the Murray Hill Middle School (MHMS) in Laurel, Maryland
The
Skinny I love that every day is different!
I love that I get to work with all three grades of my middle school and every
subject and that they still laugh at my corny immature jokes. I love being a
generalist and learning new things while I’m teaching different lessons,
projects, and units. I also love my middle schoolers! They’re a wacky bunch but
then so am I - they are so much fun! I love that they come back and visit me in
high school, college, when they graduate and have even been invited to a
wedding or two! These kids just make me happy & feed my soul!
Library
Laughs Oh gosh, there have been so many
funny things happen almost every day here in the last 15 years it’s killin me
to pick one. Gah! But here goes: I got brought in to take pics on this gag that
took place in the classroom next to the library (close enough?) one of our 7th
grade teachers is an identical twin and his twin lives in the midwest. Around
Christmas he came to visit & was hiding out in the library until it was
time for him to “appear” in his brother’s class. Of course I had to grab my
camera - go into the class & pretend to fix the computer to catch all the surprised
freaked out expressions of the kids. It
was such a hoot!
A
Lion’s Pride of Programs: Our kids love QR Codes & mobile
media. We have 2 iPod touch gen 4’s that we use for library scavenger hunts.
More about it here at The Daring Librarian.com
We also
love to be a gallery space for our Art Classes! Here are the sculptures inspired
by the colorful Alebrije Mexican
folk art sculptures of fantastical creatures.
Want to see more? Check out the Blog Post here! See blog
& photos here! Readers
Roar
Crowdsourced Reviews: Using the power of Google Apps
& forms our kids love to write book reviews! We keep at least one public
access catalog computer available with our wikipage loaded for kids who want to
read what other kids wrote about the books they enjoyed the most!
Andre,
Grade 8 says he loves to come into the library “because it’s a cool place to
be. I try and come every day I like to hang out and read and see my friends.I can always find something to read. I like
books like anime,iSpy books and
football books.Ms. Jones and Mrs. Black
always buy whatever I ask for” (Students
can use the book request line on our wiki to request a book.)
Book
Brag: What three books are hot this year?
Why?
~Hunger
Games by Suzanne Collins- Can’t keep
this series on the shelf this year - can’t figure out why!
~Skeleton
Creek series by Patrick Carman. We
were lucky enough to get a few signed copies of books & posters and we had
a fun time with a Skeleton Creek tracker contest giving them out! Kids LOVE the
interactive features of the book with the videos & downloadable apps that
go along with the story!
~The
Bluford High series by Anne Schraffis
very popular with my 8th grade girls (and boys!) They’re attracted to these
urban dramas that explore popular teen issues in a realistic manner. And
because the covers are cool!
Library
Lion’s Roar: ONE LAST BIG ROAR We
had a great time co-teaching via Google hang out recently! We connected with
Mrs. Mensing’s 2nd grade GT class in Arizona! Read all about it with pics here!
A Roar from us here at Library Lions to Gwyneth the Daring Librarian for her innovation! You can find so much just looking at her Daring Librarian Edublog
Note to Librarians: If you’re a Youth Librarian
working in a school or public library we’d love to hear about you and your
library. Contact Janet at jlcarey@hotmail.com
for an interview slot.
Welcome to Library Lions interviews Raising a Roar for Libraries and for the outstanding Librarians serving Children and Young Adults in Schools and Public Libraries across the U.S. Please Roar today’s guest, Elizabeth Bird!
Elizabeth is the children’s librarian at New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building! Here are the famed Library Lions of NYPL!
Elizabeth has been a children’s librarian since 2004. Her famed blog A Fuse #8 Production is hosted by School Library Journal. She served on the 2007 Newbery committee, and writes reviews for Kirkus, School Library Journal, TimeOut Kids New York, and sometimes the New York Times. Librarian by day, writer by night, Elizabeth has sold two picture books to Greenwillow, a non-fiction adult book about the true stories behind your favorite children’s books which she is writing with two other bloggers to Candlewick, and an informational title for librarians with ALA Editions. Elizabeth was on the November 2009 cover of School Library Journal, as well,there was an article about her in Forbes Magazine in February of 2010. We are honored to interview her today for Library Lions!
The Skinny: Elizabeth says, “I work in the best children’s room in New York City.” But she didn’t always feel that way. “I fought tooth and nail against ever becoming a librarian. I’m serious. When I was a kid I was the kind of child that would create cataloging systems for the family’s VHS tapes. I alphabetized the family’s books by author. I even tried to create subject headings for my National Geographic Magazines, long before I knew what a subject heading was. In college, I rebelled. I got a major in Fine Arts with a concentration in Photography (though I also majored in English, so clearly I was hedging my bets). Finally, after years (one year) of realizing that I didn’t want to do anything with photography that would actually pay me, I threw in the towel and went to library school. Which, obviously, I adored.”
In terms of my work, I really love getting my books into the hands of readers. So much so that I’ll spend hours making sure that we have the maximum amount of books on our shelves, just in case there’s a reader about with a penchant for the additional works of Kenneth Grahame and such.
Readers Roar: Here’s one of the children from a bookgroup I run. She was featured in a YouTube video my library put out thanking the people of New York for helping us overcome our recent budget cuts.
As she says, “Thanks for saving the bookgroup.” – Annie, 2nd grade. Ain’t she a cutie?
Library Laughs:What’s your favorite funny library story, Elizabeth? Ever? Oh, this one’s good. It’s a true story and it happened to a friend of my husband’s. It’s not a public library story, but I think folks can appreciate it anyway.I went to a small liberal arts college in Indiana, and typically when winter break rolled around some kids would go home and some would stay at school. Two girls were working the circulation desk of the college library when my husband’s friend noticed them. Thinks he: “Aha! I have a chance with these girls!” and he proceeds to make himself obnoxiously present for days at a time. They just want to get some work or studying done, and there he is. Wanting to chat.
In the course of one of his chats, he mentions oh-so-casually that he’s staying off-campus and if they ever want to visit he never locks the door. They pay attention to this fact, because by this point revenge is at the forefront of their minds. So one day they determine when he will be out and they go to him home with a big box of tattletape. Those of you who have worked in technical services will remember that tattletape is the long, think, and sticky metal strip that folks put in books so that they’ll set off the library’s alarm. And in my library they had those bars you had to push through to exit the building. So in the event that a person had not properly checked out a book, an alarm would sound and the bar would stop the person from leaving.You probably see where this is going.
That night the two girls placed the tattletape in all the guy’s clothes. And I don’t mean in a rush job either. I mean in the cuffs of his shirt. The inseam of his pants. The inside of his hems. By the time they were done, most of his clothes had tattletape in them. Then the fun began. The first time he visited them in the library, nothing happened. They had missed that batch of clothes. He was probably pretty flattered by how closely they watched him leave too. The second time he visited, however, off went the alarm. He studiously emptied out his bag entirely for the miscreant book, only to find nothing there. So they let him out. Then it happened a second time. Then a third. Every time this guy came in the library he was setting off the alarm.
Eventually, he couldn’t take it anymore. So one day, after the alarm went off, he began to try to figure out what the rogue element was. He tried walking through without his bag. Off goes the alarm. He removes his shirt. Off goes the alarm. Before the girls knew it, the guy was performing an elaborate striptease right in front of them, desperately trying to get rid of whatever clothing it was. At long last he stood there in only his underwear . . . . and made it through. By that point they just had to tell him, and they did. A prankster himself, he was thrilled at the explanation. I suppose that at some point he worried that he had magnetic blood. Now every time I go through a security gate in a library, or even a store, I think about that story. Whatever you do kids, don’t make the employees angry with you. Their revenge could be epic.
A Lion’s Pride of Programs: My favorite program is one that was started by Rebecca Schosha and Sarah Couri at my previous library, and that I’ve picked up. The Children’s Literary Salon is a monthly series of talks with people in the children’s literature field on a variety of topics. We’ve had everything from New York Times reviewers of children’s literature to playwrights who have adapted children’s books to the stage to female graphic novelists to scholars. Every month it’s different, and every month it’s interesting. It’s just for adults too, so anyone with a love of children’s literature can attend and hear a variety of folks speak about the field. It’s unique and a lot of fun.
Reaching Readers: I thought I'd show you some readers circa 1913?
We see a lot of kids on a daily basis, partly because we have so many tourists. But on a local level a lot of classes and teachers like to bring their kids to the library for programs and tours. Since we have so many authors in the area, it’s fun to bring in kids to see a special author or illustrator talk on a program. We also give tours of the building and tell folks about all the stuff the library provides. As for myself, I do the toddler and preschool storytelling programs, which are a lot of fun.
Book Brag:What books are flying off your shelves this year and why? Movies always make certain books hot, so right now I’m seeing all my Ramona books checked out. They usually go during the summer months because of reading lists, but not ALL of them! So thank you Ramona & Beezus! Also, I still can’t seem to keep Diary of a Wimpy Kid on the shelf. We just bought about ten new copies of the books, and they disappeared entirely after two days. Amazing!
In terms of books that haven’t been turned into movies, I’m seeing a lot of love for Meg Cabot’s Allie Finkle series, Elizabeth Cody Kimmel’s Suddenly Supernatural books, and John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice titles.
Author! Author!Describe the perfect author visit from a librarian’s point of view.Oo. Excellent question. The perfect author visit comes when an author wants to visit my library, free of charge, and we happen to have a Saturday open for them. If they’re an illustrator then they do lots of great drawings on our sketchpad both for and with the kids. If they’re an author, then they know how to make the kids laugh. And no matter how you slice it, the best visits are from folks that are former teachers. The kinds of people who know how to command a room full of antsy kids. That’s the definition of my perfect visit, anyway.
Library Lion’s Roar Keep an eye peeled for Elizabeth’s picture book Giant Dance Party, due out on store shelves Fall 2011!
Find out more about NYPL on their blog or here on facebook
Thank you, Elizabeth for your terrific interview! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Love Libraries? Give a Roar in “Comments” below.
Note to Librarians: If you’re a Youth Librarian working in a school or public library we’d love to hear about you and your library. Contact Janet at janetleecarey@hotmail.com for an interview slot.
