"Best of San Diego"

This post is going to be a blatant attempt at getting some self promotion. My library, the La Mesa Branch of the San Diego County Library System, found out on Friday that we were nominated in the top 5 for San Diego Family Magazine's "Best of Family Fun" in the Best Libraries for Children category. The polls are open now for voting for the final voting. So here is your chance to vote for my library to be the number 1 in this category so that we have a year's worth of bragging rights! Here is the link: http://www.sandiegofamily.com/my-neighborhood/best-of-family-fun-voting-time

Posted by Anna

Song books at Storytime

Earlier this year I attended an InfoPeople training with Colleen Willis, a Children's Librarian at Anaheim Public Library called "Clap! Shake! Play! Sing!" about using music to enhance and encourage emergent literacy in storytimes. While I always have playlists on my ipod for storytime, I have not used many song books. However, since that workshop I have made a dilligent effort to try one every few weeks. Last week during my two preschool storytimes and three toddler storytimes  I read/sang Cows in the Kitchen by June Crebbin. It was so much fun and even my teen moms started singing a little as they got the hang of the rhythm.

This is an awesome choice for dialogic reading because there is so much happening on each page. One observant girl saw the mouse hiding on each page which was awesome because I missed it! You can have all the children and parents make the animal noises to work on phonological awareness as well. The repetition was perfect for the younger ones, and the older kids thought the farmer was so silly.  To add another element to the story I purchased the felt version from Art Felt. Anytime I can make a book more interactive, especially with my preschoolers at the shelter, I go for it. It not only gets them excited about the story, but it turns reading into a fun activity which means I have their attention for a few minutes longer than I normally would.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

This is one of the best books I've read in the last few months, and fans of Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins will definifely want to check it out because I found quite a few parallels between Katniss and the heroine of Graceling, Katsa (and not just the similarity of their names). Both are strong, wounded women who have experienced a hard life filled with loss and find themselves unwillingly being manipulated by people in positions of power over them, but they both come out winners in the end - Girl Power!

Graceling is an action, adventure, fantasy with just the right amount of suspense, tension, shock, mystery, battle, horribly unfathomable bad guys, romance (but not in the traditional sense that you would expect), and humor (I laughed out loud at some parts). I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning for quite a few days to finish it because I literally couldn't stop reading it. The world that the author creates is believable and the characters are all wonderfully developed and unique.

From the publisher:

Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight - she's a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king's thug. She never expects to learn the truth behind her Grace - or the terrible secret that lies hidden far away...a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.

I loved this book so much that I immediately checked out Cashore's second book, Fire, which is actually a companion novel (not a prequel or a sequel) to Graceling. Stay tuned for a review of that one!

Harper Collins

My sister got this email from Change.org and forwarded it on to me. I'm sure many of you know Andy, who blogs at http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/, and his campaigns but I thought I would share if you haven't signed the petition yet...

"By day, Andy Woodworth is a mild-mannered librarian. By night, he's still a librarian, just less mild-mannered.
Andy is kind of famous in the librarian community, mostly for getting the Old Spice guy to do a video about how great libraries are, and unsuccessfully campaigning to get Ben & Jerry's to create a flavor called the "Gooey Decimal System." (If you don't get the pun, just ask someone ten years older.)
Oh, and now he's using Change.org to help lead the charge in a fight against NewsCorp, one of the world's most powerful companies.

See, more and more libraries are beginning to buy e-books, like those read on a Kindle or similar device. They're programmed to be like normal books -- lent out to one reader at a time, returned, and downloaded by another reader. It's simple, and especially great for working parents or the disabled who have a hard time making it to a library.
  But publishing giant HarperCollins (owned by NewsCorp) is trying to force libraries to only buy e-books that literally self-destruct after the 26th reader in an attempt to maximize profits.
 Having to repeatedly buy the same book will be a financial and logistical disaster for libraries, one that could force a few to close their doors.

  Even worse, there are signs that other publishing companies may soon follow the lead of HarperCollins, which could devastate libraries all around the world. 
Some amazing librarians have launched a full boycott of HarperCollins until the decision is reversed, but they urgently need widespread support to force NewsCorp to back down.

Andy's petition demanding an end to self-destructing e-books has a goal of 100,000 signatures -- click here to add your name now:
http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-harpercollins-limited-checkouts-on-ebooks-is-wrong-for-libraries
Andy declares on his blog that "The world needs more badass librarians." It's true, though right now the world also needs more readers who will stand alongside them.
Thanks for doing your part,
Patrick and the Change.org team"

posted by Kirby