Tales from a Loud Librarian

That's me on the left. Older drew a dinosaur for this owner of a new book Happy Book Birthday to the  Dactyl Hill Squad !The author of this book, Daniel José Older, spent the morning of his book's birthday to explain to the 6th and 7th graders why they should read about Magdalys and her friends. Many authors are genre-bending these days, and this book really pushes the envelope by mixing a story about the American Civil War period in New York with dinosaurs. These dinosaurs are not man-eaters. They have been harnessed by the people for transportation and to move goods and materials. This may seem far fetched, but it does work. Older weaves historical accuracies into his fictional story to make for a bit of fun along with some history. All 6th and 7th grade attended the presentation Older works the crows The students were most interested in where he got his idea for the book and how long it took him to write it. It took three weeks! This first in...

On Monday, September 25th, we had our first author visit of the school year. Author and former 3rd grade teacher and librarian,  Nancy Cavanaugh , came to talk about her newest book, Elsie Mae has Something to Say . The book is set in 1933 in the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. Nancy explained to the students how she was inspired to write the story--a television documentary. However, it was a trip that she took to the swamp 20 years ago that gave her the push to write a book about a place and time that doesn't exist anymore.  It took her a long time to get the story right because she started her research two decades ago, and the book was published in early September 2017. At first, she was going to try and write a non-fiction picture book about the swamp because her inspiration began with a documentary and book called Okefenokee Album by Francis Harper. When that didn't work she tried her hand at a book called. Henry James and the Hog Bandits . That never got ...

Many months ago, I received an email from Octavia Books asking me if I wanted to host a visit with author T. A. Barron . I had met Barron two years ago when the International Reading Association was held in New Orleans. Penguin held a dinner for him and two other authors, and I got an invite to this intimate gathering. So I knew that my students, as lovers of fantasy, would welcome Barron to our school. They were a wonderful audience, but the visit certainly did not go as planned. This story is a lesson in the need to be flexible. Initially, our school would see him first, and then he would travel to two other schools before visiting the bookstore at the end of the day. I like morning author visits. Then I got an email asking if we could fit him into the afternoon. I agreed, but I was concerned because he was to arrive at 1:30, and our students leave school at 2:40. He would not have much time to set up and speak and sign books. In the weeks prior to his arrival, I aler...

I love meeting authors. One of the reasons that I love attending ALA Annual so much is the opportunity to meet all the authors that I read and recommend to my students. I hate to admit it, but I am a true fangirl. Luckily, I can keep it in check and not gush when I actually come face to face with these remarkable writers. My ALA began on Friday night at Penguin Teen's rock star author dinner. Laurie Halse Anderson was there. She visited my school two years ago when  Forge  the sequel to  Chains  was published. She was kind enough to say that she remembered visiting PFTSTA, and I knew that she was telling me the truth when she described our cafeteria that was surrounded by windows. Her novel that is due out this fall does  not  have a one name title, and it takes on some dark, contemporary themes. My box of books of ALA arrived yesterday, and this one is on my to read list. I finally get a chance to meet Sarah Dessen I have been a big fan...

The author with Courtney, the president of Bookmarked,  on the left and Morgan on the right School has really started with a bang this year. School begins, then we are out seven days due to Hurricane Isaac, then I am out of the building four days talking to librarians across the state, and when I return,  Myra McEntire  comes to town. I feel like my head is spinning, but the students were thrilled with our first author of the year.        Myra talked to the students about her writing process. First she gets her kids off to school, when she returns home she likes to dance. She uses dance to get the ideas flowing. She explained how the ugly fuzzy socks that she wears helps her to zip around her kitchen. Then it is work time. She avoids social media in the morning because she doesn't want it to get her down or cause a writer's headache that stifles her creativity. About noon she takes a break for lunch and the laundry. Editing her work is sa...

The above picture shows the table of contents of the January 18th edition of SLJ Teen Yesterday, I received an email from School Library Journal (SLJ) asking if Bookmarked , the high school library book group, would be interested in reviewing books for them. SLJ has several email/online newsletters. One of them is called SLJ Teen. In that bi-monthly newsletter, four to six teen reviews are posted in each issue.  The students in Bookmarked are already reviewing books for YALSA's Teen's Top Ten (TTT). I require each student to write at least one review every month to submit to the publishers. The student might nominate the book for TTT if they think that it is worthy. I think that the students could use the same review for TTT that they submit to the SLJ newsletter with some nominal additions. The teen reviews in SLJ Teen run about 200 words with half of the review describing plot and the other half describing why the reader liked or didn't like a particular book. I thi...

Yesterday we had the pleasure of a repeat visit from the wonderful author, Jewell Parker Rhodes . She visited in September of 2010 when her book The Ninth Ward was published. The sixth and seventh graders were the fortunate ones who got to participate in her visit then. This year the English teachers, Cheryl Bordelon and Lisa Valence, and I decided to read the book out loud to all the seventh graders. It makes a great read-aloud. If you ever get to hear Jewell read it out loud, you are in for a real treat. She doesn't read the book, she performs it. Anyway, the students at Patrick Taylor communicated via Edmodo with a group of seventh graders and their teacher, Shawn Hyer , from Van Meter, IA . The Iowa students read the book, too. When we knew that Jewell was coming to New Orleans, we set up a Skype session so the Van Meter kids could participate in the author visit with us. The Patrick Taylor students are sitting in front of the author and the Iowans are on the screen ...

On November 18th, the seventh graders took the bus down to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans to explore Lanesha's world from the book, Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes. The students took pictures, video and audio of what they saw and did. They will be making movies after the holidays to share with an English class in Van Meter, IA. I took a lot of pictures, too. I wanted to remember the trip with a map so I used Tripline to document what I saw. You can view my tripline below as a slideshow just hit play and sit back and relax or you can click through each stop and open the pictures individually. Enjoy!

On November 15th, the 6th graders all gathered in one room to see Jeff Kinney launch his newest book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever. He was at the Banks Street School In New York in front of an auditorium of 8 to12 year olds. There were over 800 schools around the county who joined the event via the computer like us.  The video of him talking was shown in a small window on the screen that I could not enlarge. This frustrated the kids, but I had not control over it. He explained how he got started in the book biz and some of the motivation for his work. He also showed a lot of his illustrations. Luckily, the pictures were slides that we could enlarge for viewing. I especially like the "Reading is Fun" that you see on the right.   Half way through the presentation he introduced the two boys, Zachary Gordon and Robert Capron, who play the lead characters in the Wimpy Kid movies. The boys talked about their experiences in making the movie...

Books from the Hallowmere series by Tiffany Trent To kick off Teen Read Week, we invited author Tiffany Trent to chat with us. We logged onto Twitter and spent 30 minutes conversing back and forth. One student manned the computer. Other students asked questions. There were students in and out of the library who followed along for a few minutes here and there. All in all it was a lot of fun. We found out that she has a new book coming out and one that she is working on. We shared some of our fav books. Sometimes it was a bit disjointed, but it worked. If you want to see our conversation search for the hashtag #TRW11chat .

On Thursday, October 13th the 7th graders, Ms. Bordelon and I  joined 1100 other schools to watch a live presentation by James Patterson from Palm Beach, FL. He was in the auditorium of his son's middle school with several hundred students in attendance. He was there to talk about his new book, Middle School, the Worst Years of My Life . The event took place during our lunch period, so all the students were munching during the presentation. Since Mr. Patterson could not see us or hear us, it was not an issue. His message about reading was right on target. He believes that all kids need to read and read well. Good readers will have more choices in life and end up with better careers. He said to read like your life depended on it. If you want to be a good writer, then you must READ! He said that kids need to find good books that will engage them. Besides his titles, he also recommended the Percy Jackson series, Warrior series, Book Thief , and The Invention of Hugo ...

It's that time of year again. Mid-October means Bookmarked and I have been planning Teen Read Week activities for the PFTSTA students for weeks. As always we have games to play at lunch, online activities, and the annual bookmark contest. You can see it all here:  http://bit.ly/naP1Zk . Last year we were lucky to have author, Scott Westerfeld, visit and kick off TRW. There was no way to top that, but I have planned an author event to kick off this year, too. Most of the students are not familiar with the workings of Twitter. So I have planned a twitter chat with author, Tiffany Tren t. She visited PFTSTA several years ago, and she made a wonderful presentation to the whole student body as well as conducting a writing workshop with an English class. The students loved her energy. I have been planning to book a virtual visit for at least a year. I finally did it.  If you want to join our chat, it will be held at 12:30PM CDT on Monday, October 17th. The hashtag is #TRW...

This episode highlights the work of author, Heather Brewer. She is the author of the Vladimir Tod Chronicles and the Slayer Chronicles. Within this episode is an interview of the author during a visit that she made to PFTSTA on September 28, 2011.

The 8th and 9th graders were blown away when Heather Brewer began talking at 9:30AM, Wednesday the 28th. She called all the teens in the room her minions. She believes in "world domination." With world domination, she and her minions could change the world to be a more accepting place. A place where there would be no bullies and everyone is accepted for who they are whatever that may be. Heather Brewer knows bullies, as she was not treated well by her peers in school. One of the students said it was the best author visit ever, and two teachers said the talk was awesome because Heather was so real. She spoke with honesty from the heart, and the students could relate. There were many hugs when she arrived and even during her talk. One student couldn't contain herself when she found out that Green Day was one of Auntie Heather's fav bands. She ran up for some love, and Heather was extremely accommodating. The main character in the Vladimir Tod Chronicles  is ...