Tales from a Loud Librarian

On Tuesday, May 1st we joined tens of thousands of students around the world as Rick Riordan broadcast live from the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum to kick off the release of the latest in the Kane Chronicles, The Serpent's Shadow . All of the sixth and seventh graders sat in a classroom with their lunch to enjoy the show. You can see them below.  As the program started, we had trouble with the sound. The volume would only go up so much and with a room of 80 kids, it was hard for them to concentrate on the show. However, the kids are big fans of Riordan's. About half had read the previous books in the Kane Chronicles series. Probably all of them have read one or more of the books in the Percy Jackson series and/or the Heroes of Olympus series. These books fly off the shelves, and there is always someone in the middle of all his works. I am a big fan of Greek and Roman Mythology, so I have read the Percy Jackson books and the Heroes of Olympus. I have not had time to rea...

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...

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 ...