Tales from a Loud Librarian

Creating a Chirbit  The middle school English teachers and I are always trying to encourage the students to have a book that they enjoy reading at hand. We want them to find what they like to read. That may mean finding an author who speaks to them so that they want to read everything by the author or finding a genre that speaks to them so that they can find books with similar themes. One of the sixth grade girls has gone dragon crazy and is trying to read everything that I have related to dragons in both fiction and non-fiction. She is a big reader and will probably run out of books in the PFTSTA Library pretty soon. To inspire the students to find books that excite them, the 6th grade teachers and I cooked up an activity that would motivate the students to read and provide book advertising in the library, too.  Student is listening to a book talk captured with a QR code on the iPod Each student in the class was asked to read a book that they liked and create a...

In Louisiana, the state library sponsors three reader's choice awards for the following grade levels: 3rd-5th, 6th-8th and 9th-12th. I am on the committee to help select the titles for the Louisiana Teen Reader's Choice or LTRC. There are ten titles nominated which you can see below. Open here to watch a book trailer for each title .  Voting for the Teen Reader's Choice closes February 1st. You need to have read at least two of the books on the list to vote. Open here to cast your vote . 

Earlier in the month, I blogged about some resolutions for 2014 that I wanted to initiate in the library. I am so proud of myself because I have already begun seriously tackling one of these resolutions. There are so many fiction books that are series, and I can't remember series order and neither can the students. Often, the students don't even realize that an appealing book is part of a series. One of my tasks for the new year is to label all books in a series. Over the holidays, I bought supplies to begin the process of labeling. See the picture above. That is not exactly true. I already had the scissors, iPad Mini and clear label protectors. I did have to buy those colorful green dots. I set up a template for the stickers on the computer so I could print out the numbers. I didn't want to write them--my handwriting is atrocious. I started the process when I received a shipment of new books the first week that we got back from the holidays. Then this week, I be...

Bookmarked, the high school library book group at PFTSTA, recently finished its gig reading and reviewing books for the online newsletter from School Library Journal called, SLJTeen . The students have been submitting reviews twice a month for the last 18 months. You can read all those reviews here:  http://sqworl.com/thwdxz .  Since the students are still reading books pre-publication that the publishers are sending to us, I thought that I could post their book reviews here. Students self-select the books that they want to review from the ones sent to us by the publishers. All of their opinions about the books and authors are their own. The teen reader loved the alternate history presented in  The Inventor's Secret  by Andrea Cremer,  who visited PFTSTA in 2012 . The next book,  Freak City   by Kathrin Schrocke, was first published in Germany several years ago, but it's initial publication in the US is January 2014.  CREMER, Andr...

http://christmasstockimages.com/free/new_year/slides/happy_new_year_color.htm I have taken a short break to rejuvenate myself to be ready for 2014. I have several blog post ideas that I am ready to execute soon, but I thought that I would start the new year on this blog by outlining some goals that I have set for myself and hope to implement in the coming weeks when I return to school.  Students are constantly asking me what book comes next in a series. Sometimes I  know off the top of my head, but often I have to do a little research to tell them. I found this wonderful site called FictFact that I am now using to track series. It was designed as a tool for keeping track of books, series and the authors that write them. I have started f ollowing all the students favorite series here , so I can find books in series order in just a few clicks. If you are a librarian, this website is just what you have been looking for. On Twitter several months ago, I found myself ...