Tales from a Loud Librarian

Students pose with author, Andrea Cremer, during April 20th   skype visit The students in my two book groups had the opportunity to Skype with four different authors this past school year. I have been asked before if it is easy to find an author to skype. I always reply that it is, and that I have never paid any of the authors to talk with my students. I had met three of the authors who spoke with us this year face to face, but only one of them did I ask about the possibility of skyping at that time. I usually run all my author skypes the same way. I schedule the event for 30 minutes. I ask the author to talk about themselves and their book/s for the first 10 to 15 minutes, and then I allow the students to ask questions for the second half of the session. The students walk up to speak right into the microphone which allows the author to see who is speaking to them. This also makes it clear who is suppose to ask the next question. Very often the author is willing to talk l...

Picture taken by their daughter in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve My school has been very lucky to host over 24 live author visits since 2011, and almost as many Skype visits. J & P Voelkel have visited our school three times and skyped twice. I adore them and their energy, and they really put on a show for the students with lots of props and audience participation. They came to New Orleans on this last visit in March because book four in their series,   Jaguar Stones , that was recently published had some important scenes set in our city. Just the other day, I received this wonderful card thanking us for opening our doors to them. Actually, I should be the one doing the thanking as they traveled so far to be with the students at Patrick Taylor for just a couple of hours.  Jon and Pamela, you are our rock stars. Thanks for visiting us for a third time. The students and teachers were blown away and had the most marvelous time during this last visit. You a...

Collins Bird Guide Today I got an email that a review that I wrote for School Library Journal in September was just published. The review was for an app that helps you identify birds. You can open here to read the review . In 2013, I reviewed the National Geographic bird app which I think is much more useful. than the one by Collins.  You can open here to read that review .