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Raising Star ReadersWhat is Research, Really?Writing Road Trip by Lisa Bullard | Possible DetoursPage BreakWhen We Reach ThemBig Green PocketbookTrudi TrueitLibraries and LibrariansThe Lost ForestBookstorm Just Like Rube Goldberg

Deb Andries and Her Reading Teams
May 2019

Rais­ing Star Read­ers

Guess How Much I Love You

For this addi­tion to our Rais­ing Star Read­ers fea­ture, we’re delight­ed to once again be show­cas­ing Deb Andries, a Nation­al Lit­er­a­cy Con­sul­tant who lives in Wis­con­sin, and her grand­chil­dren: Fin­ley and Grayson, who live in Cum­ber­land, Wis­con­sin, and Emmer­syn, who lives in Sartell, Min­neso­ta. Gram­my and her Read­ing Teams recent­ly shared Guess How Much I […]


What is Research, Really?

Non­fic­tionary

Melissa Stewart

From an ELA point of view, “research” is some­thing you do to gath­er infor­ma­tion for a report or project. But if you’re a sci­en­tist, research has a whole dif­fer­ent mean­ing. It’s a way of devel­op­ing a new under­stand­ing of the world and how it works. Every once in a while, my hus­band and I have […]


Vera’s Story Garden

Arti­cles

A Chair for My Mother

Ver­a’s Sto­ry Gar­den Estab­lished as a Lit­er­ary Land­mark by Unit­ed for Libraries May 4, 2019 by Mary Paige Lang-Clouse, Direc­tor Ethel­bert B. Craw­ford Pub­lic Library Mon­ti­cel­lo NY I met Vera B. Williams in the ear­ly 2000s while work­ing at the pub­lic library in Nar­rows­burg, N.Y. It should come as no sur­prise to any­one that knew […]


Celebrating the Square Pegs

Two for the Show

This month the two of us are actu­al­ly in the same place at the same time, and we’re hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about square pegs. We are all not just square pegs and round pegs. We are tri­an­gles, pen­tagons, hexa­gon, oval, rhom­boids, stars. There are shapes for every­one and places, too, where each of us fits […]


Summer Reading Kick-off

The Lamp­post

For the past four years, my library has pro­vid­ed our com­mu­ni­ty with a sum­mer read­ing car­ni­val to kick­start our sum­mer read­ing pro­gram. For the first two years, we had a few bounce hous­es and cot­ton can­dy and 400 patrons attend­ed. To plan our past car­ni­val, I brain­stormed ideas on how to con­tin­ue by pro­vid­ing a […]


Possible Detours

Writ­ing Road Trip

Lisa Bullard. Photo by Katherine Warde

Once, in one of my (not uncom­mon) moments of think­ing that I could no longer han­dle the finan­cial uncer­tain­ty of the children’s book writ­ing life, I read a book that pur­port­ed to match cre­ative peo­ple to poten­tial career pur­suits. I read the advice, filled out the quizzes, and final­ly received my assigned “type.” With great […]


When Sue Found Sue

Inter­views

Is there any muse­um exhib­it more fas­ci­nat­ing than Sue, the T. rex, at The Field Muse­um in  Chica­go, Illi­nois?  Now there’s a curios­i­­ty-rais­ing, shy­­ness-rec­og­niz­ing, dis­­­cus­­sion-wor­thy book about the oth­er Sue, the woman who dis­cov­ered the T. rex dur­ing a dig in South Dako­ta. For ele­men­tary school stu­dents and your dinosaur-inspired kids in the library and […]


Waiting for My Editor, part 5

Page Break

Lynne Jonell

Wait­ing for my edi­tor … Okay, she’s busy and can’t get to it. Mean­time, I can’t just wait around … a new book is knock­ing at my door.


When We Reach Them

When We Reach Them

Paul W. Hankins

We’re out of school today in obser­vance of Oaks Day here in our area. This morn­ing, Ani­ta Sil­vey, chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture expert and resource, remind­ed us on Face­book that Pete Seeger cel­e­brates a birth­day today. 100 years. I might not have known that with­out her post. How many of us would? How many of us would […]


Successful

Teach It For­ward

Suc­cess. Thesaurus.com offers more than fifty syn­onyms for the word “suc­cess”… accom­plish­ment, fame, hap­pi­ness, progress, tri­umph, and vic­to­ry all have a place on the list. With test­ing hys­te­ria mak­ing the rounds in schools and class­rooms every­where, the def­i­n­i­tion of suc­cess as it relates to read­ing, has like­ly weighed heav­i­ly on the minds and hearts of […]


Richard Adams Gave Me Rabbits

Big Green Pock­et­book

Candice Ransom

Knee-deep in spring! The rab­bits will be here soon, rangy after a long win­ter. They like our yard because we have low bush­es good for hid­ing and we let the lawn go to clover and dan­de­lions. I like to think rab­bits feel safe because they have lit­tle chance else­where. If ever there was an ani­mal […]


Explorer Academy: The Falcon’s Feather

Read­ing Ahead

Trudi Trueit

Explor­er Acad­e­my: The Fal­con’s Feath­er Tru­di Trueit illus­trat­ed by Scott Plumbe (with a blend of pho­tos) Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Part­ners, 2019 ISBN 978−1−4263−3304−0 I’ve writ­ten a pri­or Read­ing Ahead essay about my love for The Neb­u­la Secret, the first book in the Explor­er Acad­e­my series. Now book two, The Fal­con’s Feath­er, con­tin­ues the sto­ry and I […]


Strictly No Elephants

Red Read­ing Boots

  It had been one of those news days…. Actu­al­ly, there had been a string of such news days—hate-filled head­lines, bom­bas­tic egos, dan­ger­ous threats. The world seemed extra prick­ly and dan­ger­ous. It’s at these times that I espe­cial­ly like read­ing with kids. For­tu­nate­ly, I had a read­ing gig all lined up at an ele­men­tary school—it […]


Libraries and Librarians

Quirky Book Lists

Library Lion

We’re post­ing this when it’s Nation­al Library Week, but we believe every week should be Library Week. If you love pub­lic, school, and spe­cial libraries as much as we do, add these books to your read­ing list and share them with your favorite read­ers. As always, if you have a book you believe should be […]


The Lost Forest

Inter­views

The Lost Forest

How many books can you name that are about sur­vey­ing … and a mys­tery? I know. Right? And yet we see sur­vey­ors every day in fields, on busy street cor­ners, and in our neigh­bor­hoods. What are they doing? Would it sur­prise you to know that near­ly every acre of your state has been sur­veyed? That […]


Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding

Cookol­o­gy

Sarah Aronson

Just Like Rube Gold­berg author Sarah Aron­son shares her recipe for a yum­my, sug­ary treat, one that she believes Rube Gold­berg would have loved because he was a fan of Cool Whip.


Bookstorm™: Just Like Rube Goldberg

Book­storms

Just Like Rube Goldberg

Edu­ca­tors across the coun­try have been inspired by Rube Goldberg’s intri­cate, clever, engi­neer­ing-based, but unlike­­ly-to-be-made-in-real-life car­toons. Stu­dents are gath­er­ing to cre­ate their own Rube Gold­berg machines, using every­day objects in fun and inno­v­a­tive ways to accom­plish sim­ple tasks with fun results. Just Like Rube Gold­berg inspires all its read­ers with the details about Rube’s child­hood […]


Make This!

Read­ing Ahead

Make This!

Make This! Build­ing, Think­ing, and Tin­ker­ing Projects for the Amaz­ing Mak­er in You  Ella Schwartz, pho­tographs by Matthew Rako­la Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Kids, 2019 When pre­sent­ed with this book, wheels start turn­ing, ideas begin pop­ping, and your tem­per­a­ture ris­es! This is going to be fun. And a care­ful­ly thought-through learn­ing expe­ri­ence … but who needs to […]


Kids & Books…Books & Kids

Red Read­ing Boots

Last week I was a teacher-pre­sen­ter at a young authors and artists con­fer­ence for a cou­ple of days. Tremen­dous fun—the kids who come to these things want to be there and want to learn. They’re read­ers, writ­ers, artists! They are an engaged, engag­ing, and exu­ber­ant lot, which I enjoy immense­ly. I taught six ses­sions on bring­ing con­flict […]