Berry Song

Artificial Intelligence: Food for Thought

Following up on Gail Nordstrom and Heidi Hammond’s Caldecott Lines of Connection article, “Food for Thought,” Gail decided to give artificial intelligence a challenge to write an article on the same topic. Here’s how it went down.
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A Chair for My Mother

Vera’s Story Garden

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 her that Vera didn’t waste any time iden­ti­fy­ing and using her local pub­lic library.… more
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Perfect Pairs

Perfect Pairs

Bookol­o­gy is delight­ed to fea­ture a sam­ple les­son from Per­fect Pairs: Using Fic­tion & Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Books to Teach Life Sci­ence, K‑2 by children’s book author Melis­sa Stew­art and mas­ter edu­ca­tor Nan­cy Ches­ley (Sten­house Pub­lish­ers). When this book (and its com­pan­ion for grades 3 – 5) first came across our desk, we were blown away by its per­cep­tion and use­ful­ness.… more
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Margo Sorenson

Teaching Writing to Reluctant Writers — and Who Isn’t One?

What’s next?” kids — ask, as they whiz through life at warp speed. You’ve seen them con­stant­ly check their phones for texts, Snapchat, and Insta­gram. Kids at video game kiosks hunch over the con­trols, zap­ping ani­mat­ed fig­ures and blow­ing up char­ac­ters by the dozens.  Should the adren­a­line abate for even a sec­ond, they turn to the next game, in search of that high-risk rush.… more
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Hannah's Way

School-Themed Books That Build Empathy

Dur­ing one of our vis­its to our local library in late sum­mer, sev­er­al of the books on dis­play caught my eye. School was the com­mon thread, and my fam­i­ly found some good con­ver­sa­tion starters among the titles. I’ll high­light three that have mer­it as texts that help build empa­thy and/or broad­en chil­dren’s views about school and education.… more
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All-Story Magazine

Changing Science Fiction Forever

by Vic­ki Palmquist In its Octo­ber 1912 issue, All-Sto­ry Mag­a­zine pub­lished a short sto­ry by Edgar Rice Bur­roughs called “Tarzan of the Apes.” Do you remem­ber the plot? John Clay­ton is born to par­ents who are marooned on the west coast of Africa. His par­ents, Lord and Lady Greystoke, die on his first birth­day. John is adopt­ed by Kala, an ape, who moth­ers him as one of her own.… more
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Picture Books and Dementia

by Jen­ny Barlow We could reach her through nurs­ery rhymes. She reg­u­lar­ly sat in the liv­ing room, wrapped in a blan­ket in her wheel­chair. To peo­ple who don’t under­stand, she would seem with­ered, vacant, even loose in the joints, and maybe very shab­by. But we stroked her palsied hands and gen­tly called her name. On occa­sion, she’d open her eyes.… more
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I Would Like to Thank…

The annu­al meet­ing of the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion begins this week. The win­ners of the var­i­ous book awards are no doubt eye­ing the fes­tiv­i­ties with some trep­i­da­tion because they will be pre­sent­ing speech­es. This has been going on since the first New­bery Award was pre­sent­ed in 1922. Tra­di­tion­al­ly called “Accep­tance Papers,” the speech­es are the bul­l’s-eye of events that have over the years mor­phed from nice lit­tle white-glove lun­cheons into galas.… more
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Calligraphy sample

The Curious Child: writing and books

by Vic­ki Palmquist After read­ing Cather­ine, Called Birdy, read­ers will won­der about Edward, Birdy’s broth­er, and the books he was scrib­ing at the monastery. In what type of book did Birdy keep her jour­nal? Who taught her to write? Did she write in the same fan­cy script that her broth­er did at the monastery? Birdy gives the read­er clues about her jour­nal: “The skins are my father’s, left over from the house­hold accounts, and the ink also.… more
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PFA For Celebrations

Two Birds from the Same Egg with Poetry PLUS!

(edi­tor’s note:  In hon­or of Nation­al Poet­ry Month, we asked Sylvia Vardell and Janet  Wong, authors of  the The Poet­ry Fri­day series for a quick exam­ple of inte­grat­ing poet­ry into the classroom. ) by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong We are pressed for time, so we mul­ti­task. You might be eat­ing break­fast while you’re read­ing Bookol­o­gy, or doing laun­dry, or both.… more
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Animal Shenanigans

Teaching the Future

by Rob Reid I am for­tu­nate to teach three sec­tions of children’s lit­er­a­ture each semes­ter to future ele­men­tary teach­ers, future spe­cial edu­ca­tion teach­ers, and future librar­i­ans. It’s tru­ly a fun gig. I was asked by the Bookol­o­gy folks to share those books and top­ics I teach to these bud­ding professionals. I open each semes­ter by intro­duc­ing myself and read­ing my cur­rent favorite inter­ac­tive pic­ture book.… more
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