Children’s Literacy Foundation

mother selecting books with her son
Imag­ine the joy of a child who nev­er had the priv­i­lege of own­ing a book being able to choose new hard­cov­er or paper­back edi­tions for free out of hun­dreds dis­played in front of him. The Children’s Lit­er­a­cy Foun­da­tion doesn’t have to imag­ine. Staff have seen the excit­ed smiles on these young faces for the past 23 years, and they hear the same ques­tion wher­ev­er they go.
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Ann Angel and Her Reading Team
May 2020

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
In this Rais­ing Star Read­ers update, Ann Angel shares how read­ing aloud helps car­ry on her family’s her­itage of sto­ry­telling. Here’s how Ann describes it:  With Stay-at-Home a require­ment in most states, mine includ­ed, I only see some of my grand­kids via Skype and Zoom. But I have a daugh­ter and grand­son liv­ing with us. That means we’re bal­anc­ing work and Teddy’s school, so, of course, I get involved.… more

The Big Book Adventure

Big Book Adventure
You’ll nev­er guess
Where I have been
Or who I met
Or what I’ve seen.
Shall I tell you? A pig and a striped-tail fox each begin with that refrain, lead­ing the oth­er one through an excit­ing rev­e­la­tion of the books they’ve just read. They become a part of the sto­ry they’re telling, just as one does when one falls in love with a book.… more

My Grandma and Me

My Grandma and Me
My Grand­ma and Me
Mina Java­herbin
illus­trat­ed by Lind­sey Yankey
Can­dlewick Press, 2019
ISBN 978−1−4263−3304−0 If you were for­tu­nate to have one or two or three lov­ing grand­moth­ers, this book will touch your heart. Grand­mas can be the most lov­ing peo­ple in our long lives, teach­ing us about life, pass­ing along tra­di­tions, shar­ing sto­ries, help­ing us become whole­some adults.… more

Thanksgiving Tea

The week before Thanks­giv­ing I was part of a won­der­ful Thanks­giv­ing-themed Sto­ry­time. Excel­lent books were read: Otis Gives Thanks by Loren Long and Thank­ful by Eileen Spinel­li. We sang through There Was An Old Lady Who Swal­lowed A Turkey by Lucille Colan­dro, and Sim­ple Gifts by Chris Rasch­ka. All was going swim­ming­ly — beau­ti­ful chil­dren, rapt and smil­ing. They were very young, but you could tell they were read to reg­u­lar­ly.… more

For The Beast in Us All

Maurice the Unbeastly
The theme of being your­self is famil­iar. Many books, movies, and plays are devot­ed to this idea. When it’s done well, we all sit up a lit­tle straighter, laugh more con­fi­dent­ly, and dream about all the things we’d like to do to be true to who we are. Chil­dren need to hear this mes­sage often so anoth­er book, one that tells the sto­ry in a dif­fer­ent way, is welcome.… more

No Pigs in Space?

Rufus Blasts Off!
Some of my read­ers know that the very first sto­ry I wrote (in sec­ond grade) was Pigs in Space. I still have it. I still won­der what­ev­er prompt­ed me to write it. This was before the Mup­pets launched their pigs into space. And it was def­i­nite­ly before Kim T. Griswell and Valeri Gor­bachev launched their pig into space in Rufus Blasts Off!… more

Candace Fleming Tames the Wild West

Our thanks to author Can­dace Flem­ing for sit­ting still long enough to answer in-depth ques­tions about her con­cep­tion for, research into, and writ­ing deci­sions for Pre­sent­ing Buf­fa­lo Bill: the Man Who Invent­ed the Wild West, our Book­storm™ this month. Flem­ing’s answers will inform edu­ca­tors, pro­vid­ing direct quotes from an oft-pub­lished biog­ra­ph­er of beloved books that will be use­ful for teach­ing writ­ing and research skills in the classroom. … more

Bookstorm™: Presenting Buffalo Bill

Presenting Buffalo Bill
Pre­sent­ing Buf­fa­lo Bill pro­vides an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to teach dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion between fic­tion and non­fic­tion, mythol­o­gy and fact, as well as the dis­cern­ment, research, and dis­cus­sion skills that are nat­u­ral­ly born out of this type of close read­ing. Buf­fa­lo Bill’s life and Wild West Show are excit­ing and the author makes them all the more vivid and engag­ing with her writ­ing.… more

Visiting Brigadoon

Vermont College of Fine Arts
Steve and I returned ear­li­er this week from Mont­pe­lier, Ver­mont, where we spoke at the Ver­mont Col­lege of Fine Arts, specif­i­cal­ly to the alum­ni of their Writ­ing for Chil­dren and Young Adults MFA pro­gram. We were there to talk about “Mar­ket­ing as Sto­ry­telling,” with the goal of mak­ing these typ­i­cal­ly intro­vert­ed writ­ers feel more com­fort­able about tout­ing their books.… more

One Day at the Farmers Market

Sat­ur­day was gor­geous, and (Oh joy! Oh rap­ture!) the open­ing day of the Mill City Farm­ers Mar­ket, one of my favorite mar­kets here in the Twin Cities. I got up and out the door in such a hur­ry I for­got my mar­ket bas­ket, but no mat­ter — there were just the ear­li­est of crops avail­able: aspara­gus, spinach, rhubarb….… more

Summer Adventures

Adventures in Cartooning: Characters in Action
  The oth­er day, a pub­lic librar­i­an asked on social media for graph­ic nov­el rec­om­men­da­tions for read­ers aged 6 to 12. I imme­di­ate­ly rec­om­mend­ed the Adven­tures in Car­toon­ing series by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alex­is Frederick-Frost. The first book was Adven­tures in Car­toon­ing: How to Turn Your Doo­dles into Comics, intro­duc­ing us to The Knight, Edward the chub­by horse, and the Mag­ic Car­toon­ing Elf.… more

Rolling the Storytelling Blocks

Reading Ahead bubble
by Vic­ki Palmquist Look­ing for hours of fun with a book the whole fam­i­ly can enjoy … or one per­son can eas­i­ly study to learn to write or tell a sto­ry … bet­ter? Then you’ll want to give this a try: How to Tell a Sto­ry, writ­ten by Daniel Nay­eri, illus­trat­ed by Bri­an Won, and pub­lished by Work­man Pub­lish­ing in 2015. This book comes in a box.… more

Epic felt

Star Wars Epic Yarns
Three small board books … encom­pass­ing the first three Star Wars movies and a year-long craft project. As I read each book, all 12 words, one word and one pho­to on each two-page spread, it slow­ly dawned on me just how inge­nious they are. In those 12 care­ful­ly cho­sen words and scenes from the movie, Jack and Hol­man Wang, twin broth­ers and admirable artistes, man­age to evoke the entire saga of the first three movies.… more

We Didn’t Always Know the Way

How to Read a Story
by Vic­ki Palmquist A step-by-step, slight­ly tongue-in-cheek but most­ly sin­cere, guide to read­ing a book, How to Read a Sto­ry by Kate Mess­ner, illus­trat­ed by Mark Siegel (Chron­i­cle Books), will have you and your young read­ers feel­ing all warm and cozy and smart. With advice in Step 2 to Find a Read­ing Bud­dy, we are cau­tioned “And make sure you both like the book.”… more