Nonfiction Storytime, Part 3

In my experience, you can elevate the learning experience with nonfiction books through the development of activities that connect with a specific topic or the theme of your program.
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Nonfiction to the Rescue, Part 2

By featuring both nonfiction and fiction during storytime, you provide children an opportunity to experience the contrast between what is real and what is imaginative. Both are important for a successful reading experience. Here are 18 of my favorite nonfiction books to use in storytime programs.
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Nonfiction to the Rescue, Part 1

As a children’s librar­i­an, a pri­ma­ry goal for me is to help chil­dren embrace imag­i­na­tion through books, from imag­in­ing we are super­heroes to going on a hunt to find a bear, fly­ing in the sky, explor­ing a new land, to div­ing deep in the ocean. For some time how­ev­er, includ­ing non­fic­tion titles in my pro­grams has been a top request from par­ents and edu­ca­tors.
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Friendship

One of the most beau­ti­ful qual­i­ties of a true friend­ship is to under­stand and to be under­stood.” (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
Grow­ing up it was dif­fi­cult for me to make friends. Some of the key phras­es I was told includ­ed: “it is a nat­ur­al process,” “the sky is full of many stars, but hav­ing one friend is larg­er than the uni­verse,” and “smile to every­one you walk past.” 
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The Many Travelers through
The Hundred Acre Wood

Through­out my child­hood, my father and I trav­eled to the local library with a wag­on. He insist­ed that I fill the wag­on as high as we could with books. We went on hun­dreds of jour­neys with some of the most spe­cial char­ac­ters in children’s literature. The adven­tures of Win­nie-the-Pooh and friends in The Hun­dred Acre Wood was and con­tin­ues to offer excit­ing adventures.
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Together from Afar

Indi­vid­u­al­ly, we are one drop. Togeth­er, we are an ocean.” (Ryuno­suke Satoro)
Tis the sea­son to be… It is hard to some­times under­stand how dif­fi­cult the hol­i­day sea­son will be this year. Although this is dif­fi­cult, tech­nol­o­gy has made it pos­si­ble for us all to con­nect and par­tic­i­pate in hol­i­day fun. For my arti­cle this month, I’ve list­ed activ­i­ties that you can pro­vide for fam­i­lies to do togeth­er dur­ing the hol­i­day breaks.
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Hand in Hand

I live and work in a train com­mu­ni­ty and often use trains as an anal­o­gy when I talk about sto­ry­time. Like a train, sto­ry­time offers an audi­ence a chance to hop on board to expe­ri­ence a new world with char­ac­ters. The char­ac­ters of a sto­ry can help us under­stand some of the expe­ri­ences the chil­dren lis­ten­ing to the sto­ry might be going through.… more
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Becoming a Purple Person

I am excit­ed to start year two of Bookol­o­gy! I con­tem­plat­ed doing themes around COVID-19 and then I thought why not write about the impor­tance of being a pur­ple per­son? Some of you might be ask­ing your­self the fol­low­ing ques­tions: Does this relate to sci­ence? Do you become pur­ple by eat­ing egg­plants or beets? Do you paint your­self pur­ple?… more
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Little Engines:
A Simple but Impactful Early Literacy Initiative

In ear­ly fall of 2019, I com­plet­ed a grant appli­ca­tion through our local ear­ly child­hood board. I pro­posed a new ear­ly lit­er­a­cy pro­gram called Lit­tle Engines. Each month, we will have an ear­ly child­hood pro­fes­sion­al pro­vide a sto­ry­time pro­gram with activ­i­ties. These include lit­er­a­cy, nutri­tion, child­care, school readi­ness, music/recreation, creativity/arts, and STEAM. The library pro­vides fam­i­lies a tote bag that includes var­i­ous activ­i­ties and a book to enjoy at home togeth­er.… more
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Lights, Camera, Action:
Launching Virtual Storytime

Although COVID-19 has been dif­fi­cult, libraries con­tin­ue their core mis­sion to pro­vide access to resources and ser­vices by improv­ing and increas­ing their dig­i­tal ser­vices. Sto­ry­time is a key ser­vice the pub­lic library pro­vides to sup­port ear­ly lit­er­a­cy, fam­i­ly engage­ment, and help­ing chil­dren find the joy of read­ing. Face-to-face inter­ac­tion helps to improve the con­nec­tion with fam­i­lies — how­ev­er, librar­i­ans have had to tran­si­tion sto­ry­time pro­gram­ming to a vir­tu­al plat­form.… more
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Creating Collage

As we move into the spring season, the lesson of hope from The Very Hungry Caterpillar,a book that employs paper collage for its illustrations, inspired these activities.
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What’s in the Basket?

Invest­ing in ear­ly child­hood nutri­tion is a sure­fire strat­e­gy. The returns are incred­i­bly high.” —Anne Mulc­ahy I am the head of children’s ser­vices at Eric­son Pub­lic Library in Boone, Iowa. Accord­ing to Iowa Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, Boone has 1,901 stu­dents and 877 of those stu­dents are in a free or reduced lunch pro­gram (Kids Count, 2017).… more
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Library EMT

The best way to find your­self is to lose your­self in the ser­vice of others.” —Mahat­ma Gandhi I went into the week­end pre­pared to take it easy from a long and busy week. I quick­ly shift­ed my focus to the hor­ror hap­pen­ing in Aus­tralia. I was watch­ing a video that showed a small frac­tion of the ani­mals and humans faced with this dis­as­ter.… more
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On Your Mark, Get Set … You!

The New Year is upon on us and libraries are busy with holiday programs celebrating all things winter, providing make-and-take programs that inspire creativity, and having a warm place to read.
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Snapshot: Wordless Books

Wordless picture books are great for many reasons. They emphasize the importance of art, build on important literacy skills, help children become storytellers, and they are a reliable source for imagination.
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Going Rogue

Explo­ration is real­ly the Essence of the Human Spirit.” —Frank Bor­man ’Tis the sea­son for fall themes such as pump­kins, leaves, and turkeys.  As I was plan­ning pro­grams for Octo­ber and Novem­ber, I decid­ed it was time to go rogue and think of new themes. I start­ed search­ing terms such as “fun­ny fall cel­e­bra­tions” and “unusu­al hol­i­days.” From Nation­al Mad Hat­ter Day to Nation­al Cake Dec­o­rat­ing Day, my search helped me devel­op new pro­gram oppor­tu­ni­ties for fam­i­lies to enjoy including: Nation­al Mad Hat­ter Day, Octo­ber 6, 2019 Jour­ney down the rab­bit hole and make Won­der­land come to life.… more
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Dogman© Unleashed

Encour­age kids to be cre­ative with­out wor­ry­ing about being perfect. —Dav Pilkey  At the start of the fall pro­gram sea­son, I asked our youngest patrons what pro­grams they would like the library to offer. I heard a child yell out, “DOGMAN”! I smiled and I told him that was a great idea. Dog­man© is a graph­ic nov­el series writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Dav Pilkey that tells the sto­ry of George and Harold’s new­ly cre­at­ed hero of jus­tice.… more
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Summer Reading Kick-off

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 car­ni­val with more than bounces hous­es and cot­ton can­dy.… more
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Outdoor Science Lab for Kids

Fresh Air: Taking Storytime Outdoors

We could nev­er have loved the earth so well if we had no child­hood in it.” —George Eliot  In the state of Iowa, where I live, the change from win­ter to spring is like an on and off switch. Yet, at the end of anoth­er vor­tex, Spring has final­ly come to Iowa. Spring is a per­fect time to sched­ule your sto­ry­time pro­grams out­doors.… more
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Joining Forces

Cre­at­ing a Library Exchange Network Last year, I had the dis­tinct hon­or to attend a pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ty at MIT (Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy). As part of the train­ing, we were giv­en a chance to see some of the projects stu­dents and pro­fes­sors are work­ing on in fields such as edu­ca­tion, fash­ion, and health­care. I was sur­prised to learn from Dr.… more
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If You Give a Dog a Donut

Paws and Read

Cel­e­brat­ing Our Fur­ry Friends with a Pet Read­ing Program Ani­mals are such agree­able friends — they ask no ques­tions, they pass no criticisms.” —George Elliott In Octo­ber 2011, I was in a state of tran­si­tion. I had just returned from intern­ing at the Library of Con­gress to a full-time job as head of a children’s depart­ment. I was excit­ed about this new adven­ture but, to move for­ward, I was miss­ing a fur­ry friend.… more
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sock puppet

Puppet Mania

Using Pup­pets to Enhance the Sto­ry­time Experience Any­one who does any­thing to help a child in his life is a hero to me. ” ― Fred Rogers I recent­ly watched Won’t You Be My Neigh­bor, the new doc­u­men­tary on the life and career of Fred Rogers … Mis­ter Rogers. At the con­clu­sion of the doc­u­men­tary, I reflect­ed on how he shone a light on the role sto­ry­telling has in our ser­vice to chil­dren and fam­i­lies.… more
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Winter Extravaganza

The first snow­fall is like being trans­port­ed inside a snow globe. The land­scape trans­forms with a fresh sprin­kle of snow on every­thing from the trees to hous­es. “Crunch, crunch” can be heard from the boots of fam­i­lies mak­ing their way out­side to expe­ri­ence the first snow of the sea­son. Snow is an expe­ri­ence where fam­i­lies can engage with each oth­er through activ­i­ties such as sled­ding, mak­ing snow angels, mak­ing snow­men, or mak­ing snow ice cream.… more
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Runaway Pumpkin

Gobble up a Good Time

It is amaz­ing how quick­ly depart­ment stores move all of the Hal­loween items out and bring out Christ­mas lights, wrap­ping paper, reli­gious items, dif­fer­ent sized San­ta Claus­es and orna­ments. Oh, and who can for­get about the start of Christ­mas music at the begin­ning of Novem­ber? I love Christ­mas, but for the longest time, I’ve been con­fused about why depart­ment stores do not ded­i­cate space for Thanks­giv­ing.… more
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