The New Jersey Star-Ledger has a great article about the power of fantasy books for children.  They interview professor Michael Levy from University of Wisconsin Stout, who specializes in YA lit. 

The article is full of good quotes and thoughts that will make you cheer.  Here’s my favorite:

“People talk about it as escapist, but it is also a
way of dealing with real problems,” Levy says.
“Harry Potter is every kid who’s ever been
picked on by a bully, who’s had to deal with someone
of the opposite sex. It helps them feel they’re not
alone, that they can find solutions. They can’t find
magical solutions, but they can find solutions.”

Augustus and His Smile by Catherine Rayner. 

Augustus the tiger was sad.  So he went off to find his smile.  On his way, he found shiny insects, birds, mountains, fish, and gets caught in a rain storm.  And finally, there in a puddle, he finds his smile.  He learns that his smile is always with him as long as he takes the time to explore and find happiness wherever he is.

This book has marvelous illustrations that are a great mix of brilliant art and child-friendly subjects.  I also enjoyed the way that the words on many of the pages suit the subject.  They are zigzagging with the mountain tops, waving in the water, and falling with the rain.  The entire book is well designed and well written.

I love a book that presents feelings as things that are under your control.  It offers an empowering look at emotions.  Use this with preschoolers and kindergartners for both tiger stories and for stories on feelings.

Shrinking Sam by Miriam Latimer.

As Sam begins his morning, he realizes he is shrinking.  When he tries to tell his parents about it, they are too busy to listen to him.  The dog sneezes on him and blows him up the stairs where he takes a bath in the sink floating on the soap.  He is then sucked down the drain to find himself outside near another child who has also shrunk down.  She helps Sam get back home through the drier vent.  The dog finds him there and gives him a friendly lick and Sam finds himself growing larger again.  He grows bigger and bigger as his family gathers around him.

I liked that the parents in the book were not cruel or awful, just busy.  As parents we have all had mornings (or afternoons) where we don’t lavish enough attention on our children.  This allowed the story to be about a normal family rather than a dysfunctional one.  The illustrations are bright and friendly and will work well with a group. 

This book is a great gateway to a conversation with children about the times when they feel small or lonely or ignored. 

The Mail Tribune of Southern Oregon has an article about the new program starting in Jackson County to share books community wide.  It’s called Books for Kids.  Children can come each weekday as well as on Saturdays to either exchange books or borrow them.  It will be done on the honor system with no formal check out.  Sounds great huh?

Well, that’s only until you realize that this is the same Jackson County that just voted to NOT support its public library system and decided to close their libraries.  In that light, this is pretty freakin’ pathetic compared to a full-service library that was just voted into extinction. 

What about older children?  Those who read independently?  What about teens?  Computers?  Magazines?  Life long learning?  Large print?  DVDs?  Newspapers?  What about all of those things that make a library so much more than a shelf of books for little children!  For heaven sakes, what about programming?  What about skilled librarians to work with children?  What about reader advisory?  Reference? 

What makes me furious are the quotes:

Sue McKenna, Medford Parks and Recreation supervisor, said she thinks it’s a “great idea.” “It’s actually something we wanted to get started,” she said. “It’s a perfect fit at a perfect time.”

Perfect now that the library is gone?  Perfect??!  Excuse me while I weep quietly in the corner.

Hathaway said she came up with the idea because when she had been a
single mother, she could not afford to buy enough books to keep up with
her daughter’s reading needs and depended on libraries.

Did you get that?  DEPENDED ON LIBRARIES.  And now she has “several dozen” books for children to replace that.  Yeah, this is progress…  But heck, it saved a few tax dollars, so it has to be an improvement!  Right?

Today is Anne Frank’s birthday.  Here on Earth, a program on Wisconsin Public Radio, offers a program on Rutka Laskier’s diary.  Ruska’s diary has just been discovered and published.  She was a 14-year-old Polish Jew killed in Auschwitz who is being called the Polish Anne Frank. 

Just the story of her half sister discovering that her father had previous children who were killed in the Holocaust is enough to cause chills. 

The program will be available to listen to in the next day or so. 

Scholastic and Disney are venturing into the world of ebooks for children.  Targeting schools and libraries, Scholastic’s BookFlix pairs nonfiction ebooks with short online movies.  Disney is aiming straight for families and will allow downloads of books for a fee.  Should be interesting to see if either of the plans works with consumers.  It will all depend on cost for both companies. 

ReadingRockets is a very useful site for getting children ready to read.  They offer strategies for struggling readers that allow parents and teachers to find answers to specific issues, techniques for teaching reading, a collection of recommended authors and books, plus links to podcasts, webcasts and blogs.  This is the place to go even if your child isn’t struggling with reading.

This site has digital copies of almost 400 rare books.  You can find books by Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein, and Shakespeare.  There is also the complete Poor Richard’s Almanac by Benjamin Franklin and rare editions of the Gutenberg Bible.  Towards the top, under category, those of us interested in children’s lit can choose just those titles.  You will find many Lewis Carroll titles in a variety of languages as well as titles from the Bodleian Library in Oxford.  Very interesting and you don’t have to sneeze from the dust this way.

Lucas County in Ohio is starting an initiative to distribute books to children who attend subsidized child care in the county.  They plan to give out 2400 books to 800 children!  In addition, the county will provide early literacy training for child care providers who have county contracts. 

Think of the niche for librarians here!  We already know about early literacy and how to train parents and child care providers.  We know what books to use.  Anyone else feel a grant coming on?