CKG2014 update

The longlist will be announced in about 4 weeks, on Tuesday 4th February, so I thought it was about time I updated my personal list.  Because I've been alternating nominations with new books, and read literally nothing during the Christmas fortnight, I've not added to my 'read' total by many titles:
Almond, David, The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas (Walker Books)
Bowler, Tim, Sea of Whispers (Oxford University Press)
Bryce, Celia, Anthem for Jackson Dawes (Bloomsbury) 
De Quidt, Jeremy, The Feathered Man (David Fickling Books) 
Fisher, Catherine, The Obsidian Mirror (Hodder Children's Books) 
LaFleur, Suzanne, Listening for Lucca (Puffin Books) 
McGowan, Anthony, Brock (Barrington Stoke)
Prue, Sally, Song Hunter (Oxford University Press) 
Yangsze, Choo, The Ghost Bride (Hot Key Books)

I'm half way through Cooper, Susan, Ghost Hawk (Bodley Head Children's Books)

Again, I enjoyed them all but don't think any stood out as definite winners, but there are still 34 (and a half) that  I haven't read! 

Unofficially someone involved in managing the CKG this year made an educated guess that the longlist might be about 20 books, so here (in alphabetical order) are my personal top 20 so far:
Brooks, Kevin, The Bunker Diary (Puffin Books)
Cooper, Susan, Ghost Hawk (Bodley Head Children's Books)
Cousins, Dave, Waiting for Gonzo (Oxford University Press)
Creech, Sharon, The Great Unexpected (Andersen Press)
Cross, Gillian, After Tomorrow (Oxford University Press)
Diamand, Emil, Ways to See a Ghost (Templar)
Dowswell, Paul, Eleven Eleven (Bloomsbury)
Earle, Phil, Heroic (Puffin Books)
McGowan, Anthony, Brock (Barrington Stoke) 
Mussi, Sarah, Seige (Hodder Children's Books)
Pitcher, Annabelle, Ketchup Clouds (Indigo)
Shearer, Alex, The Cloud Hunters (Hot Key Books)
Stead, Rebecca, Liar and Spy (Andersen Press)
Stiefvater, Maggie, The Raven Boys (Scholastic)
Stroud, Jonathan, Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase (Doubleday Children's Books)
Sutcliffe, William, The Wall (Bloomsbury)
Torday, Piers, The Last Wild (Quercus)
Wein, Elizabeth, Rose Under Fire (Electric Monkey)
Wooding, Chris, Silver (Scholastic) 
Yangsze, Choo, The Ghost Bride (Hot Key Books)
There are a number of other books I've yet to read, of those 34 there are at least a dozen that I would choose to pick up, so it could still change dramatically!

 Have a look at my initial post about the Carnegie nominations to see the whole list...hopefully I do a bit better in these next 4 weeks.

Here we go again...the Carnegie nominations 2014

I can't believe it is this time already, but the nominations were announced today!  I've highlighted those that I've already read:

Almond, David, Mouse Bird Snake Wolf (Walker Books)
Almond, David, The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas (Walker Books)
Barber, Elke, Is Daddy Coming Back in a Minute?: Explaining Sudden Death to Pre-School Children in Words They Can Understand (Elke Barber)
Beasley, Andrew, The Claws of Evil (Usborne Books)
Berry, Julie, All the Truth That's in Me (Templar)
Black, Holly, Doll Bones (Doubleday Children's Books)
Blackman, Malorie, Noble Conflict (Doubleday Children's Books) 
Bowler, Tim, Sea of Whispers (Oxford University Press)
Bradford, Chris, Bodyguard: Hostage (Puffin Books)
Brooks, Kevin, The Bunker Diary (Puffin Books) 
Bryce, Celia, Anthem for Jackson Dawes (Bloomsbury)
Campbell-Johnston, Rachel, The Child's Elephant (David Fickling Books)
Carthew, Natasha, Winter Damage (Bloomsbury)
Colfer, Eoin, The Reluctant Assassin (Puffin Books) 
Cooper, Susan, Ghost Hawk (Bodley Head Children's Books)
Cossanteli, Veronica, The Extincts (Chicken House)
Cousins, Dave, Waiting for Gonzo (Oxford University Press)
Creech, Sharon, The Great Unexpected (Andersen Press)
Crocket, S. D., One Crow Alone (Macmillan Children's Books)
Cross, Gillian, After Tomorrow (Oxford University Press)
Crossan, Sarah, Breathe (Bloomsbury) 
De Quidt, Jeremy, The Feathered Man (David Fickling Books)
Dennis, H.L., The Knights of Neustria (Hodder Children's Books)
Diamand, Emil, Ways to See a Ghost (Templar)
Dickinson, Peter, In the Palace of the Khans (Peter Dickinson Books)
Dockrill, Laura, Darcy Burdock (Corgi Children's Books)
Dowswell, Paul, Eleven Eleven (Bloomsbury)
Drewery, Kerry, A Dream of Lights (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Earle, Phil, Heroic (Puffin Books) 
Fine, Anne, Blood Family (Doubleday Children's Books)
Fisher, Catherine, The Obsidian Mirror (Hodder Children's Books)
Flood, C. J., Infinite Sky (Simon & Schuster Children's Books)
Gibbons, Alan, Raining Fire (Indigo)
Harris, Carol, Adventures of the Chickalloon: A Bird's Eye View of Earth (Pentre Publications)
Jarratt, Laura, By Any Other Name (Electric Monkey) 
Jones, Gareth P., Constable and Toop (Hot Key Books)
Jones, Rob Lloyd, Wild Boy (Walker Books)
Kessler, Liz, North of Nowhere (Orion Children's Books)
Kuehn, Stephanie, Charm and Strange (Electric Monkey)
Kurti, Richard, Monkey Wars (Walker Books)
LaFleur, Suzanne, Listening for Lucca (Puffin Books)
Lake, Nick, Hostage Three (Bloomsbury)
LaBan, Elizabeth, The Tragedy Paper (Doubleday Children's Books)
Mayhew Julie, Red Ink (Hot Key Books)
McCaughrean, Geraldine, The Positively Last Performance (Oxford University Press)
McDowell, Nigel, Tall Tales from Pitch End (Hot Key Books)
McFall, Claire, Ferryman (Templar)
McGowan, Anthony, Brock (Barrington Stoke)
McKay, Hilary, Binny For Short (Hodder Children's Books)
McNeal, Tom, Far Far Away (Jonathan Cape)
Morris, Jackie, East of the Sun, West of the Moon (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)
Mulligan, Andy, The Boy With Two Heads (David Fickling Books)
Murdoch, Emily, If You Find Me (Indigo)
Mussi, Sarah, Seige (Hodder Children's Books)
Pass, Emma, ACID (Corgi Children's Books)
Pitcher, Annabelle, Ketchup Clouds (Indigo)
Pratchett, Terry, Dodger (Doubleday Children's Books)
Prue, Sally, Song Hunter (Oxford University Press)
Robinson, Jon, Nowhere (Puffin Books)
Rundell, Katherine, Rooftoppers (Faber Children's Books)
Said, S. F., Phoenix (David Fickling Books)
Sepetys, Ruta, Out of the Easy (Puffin Books)
Shearer, Alex, The Cloud Hunters (Hot Key Books)
Smale, Holly, Geek Girl (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Stead, Rebecca, Liar and Spy (Andersen Press)
Stiefvater, Maggie, The Raven Boys (Scholastic)
Stroud, Jonathan, Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase (Doubleday Children's Books)
Sutcliffe, William, The Wall (Bloomsbury)
Syson, Lydia, A World Between Us (Hot Key Books)
Torday, Piers, The Last Wild (Quercus)
Watts, Helen, One Day in Oradour (A & C Black)
Wein, Elizabeth, Rose Under Fire (Electric Monkey)
Whyman, Matt, The Savages (Hot Key Books)
Wooding, Chris, Silver (Scholastic)
Yancey, Rick, The 5th Wave (Penguin Books)
Yangsze, Choo, The Ghost Bride (Hot Key Books)

So there are 76 books here, blimey!  I've already read 32 of them, not quite half, so that's my tbr pile out of the window :-)

I haven't read any that I really didn't like, but my top 8 (with the CKG criteria in mind) so far are:

Brooks, Kevin, The Bunker Diary (Puffin Books)

Cross, Gillian, After Tomorrow (Oxford University Press)

Diamand, Emil, Ways to See a Ghost (Templar)

Dowswell, Paul, Eleven Eleven (Bloomsbury)

Shearer, Alex, The Cloud Hunters (Hot Key Books)
Stead, Rebecca, Liar and Spy (Andersen Press)
Sutcliffe, William, The Wall (Bloomsbury)
Torday, Piers, The Last Wild (Quercus)

My favourite to win so far is:

addendum: confusingly, this year for the first time they've announced all the nominations but will make a longlist from them in February from which the shortlist will be chosen...why publish the nominations then?  Who knows...now I can't decide whether to bother reading them all or not

Image and Imagination at the YLG National Conference

Friday and Saturday of last week were the most intense days of my year!  Starting on Friday with a 4.30am alarm it was non-stop until 5.45pm on Saturday (apart from a small gap of about 7hours sleep).

Play by the Book has written a lovely blog post about all the fantastic authors, with some great pictures, so I just thought I'd write a little bit about the library-ish bits which were also fascinating, engaging and enthusing.

At the joint YLG/SLG/SLA conference in June last year I was a bit disappointed by the workshops that I went to, but I'm pleased to say this definitely wasn't the case this year.  I started with a session about ideas for shadowing the CKG awards, beyond reviewing on the shadowing site, during which I picked up some great ideas for planning really fun activities for reading groups that have (possibly a mildly tenuous) link to one of the books, an example from last year was making the kind of sandwiches the Bear in "A Boy and a Bear in a Boat" might have enjoyed.  My second was about graphic novels in the library.  There were no amazing revelations but the Peters book reviews, with notes of any potentially contentious content, were new to me so I look forward to checking them out.  Finally, I attended a session run by the lovely Emily Diamand (I only just realised it isn't 'Diamond'!) about running creative writing groups in libraries which left me really inspired to try something with pupils back at school.

The plenaries were all really interesting although I do sometimes feel that it is a case of "preaching to the converted" and that we really need to find a way to "get out of the echo chamber", but on the other hand it was these sessions that reminded me why I'm passionate about being a school librarian and getting pupils reading for pleasure, and we can use a lot of it as ammunition to defend our cause.  On Friday, Professor Teresa Cremin talked about the study she carried out on behalf of the Carnegie Trust into the CKG awards shadowing process, and gave us the executive summary, and the people behind the The Phoenix Comic gave an impassioned talk about the importance of comics in engaging and developing readers.  Saturday included Ian Dodds teaching us some visual literacy techniques (building on the fascinating history of the art of visual story telling that Professors Martin Salisbury and Morag Styles gave us on Friday) and the managing director of Barrington Stoke talking about reaching dyslexic and reluctant readers.

The more conferences I attend, and the more I veer towards the challenge of encouraging "reading for pleasure" in school, the more I enjoy the exhibition.  Reps from a variety of children's publishers are there, a number of whom I've now met on numerous occasions and who thrust books into my hands, eagerly telling me why I will love them.  A large suitcase is definitely required!

This year, as usual, I was on a book buying ban but was tempted too strongly by Marcus Sedgwick's new book "She is not Invisible" because of the fantastic detail of the number 354...

I spent the night with a friend who lives in Birmingham and then went to have a look at the new Library of Birmingham on Sunday.  It is amazing, a beautiful building and thousands of books, but for me it was an incredible disappointment because of the missed opportunity to engage teenagers.  Their books are right in the middle of the children's library, signposted simply as "fiction" with toddlers colouring at tables right next to them (I imagine it won't be long before a mother complains about her 5yr old picking up one of the "teen graphic novels").  Apparently there is a seating area for them near the music section, but there are no books there and nothing indicating that it is a teen space.

But, all in all a great weekend!

UKLA Book Awards 2014

The UKLA (UK Literacy Association) is unrelated to libraries officially but totally related to my key interest: promoting literacy and reading in schools.  They have an annual book award, with age categories, with a longlist chosen by a panel of teachers from a selection sent to them by UK publishers.  I thought it would be interesting to see how much of an overlap there is between their longlist for 12-16+yrs and the Carnegie longlist this year.  Although the winners are all announced in the summer the UKLA longlists come out a lot earlier than the CKG:

Kite Spirit by Sita Brahmachari - I hadn't heard of this until very recently so I need to seek it out
The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks - love love love this book, but it is the most depressing thing I've read for a long time
Anthem for Jackson Dawes by Celia Bryce - my girls at school keep telling me to read this but I haven't got round to it yet
Waiting For Gonzo by Dave Cousins - better than '15 Days Without a Head', a brilliant story
After Tomorrow by Gillian Cross - the most realistic picture of the future out of all the 'dystopia' I have read, without exception
Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner - just gorgeous, but obviously it has already won the Carnegie as it was actually published in August 2012...not sure how it ended up on this list!
The Disappeared by C.J. Harper - I know nothing of this book, will have to look it up
The Seeing by Diana Hendry - I read it a while ago and can't remember much so maybe it wasn't all that great
Monkey Wars by Richard Kurti - I have a copy of this and keep meaning to read it!
Hostage 3 by Nick Lake - again, I have a copy...
The Positively Last Performance by Geraldine McCaughrean - I don't like McCaughrean's books very much so I try to avoid reading them, unless they end up on the Carnegie longlist, which this inevitably will <sigh> but I'll try to keep an open mind!
Ferryman by Claire McFall - looked at the blurb, sounds intriguing, need to get hold of it
Siege by Sarah Mussi - also already on my tbr pile
Into That Forest by Louis Nowra - I did enjoy it but it felt more like a book for adults, a memoir of childhood
Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher - really very good
Song Hunter by Sally Prue - I've missed this one as well
The Wall by William Sutcliffe - another on the tbr pile, but pretty close to the top!
A World Between Us by Lydia Syson - I did enjoy it, some history and great story, but I don't think it is award winning
Now is the Time for Running by Michael Williams - another new one to me
Silver by Chris Wooding - loved this book, very well crafted

So, I won't challenge myself to finish them all like I do with the Carnegie, too much on my tbr pile already, but we'll wait and see how many match up in a couple of months!

Book Monopoly

I tweeted a photo of my Book Monopoly Board last week and a number of people wanted to know how it works - too much for a tweet!  So here we go:

Towards the end of last term, someone on SLN (School Librarians Network - a yahoo mailing list) mentioned a book monopoly game that they play with their pupils and I thought it sounded like a brilliant idea to try here to get pupils to try different genres.

If you google 'monopoly template' there are lots available, and it is just a case of changing the names of the streets!  I used a 'poster' template on Publisher and so printed it really big for a display in the library and brought a die in to school.  Each label has a picture of one of the traditional Monopoly pieces, but obviously I have more than 6 players!

The rules are very simple: 

Pick a book from the genre of the street you have landed on.

Before your next roll you must pass an AR* quiz on the book,

write a review or draw an illustration

Chance

Mrs Fielding chooses a book for you

Community Chest

Choose a book that another pupil recommends

Free Parking

You choose any book!

Sweet shop

instant sweet and another roll

10 points**

instant 10 points and another roll

25 points for passing ‘Go’!**

On my board I don't have 'jail', I have extra 'free parking'.  

*AR = Accelerated Reader.
** we have a House Point system so all the points go towards rewards.

Some of you will know that my school is being closed down, we only have 125 pupils left, mainly in year 11 (the rest is a small year 9) so I have opened it up to all pupils and was really surprised at how many year 11s wanted to get on there.  I now have about 60 pupils signed up so it is rather crowded along the bottom!

Anyway, that's it, simples!

CILIP Rebranding, my Two Penn'orth

Please note: this is entirely my personal opinion

I've been following the disharmony over the CILIP rebrand since all members were invited to complete a questionnaire which included ranking 6 possible names for the professional body as part of the rebranding.  I didn't like any of the names and, while I don't dispute the need for a rebrand, I question the necessity of changing the name as part of it.

The reason for changing the name seems to be simply that no one knows who CILIP is and it is difficult/boring to explain...that bothers me a lot.  There are so many societies/charities/bodies with initials that need to be explained at first.  I'm sure when the NSPCC first started asking for donations they had to constantly expand "we're the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children" - not a catchy name but encompasses exactly what they do and now everyone recognises it.  The IEEE is probably unknown to most of you but it is the professional body for my husband's line of work - 'The Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers' - but they're not considering changing it just because the layman doesn't recognise it immediately.  So it is a question of whether it is more important to be known by the wider public or to be the respected professional body that, if you look into choosing that certain career, you will discover and value.  I think in CILIP's case it is hard to separate the two ideas because of the vast range of industries or sectors that an 'information professional' might find themselves in, or that someone might drift into without realising that they're doing something that could be under the umbrella of CILIP.

The name does seem to be becoming more widely known, someone commented that the CILIP Carnegie Greenaway Awards were mentioned in the news without an explanation of what CILIP is on the assumption that people know (or don't care I suppose), so capitalise on that instead of starting from scratch.  If people who work for CILIP are constantly having to explain what it is, to rolled eyeballs and boredom, that won't change with a snazzy new name. It will still require explanation, and the second you use the word 'library' or 'librarian' or 'Information Professional' they will look just as glazed as ever. What might change it is a better strapline, smarter logo, wider outreach and publicity and a firm idea of exactly what CILIP's purpose is. It isn't a union for library staff, although it should support it's members interests, but a source of professional development, support, and understanding as well as the mouth piece for the profession.

One thing I saw on twitter, that prompted me to write something, was the statement, quoted by someone listening to speakers at the emergency general meeting, "'Librarian' is known and understood: 'information professional' could be an IT worker".  This made me laugh, because people might assume they know what a Librarian does but I think our working lives are generally pretty different to the stereotype of a librarian 'shh'ing patrons and sitting at a desk reading a book!  But that is why I think CILIP is a good name for the body, Library and Information Professionals, because we don't all work in a physical library and we're not all called Librarians.  If it is doing it's job right then less people will slowly side-step away from us at parties and might actually be interested in what we do.

So that is why I think rebranding is important - and to be fair this is probably the cheapest rebrand since the concept of 'rebranding' began - but please don't change the name.  I for one am quite happy explaining what CILIP is but would be very embarrassed to be known as one of 'The Knowledge People'.

Improving Reading, Toe by Toe

I have completely neglected the blog since March, didn't even post my excitement about the announcement that Maggot Moon, one of my favourites of last year, won the Carnegie!  But OfSTED have been and gone (we're a 'good' school and they were particularly impressed with our improvements in literacy, hooray!), the KS3 and 4 exams have ended, it is nearly time for me to give reading prizes to the pupils and so I find myself with a bit of extra time.  Just a quick post today to draw your attention to the article I wrote for Information Europe Today a few weeks ago about the reading sessions I've had with some Year 10 boys this year and the fantastic books we've used (in particular a shout out to Barrington Stoke)

Improving reading, Toe by Toe

Unfortunately the photo is not of my library and I do not have a big cuddly bear, although it does make me tempted to bring one in!