Teen Librarian Monthly article

Just a quick note to point you to April's Teen Librarian Monthly because I wrote an article for it about how the Department 19 by Will Hill inspired some of my pupils!

Reading Role Models

A belated Happy World Book Night for Monday! On the day, I had 10 minutes to speak in a full staff meeting at school about ‘How to get the most out of the Information Centre’ and I thought I’d share some of what I said.

I started by explaining why I wanted to speak in a staff meeting: to remind them that there is something for everyone, whatever their department. I went on to highlight the aspects of the new OFSTED framework that put a lot of weight on cross-curricula literacy…I talked briefly about finding things themselves in the library, including me in their planning so that I can suggest useful resources, and referenced the DEMOS Truth, Lies and the Internet report and how I can help with evaluating and referencing sources.

The spiel for the final two slides are what I want to share with you, because I think they are crucial:

There are two sides to my role that are equally important. One is supporting the academic life of the school and the other is developing the pupils’ relationship with books and instilling a love of reading. You know that the latter is my favourite part, but as hard as I try it cannot be a one woman battle. The library should not be the only place the pupils see reading.

The OECD, produces league tables of developed countries for all sorts of statistics, including the percentage of 15 year olds that say they regularly read for pleasure. The United Kingdom has been dropping down in the ranking for years, and countries we would think far less developed, such as Hungary and Lithuania are far ahead of us. Many studies have shown that readers do better in life, regardless of their socio-economic background, so everyone that has any influence on children’s lives needs to make a massive effort to encourage reading…

Sometimes children will suddenly take to reading, something sparks an interest and then they’re hooked. Those of you that teach [name] will have noticed last term that it was difficult to get his nose out of a book, in 3 months he read 23 books despite him having borrowed nothing in the entire year and a term previously. All because one book I gave to him in December caught his imagination.

They can’t do it on their own. A lucky few will just naturally have the reading bug but most of them need a gentle shove in the right direction. That’s why it is so important that they see the adults they know as reading role models. There will be relatives that make an effort to do this but for a lot of our pupils you are their best chance. Miss [name] frequently has to renew books I’ve lent her because when she’s shown them to a pupil that child just has to read it immediately – these are children that rarely choose to read getting hooked in because someone they respect is raving about the book.

I finished by explaining about World Book Night and sharing books, and everyone left the meeting inspired and raring to read...well, some of them :-)

Greenaway shadowing

I don't have a Carnegie shadowing group at school, the library is too busy for me to be able to concentrate on a reading group after school so I just make do with informally saying to regulars 'read this, it is amazing and it has been shortlisted for the Carnegie', followed with an explanation as to why that is important.  What I am doing, for the 3rd year now, is shadowing the Kate Greenaway award with a group of Year 7s in their weekly lesson.  Today I told them about the award and showed them some previous winners, then introduced them to the books by making them "Judge a book by it's cover".  Obviously they can't be trusted to just look at the covers and not open the books, so I wrapped them in cling film first and gave them about a minute per book to rate them out of 5.

While I totted up their scores they had a browse of the previous winners and shortlists to see what kind of thing appeals to the Greenaway judges, and then I announced our favourites so far.  Next lesson we will only look at the 4 they liked the least based on the cover, those were 'Solomon Crocodile', 'Wolf Won't Bite', 'Puffin Peter' and 'The Gift'.    We'll discuss the criteria for the award and actually open the books this time, ooo, and get to know them a bit better.

The winner will be announced in about 9 weeks, we won't have 9 lessons looking at the books as there are other things to do as well, but I'm planning a few more sessions for us to whittle the shortlist down to our favourite.

I was surprised to see that the overwhelming favourite so far is 'Can we Save the Tiger?', I'll be interested to see how much opinions change when they see what's inside them all!

The Official CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards shortlists!

The wait is over and today we know what the judges have chosen as their shortlists from the 100-odd books nominated across the two awards.  Remember, the only nomination criteria were that it had to be written for children or teenagers and have been published in the UK between 1^st September 2010 (seems a long time ago!) and 31^st August 2011 (without having been published more than 3months earlier in another country).

The titles they chose for Carnegie, meaning they think they are “outstanding literature for children and young people” are:

The Midnight Zoo by Sonia Hartnett

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Septys

Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans

Everybody Jam by Ali Lewis

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

My Name is Mina by David Almond

Trash by Andy Mulligan

Eight titles this year so I could have chosen two more for my short list!  As you will remember from my previous posts relating to the Carnegie, I loved four of these, with two making it onto my short list.  I posted in November, February and earlier this month.  I didn’t like the other four, though I can understand why people did, but I am surprised that the judges thought they were better than any of the other titles on the list!

A nice variety, they’re all very readable and not too worthy or difficult for your average school child to read, probably the most accessible short list there has been for a long while and I think less for your average School Librarian to criticize.  There are always complaints about the Carnegie short list being full of books that are too difficult but all of these titles are age appropriate for KS3 reading groups.

My prediction for the final winner:

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

I read a proof copy before it was published and at the next YLG London meeting said there’s no point reading any more books because this is the next Carnegie winner!  It is such a beautiful, sad story.  Second choice would be The Midnight Zoo.

The short list for the Greenaway Award for outstanding illustration is:

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, illustrated by Jim Kay

Wolf Won’t Bite by Emily Gravett

Puffin Peter by Petr Horacek

Slog’s Dad by David Almond, illustrated by David McKean

Solomon Crocodile by Catherine Rayner

The Gift by Carol Anne Duffy, illustrated by Rob Ryan

There are no Cats in this Book by Viviane Schwarz

Can we save the Tiger? By Martin Jenkins, illustrated by Vicky White

I’ll be shadowing the Greenaway with a group of Year 7s at school so I’ll let you know what we think!

My personal Carnegie shortlist

I have finally got to the end of the 52-book long long-list for this year's Carnegie!  I shall tell you which I think should be the final 6, and which I think might actually be on the short list, but first a brief look at the ones I've read since my last related post.  Again, red means I liked it and green means it didn't live up to expectations :-)

Deary, Terry Put Out The Light

Diterlizzi, Tony The Search for Wondla

Doherty, Berlie Treason

Halahmy, Miriam Hidden

LaFleur, Suzanne Eight Keys

Mason, Simon Moon Pie

McCaughrean, Geraldine Pull out all the Stops

McKay, Hilary Caddy's World

Mitchelhill, Barbara Run Rabbit Run

Morpurgo, Michael Shadow

Priestley, Chris The Dead of Winter

Revis, Beth Across the Universe

Saunders, Kate Magicalamity

Stephens, John The Emerald Atlas

I'm afraid I don't have time to explain those opinions today, have a look at my twitter feed (@cazapr1) for my mini-reviews of them all.

Such a huge variety of books, some of which I would not have picked up if they weren't on the list and so some nice discoveries, as well as the occasional disappointment.  But without further ado, my personal short list is...

Blackman, Malorie Boys Don't Cry

Dogar, Sharon Annexed

Gibbons, Alan An Act of Love

Hardinge, Frances Twilight Robbery

Hartnett, Sonya The Midnight Zoo

Ness, Patrick A Monster Calls

with special mention for Earle, Phil Being Billy, Pitcher, Annabel My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece and Young,

Moira Blood Red Road.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Almond, David My Name is Mina, Peet, Mal Life : an Exploded Diagram, or Rosoff, Meg There is no Dog on the real list because, among a couple of the other names on the long list, they're high-hitting literary types even if I didn't enjoy the stories much.

Next week we'll find out whether I have good taste or not!

World Book Day

I work in a secondary school so World Book Day is a little more low-key than I imagine it is in primary schools - I love the idea of dressing like book characters and doing book related things all day but I can't take pupils off timetable very often and without an excellent reason and I'm not sure that my cool teens would be prepared to dress up!  So I try to do something that doesn't take too much preparation, doesn't disturb teaching at all, and is good fun.  I tend to have a week of little things happening e.g. a pairs competition (find and match up the pairs around the library - different ones each day), or sevens (find seven words/names and tell me the link), quizzes, text tales (write a story in 140 characters)...this year was the simplest yet, but in some ways the most effective.  

I was allowed to take the year 7s off timetable to meet an author on the Monday, Sam Gayton, to talk about his book The Snow Merchant.  They really enjoyed listening to Sam read some of the story and got really involved when he discussed the process of illustrating his characters (the pictures in the book are lovely).  He also treated us to a sneak preview of his new book, a sequel to Gulliver's Travels!

Then a small challenge in the library: each break something new on the whiteboard for the kids to write their responses to:

I also had "worst book I've read" but most pupils put down books they've read in English - a good demonstration of why I didn't choose to do English beyond G.C.S.E. - so I didn't take a photo!  My final one, lunch break on Friday, was "my favourite book" but a teacher rubbed it off while I went to have my lunch before coming back with my camera :-(  We had a great time discussing their answers, I gave a raffle ticket to each pupil that put an answer, except to one of my favourite Year11s who insisted on putting 'OCR science revision guide' as his answer to every question, except for the 'best boyfriend' one for which he put himself :-)

I always like to do something that can get the whole school involved on the day itself.  In previous years I've asked for staff to volunteer to wear a badge so that the pupils have to find them and discover the links (e.g. character & their book, job and book title), created a form that the kids have to fill out during the day, and then had prizes for the completed entries handed in.  This year I made it as easy as was humanly possible - I put a sticky label in the pigeon holes of every member of staff on wednesday afternoon and sent them an email saying they need to write their favourite childhood book on it and wear it all day thursday.  On thursday morning I gave the kids that were in the library a form with 2 columns - staff name and book title - and told them to harrass any staff they saw without a label...word spread, lots more forms were collected from me throughout the day.   All except 2 teachers took part and some of them pupils had nearly 70 staff members written on their pages!  I gave raffle tickets out - the more answers the more tickets - and at the end of the day I had a queue of about 1/4 of the pupils in the school with pages of responses.  It took me 40minutes to get through them all and, including those for the whiteboard questions, I gave out over 800 raffle tickets!  All I had for prizes were small chocolates, some boxes of maltesers and half a dozen books, but still, they love winning anything...it doesn't have to cost a lot of money or take a huge amount of time to get everyone involved and recognising the Library

CKG Longlist update

I think it is about time I updated my 'read' list of the Carnegie longlist - you may remember that way back in November I told you all about the list and which ones I'd read already.  Have a look at that one to refresh your memory because here are those I've read in the last (nearly) 3 months...as with the last post, red means I loved it and green means it wasn't all that. Reverse traffic lights, sorry, but I like red!

Bowler, Tim Buried Thunder - I don't think it could end up on the shortlist, but pretty gripping

Bruton, Catherine We Can Be Heroes - I found it very uncomfortable reading, too much of the racisism and not enough of the balanced opinion in the bulk of the story
Crossley-Holland, Kevin Bracelet of Bones - might be well written but I found it really dull

Donnelly, Jennifer Revolution - very exciting and not what I expected at all
Evans, Lissa Small Change for Stuart - meh
Fine, Anne The Devil Walks - didn't ring true, far too easily resolved, definitely not one of her best
Forward, Toby Dragonborn - far too long
Gibbons, Alan An Act of Love - what 'We Can be Heroes' failed to be!
Grant, Helen Wish Me Dead - nowhere near as good as 'The Glass Demon' so very disappointing
Hardinge, Frances Twilight Robbery  - absolutely my favourite book on the list so far
Hartnett, Sonya The Midnight Zoo - really moving wartime story
Ibbotson, Eva One Dog and His Boy - cute and innocent, classic children's adventure story
Lewis, Ali Everybody Jam - didn't grip me at all
Lewis, Gill Sky Hawk - tonnes better than I expected, never would have picked it up if it wasn't for the CKG nomination, but better than your average animal story
Rooney, Rachel The Language of Cat - collection of poems - very clever and witty, reminded me of Roger McGough's poetry (An Imaginary Menagerie is my all time favourite book of poetry, I never really progressed with age!)
Young, Moira Blood Red Road - one of the better of the recent plethora of dystopian fiction, definitely for fans of the Hunger Games

Here are the last of the 52 that I haven't tried yet:

Deary, Terry Put Out The Light
Diterlizzi, Tony The Search for Wondla
Doherty, Berlie Treason
Halahmy, Miriam Hidden
LaFleur, Suzanne Eight Keys
Mason, Simon Moon Pie
McCaughrean, Geraldine Pull out all the Stops
McKay, Hilary Caddy's World
Mitchelhill, Barbara Run Rabbit Run
Morpurgo, Michael Shadow
Priestley, Chris The Dead of Winter
Revis, Beth Across the Universe
Saunders, Kate Magicalamity
Stephens, John The Emerald Atlas

Not because I don't like the look of them, they've just not yet reached the top of my heap!  The shortlist is going to be announced on March 30th, so my next Carnegie post will be my personal shortlist, just before the official one comes out, so we can see how much overlap there is!