CC-licensed image by Flickr user schoeband

My 12-year-old son has spent this week getting ready for midterms. He’s working hard even though he knows, far better than I do, exactly what their weighted contributions to his final grades will be. He can name the percentage allotted to every single quiz, test, assignment, and extra-credit opportunity in all of his classes. And he claims that all he cares about is doing well enough to make the honor roll—no more, no less.

My eight-year-old, though, is taking piano lessons, and his teacher gave him the simple theme from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to practice, which gave me a reason to sit, transfixed, in front of an iPod and listen to the entire score. What I heard gave me the one good answer I can offer my sons for why grades really are not the point of education.

Give yourself a treat; go listen to the Ninth. You can’t help hearing how Beethoven plays with you—the music driving ahead with a martial air, you can almost sense the fife and drum of the people marching; now expectant as dusk; now soaring, reaching to and beyond the breaking point up toward sky, toward transcendence, toward Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” sung in the final movement:

Can you sense the Creator, world?
Seek him above the starry canopy.
Above the stars He must dwell.

Be embraced, Millions!
This kiss for all the world!
Brothers!, above the starry canopy
A loving father must dwell.

Can you sense the Creator, world?
Seek him above the starry canopy.
Above the stars He must dwell.

Joy, daughter of Elysium
Thy magic reunites those
Whom stern custom has parted;
All men will become brothers
Under thy gentle wing.

You usually hear the chorus sung in German, but I have recording of just the chorus in which Paul Robeson sings in English (slightly shifted to the political left, so it’s not about a Creator but rather the people united, “All for one and one for all”). When the chorus swells, it’s Robeson’s earth-rattling voice that I hear in my mind.

Beethoven masterfully braids together themes and melodies, so that you’re taken on an ever-winding journey upward. Robeson’s voice tells me the same story: everything is about creation. We put our children through their paces in school not so that they will learn something, or master something, or meet any standards. No. We give them tools so that they can experience the joy, the passion, of creating. All we are doing is saying, “Here, if you know this, there is more you can make; there is another path you can map; there is another song you can compose.” School—from pre-K to postdoc programs—exists so that we can all build more from within ourselves and with our colleagues.

Young people need training, so that they can become builders. In my Beethoven-induced reverie, I was thrilled to see this headline in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune: “Walnut High students build worlds in new academic program”. The article is about a school in California where 75 tenth graders have volunteered to work with three teachers, three periods each morning, to create a society from the ground up. As social studies teacher Justin Panlilio told a Tribune reporter, “Right now, the students are designing a world we call Atlantis. They have to build the government, cultural and economic structures that bind a society together.” Creation—that’s where school leads, not rote and grade percentiles.

My 12-year-old doesn’t have the patience to sit through an entire symphony. The soundtrack of his life is more immediate. But even as he put down one set of study guides and picked up another, he saw me beaming as I listened to the music. Perhaps there was a halftone of pity in his expression: poor old dad just didn’t understand what school life is really like. But I also caught a second of wonder. “Maybe, yes, maybe,” his eyes seemed to say, “there is a wild ocean ahead for me, not just these endless streams to cross.”

As you probably know, John Green is the author of Looking for Alaska (Dutton, 2005), An Abundance of Katherines (Dutton, 2006), Paper Towns (Dutton, 2008), and this year’s Odyssey award winner, The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton, 2012), four titles sure to appeal to even your most reluctant readers. Dedicate 18 minutes of your life to watching his TED Talk entitled The Paper Town Academy. In this talk, he delivers the best response I’ve ever heard to the question, “Will this be on the test?” It’s worth printing out and putting on the walls of classrooms everywhere:

“Yeah, about the test… The test will measure whether you are an informed, engaged, and productive citizen of the world, and it will take place in schools and bars and hospitals and dorm rooms and in places of worship.You will be tested on first dates, in job interviews, while watching football, and while scrolling through your Twitter feed.The test will judge your ability to think about things other than celebrity marriages, whether you’ll be easily persuaded by empty political rhetoric, and whether you’ll be able to place your life and your community in a broader context.The test will last your entire life, and it will be comprised of the millions of decisions that, when taken together, will make your life yours.And everything, everything, will be on it…. I know, right?”

Hank Green co-founded DFTBA Records, a distribution network to help talented musicians find audiences. His own musical talents are evident in the song “This is Not Harry Potter.” The lyrics, all by themselves, are positively brilliant:

“And in the darkest hours, of my darkest nights

I found myself curled up with twilight

And I couldn’t help but wonder as I ravenously read

Can you avada kedavra the undead

’cause Edward Cullen totally has it comin’

and if he saw Voldemort he’d better start runnin’

Cause there’s not much that the dark lord and I

could agree on but I think that we would both hate that guy.”

I am eternally grateful to Hank for producing The Lizzie Bennett Diaries, a modern twist on Jane Austen’s story. My husband has tried reading Pride and Prejudice, really he has, and has valiantly stayed awake for portions of various movie adaptations of the book, but it wasn’t until Hank’s vlog version that the characters and plot became interesting to him.

Individually, the brothers are talented and creatively prolific. Taken together, they are forces for good on our planet. For the last year, Hank and John have been teaching classes via YouTube. Hank Green earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Eckerd College and a master’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Montana. John Green graduated from Kenyon College in 2000 with a double major in English and religious studies. They both have the educational credentials for their YouTube tutorials in which Hank teaches biology and ecology, and John teaches world history and literature. The buzz phrase in education right now is “student engagement,” and you’ll certainly feel that when you view these incredible videos (CrashCourse and SciShow), which are gateways to engagement: funny, entertaining, and informative.

The brothers Green clearly love learning, reading, and exploring the world we all share.They proudly embrace the word “nerd” and they make learning cool, and all of our students will be stronger, wiser, and kinder having made their acquaintance.

For more on the Green brothers, see SLJ’s coverage of An Evening of Awesome, featuring Hank and John at Carnegie Hall.

For our part, we saw a disconnect when SLJ’s public library spending survey revealed that a mere nine percent of public librarians actively collaborate with their peers in K–12. After we published the results in “It Takes Two” (May 2012, pp. 26–29), we learned about many partnerships, and we also heard from many from both school and public librarians who seemed burned out by failed outreach attempts.

Yoder and Lowry may be a rare breed, but, as is abundantly clear in our cover story, “Partners in Success” (pp. 22–28), they’re not alone. Many like-minded librarians are reaching across institutional walls and redefining their turf—and their institutions are changing, too. Considering the yawning gap between what kids need from libraries and the resources currently available to them, innovation in this area is urgent.

At first, I was inspired by the spark between two professionals that ignites a new partnership. I still am. This kind of grassroots initiative is grounded in knowing the kids, and, when it works, helps build the case for more. Now, however, I’m even more convinced that our institutions need to act with the same responsiveness and creativity.

We need more of what’s happening in Nashville. Talking with Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools’ Kathryn Bennett brought this home. I met Bennett, a library lead teacher, at Library Journal’s December 14 Design Institute at the wonderful Warrensville Heights Branch of the Cuyahoga County (OH) Public Library. It was great to see her at this public library event—after all, there’s plenty of insight into learning spaces in any good library.

Naturally, we fell into talking about Nashville’s Limitless Libraries initiative. Bennett is a big fan of the project, which, she says, wouldn’t be nearly what it is without the “Memorandum of Understanding” between the school and Nashville Public Library (NPL).

As NPL’s Tricia Racke Bengel details in her overview of how Limitless Libraries came to be, the memorandum enables the library to use information about students, with parental permission, so their student IDs serve as library cards, streamlining access to the collections. Racke Bengel, who was named a 2012 LJ Mover & Shaker for this work, describes a process that was certainly disruptive. The project keeps expanding as it enriches the lives of Nashville’s kids.

After reading cover story writer Marta Murvosh’s exploration of the state of public and/school library collaborations, I’m even more convinced of the need for us be actively reimagine how we serve our kids. And we must break down the silos that stymie that work.

Toward that end, SLJ will be giving more attention to collaboration in 2013 in an effort to forge a model to help us join together to approach challenges as a greater community. We’ll focus on these partnerships as part of the first SLJ Public Library Leadership Think Tank, currently in planning for April 5 in New York City. The daylong event aims to provide a public library companion to SLJ’s dynamic Leadership Summit, aimed at tackling school library issues. My hope is that the two events will, in a sense, ping pong off of one another to foster deeper dialog on the commonalities shared by all librarians serving kids. Collaboration will also be a theme in the upcoming Be the Change webcast series, which we bet will be the start of a robust leadership initiative.

Let’s change the world together. Happy New Year!

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

Marcus Lowry, teen librarian, Ramsey County (MN) Library and
Leslie Yoder, digital literacy and learning specialist, St. Paul Public Schools.
Photograph by Thomas Strand.

Last spring, when school librarian Leslie Yoder heard that young adult author Francisco X. Stork was available to visit Boys Totem Town, a residential program for incarcerated teens in St. Paul, MN, she pounced on the opportunity. Although Yoder lacked the necessary funds, she instantly knew who to turn to—her partners at Ramsey County Library.

For the last two years, Yoder, a digital literacy and learning specialist with St. Paul’s public schools, has teamed up with Ramsey’s teen librarians—and the outcome has been a win-win for both the librarians and the kids whom they serve.

Thanks to Ramsey teen librarian Marcus Lowry, who found the funds for Stork’s visit, the acclaimed writer spoke at a local high school and to dozens of Yoder’s enthusiastic students about his novel Behind the Eyes (Dutton, 2006), which deals with a reform school. “Our students don’t get to meet the people who write the books,” says Yoder.

When Lowry and fellow young adult librarian Amy Boese visit Boys Totem Town, they are weighed down with bags of books and eager to do what they do best—booktalking and spearheading a weeklong technology workshop. “It’s really energizing for us to go there,” says Boese, who also works with three other school districts. “They are always superpolite and have good questions.”

Although the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the American Library Association’s (ALA) Public Library Data Service Statistical Report don’t keep track of the number of joint-library projects, Yoder, Lowry, and Boese are among a small group of school and public librarians nationwide who regularly work together. Like many rewarding collaborative projects, theirs usually begin with a modest idea, in this case, offering booktalks to kids in a correctional facility. But behind every successful school and public library partnership, explains Lowry, there’s also a strong personal connection and a shared vision. “It almost always has to start with one personal connection,” he says. “It’s the one person that sees that mutual value—that we serve the same kids.”

Teaming up in Minnesota: Aaron Blechert, a media specialist at Irondale
High School, and Amy Boese, a teen librarian at Ramsey County Library,
with students in the school library.
Photograph by Thomas Strand.

It’s also sound fiscal sense for school and public libraries to pool their limited resources, says Jeffrey Roth, the New York Public Library’s vice president of strategy and finance. “We’re in an era that institutions need to look and see who they can partner with and strategically use each other’s assets,” he says.

That’s a strategy that the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) and Nashville Public Library (NPL) have worked to perfection. Although sharing public library collections with public schools is fairly unusual, that didn’t stop these two creative partners from thinking outside the box. During the 2011–2012 academic year, when Nashville’s budget-strapped schools were hurting for resources, the public library reached out a helping hand and loaned the city’s 54 middle schools and high schools 97,000 items—everything from books and DVDs to CDs and Playaways to entice reluctant readers and struggling English-language learners.

As a result of the impressive partnership, which is called Limitless Libraries, Stephanie Ham, NPL’s project coordinator, says the public library’s circulation stats have soared by an unprecedented 60 percent. And on the school side, MNPS’s lead librarian, Kathleen Bennett, couldn’t be more pleased. “This model is just fantastic and the benefits are great,” says Bennett. “What the kids get is wonderful open access to lots of resources.” (For more on Nashville’s Limitless Libraries, click on this link.)

The relationship between schools and public librarians is a critical one. Even before the recent recession, few school libraries could match the buying power of a large branch or a mid-size public library system. And during these troubled economic times, school librarians and their budgets are often among the first items scratched from public school budgets. That’s a compelling reason why Wisconsin’s School District of La Crosse and the La Crosse Public Library are exploring the possibility of sharing school and public library databases. “From a fiscal perspective, we’re starting to balance our resources so we are not duplicating online services,” says Vicki Lyons, the district’s director of technology and library services.

Still, successful school and public library partnerships can be a tough act to pull off, say many librarians and educators. Some of the typical roadblocks include a lack of time, vision, or resources; difficult personalities to deal with; and a scarcity of support from higher-ups. That may explain why less than one-third of school and public libraries coordinate book and other material purchases, according to School Library Journal’s first public library spending survey (see “It Takes Two,” May 2012, ow.ly/gekWY). When it comes to homework assignments, only nine percent of public libraries work directly with schools.

The emphasis on standardized testing can also be a barrier to working together, especially when kids are pulled out of the classroom to visit a public library. If the benefits of a joint effort aren’t obvious, says Rachelle Nocito, a content specialist for the School District of Philadelphia, many teachers and principals begin to worry that these activities will negatively impact test scores. “School districts are judged on our students’ achievement,” explains Nocito, whose district is piloting a program with the Free Library of Philadelphia. “It’s really important that when we step out of our building to do anything, its purpose definitely aligns with the reading program and social studies curriculum or science curriculum.”

But that doesn’t mean that school and public libraries should hesitate to work together. Susan Ballard, president of the American Association of School Librarians, a division of ALA, encourages school and public librarians to reach out to one another and other community groups. “No one can do anything on their own anymore; it’s simply not possible,” Ballard says.

At the moment, ALA’s Interdivisional Committee on School/Public Library Cooperation is working on ways to bring media centers and public libraries together on issues such as preventing “summer slide”—when kids lose many of the reading gains made during the school year—and implementing the Common Core standards. “If you’re not collaborating, why aren’t you collaborating?” Ballard asks. “The end result improves services for kids and makes them better researchers and lifelong learners.”

Students, of course, aren’t the only ones who benefit from a collaborative program. “Great partnerships let you reach out dynamically and work with a wide variety of partners within the school and public library,” says Marge Loch-Wouters, coordinator of youth services at La Crosse Public Library. She should know. Loch-Wouters has been building partnerships with local Wisconsin schools for more than two decades. “Great partnerships don’t put you in a box,” she says.

Buffy Hamilton doesn’t need to be convinced that joint-library ventures make a world of difference. Hamilton is so bullish on them that she recently left her post at Creekview High School, in Canton, GA, where she ran an award-winning library program, and joined the Cleveland Public Library’s (CPL) staff. School and public libraries “have much more in common with their visions and goals than we might initially think,” says Hamilton, who will be CPL’s liaison with Cleveland’s public schools. “We’re working on these parallel paths, and we can find a way to interact and pool our collective resources and talents to accomplish those goals.”

The following collaborative projects are a sampling of what’s happening around the country. Each of these dynamic programs has its own distinct approach, but they all have one thing in common: they’re making a genuine difference in kids’ lives and in the communities that they serve.

Denver, CO

In 2006, when residents of the Mile High City voted to raise the sales tax to support full-day kindergarten and early childhood education, the Denver Public Library (DPL) and the Denver Public Schools (DPS) knew it was the perfect time to extend their partnership, which, at the time, primarily placed library volunteers in the classroom to read to kids. With the help of a two-year, $476,000 Library Services and Technology Act grant, the two organizations banded together, in 2007, to teach children’s librarians, media specialists, and teachers about the latest advances in early childhood education. Children’s librarians who specialized in infant and toddler brain development shared their knowledge with teachers, and educators, in turn, brought public librarians up-to-date on the workings of the adolescent brain. “It was a new way to collaborate,” says David Sanger, DPS’s director of library services. “We formed professional learning communities, and those have still continued.”

Although the grant ended in 2009, the partnership is still going strong. These days DPL, DPS, and local nonprofit groups and agencies, such as Head Start, are working together on a number of projects for children from poor families. School and public librarians are also sharing their respective approaches to improving literacy and serving the city’s many English-language learners, who make up 34 percent of Denver’s K–12 students. Both groups are also discussing how best to share their resources, including, says Sanger, how to get their catalog databases to “talk to each other.”

Their efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. Denver’s 5 By 5 Project, which was created to support early childhood development, was inspired by these school and library partnerships, says Carol Edwards, DPL’s comanager of children’s and family services. The nonprofit organization, whose goal is to make sure that young kids have at least five cultural experiences by the time they start kindergarten, provides free admission to the city’s top cultural venues, such as the Denver Botanical Gardens and the Colorado Ballet, to nearly 3,000 Head Start and Early Head Start families. Plus, the library also offers free after-school camps for children of families in need. “It’s something that wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been talking to each other,” says Edwards.

This month, DPL joined communities, such as Louisville and Boston, where one card serves as a student’s ID and library card. My Denver Card will also give kids free access to city parks and recreation services, and there are plans to expand its benefits to include the city’s transit system, says Jennifer Hoffman, manager of DPL’s books and borrowing. Hoffman says she anticipates issuing 30,000 cards. “We’re just trying to make it easy for a student to access us,” she says.

Portland, OR

To reach out to parents and students in east Portland, Multnomah County Library’s (MCL) Midland branch staff worked with educators at the Fir Ridge Campus (FRC), the David Douglas School District’s alternative high school. Their mission? To find teens who were eager to become library tour guides.

But these tours aren’t your average orientation sessions—especially when they’re conducted in Russian, Vietnamese, and Mandarin, the languages spoken in many of the young volunteers’ homes and neighborhoods. The aim of this innovative school-library project, says FRC’s librarian Deb Wheelbarger, is to attract parents who live in east Portland’s diverse and poor neighborhoods to bring their kids to the library and introduce them to its resources.

Student-guided tours are just one way that MCL has teamed up with its five area school districts. Another outreach program, Multnomah’s School Corps (staffed by Jackie Partch, Kate Houston, Peter Ford, and Gesse Stark, all of whom have MLIS degrees), offers local teachers curriculum support, which includes issuing them special library cards (so they can check out more books for longer periods of time), school visits to talk about research skills and library services, and “Buckets of Books,” which, as its name suggests, come brimming with books on commonly taught subjects, such as Oregon history, Pacific Northwest Native Americans, and insects and spiders, says Suzanne Myers Harold, MCL’s adult literacy coordinator. The library also brings visiting authors to local schools and works hard to bring students from the county’s high-poverty areas to theater productions and special events, including an awe-inspiring visit with the Portland Trailblazers, the city’s National Basketball Association team. “Through this collaboration with Multnomah County Library, we’re able to speak for them, and they for us,” says Wheelbarger. “I love the Multnomah County Library. It’s one of the most accessible libraries in the country.”

New York, NY

When the New York City Department of Education (NYDOE) realized there was a great way to work together with the New York Public Library (NYPL), Queens Library, and Brooklyn Public Library to get more learning resources into teachers’ and students’ hands, it couldn’t wait to get started—and MyLibraryNYC was soon launched.

Funded by a $5 million grant from Citigroup, the four-year pilot program, which gives students and teachers access to literally millions of additional materials, lets kids search their school and public libraries’ catalogs simultaneously from any computer that has Internet access. From the very start, the program, which began in 2011 with 84 schools and 50 NYPL branches, opted to take a potentially risky tact: to encourage kids to take advantage of their libraries, students would not be fined if they failed to return materials on time.

A recipe for disaster? Not at all, says NYPL’s Roth. In fact, almost 100 percent of the borrowed items have found their way back onto the library’s shelves. Best of all, students are scooping up more books. “The kids in the pilot were three times more likely to have a book checked out from their local library, and school library circulation essentially doubled,” says Roth. “The New York Public Library and the Department of Education already had a great relationship, but this has taken it to another level.”

Now in its second year, MyLibraryNYC reaches 250,000 students in 400 public schools, offering them access to 17 million books, videos, and recordings. And by 2015, the program hopes to include all 1.1 million of the city’s public school students, says Richard Hasenyager, NYDOE’s director of library services.

As part of the pilot program, NYPL will deliver books and other materials that meet the Common Core State Standards to participating schools. Groundwork is also being laid in all three public library systems to work more closely with school librarians and curriculum specialists so that their collections will support the state’s Common Core Standards.

NYPL estimates that MyLibraryNYC will cost $6 per student annually in direct and indirect costs, which include shipping the materials to schools and library branches. The public library systems pay for shipping and staff training, and the every school pays the roughly $800 annual fee charged by library resource vendor Follett for its Destiny catalog and BiblioCommons, which developed the catalog’s software and online interface. (Follett is giving those school libraries a $150 discount on Destiny.) School libraries that haven’t joined the pilot will pay $650, says Leanne Ellis, NYDOE’s coordinator of library services.

This year, the pilot added the Queens and Brooklyn public libraries and expanded to 207 school libraries that now serve 296 schools, says NYDOE. Although schools have to foot part of the bill, when you stop to consider what kids are getting in return—access to “the greatest books ever written by man,” says NYPL’s Roth—it’s a real deal.

Queens Library sees MyLibraryNYC as a launching pad to expand its librarians’ ongoing work with schools in the borough. “What can be done to help the kids, to support the teachers, to ensure kids have a strong start in reading and literacy and a place to go and their parents, too?” asks Bridget Quinn-Carey, the library’s chief operating officer. “Those are the wonderful things that libraries can do.”

Monterey High’s freshmen take advantage of computers in the Monterey Public Library teen zone as part of a joint venture between the school and library.
Photo courtesy of Monterey Public Library and Monterey High School.

Monterey, CA

To help its incoming freshman beef up their critical thinking skills and boost their tech know-how, the Monterey High School (MHS) turned to a familiar partner, the Monterey Public Library. The two teamed up to create a class called 21st Century Learning Skills. Aaron Sanders, the MHS history teacher who helped kick-start it, and Ben Gomberg, a librarian formerly with the Monterey Public Library, worked together to create the course’s project-oriented assignments, which have included creating websites that explore the coastal town’s history and comparing employment information that kids found on Craigslist with data provided by the U.S. Department of Labor. Supported by a $5,300 IMLS grant, their aim was to give 130 to 150 freshmen (out of a class of 1,100) the skills they needed to succeed in school and in life, says Sanders.

As part of the class, students made four separate visits to the public library (located just a block away), and Gomberg, in turn, made the same number of classroom visits, offering presentations on topics such as copyright and privacy, evaluating websites, and using library resources to prepare for college and careers.

How’s the new course working out? According to MHS’s principal, Marcie Plummer, students who took the class had fewer D’s and F’s, absences, and discipline issues than their nonparticipating peers. Roughly half of the kids in the class reported using the public library in their free time and about a third of them also used it to do schoolwork from other classes, says Gomberg.

Students in the pilot program have also learned how to be advocates for their own learning and how to evaluate their approaches to school so that they can improve their academic performance. “Personally as a teacher, I saw them having huge gains in that area,” Sanders says. “They were not afraid of having conversations with their teachers.”

Philadelphia, PA

How do you improve 146,090 kids’ information literacy and critical thinking skills? If you’re the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) and the Free Library of Philadelphia, you join hands to create a dynamic pilot program that pairs third-grade teachers with children’s librarians from nearby branches.

How does the program work? Six times during the last two months of the school year, instead of taking part in their school’s daily requirement of 90 minutes of reading, about 200 third graders take a short walk to their local public library, usually no more than a couple of blocks away. The purpose of the visits? To research the history of Philadelphia and their neighborhoods.

Upon returning to their classrooms, groups of three or four students dive headlong into the resources they discovered at the library and begin to create their own projects, says district content specialist Nocito. Although it’s impossible to predict what these inspired students are likely to cook up, one thing’s for sure—it’s always interesting.

Sarah Stippich, a children’s librarian at the Blanche A. Nixon/Cobbs Creek Library, remembers the day when the Free Library’s 25-foot-long, state-of-the art Techmobile visited Anderson Elementary School and its third graders were introduced to iPads. “They were digitally mapping our neighborhood,” says Stippich. “They were really into that, not only the technology part of that, but being able to look at their neighborhood and say, ‘Oh, that’s where I live.’”

Some classes combine their walks to the library with physical education, and their students strap on pedometers to count their footsteps, says Betsy Orsburn, the Free Library’s chief of the Office of Public Service Support.

Although it will take at least three years to gather enough data to evaluate the pilot, says Nocito, the initial assessments indicate that students are making connections between their schoolwork and library resources. Their teachers also reported developing moderately strong to strong informative partnerships with public librarians.

Nocito would like to improve on the instructional aspects of the pilot program. Ideally, she’d like to see a 10-week local history project that touches on different curriculum areas, such as science and language arts, and then follow up with an assessment to see if students’ gains continue on in fourth grade. “We’re under scrutiny,” she says. “Our students are going to be held accountable for their visits to the Free Library.”

The pilot program originally began in 2011, when the Free Library offered to help city schools that didn’t have a librarian or a school library, says Joe Benford, the Free Library’s chief of the Extensions Division. “It really is a way to try to cement library instruction and information literacy in the school district curriculum,” says Benford. Although more than 100 of Philadelphia’s 249 public schools have school libraries, only 46 schools have certified librarians. “The school librarians are almost nonexistent,” says Benford. “What we’re trying to do is prove this works and works as a model for the future. We just wanted to see if we could collaborate with the school district, and we have.”

Even though the pilot program appears to be working, there are limits to what it can accomplish. Stippich, who works with three third-grade teachers at Anderson Elementary School and with seven other schools and 12 child-care centers, says it’s impossible for her to offer everyone the level of service that she gives to those in the pilot program. “I can’t be the librarian for everyone,” she says. “This has just convinced me even more that they need more school librarians.”

Freelance writer Marta Murvosh is an aspiring librarian who often writes about libraries and education. You can find her at www.facebook.com/MartaMurvosh.

GRANT, Michael and Katherine Applegate. Eve & Adam. Feiwel and Friends. October 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9780312583514.

Gr 7 Up—Evening’s (or E.V. as her friends call her) mom is Terra Spiker, the owner and founder of Spiker Biopharmaceuticals. When E.V. is in a car accident that temporarily lands her a wheelchair, her mom brings her to her research facility to heal—and to keep her entertained with the task of “creating the perfect boy”—a.k.a. Project 88715. Enter Solo, a coffee cart boy and orphan, who’s searching for answers about the intriguing project. He wants nothing to do with Spiker Biopharm, unless it means bringing down the whole corporation—that is, until he meets the boss’s daughter.

One of my favorite aspects of Eve & Adam is the twists! I expected a cheesy romance novel about “star-crossed lovers,” maybe, or two teens in love who run away to be together. Needless to say, that’s not the case here. This is much more than a budding relationship book; instead, it takes readers on a roller coaster ride that’s filled with secrets and action, and—yes—some romance. Discovering the fine line between what’s right and wrong is a big focus as the secrets are revealed—as is finding out what kind of person you are because of those secrets. Interesting and action-packed, this is a page-turner!—Destiny B., age 15

RHODES, Morgan. Falling Kingdoms. Razorbill. December 2012. Tr $18.99. ISBN 9781595145840.

A long, long time ago, in the country of Limeros, Lucia was stolen from her cradle. She was snatched by two sisters, who lust for power and quickly destroy one another. Lucia winds up in the hands of the King of Blood, whose son begins to lust for her as she begins to come into her magical powers. Then, in the country of Palesia, a boy gets murdered, which sparks a war that destroys all but one country. In Auranos, the reader follows a girl who witnesses her betrothed killing a young boy from Palesia. This girl then travels to Palesia to find a magical cure for her sister. If you can’t keep all of these details straight, don’t worry, the story isn’t all that difficult.

I loved it from start to finish. The first 20 pages took me a week to read, but I finished the rest of it in a day. Don’t let its slow beginning discourage you—the story speeds up considerably. The author keeps you on your toes by making you try to find out who’s the enemy. I loved the constant backstabbing. Eventually, the reader realizes that there’s no enemy, just arrogant humans whose quarreling gets in the way of progress.—Kaleb B., age 14

HALBROOK, Kristin. Nobody But Us. HarperTeen. January 2013. pap. $9.99. ISBN 9780062121264.

Gr 9 Up—Nobody But Us is about a young couple on the run from their past in hopes of a better future. Fifteen-year-old Zoe is consistently abused by her father. Everyone in the small town knows that, but no one offers to help her. When Will arrives, he’s quickly attracted to her, and she’s instantly curious about his broken past and his bad-boy ways. Will soon turns 18, and the couple decides to run away to Las Vegas to start a new life together. As incidents with serious consequences occur along the way, the two find themselves doubting everything they once believed could happen.

This is a very captivating book that was hard to put down. Will and Zoe’s persistent love was inspiring. Their journey from their small North Dakota town to Las Vegas will have readers on the edge of their seats with anticipation. This book offers a brutally honest account of the struggle of young love and its hope for a better future, no matter what. I recommend it to anyone who’s interested in romance, multiple points of view, violence, and endings that’ll leave you speechless.—Jazmine W. age 15

Ellison, Kate. Notes from Ghost Town. Egmont USA. February 2013. Tr. $17.99. ISBN 9781606842645.

Gr 9 Up—Sixteen-year-old Olivia Tithe has become color blind and believes that she’s completely losing her mind—just like her mother. When her best friend, and first love, Lucas Stern, dies and returns as a ghost, she tries to unravel the mystery of his death. In order to save her mother and herself, Olivia must follow her heart to the truth, no matter how painful it may be.

Honestly, the summary wasn’t particularly interesting to me, but I’m glad I gave the book a chance. The author has a knack for making readers want to come back for more. Olivia is one of those characters readers love to read about. She’s strong, passionate, and doesn’t take no for an answer, even when the odds are against her. The mystery is intriguing enough that readers will find themselves reading faster and faster to figure out what it is, but they’ll also want to slow down so they won’t finish the book too soon. Ellison did a wonderful job, and I applaud her.—Kathleen M. age 16

Each 300-word entry must be submitted by an intergenerational team consisting of one young person, 8 to 18 years old, and one older person, at least 50 years old, from the United States or Canada. The essay must be an original, true story about a real event or experience in the older entrant’s life and be based on an actual interview the young person completes in person, over the phone, or via the Internet with a living older adult.

One grand prize award winner will receive a Lenovo ThinkCentre computer and a keepsake timepiece from Expressions of Time, a family owned retailer of quality clocks and home accessories. Ten Legacy Award winners will receive a keepsake timepiece from Expressions of Time, and all of the winners will receive a framed award certificate and an autographed copy of Dream, an award-winning bestseller about time, legacies, and dreams.

This national contest is run by the Legacy Project at www.legacyproject.org, a big-picture learning project, and the nonprofit organization Generations United in Washington, DC. The contest deadline is March 22, 2013.

Words Are Delicious: Food Writing in the Classroom

I bet this was the only NCTE session in which each attendee was given an Oreo! Presenter April Brannon, from Cal State Fullerton, started off the session with a discussion of poems about food, featuring Pablo Neruda’s Ode to Tomatoes and Donald Hall’s Eating the Pig, and how these poems can be used to boost students’ reading and writing skills.  Both student-teacher and individual student work was showcased, including Eating the Chicken Nuggets, inspired by Hall’s aforementioned poem. With an Oreo in hand, each member of the audience was asked to contribute a simile, metaphor, alliterative phrase, personification, image, or hyperbole which Brannon then used to create an ode to the iconic cookie.  Brannon was followed by Elle Yarborough from Northern Essex (MA) Community College, who focused on developing literacy skills by investigating food. Attendees were asked to watch “The Soup Nazi” episodes from Seinfeld and read Molly O’Neill’s essay “The Soup Man of 55th Street” (from the New York Cookbook [Workman, 1992]), comparing the various ways in which Al Yeganeh, the real-life owner of the famous soup restaurant, was characterized on the popular sit-com. Yarborough also talked about how she uses road-food writers Jane and Michael Stern’s wonderful piece “The Lobster Roll Honor Roll” (from the August 1994 issue of Gourmet magazine) as an example of investigative food writing. The Sterns combine history, culture, and social norms in the retelling of their quest to find Maine’s best lobster roll. You might want to ask your students to select a local culinary favorite, research its origins and variations across the region, and even gather recipes to produce their own food writing. All of these activities can easily be converted to library programming for teens and tweens.

Inspiring Readers with the Newest Young Adult Literature Winners

How many booktalks can be squeezed into about an hour? A lot, as proved by presenters Jennifer Walsh (Forsyth Middle School, Ann Arbor, MI), Daria Plumb (Riverside Academy, Dundee, MI), and Jennifer Buehler (St Louis University, MO). This group, chaired by Teri Lesesne (Sam Houston University, TX), created a grid to keep track of the number of awards that 2011 titles have received during the past year, then they organized the titles according to the number of award lists they have each appeared on. It was no surprise to hear which two titles appeared on the most lists: Ruta Sepetys’s Between Shades and Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races each appeared on six awards lists. The presenters were able to race through 20 titles, halfway through the three award lists, before the closing bell rang. Their incredibly useful and informative list of awards and titles can be found on a handout on NCTE’s 2012 website.

Learning Lessons from YA War Literature

Session chair, author, and Brigham Young University English professor Chris Crowe gave an excellent overview of the types of YA literature that can be used in the classroom to help readers connect with those who have lived through a war. Jen Bryant, an award-winning novelist, poet, and biographer, spoke about war’s effects on society and the people “left behind,” and explained how she writes about those experiences. For example, in her verse novel, The Trial (Knopf, 2004), the growing fear and distrust among Americans of Germany as World War II approached became a major factor in the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann,  who was accused of the murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. In Bryant’s novel The Fortune of Carmen Navarro (Knopf, 2010), a high school dropout and a cadet from Valley Forge Military Academy and a long-standing military family stumble into a romance, as the war in Iraq plays out in background, which puts an additional strain on their relationship.

Author Dean Hughes embeds his readers directly into the battlefield in his war novels. In Hughes’s Soldier Boys (Antheneum, 2001), two young men—a German and an American—come to understand each other’s motives for fighting in World War II as they see their friends and colleagues die around them. Ricky Ward thinks that going to war will solve his problems with his violent father and dismissive girlfriend, but readers of Search and Destroy (Antheneum, 2005) discover that the Vietnam War is scarier and more complicated than anything Ricky has left at home. Visit the NCTE 2012 session site for an excellent bibliography of YA war literature and more from the authors.

Igniting the 21st-Century Spark with Big Ideas and Technology

If you’ve been thinking about using technology and books to connect with classroom teachers and teens, look no further. This NCTE session featured three dynamic presenters who have incorporated technology into their literature lessons to enhance writing and comprehension skills. Catherine Reeves, a University of Wyoming grad student, shared Hyperstudio presentations that she created to teach Sylvia Plath’s confessional poetry. Reeves’s student not only had to master the technology, they nad to research images from the 1950s to use in their own presentations. And that’s not all: they also had to write their own confessional poems and create a Hyperstudio presentation to support it. At Montana’s Arlee High School, kids in English teacher Anna Baldwin’s multicultural literature class created a YouTube video entitled “Perma Red: From Our Vision,” which includes students’ photographs, along with selected music, and text excerpts from Debra Magpie Earling’s Perma Red. Baldwin also created a teacher’s guide for the video project as part of her entry for the PBS Teacher Innovator awards, which recognize innovative preK-12 classroom educators, media specialists, technology coordinators and homeschool educators who use digital media to enhance student learning. . The final presenter, Tiffany Rehbein, an English teacher from East High School in Cheyenne, WY, described the process she uses to help students create book trailers, which are shown on the school’s TV station. The kids’ videos not only showcase students’ works—they also encourage their classmates to read. Rehbein’s book-trailer resource guide and checklist can be found on the NCTE session hand-out site. This session was chaired by Beverly Ann Chin, Director of the English Teaching Program at the University of Montana at Missoula.

Literature Lover’s Lament: Learning to Love Nonfiction: Connecting Real-World Texts to the Common Core Standards

Even though it meant racing directly from the airport to the MGM Grand Conference Center, this session was not to be missed. Featuring the powerhouse trio of UCLA’s Carol Yago, UC-Irvine’s Carol Olson, and Carleton College’s Deborah Applebaum, the audience was treated to a terrific overview of what the Common Core standards really mean to English teachers and their classroom materials. While there was discussion of the use of cognitive toolkits and the Reading Framework for the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, which librarians certainly need to be aware of, much of the talk focused on encouraging educators to go beyond the tried-and-true literature they currently use, and to try out some of the excellent nonfiction resources that are now available. For instance, if you’re teaching the classic Grapes of Wrath, why not add some outstanding nonfiction titles to your lessons, such as The Worst Hard Time (Mariner, 2006), The Dust Bowl Through the Lens (Walker, 2009), and the free verse Out of the Dust (Scholastic, 1999)? And if you’re looking for articles to spice up a literature unit, check out Lapham’s Quarterly, a magazine of history and ideas that’s overseen by Harper’s editor emeritus, Lewis Lapham. The theme of embracing nonfiction was certainly evident throughout the conference, and publishers in the exhibit hall evidently have heard the call as well.

English Teachers Igniting Literacy for Incarcerated Students: Inspiring Writing in the Inside to Connect to the Outside

This very compelling session, chaired by the University of San Francisco’s Peter Williamson, featured speakers Sean Neil and Constance Walker, who both teach at Woodside Learning Center, Juvenile Hall, in San Francisco, and Carleton’s Applebaum. Since we know that literacy can help end recidivism (which currently hovers at 86 percent for juveniles), reading and writing can be some of the most powerful tools that you can give incarcerated kids. Neil and Walker described the programs they’ve offered to their teens, with the full support of the Juvenile Hall Library, which is run by the San Francisco Public Library. A project that involved writing letters to ancestors on reflective mylar was mounted at the Alcatraz Prison Museum, and a blog created by students, Songs of the Caged Birds: Caged Bodies, Free Minds, provides an ongoing outlet for their writings. Key readings in class, offered so that teens can understand the prison system better, are The Real Costs of Prison (PM Press, 2008), Are Prisons Obsolete? (Open Media, 2003), and The Politics of Injustice (Sage, 2003).

Applebaum works with adults at the Minnesota Correctional Facility, a high security prison in Stillwater, MN. As a teaching volunteer, she has been able to introduce and nurture creative writing skills in her students, many of whom are serving life sentences. Using liberatory pedagogy, which is a pedagogy of liberation centered around the principles for social change and transformation through education based on consciousness raising and engagement with oppressive forces, Applebaum has seen her students’ intelligence and creativity surface in many ways. From the Inside Out: Letters to Young Men and Other Writing (Creative Space, 2009) is one result of the classes. This anthology features letters, short stories, and poems from incarcerated authors from her facility.

Watch for two articles to appear in the March 2013 issue of English Journal on writing and the incarcerated—“Traveling in the Dark: The Promise and Pedagogy of Writing in Prison” (Applebaum), and “Songs of the Caged Birds: Literacy and Learning with Incarcerated Youth” (Williamson, Mercurio, Walker).

Fae-Tal Attraction: The Timeless International Appeal of Faerie Folk in Young Adult Literature

Young adult fantasies about faerie folk are more popular than ever, and as this panel proved, no two faeries are exactly alike! Authors Janni Lee Simner, Aprilynne Pike, Janette Rallison, and R. J. Anderson captivated the audience with their discussion of the origin of their faerie mythos, the rabid fans that attend FaerieCon (“Do not go dressed up as Tinkerbell!” warned Pike), and the ongoing interest in faerie titles for teen readers. All of the panelists cited An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, & Other Supernatural Creatures (Pantheon, 1978) as the go-to reference for all things faerie. A sampling of contemporary faerie novels can be found in the NCTE 2012 program listings.

Award-winning schools are recognized for their outstanding college-prep programs and partnerships among teachers, parents, and community organizations. The award was created by College Board President Gaston Caperton in 2001. To date, the program has awarded approximately $950,000 to high schools throughout the country. In May 2012, the Gaston Caperton Inspiration Award–winning schools were Johnny G. Economedes High School in Edinburg, TX; Fort Lauderdale High School, Fort in Lauderdale, FL; and Woodbury Junior/Senior High School in Woodbury, NJ. The deadline for applying is November 30, so download and complete the application now.

Right now, if you live in Gum Spring, the nearest public library is nine miles away. To reach it, you have to drive on construction-laced, heavily trafficked roads into a neighboring county, and that’s why many adults don’t use the public library and aren’t familiar with its resources. At one of the back-to-school nights, parents of middle school and high school students were shocked to learn that we’ll be offering free ebooks, as well as computers, printers, scanners, and a 3,000-square-foot teen center that will be right in their own backyard (or, no more than a five-minute drive). When she heard the news, one parent sighed and said, “Why didn’t I know about this before now? I would have saved so much money!”

Unlike some of their parents, most teens are thrilled that they’ll finally have “something to do” when we open. Currently, there are no teen-friendly hangouts nearby, and our teen center will be a welcome addition for them. Unfortunately, some community members have already expressed concern about teens loitering around the new building. “Will the teens be loud and disruptive?” they’ve asked. “Will they compromise the safety of the library?” To which I’ve proudly responded, “No.” Not only does the library have rules regarding appropriate behavior, but teens, though sometimes loud, aren’t a pack of hooligans looking to cause trouble. In fact, teenagers are the perfect library users, checking out materials they need for assignments, browsing the collection for fun stuff (including DVDs, games, and good books), forming groups and working collaboratively, using technology, and keeping librarians aware of emerging tech trends. Sure, some kids may loiter, but that’s what we want them to do! We want them to take advantage of our free resources, talk to us, and form their own community. We want them to learn, teach, and grow, both with us and because of us.

Some adults fear teens because they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be one. Teens are works in progress, trying to figure out who they are and where they belong. Libraries encourage individual growth by recommending books, hosting age-appropriate programs, and providing resources and opportunities for kids to develop. The library can also bridge the gap between the generations by creating opportunities for adults and teens to interact on a level other than parent to child, or teacher to student. Teens, being naturally adept at all things technology, can assist reference librarians in running computer and technology programs for adults. Mom-and-daughter book clubs, intergenerational gaming nights, and even volunteering side-by-side in the library are just a few ways that adults and teens can foster mature relationships inside the library. To use this decade’s buzzword, these are genuine “teachable moments.”

Although the new library will soon be the new kid on the block that every teen wants to get to know, some adults are bound to feel uncomfortable with that. But if we can properly educate them on how to use the new library and help them see that the teen center is a safe, supportive space for kids, then our library will become a true community center.

Although kids today say they enjoy reading just as much as their peers did in 2005, they’re actually reading far less each day because they’re busy doing other things, says a new study by the National Literacy Trust, a UK-based literacy charity.

The report found that in 2005, four young people in 10 read daily outside of class, but at the end of 2011, only three young people in 10 enjoyed leisure reading. However, the number of children and young people who enjoy reading “very much” or “quite a lot” has remained static since 2005, with 50 percent today versus 51 percent in 2005.

“Young people’s lives are busier than ever before, with many activities and interest vying for their time,” says Christina Clark, author of “Children’s and Young People’s Reading Today” by email.

Just 57 percent of students picked up magazines in 2011, down from 77 percent in 2005. Comic reading also slid from 64 percent in 2005 to 50 percent in 2011. More than half (54 percent) of the 21,000 eight to 16-year-olds surveyed at the end of 2011 say they prefer watching TV to reading, and 17 percent said they would be embarrassed if their friends saw them reading.

However, the study found that when students read outside of class time—a growing number pick up more digital formats, with 7.8 percent of students reading ebooks in 2011, compared to 5.6 percent in 2010. Blogs, too, were up from 16.1 percent in 2010 to 17.5 percent in 2011, and social networking sites edged up slightly from 48.8 percent in 2010 to 49.9 percent in 2011.

Teens and adults in the U.S. also are turning online to read—with 42 percent of readers 16 and older flipping through ebooks, 29 percent reading on their phones, and 23 percent reading on tablet computers, according to a Pew Research Center study, “The rise of e-reading,” released in April.

While both studies didn’t specifically cover libraries or librarians, Jack Martin, president of the Young Adult Library Services Association and director of the New York Public Library’s Public Programs/Lifelong Learning division, says librarians can use their findings to ask themselves how they define reading —and if they discount ways in which kids engage with text. Reading websites and online manga are as legitimate as reading school books, Martin says.

“We need to help kids get over the stigma of not recognizing themselves as readers,” adds Martin. “Because they are readers—online and on their phone, and we have to recognize that and empower them to read more.”

In fact, children’s enjoyment of reading increased slightly from 2010 to 2011, with 68.1 percent of students aged eight to 11-years-old reporting that they found reading pleasurable in 2010, compared to 73 percent in 2011. And yet, less than half of older kids found reading fun, compared to young children, a finding that the report’s researchers called “truly staggering.”

Just 34.4 percent of children ages 14 to 16 reported that they “enjoy reading very much or quite a lot in 2010,” compared to the 73 percent of young students ages 8 to 11-years-old who answered the same.

School and public librarians who work with young kids may need to rethink what they define as reading and remind themselves that anytime they engaging with text—whether that’s on a gaming site or with Moby Dick—reading is happening.

“If kids are actually told they’re reading online, they might actually pick up that novel parents and teachers have been trying to get them to read,” says Martin. “It’s a matter of parents and educators to figure out what means, and they define it.”

Swati came up with the idea after hearing about buildOn, a nonprofit organization that offers extracurricular service-learning programs in our nation’s high schools and builds schools in developing countries, such as Mali, Nepal, and Nicaragua. Swati also enlisted the help of a friend, Claire Haugh, and the two attended a leadership-training session at  buildOn’s New York City chapter. With Blanc on board as their advisor, the students began to turn their dream of building a school into a reality.

It wasn’t easy. Before stepping foot in Central America, our kids had to really roll up their sleeves. With the help of Blanc and three other teachers, we formed a FPMH chapter of buildOn, which soon had nearly 30 members including students, teachers, and parents. We also had to tackle a mountain of paperwork, meet with parent groups, and secure our school board’s approval for the project.

Then came the biggest hurdle—covering the $30,000 cost of the 10-day trip. We held numerous fund-raising events and with the support of our local BuildOn chapter, we raised $16,000 for airfare, ground transportation, housing, food, skilled labor, and the necessary materials to construct a two-room schoolhouse. The students and staffers who would be traveling to Nicaragua kicked in the remaining amount.

On July 6, 16 students and four teachers, including Blanc and myself, left for Nicaragua, embarking on the experience of a lifetime. As we arrived in Managua, we were met by BuildOn’s local leader, Mat Pryfogle, and two translators, Alexa and Lester, and soon set off on a two-hour bus trip to Esteli, one of the nation’s largest cities, where we spent the night. Early the next morning, we left on the three-hour trip to the remote mountain village of Wale. In order to be eligible for a new school, a village must submit an application to buildOn, agreeing to take part in the construction of the facility and to make education a priority—for an equal number of boys and girls. The townspeople were eagerly awaiting us when we arrived, and the welcoming ceremony included the signing of an agreement, or “covenant,” between the international buildOn organization, FPMH’s buildOn chapter, and the local community.

The village of Wale consists of 42 families with a population of about 300. While the project was underway, two or three students lived with each host family. Homes are constructed of wood or mud brick with no windows and a tin roof. There’s no running water or electricity and we used outdoor latrines. We bathed using cold river water which was also used to wash our clothes. Even though the villagers do not have material luxuries, they opened their homes to us and shared whatever they had.

During our first week, we worked four-hour shifts, digging holes and trenches for the new school, breaking rocks, carting away the debris, mixing cement, sifting sand, and cutting and shaping steel bars to reinforce the foundation—all without the use of power tools or heavy machinery, since Wale doesn’t have any electricity. After a week of working alongside the villagers, we laid the foundation and began framing the school’s walls. Although there was still a lot to be done when we departed in mid-July, the villagers, with the help of the local BuildOn staff, expect to be finished building the school in this month.

The most memorable part of this experience was the bonds we formed with our host families and the other villagers. Words can not express the love and the special connection made with the villagers of Wale. The day before we left, the village planned a special closing ceremony where members of the village and the students spoke and tried to convey our emotions. It was a very moving ceremony that left many in tears. Each villager hugged and thanked us for coming to their village and building the school so their children can have a better future. It was such a humbling moment and one that will stay with us forever. I think I can say for all of us who participated in this trip that we gave of ourselves but received so much more in return.

Rahm Emanuel

“Reading provides children with a window to the world and a door to their imagination, and Rahm’s Readers encourages children and their parents to continue to read new books and revisit old favorites during the summer months,” said Emanuel.

Studies show that children who participate in summer reading programs maintain or improve their reading skills and start school ready to learn. Last summer 58,696 children read more than 1.4 million books as part of the Rahm’s Readers.

“We are very excited that a record number of children participated in the summer reading program,” said Chicago Library Commissioner Brian Bannon, explaining that this year, the library reached out to new community partners such as By The Hand Club for Kids and Reach Out and Read to help encourage kids and teens to participate.

This year’s theme was “You Are What You Read,” and in addition to reading, the program encouraged children to eat right, exercise, and keep themselves, their families, and the planet healthy. Kids between the ages of three to 14 participated in the Rahm’s Readers by reading and reporting on books that they chose themselves and attending programs and earning stickers and prizes each week.

Picture-book readers and pre-readers who completed 25 pictures books earned a bag for books. Children who read chapter books earned a back-to-school drawstring backpack when they completed 10 chapter books. Weekly book raffles, author visits, performers and presenters were just some of the activities that were featured throughout the summer to help motivate kids to read for fun. All readers and their families were invited to a special Reader’s Night/Day event to celebrate their success.

The Chicago Public Library on August 20 also kicked off its first fine amnesty program in more than 20 years,  in part to encourage students to return books and any multimedia,  and start the school year with a clean record. “For any students that participated in Rahm’s Readers and forgot to return a book, or just borrowed an item and hasn’t returned it, now is the time to bring it back without paying any late fees,” said Bannon.  “Regardless of the reason for not returning an item, students with overdue materials can start fresh and take advantage of the library and its extensive resources for their studies.”

There will be no late fees on any overdue books, CDs, DVDs, and other materials returned between August 20 and September 7, regardless of how long ago they were checked out. Also, there are no additional fines for patrons who pay replacement costs for lost items.

The main branch of the DC Public Library serves lunch this summer.

Literacy isn’t the only thing Washington, DC, public libraries offered kids this summer. They also served up some lunch.

“We wanted to make sure they had a reason to come,” says Ginnie Cooper, chief librarian for the District of Columbia. “Sometimes the kids will come for the lunch, and sometimes they come for the program.”

This year, 11 out of 25 branches participated in the DC Free Summer Meals Program, providing kids 11,550 boxed lunches that include carrots, sandwiches, and chocolate milk—all fully funded by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Now in its second year, the public libraries decided to add special programming to the day’s lunch— with the topic and activity individually handled by each branch, says Cooper.

Students who are eligible for free or reduced priced school lunches also qualified for the free summer meals —although any child could take part in all branch activities that took place during the 1 p.m.- 2:30 p.m. slot when lunch was served. While programs varied at each branch, they included reading hours, science programs—and even a chance to play Wii games while snacking on fruit cups.

Although numbers are still being tallied, Cooper says branches have reported seeing more kids since the program launched in 2011—whether that includes coming in early to read or staying after “to appreciate the air conditioning,” she says.

During the summer months, just 14.5 percent of kids eligible for free lunch actually receive the meals. But DC ranks number one in the country in its ability to reach these communities. It boasts getting meals to 73.5 percent of qualified children, says Sandra Schlicker, deputy superintendent of DC’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education Government. Meals are served at 343 Summer Meals sites throughout Washington, DC— with some serving up to two free meals each day.

“Our goal is 100 percent,” she says. We don’t want any child to be hungry in the summertime.

Meals are delivered at about 7:30 a.m. at participating branches, says Cooper. And while most libraries don’t open until 9:30 a.m. or 1 p.m. depending on the day, library staff must be present to accept deliveries of the boxed lunches. Refrigerators were also purchased with grant money to keep the meals fresh for lunch time.

This year, DC expanded the number of library lunch sites to 11 from seven, and Cooper says next year it could include the new Mt.Pleasant branch, which opens this September.

“Just as teachers see kids who are hungry, so too, library staff noticed kids who were hungry,” says Cooper. “We’re thrilled to be able to feed their bodies as the same time as providing nourishment for their minds.”

Last spring the children’s book community lost several beloved authors and illustrators, including the hugely talented Leo Dillon, Jean Craighead George, Ellen Levine, and Maurice Sendak. In honor of their memory and their many accomplishments, TeachingBooks.net is offering video and audio recordings of these creative artists whose work enriched the lives of so many people.

In alphabetical order:

Leo Dillon (March 2, 1933 – May 26, 2012)

For nearly 50 years, Leo Dillon collaborated with his wife Diane, creating books for children. In this exclusive video of the artists in their Brooklyn, New York, studio, Dillon muses on making “life an art” and the “spiritualist quality” of the stories the couple illustrated.

Jean Craighead George (July 2, 1919 – May 15, 2012)

Jean Craighead George, an enthusiastic naturalist, had an opportunity to study wolves on a scientific expedition to the Arctic. In this audio presentation, the author introduces and reads from her Newbery winner, Julie of the Wolves (Harper and Row,1972), a book that incorporated her observations of these animals.

Ellen Levine (March 9, 1939 – May 26, 2012)

Ellen Levine didn’t mind being called “divine.” In this TeachingBooks.net Author Name Pronunciation the author shares the history of her family name and tells how an incorrect pronunciation led to a flattering description.

Maurice Sendak (June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012)

Maurice Sendak was witty and bold. In this audio presentation, the author/artist narrates the opening of Pincus and the Pig: A Klezmer Tale (Tzadik, 2004)–a version of Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Eight illustrations created by Sendak for this distinctive audio CD are also available for viewing.

Nick Glass and Carin Bringelson of TeachingBooks.net enjoy multimedia resources that connect us to books–and favorite writers and illustrators. Share your thoughts on this column by emailing nick@TeachingBooks.net.

“This is very meaningful work,” says Rachel Garbow Monroe, president of the Weinberg Foundation. “It’s going to be extraordinary.”

Three school libraries—Thomson Johnson Elementary/Middle School, Moravia Park Elementary, and Southwest Baltimore Charter—are set to open their doors September 12, with nine others scheduled to roll out over the next few years. The Weinberg Foundation has plans to  announce the second round of school libraries planned to open in 2013.

With school libraries across the nation suffering deep budget cuts, foundations, and even private businesses are coming to their rescue. Retailer Target and grants from the Laura Bush Foundation have been helping schools restock book collections and even supply new computers.

Weinberg had originally promised $1 million in December 2011, but that grew to $5 million this month after the foundation’s trustees decided to increase their support of the Baltimore Library Project. Each library will cost approximately $3 million to build, says Monroe. Additional funds and in-kind promises also will come from outside partners, including the Baltimore Sun, which will donate free newspapers to the school libraries indefinitely, and the Maryland Food Bank, which will build a food bank at each school site.

Each new school library will receive thousands of new books, 100 pre-loaded Nooks and technology that could include laptops to Macs, depending on what the schools determine will best benefit their students. Schools will also receive a matching $100,000 grant over four years and hire a part-time paraprofessional to free up more time for librarians to work with students.

Monroe says the requirements for winning a new library or library upgrade included having a full-time librarian on staff, as well as a principal and librarian excited and willing to participate. All applicants also had to receive federal Qualified Zone Academy Bonds, which are non-interest-bearing bonds given to school districts. Those schools with existing libraries will be renovated, while those without any formal space will have one built.

The Weinberg Foundation targets high schools, particularly those in the K-8 grades, to ensure they provide kids with physical books to increase their literacy skills as they mature as students.

“There’s a feeling that high school libraries will become over time like college libraries, more Internet focused and online,” says Monroe, who says the foundation sought advice from local experts. “The anecdotal feedback was that elementary schools are going to continue to have books for children to touch, and practice reading, which is so important for them in order to have strong reading skills. And we thought we could have a stronger impact on the lives of elementary and middle school children.”

“This is a first-of-its-kind lawsuit asserting a child’s fundamental right to read,” says Kary Moss, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan, citing that the case is on behalf of the nearly 1,000 district K-12 public school students. “We represent these children because the state and school district have simply failed to teach them to read. We do this after a long and careful process of investigation that has made clear that none of those adults charged with the care of these children, under the Constitution and laws of this state, has done their jobs.”

The groundbreaking lawsuit says the state of Michigan, its agencies that oversee public education, and Highland Park Schools have violated students’ right to read as set forth by state law and Constitution. Also adding to the problem are “serious academic deficiencies caused by a documented lack of books, outdated materials, filthy classrooms and bathrooms,” says the ACLU.

Highland Park—once the home of Chrysler—has suffered a declining population and tax base, and ranks as one of the lowest achieving school districts in the nation. An independent reading assessment of Highland Park students found them reading between four and eight grades below grade level. In fact, less than 10 percent of district kids in third through eighth grade are proficient in reading and math, according to standardized test scores by the Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP). By eleventh grade, when students should be college-ready, 90 percent failed reading, 97 percent failed math, 94 percent failed writing, and 100 percent failed the social studies and science portions of the 2011-2012 Michigan Merit Exam (MME).

“Highland Park students want to be educated,” adds Moss. “However, their hopes and dreams for a future are being destroyed by an ineffective system that does not adequately prepare them for life beyond school. The capacity to learn is deeply rooted in the ability to achieve literacy. A child who cannot read will be disenfranchised in our society and economy for a lifetime.”

The lack of basic reading skills for Michigan students violates state law, which mandates the provision of “additional assistance” to children who fail to read at grade level, as well as the state’s Constitution, which requires that “the legislature shall maintain and support a system of free public elementary and secondary schools” and singles out education as an important state function, explains Moss.

Writing samples documented in an ACLU report on district test scores show the extent of the problem. In a letter to Governor Rick Snyder, a fourth grader assessed at a kindergarten to first grade reading level wrote, “this is what I what to do when I grow up at Bussness laddy what And can you give my a favorite By helping me to work my way up to keep up Jobs.”

Another student, a seventh grader who was assessed as reading at the third-grade level wrote, “I go to Barber foucs school. I wish it was batter [illegible] in the clean bathroom. batter teachers and batter lunch.”

Michelle Johnson is a Highland Park resident whose daughter will enter her junior year this fall, but she reads between five and seven levels below her grade. “No one can walk through the halls of Highland Park schools and say that this is a suitable and safe environment to learn,” Johnson says, adding that she spoke at nearly every public school meeting and went to school with her kids every day. “But nothing I do will work if the district and the state don’t meet me half way. All I am asking for is a full partner in my child’s education so that she can learn the basics: reading.”

The report went on to say that the 973 students attending Highland Park’s two K-8 schools and high school were less proficient in reading than students across the state, with 78 percent of Highland Park’s third graders failing to achieve reading proficiency on the 2011-2012 MEAP test, compared to 38 percent statewide. In seventh grade, 75 percent of Highland students didn’t meet reading proficiency, compared to 40 percent across the state.

“Many children have never been given a novel to read,” Moss says, adding that school libraries are usually closed and inaccessible to students.

The ACLU of Michigan alleges that the district is further hindered by a lack a counselors and assistant principals, that students can’t study at home because they’re forced to share outdated textbooks and return them at the end of the day, that school buildings are often filthy, unheated (in the winter, students must wear their winter parkas and gloves in class), and lack security, making easy for vagrants to move in and occupy unattended rooms.

“No case ever filed anywhere in the U.S. has addressed a school system in such dire straits,” says Mark Rosenbaum, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and an ACLU cooperating attorney.

The lawsuit asks the state to use research-based methodologies to improve basic literacy skills that are administered by well-trained and supported professionals and monitored according to accepted standards of the profession.

“We ask that they put trained teachers in the classrooms,” says Moss. “We ask that they provide each child with the books they need. We ask that they provide safe and clean classrooms, bathrooms and hallways. We ask that they make a determined effort to help every child achieve reading and math literacy. We ask that they implement programs that are aimed at helping each child learn to read.”

Seven Title I media centers throughout the district continue to keep their doors open two hours each week, and local kids are welcome to read, check out books, or attend read-alouds. Although it’s not a new concept, it’s the first time Salem-Keizer has kept summer hours—and so far, kids seem to be enjoying it, says Stephen Cox, the district’s library media program specialist.

“This program is for students who are unable to get to the public library to participate in their summer reading program,” says Cox, explaining that the open school libraries are located in buildings that offer the Summer Meal program, where any qualified child age 18 and under can eat lunch, and sometimes breakfast, for free five days a week. “After and before lunch, students are encouraged to go to the school library to check out a book.”

Between 10 and 50 children visit the five elementary and two middle school libraries each week, thanks to $3,500 provided by the district’s Salem-Keizer Education Foundation to keep them open. And, as part of the program—which was widely promoted on the district’s website and at individual schools—students can earn a ticket for each book they read, which can then be entered in weekly drawings for prizes. A grand prize drawing is planned for August.

Although the libraries are run by assistants and parent volunteers rather than certified media specialists, it’s still a step in the right direction for the state’s second largest school district. Back in April 2011, the district lost 90 percent of its librarians when Superintendent Sandy Husk proposed cutting 48 elementary and middle school media specialists in an effort to save $3 million, says Cox. Oregon doesn’t mandate certified school librarians for any grade.

While it’s still too soon to know what impact summer school library hours will have on reading scores, experts know that the “summer slide,” which describes what happens when young minds sit idle for three months, is real. Studies show that kids who read during the summer gain reading skills, while those who don’t often slide backward.

“A conservative estimate of lost instructional time is approximately two months or roughly 22 percent of the school year,” says a report from the National Summer Learning Association. “It’s common for teachers to spend at least a month re-teaching material that students have forgotten over the summer. That month of re-teaching eliminates a month that could have been spent on teaching new information and skills.”

The report notes that family income plays a significant role in determining the extent of the summer slide, with students from low-income families experiencing the cumulative effects of greater learning loss each summer throughout their elementary school years.

Cox says circulation stats at the end of the summer will show just how popular the program was with students-and there are plans to conduct “action research” to find out whether the reading scores of participants went up, down, or stayed the same.

The blaze, which was 50 percent contained Monday night, has forced more than 1,000 people to leave their homes, with many seeking refuge at a wireless-equipped Red Cross evacuation center in Loveland, CO, 10 miles south of Fort Collins.

The library’s ten staff members immediately leapt into action to distribute eight laptops and a projector to the shelter’s briefing room (left), where residents can receive updates on the fire and view maps showing its progress. Library staffers are also on hand to provide story times and show movies to kids as a way to divert their attention from the wildfires that have so far devoured about 58,000 acres of land, and as of Sunday night, destroyed 189 homes.

Cobbling together programs for kids and adults is totally “on the fly,” says Holly Carroll, the library’s executive director. In an effort headed up by Irene Romsa, the library’s outreach manager, library staff, aided by librarians from nearby Windsor, CO, set up a children’s area for story time, movie-viewing, and play time. They also worked with a collection of about 300 donated and library-owned books.

“There’s no written procedure” for crafting kids or adult programming during a disaster, says Romsa. “The rules that apply in a library don’t apply.” That being said, library personnel, who’ve been rotating through the evacuation center, “have been tweaking the strategy several times a day.”

At first, librarians tried setting up a separate room for kids and teens at the evacuation center. But that didn’t work, says Romsa. “The kids were scared and didn’t want to be away from their parents.” So staffers carved out a nook that let family members see each other easily.

There’s storytime, but instead of the traditional group setting, Romsa says staffers read single books to kidslike picture book Pete the Cat (Merrymakers, 2010) by James Dean—as individual kids trickle in and out of the space. They library is also outfitting children with backpacks so those who’ve relocated temporarily to hotels and friends and relatives’ homes will have books to read.

The library’s three branches are located in Fort Collins, population 143,986, perched in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, 65 miles north of Denver, but they serve all of surrounding Larimer County, a vast swath of largely rural territory that stretches northward to the Wyoming border. The Poudre River Library boasts a circulation of 3.2 million books and serves 138,000 users.

At outlying communities where the library conducts kids programs, poor air quality has forced staffers to decide daily whether to cancel outdoor programs, says Carroll.

At the time the fires broke out, Romsa was working at a local quilt festival. Library staff soon contacted the local Red Cross chapter to ask whether the library could assist in the recovery effort. The Red Cross took them up on the offer and is heaping praise on the library as “first responders,” as some have dubbed the Poudre River crew.

“I’ve been completely impressed with what they’re doing,” says Erin Mounsey, executive director of the Northern Colorado Red Cross chapter. “They’ve been a great resource.” Specifically, residents use Poudre County Library laptops to sign up for a special Red Cross evacuation alert, which sends messages to cell phones and emails so people know when it’s safe to return home.

Key to the swift response was the fact that the library had already forged positive relationships with other community organizations.

“Establishing these partnerships ahead of time is useful,” says Carroll. “We’ve had these laptops and had taken them to communities so they’re already familiar with us.”

At some point, the library will move its operations to a recovery center located at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

But one way or the other, it’s going to be a long, hot summer for the library and for the Fort Collins community at large.

“It’s a real fire, says Monsey. “It’s not over.”

Related TeachingBooks.net resources »»»

By Joyce Adams Burner, Curriculum Connections–School Library Journal

War, terminal illness, grief, depression—the teen protagonists in these recent young adult titles face dire circumstances and difficult personal dilemmas with honest candor and courage, choosing to live with hope, seeing possibilities in the midst of despair. Never sentimental or maudlin, ever inventive and realistic, their stories reference historic touchstones and human vulnerability in strikingly voiced narratives sure to capture readers’ hearts and minds. They offer myriad themes to explore and writing opportunities in classrooms across the curriculum.

Choosing a Life
Studious Kate, 18, has secretly set her heart on studying medicine at Stanford, while her sister Mary, a gifted painter at 16, thrives quietly at home, in Francisco X. Stork’s Irises (Scholastic, 2012; Gr 9 Up). Set in El Paso, the girls’ strict family life, centered on caring for their long-comatose mother, shatters when their father, a fundamentalist minister, dies of a heart attack. The church wants them out of the parsonage to make way for an ambitious young successor; their dwindling bank account puts Stanford out of reach; and Mary loses her artistic vision, as the two face an uncertain future.

Stork skillfully shifts viewpoints in his nuanced portrayal of two distinctly strong young women grappling with grief, faith, and sustenance. Kate’s steady boyfriend offers the financial and emotional stability of marriage, but the handsome new pastor is also tempting, and unexpected attraction develops between shy Mary and an intriguing young artist with a violent past. Themes of death, faithfulness, and family swirl around the girls as they face the painful decision to prolong or end their mother’s life. “‘It’s Mama who keeps us together.’ “No, it’s us that keeps us together, what we do for each other…’ ‘Your problem is that you lost hope. You don’t believe in miracles, but miracles happen. Mama could wake up again.’ ‘Oh, Mary. Maybe I don’t believe in miracles as much as you do, but I do have hope.’”

Surviving the Killing Fields
“I…see in the field the Khmer Rouge hitting one boy, very skinny, very sick…These Khmer Rouge, they are monster. I watch this boy fall and for one minute I feel like happy, relief that this boy is now the one in trouble. Then one minute more and I think: Maybe now I am monster also.” In Never Fall Down (HarperCollins, 2012; Gr 9 Up), Patricia McCormick relates the horrific true story of Cambodian human rights activist Arn Chorn-Pond, in a novel based on extensive interviews and research. Torn from his family and marched off to a labor camp, Arn, 11, endures abuse, rape, starvation, illness, and exhaustion, forced to bury the dead as the brutal Khmer Rouge eliminate the educated and professional classes. Arn volunteers to perform revolutionary songs for the soldiers, surviving the Killing Fields through wit and determination, then forced to become a child soldier before escaping to Thailand. Telling Arn’s story in broken English, McCormick skillfully portrays his resourcefulness and emotional turmoil, following him through his sojourn at a Thai refugee camp and subsequent adoption by a bewildering New Hampshire family, in a complex story seen through authentic eyes.

Arn’s provocative perspective will enliven studies in modern history, music, political science, psychology, and sociology classes, as he clings to the hope that his family survives: “But inside my head I keep a door, always lock, where I hide my family. Where inside is my aunt, my sisters, my little brother, all waiting.” Wandering the jungle with a small platoon, Arn encounters his little sister, attached to another band of soldiers. “Long time ago I kill all hope in myself. And live only like animal, survive one day, then one day more. Now here is my little sister. My family. Someone who love me. Alive. And I say, ‘Now I know you are still living, I will live, too.’” Introduce the book with a video conversation between author and subject.

Running Out of Time
“‘I’m like a grenade, Mom. I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?’” Hazel Grace, 16, lives on self-isolated borrowed time, thanks to an experimental cancer drug, in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton, 2012; Gr 9 Up). Grudgingly attending a support group, she meets Augustus, 17, unmistakably hot and missing a leg due to osteosarcoma. Adventure and romance quickly ensue, Augustus wasting no time on coyness in his pursuit of Hazel, in a candidly masterful mix of humor and tragedy shot through with existential questions, adolescent angst, literary devotion, and even a trip to Amsterdam.

Green treats the difficult topic of teen cancer with no hint of sentimentality in his humane story of complexly mortal characters. Bring this one into literature classes as a fresh partner for J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye‘s equally skeptical and strong-voiced Holden Caulfield, or pair it with Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl‘s, whose home Hazel and Augustus visit. “‘Augustus Waters,’ I said, looking up at him, thinking that you cannot kiss anyone in the Anne Frank House, and then thinking that Anne Frank, after all, kissed someone in the Anne Frank House, and that she would probably like nothing more than for her home to have become a place where the young and irreparably broken sink into love.”

Feeling at Home
Jill, 17, is still reeling from her father’s accidental death when her mother announces she’s going to adopt a baby; to make it worse, teenage birth mother Mandy will live with them until she delivers, in Sara Zarr’s How to Save a Life (Little, Brown, 2011; Gr 8 Up). “I’ve tried convincing myself it has nothing to do with me. It’s Mom’s right to do this. Yet I can’t help thinking, Am I not enough? It has occurred to me that she sees the baby as a do-over. A chance to correct my failings.” Zarr seamlessly alternates first-person perspectives in equally compelling voices—hard, aggressive Jill defensively alienating her friends, and dreamy, naïve Mandy quietly soaking up a family life far removed from her own chaotic, sexually abusive past. Themes of grief, teen pregnancy, the concept of family, and the possibility of real change are plumbed as Jill’s tough shell fractures and Mandy ponders the life she wants for her daughter and herself. “‘Why didn’t you go through with [an abortion]?’ Jill asks. I shrug and touch my belly. ‘I wanted my life to change.’ I thought I could save this one, I think, feeling her roll against my hand. And maybe mine.” Prime discussion prompts abound for psychology, health, and family classes. For some behind the scenes insight into the author’s writing process, share this interview with the author.

Connecting Across Generations
“‘Could I talk to you?’ ‘Why?’ “You’re a writer?’ ‘And?’ ‘I need your help.’” So opens Aidan Chambers’s Dying to Know You (Abrams, 2012; Gr 9 Up), the quietly introspective story of two unlikely characters brought together in a journey of self-discovery. Karl, 18, has dropped out of school to work as a plumber’s assistant. His well-read girlfriend, Fiorella, insists he write her letters expressing his “inner secrets,” an insurmountable task for dyslexic, inarticulate Karl. Desperate to please her, he turns to the 75-year-old unnamed author who narrates the story, and an unusual relationship buds between the two. Chambers skillfully intertwines the elderly author’s elegant voice with text messages, emails, and plentiful dialogue, eloquently revealing their personal struggles: Karl’s unresolved grief over his father’s death, the author’s own fresh loss of his wife, both of them contending with depression.

Explorations of writing, set against the counterpoint of pubs crowded with working class rowdies and serene afternoons spent trout fishing in the British countryside, offer numerous discussion points for literature, art, and psychology classes, as a young man comes of age and an old man returns to life. Consider: “It might seem odd to talk of someone wallowing in pain, but I knew from my experience that people obtain a strange pleasure from their suffering. In depression, you’re keenly aware of every shift and shimmer of your body, every flicker and twinge of your feelings, every twist and turn of your thoughts. You are all there is. You are all that matters. In the deepest depths you are as high as on the strongest narcotics. It’s a self-generated, self-inflicted addiction, the cure of which only you can provide. The cure is called hope.”

Listen to John Green introduce and read from The Fault in Our Stars.

Related TeachingBooks.net resources »»»

This article originally appeared in School Library Journal’s enewsletter Curriculum Connections. Subscribe here.