The site—which is a collaboration with Mackin Educational Resources and School Library Journal—aims to provides a comprehensive “summer reading style” program where registered school librarians will read and review books. The site will remain open to all visitors to help even more schools and libraries with book selection using a wishlist feature. Here Be Fiction will also allow librarians to access books for free during future school vacation times.

The site was built by GVEP’s school library system to help bring affordable ebooks to the 22 small, rural districts and 23,000 students of the Genesee Valley region of western New York. Christopher Harris, coordinator of the system, initially developed the idea to help member librarians explore fiction ebooks to add to an existing digital library of reference and informational books.

“Our libraries may be rural,” Harris notes, “but by working together the incredible school librarians of the Genesee Valley are providing a wealth of digital resources to their students. As the librarians continued to ask for fiction, we needed to find a way to discover ebooks with terms that could work for us.”

The books are being delivered using the secure MackinVIA platform. Readers can access the books in Here Be Fiction online or by using one of the free iOS or Android phone/tablet MackinVIA apps. School Library Journal is supporting the project with editorial content on best practices for using ebooks in classrooms and school libraries.

Participating publishers have agreed to license these ebooks with terms supporting classroom and school library use. The terms include a discount for multiple reader purchases to support class novels or book clubs, allowing offline access to the books to support home use in areas with limited broadband, and enabling text-to-speech reading of the book when possible to support readers with special needs.

“These are established, well-respected publishers who we have worked with for years,” says Kitty Heise, co-owner of Mackin Educational Resources. “It is wonderful to see the publishers enthusiastically support Here be Fiction, and we are excited about the opportunity to give these great fiction ebooks the attention they deserve.”

A few months ago, Marie D’Onofrio, one of the school librarians I work with, told me she was going to buy some fiction ebooks. D’Onofrio, who works at Livonia (NY) High School, purchased four ebooks from Lerner’s Carolrhoda imprint. She wasn’t familiar with the titles, but took a chance anyway.

The students loved the books. That wasn’t surprising, since Carolrhoda has been producing award-winning books for more than 30 years. Still, for D’Onofrio, as for so many other school librarians, exploring fiction ebooks was a voyage into the unknown.

Why? Because the status of digital fiction in school libraries is still relatively undefined, compared with nonfiction, whose traction in schools is pretty established by now. Public libraries’ evolution toward incorporating fiction ebooks has received a lot of attention, but schools are still catching up.

Right now, K–12 offerings in fiction ebooks are largely restricted to titles from the big trade publishers offered on services such as OverDrive or packages of pre-selected titles like TumbleBooks. Our knowledge of authors and ebook titles from other fiction publishers is still foggy.

This summer, the haze will lift with the introduction of a new program called “Here Be Fiction” (HereBeFiction.org). The endeavor is a collaboration between my system, the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership, Mackin, and School Library Journal.

This is how it works. School librarians who use Here Be Fiction will be able to identify quality ebooks available from a wide variety of publishers such as Lerner, Charlesbridge, August House, and more. Users can browse ebook previews and reviews posted at HereBeFiction.org, enabling them to discover fiction from established sources. The site also offers school library-friendly licensing terms, with titles readily available for licensing by school libraries for both individual and multi-user access.

During the project’s first active phase, from July 15 to September 15, selected school librarians around the country will have free access during their summer vacations to read and review ebook fiction from participating publishers, using the secure Mackin VIA platform. Looking ahead, Here Be Fiction will again allow teachers to sample books for free during future school vacation times—and active reading phases—in the winter and spring.

Throughout the year, the website will be available to everyone, with open access to lists of titles, short previews, and reviews, all of which will help librarians and teachers find and select new content. Here Be Fiction will also feature author biographies, publisher overviews, and editorial content focusing on ways to use ebooks in classrooms and school libraries.

Active site visitors will find it easy to highlight and share books they discover via Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. They will also be able to create wish lists of featured books that can then be downloaded or sent directly to Mackin for a price quote.

The need for a program like Here Be Fiction has become more urgent this past year, as school librarians have faced increasing pressure to deliver ebook fiction for both student-selected reading and teacher-directed class use.

To meet school librarians’ unique needs, participating publishers must agree to three requirements:

1) They must provide either multi-user or individual access plans, with a discount for licensing multiple simultaneous readers. This way, ebooks can be used for class novels, book clubs, reading groups, and other group purposes.

2) Publishers must make ebooks available for offline access through a secure platform like Mackin VIA or a download with appropriate security. This enables the participation of students and schools with limited WiFi access.

3) They must, when possible, enable the use of text-to-speech functionality through the reading platform to support struggling readers or those with special needs.

The site launches this summer in limited beta format. Access will be made available to additional school librarian reviewers as quickly as possible.

 Please send your pictures of the week to sdiaz@mediasourceinc.com.

The Minnesota Youth Reading Awards (MYRA) executive board announced the winners of the Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award on April 25. It selected Wendy Mass’s 11 Birthdays (Scholastic, 2009) and Ally Condie’s Matched (Dutton, 2010). The nominees for next year’s first-ever Star of the North Picture Book Award were also announced. These children’s choice book awards were created to foster Minnesota’s school-age children to read.

Minnesota Author David LaRochelle was the featured guest at the Star of the North Picture Book Award reception held April 17 at Mackin Educational Resources in Burnsville, MN. LaRochelle signs his nominated book, It’s a Tiger!  (Chronicle, 2012). Photo by Katherine Warde.

The Lambda Literary Foundation (LFF) announced the finalists for the 25th annual Lambda Literary Awards—the Lammys. These Awards will recognize the best lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) books of 2012. This year, there were a record 687 submissions from 332 mainstream publishers, academic presses, LGBT publishers, and emerging publish-on-demand technologies. The finalists were selected by more than 90 booksellers, book reviewers, librarians, authors, and previous Lammy winners and finalists.

There are 22 categories in the competition—21 for adults and one for children/teens. There were ten finalists in the  LGBT Children’s/Young Adult category: Adaptation by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown), The Adventure of Tulip, Birthday Wish Fairy by S. Bear Bergman and Suzy Malik (Flamingo Rampant), Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (S & S), Ask the Passengers by A. S. King (Little, Brown), Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills (Flux), Every Day by David Levithan (Knopf), Kiss the Morning Star by Elissa Janine Hoole (Amazon), The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray), Personal Effect by E. M. Kokie (Candlewick), and Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin (Milkweed).

Winners will be revealed during a ceremony on June 3, at Cooper Union’s Great Hall in New York City.

Book awards: The winners of the 27th annual Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator Book Awards have been announced by the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation in partnership with the de Grummon Children’s Literature Collection at The University of Southern Mississippi. The New Writer Award went to Julie Fogliano for And Then It’s Spring (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter Bks.), about a boy and a dog who plant a garden after months of snow. The New Illustrator Award was given to Hyewon Yum for Mom, It’s My First Day of Kindergarten (Farrar/Frances Foster Bks.) whose illustrations capture the emotions of the parents and the child by changing size and color.

Additionally, New Writer Honor awards went to Mara Rockliff’s My Heart Will Not Sit Down (Knopf), Jennifer Lanthier’s The Stamp Collector (Fitzhenry & Whiteside), and Don Tate’s It Jes’ Happened (Lee & Low). New Illustrator Honors were awarded to K.G. Campbell’s Lester’s Dreadful Sweaters (Kids Can) and Sanjay Patel’s Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth (Chronicle).

The awards ceremony will be held on April 11 at The University of Southern Mississippi during the University’s Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival. Winners receive an honorarium of $1,000 and a gold medallion.

“The Book Award was created to bring attention and recognition to new artists who carry on in the spirit of Keats,” said Deborah Pope, Executive Director of the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation. “The jury looks for new books of beauty that portray the universal qualities of childhood, a strong and supportive family, and the multicultural nature of our world.”

Founded by the late Caldecott award-winning author and illustrator, the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation “ supports arts and literacy programming in public schools and libraries across the country, with the goal of bringing the joy of reading and learning to all children while highlighting the importance of diversity in children’s book.” The de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection at The University of Southern Mississippi is one of the of the leading research centers in the field of children’s literature in the U.S.

Audiobook award finalists: The 2013 Audie Awards finalists have been released by the Audio Publishers Association (APA). The Awards, honoring distinction in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment, are given in 28 categories for children, teens, and adults. The winners will be recognized at the Audies Gala at the New York Historical Society in New York City on May 30. The event will be emceed by writer Daniel Handler.

There are three categories devoted entirely to audiobooks for children and teens. In the Children’s Titles for Ages 8–12 category, the finalists are: The Cheshire Cheese Cat by Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright, narrated by Katherine Kellgren and Robin Sachs (Listening Library); The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman, narrated by Robin Miles (Listening Library); Same Sun Here by Silas House and Neela Vaswani, narrated by the authors (Brilliance Audio); Wonder by R. J. Palacio, narrated by Diana Steele, Nick Podehl, and Kate Rudd (Brilliance Audio); Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz, narrated by Davina Porter (Recorded Books).

In Children’s Titles for Ages Up to 8, the finalists are: The Great Cake Mystery: Precious Ramotswe’s Very First Case by Alexander McCall Smith, narrated by Adjoa Andoh (Listening Library); Knuffle Bunny Free: An Unexpected Diversion by Mo Willems, narrated by the author, Cher, and Trixie Willems (Weston Woods); A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead, narrated by David de Vries (Weston Woods); Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig, narrated by James Earl Jones (S & S Audio); We Are America by Walter Dean Myers, narrated by Dion Graham and a full cast (Live Oak Media).

The finalists in the Teen category are: The Diviners by Libba Bray, narrated by January LaVoy (Listening Library); Dodger by Terry Pratchett, narrated by Stephen Briggs (HarperAudio); Enchanted by Alethea Kontis, narrated by Katherine Kellgren (Brilliance Audio); The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, narrated by Kate Rudd (Brilliance Audio); and Inheritance by Christopher Paolini, narrated by Gerard Doyle (Listening Library).

“It is always an exciting revelation to see which titles have been nominated, especially as the number of titles produced in audio each year is growing so rapidly,” said Michele Cobb, President of the APA. “Yet again, this year’s finalists do not disappoint. With an outstanding host, an amazing list of potential winners, and a gorgeous venue, we look forward to once again celebrating excellence in audio publishing.”

Do Your Students Know a Super Hero?

Writing contest: Be a Super Hero, Read! is a writing contest for kids in grades 3–6 sponsored by DC Entertainment and Capstone. Children are encouraged to write about a real super hero in their lives who has amazing human qualities such as courage, generosity, or imagination. Entries must be approved by the child’s librarian, teacher, parent, or guardian. Judging criteria includes originality, creativity, and heroism displayed.

Be sure to check out the contest rules and how to enter. Entries must be received by April 15.

The top five finalists will be selected by the contest judges. Starting on May 15, kids across the country will have the chance to vote online for their favorite. The entry that receives the most votes will be selected as the grand prize winner, which will be announced at Book Expo America in New York City on May 30.

The first prize winner will receive a trip for four to tour Warner Bros. Animation Studios and DC Entertainment offices in California, a collection of DC comics, and Capstone merchandise. The hero described by the winner will get $2,500 to donate to his or her favorite registered non-profit charity. The five finalists will receive a set of Capstone’s “Man of Steel” chapter books.

“Our teams are excited to collaborate with DC Entertainment for this contest. We’re thrilled to give children an opportunity to appreciate the ‘super powers’ of their real-life heroes and to expand their literacy skills while doing it, “noted Ashley Andersen Zantop, Capstone Group Publisher and General Manager.

Music to Their Ears

Streaming music: March is Music in Our Schools Month. And what better way to celebrate than with the addition of a streaming music service to PBS Kids Play!, an online subscription cross-curricular learning program. PBS Kids Play! features characters from PBS Kids and interactive games for children in preschool through the first grade. To reinforce lessons for children, streaming music has been added to the program for subscribers. The first 25 music tracks are from the PBS Kids program Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and the web-original series Fizzy’s Lunch Lab. Later this year, additional songs from other PBS Kids series will be added.

According to a recent news release, the songs are “designed to aid memory recall, reinforce key developmental and language themes, and encourage body movement for healthy development. The initial offering includes songs that address social and emotional skills and nutrition.

Freebies

Book giveaway: To celebrate the two-year anniversary of their Books in Bloom blog, Mackin Educational Resources is giving away books every Friday in March. It’s easy to enter the book drawing. Just go to the contest blog and leave a comment on the contest post with the title of the best book you’ve read in the past month.

The Books in Bloom blog, written by Mackin’s professional collection development librarians, highlights high-quality, current fiction and nonfiction K-12 books. Mackin Educational Resources has provided preschool–12 books, online databases, audiobooks, video resources, and other library and classroom materials from more than 18,000 publishers to schools for nearly 30 years.