Hurricane Sandy benefit:

Literacy Campaign

Books for kids in need: Scholastic, The UPS Store, and Marine Toys for Tots are launching a holiday literacy drive that’s part of Scholastic’s literacy campaign, Read Every Day, Lead a Better Life. The aim of the campaign is to “help all children experience the love of reading and owning a book,” including those who lost books due to Hurricane Sandy that devastated the East Coast. There are a number of ways that families can help.

When you download Storia, Scholastic’s teacher-recommended children’s ereading app, you will receive five free ebooks. For every additional ebook you purchase on Storia through December 31, Scholastic will donate a children’s book to a child in need through Toys for Tots Literacy Program (they’ve committed to donating a minimum of 50,000 books).

You can also donate to the Toys for Tots Literacy Program by purchasing a donation card or donating online at The UPS Store Facebook page. Furthermore, the UPS Store that raises the most money during the holidays will get 500 books for families in their community.

Awards

Life changer: The chances are that you know a K–12 school district educator or employee who exemplifies excellence, positive influence, and leadership. Well, it’s time to nominate them for the Life Changer of the Year Award sponsored by National Life Group (National Life Insurance Co.). School employees and administrators can nominate full-time educators, teachers, principals, or any member of the school’s staff.

Winners will be selected on the basis of their ability to make a difference in the lives of students and their ability to positively add to the development of the school’s atmospheres. They must also be a leader in their activities at the school and/or district level, have a proven record of excellence at the professional level, and be committed to producing a nurturing atmosphere. Be sure to check out the official rules and complete the nomination form. Nominations can be made through January 25.

The grand prize winner will receive $5,000 with a matching award going to their school. The first runner-up will receive $3,500 with an equal amount awarded to their school. The second runner-up and their school will each get $2,500. There will also be seven LifeChanger awards—the employee and the school will each receive $1,500.

And the Winner Is…

Service to the community: Five libraries and five museums were presented with the 2012 National Medal for Museum and Library Service by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) at a ceremony at the White House on November 14. The Medal winners are selected from nominations of institutions nationwide that “demonstrate innovative approaches to public service, exceeding the expected levels of community outreach” and make a difference for individuals, families, and the communities. Anyone can nominate a library or museum for the National Medal, including the institutions employees, board members, community members, and elected officials.

This year’s honorees include Bootheel Youth Museum, Malden, MO; Contra Costa County Library, Pleasant Hill, CA; Cumberland County Public Library, Fayetteville, NC; Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, IL; Long Island Children’s Museum, Garden City, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, N. Miami, FL; Naturita Community Library, CO; Pacific Science Center, Seattle, WA; Park View High School Library Media Center, Sterling, VA; and Shaler North Hills Library, Glenshaw, PA. Make sure to check out just how these institutions have reached out to the communities they serve. “By pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and embracing new ideas and approaches, these award winners have challenged the conventional notions of what a library or museum can and should be,” said First Lady Michelle Obama.

Industry News

Infobase Learning has acquired Learn 360, an interactive media-on-demand service from AIM Education. The Learn360 platform is a subscription service used by more than 25,00 schools that offers digital video titles, video clips, speeches, images, songs, research articles, and more from over 60 educational producers. Infobase provides digital reference content to schools and libraries under brands such as Facts On File, The World Almanac, Chelsea House, and Films Media Group. “This acquisition greatly expands our existing reach within the elementary, middle, and high school markets,” noted Mark McDonnell, president and CEO of Infobase Learning. “Learn360’s extensive multimedia assets and virtual classroom platform complement Infobase’s award-winning digital reference products.”

On the move: Maria Modugno joined Random House as editorial director, picture books for the Random House and Golden Books for Young Readers Group on November 26. Modugo’s career includes numerous positions at Little, Brown Children’s Books where she published such classics as I Love You Like Crazy Cakes (2000 by Rose Lewis and Jane Dyers and oversaw Marc Brown’s “Arthur” series. She also was editorial director of children’s books at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. She is leaving her position as vice president/editorial director at HarperCollins Children’s Books where she acquired and edited books such as Victoria Kann’s Pinkalicious (2006) and Rob Scotton’s Splat the Cat (2008).

Downed tree on the way to New Canaan Library, CT.

The day after Hurricane Sandy, my wife and I walked around our town. We’d been fortunate. Even though a fallen tree blocked our street, with every sort of power line beneath it, we had power and water and even TV and Internet. Our house was filled with neighbors charging their cell phones and craving hot coffee.

As we picked our way past trees and police tape and fallen wires, we saw home after home darkened, trees upended across yards, porches, and roofs. We finally reached my 92-year-old mother, who was trapped in her cold, powerless home, and my mother-in-law, who was even more imprisoned in an apartment with neither power nor running water. I’m sure you’ve all had similar experiences or have seen images such as these, and far worse.

The storm brought change. We all also saw President Obama and New Jersey Governor Christie work together—an image of what our nation could be and should be. And that brings me to the main point of this column. I believe that students in every school in America should address the following question: Are human actions changing our climate? And if they are, how? What can we do about it?

We’re living amidst wild nature. Is that due to climate change? What could be a more perfect Common Core question? What could be more central to our lives, and our students’ futures? To address these questions, kids need to use science, history, economics, ecology, biology, math, and social action—they can read dystopian novels such as Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker (Little, Brown, 2010) or M. T. Anderson’s Feed (Candlewick, 2002). These are questions on which experts disagree. That’s perfect. We’re not preaching to our students, we are engaging them in answering a question that’s as central to their generation as civil rights was to mine. Why should schools focus on anything else? Students will learn every required skill, but not as textbook abstractions, rather as the central issues facing us, all of us, right now and in the future.

I urge you, readers, make the case to your school. Or, if the teachers and administration are too pressed by tests to add a new unit, start a display in your library: Is human-induced climate change leading to catastrophic weather? Include books, print-outs from websites and magazines, and ads. (The New York Times has a fine set of learning resources about Sandy.) Then invite kids to add their notes, comments, and questions. Build it and they will come—and you’ll be the agent asking the key questions that must be asked… and answered.

First Book staff and volunteers unload boxes of new books at a warehouse in lower Manhattan. Photo by First Book

(This story was last updated at 9:32 a.m. on November 26.)

Those wishing to help school libraries and children’s collections that were damaged by Hurricane Sandy now have an array of giving options, thanks to several disaster relief programs, children’s book publishers, and charities.

Scholastic Book Grants Program announced plans to donate one million books to those in need. The initiative is a partnership with the organization Kids in Distressed Situations (K. I. D. S.) to assist educators, families, and students in the New York tri-state area who have lost reading materials due to the storm. Schools and libraries may apply for Sandy-related book grants through December 31, 2012.

Simon & Schuster’s education and library marketing department is offering aid in the form of donations of 500 “best of” titles to public and school libraries needing to rebuild their collections, according to a press release. S & S has partnered with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Literacy Lifeboats Initiative, individual schools, and state and regional associations, including the New Jersey Library Association (NJLA), in these efforts.

The nonfiction publisher Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights Inc., donated 500 children’s books to Operation BuddyPack, an initiative by the Heart of America Foundation, to assist schools and students affected by the hurricane.

Mackin Educational Resources, a Minnesota-based company that provides schools and libraries with books, ebooks, and other resources, is encouraging those affected by the hurricane to take part in their online fundraising program, Funds4Books Disaster Relief. For each dollar donated to East Coast schools and libraries, Mackin will provide a 10 percent match.

New York City teachers can turn to the online school charity Donors Choose with specific storm-related requests. A Hurricane Relief Fund donation page had logged more than $77,000 in contributions as of November 12. The New York City Department of Education also offers ways to help afflicted city schools. Donations can be made here.

In addition, the New York City School Librarians’ Association (NYCSLA) is creating a donation program organized by city librarians who attended the New York City School Library System’s 23rd Annual Library Fall Conference on November 6.

The Hudson Valley Library Association (HVLA), made up of private school librarians in New York City, Long Island, Westchester, New Jersey, and Connecticut, is also doing its part with a Google Document on its listserv offering HVLA members the option to ask for specific materials or financial assistance. HVLA will then match those requests with donors.

Urban Librarians Unite (ULU), an organization dedicated to promoting librarianship in cities, is also gathering book donations. ULU is specifically seeking children’s books because these materials usually sit on low shelves where flooding damage is worst. However, they are also accepting YA books, as well as monetary gifts.

Other established national disaster relief programs are renewing promotion of their services in relation to Hurricane Sandy. First Book, an organization that provides new books to needy children, announced a partnership last week with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Albert Shanker Institute that pledged to match every donation of $2.50 made to First Book, up to $35,000 for new books. Donations can be made here.

According to First Book’s director of communications, Brian Minter, the organization distributed five million books after Hurricane Katrina, and has already raised enough money to provide 20,000 books in the wake of Sandy. In addition to that, First Book is in the process of delivering a truckload of 30,000 books to be distributed in New York at the request of AFT and its New York City affiliate, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), on November 12.

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Beyond Words Grant program, funded by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation and established in partnership with the National Education Association (NEA), offers help replacing school library books, media, and other equipment, as well as financial aid associated with absorbing students from other afflicted schools in states served by Dollar General stores.

While Beyond Words was incepted in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina, AASL issued a new press release about the program on November 9, 2012, stating that Dollar General had distributed over $1.6 million to more than 130 schools during the past six years. Last June, AASL also announced two annual catastrophic grants in the amount of $50,000 for schools in need. Ongoing grants will be awarded to eligible applicants in amounts ranging from $10,000-$20,000.

“We wanted schools to know that assistance is available,” AASL President Susan Ballard told SLJ. “We are hopeful that members along the East Coast in the greater New York-New Jersey area will have a chance to apply for those grants.”

Ballard anticipates that “we will have a greater feel for what the needs are and how we can marshal a plan going forward” after the New Jersey Association of School Librarians (NJASL) conference from November 29 to December 1.

In the meantime, a new page on the New Jersey Department of Education site provides schools in the state with tips for navigating the federal assistance process and directs those wishing to help to the Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund.

Also geared toward aid in New Jersey, “YA for NJ” is an initiative in which over 170 YA and middle-grade authors offered items for an online auction, including autographed books, school visits, online meetings. All proceeds will go to the Community Foodbank of New Jersey.

Students whose SAT preparation was affected by Hurricane Sandy also received free assistance from Revolution Prep, an educational software and services provider that offered a free online SAT review session on November 15 to help students prepare for the tests, rescheduled for  November 17 and December 15 because of the storm.

Most New Jersey schools were open on November 13.  Katie Llera, a librarian at Sayreville Middle School, was one of many educators looking forward to returning to school after more than a week without power. Llera took part in volunteer efforts while schools were closed, and she also emphasized the importance of social networking to keep educators and students connected during that time.

Last week, Llera relied upon Edmodo, a social media website for educators, to keep in touch. The site is ordinarily used for her school’s book club, but Llera created other posts to distract students from the stress of the hurricane, offering news about the Garden State Teen Book Awards and information about a Skype chat with fantasy author Gail Carson-Levine. “I was just trying to get them to look forward to school, to keep their mind a little bit off of what’s happening,” she said.

Jennifer Jamison, a school media specialist in the Atlantic City, New Jersey, School District, has been working with Atlantic City Teachers United (ACTU), a group set up last week to help Atlantic City students and their families with basic needs after the hurricane. Though ACTU isn’t officially sanctioned by the Atlantic City Board of Education, it has reached out on the ground and through Facebook to gather donations, dropped off at school libraries, for those who are most in need.

The library at Atlantic City’s Brighton Avenue School was destroyed by the storm, Jamison said. While books are certainly on her radar, at the moment, “Kids don’t have underwear or mattresses.”  At ACTU, “We are collecting necessities,” she explained. “This is not a two-week thing. This will be a year-long initiative.”

As Jamison and others take the steps toward recovery over the coming weeks and months, they will have many ways to seek help.

Stepping up quickly to serve victims of Hurricane Sandy, award-winning children’s author Kate Messner has launched KitLit Cares: Superstorm Sandy Relief Effort, an online auction featuring donations from the children’s literature community to benefit the Red Cross.

Since Messner first reached out online to authors, agents, editors, and illustrators, “The outpouring has been nothing short of amazing,” she says.

“Situations like this let us see social media at its best and most kindhearted,” adds Messner, who solicited auction donations through Twitter (@KateMessner, #KidLitCares) and Facebook. “For three days I’ve been doing nothing but answering email and adding auction items” to the auction site.

Messner, the author of The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. (Walker, 2009), knows how effective such fundraising efforts can be. After Hurricane Irene destroyed the children’s section of her local library in upstate New York, she organized a similar drive. As a result of her efforts, that library’s youth services collection is now stronger than it was before Irene.

Kate Messner

As for KidLit Cares, Messner says, “To be honest, it seemed like something that somebody should do. I don’t have a book deadline this week.”

According to Messner’s instructions, the top bidders must make a payment in the amount of their winning bids directly to the Red Cross at the auction’s close. Ending times for auctions of the first 42 items are staggered, with bidding ending November 13 at 10 pm.

The next 40 items will begin posting online November 12, says Messner, adding that she enlisted the help of friend and fellow children’s author Joanne Levy to administer the second round.

“The children’s literature community comes together for these things,” Levy says. “I’ve been up to my eyeballs in donations.”

The 42 items currently up for bid include:

A Skype session with children’s author and illustrator Mo Willems

A manuscript critique session with YA author Laure Halse Anderson

A portfolio critique with Penguin art director Guiseppe Castellano

A full-day school author visit with Newbery Honor winner Cynthia Lord

A Skype session and signed books from YA writer and poet Ellen Hopkins

A three-day retreat at the Writing Barn in Austin, TX

A Skype session with YA bestselling author Veronica Roth

A Skype session with Newbery Medalist Linda Sue Park

At the New Canaan Library. At left: a tech petting zoo became a charging station; center: kids watching a DVD in the graphic novel section; at left: free coffee

About 50 people were waiting to get into the Princeton (NJ) Public Library (PPL) when it managed to open its doors at 11:00 am on Tuesday, October 30, the morning after Hurricane Sandy unleashed its wrath along the East Coast. About 80 percent of Princeton was without power, but PPL was lit, warm, and wired, operated by a skeletal staff and volunteers who were able to maneuver their way, most on foot, through streets laden with downed trees to the downtown library. Adults and kids flooded into PPL with their laptops, preparing to hunker down, play games, read books, and watch family movies until the library’s regular closing time at 9 pm.

Meanwhile, the New Canaan (CT) Library was also open, packed, and buzzing on Tuesday—receiving patrons until 10 pm (usual closing time is 8:00), says teen services librarian Gretchen Kolderup, who estimated that about 75 percent of the city had no electricity. A town curfew had gone into effect early Monday afternoon, sending people home, Kolderup told SLJ in an email, but she got a mid-afternoon call from the city’s office of emergency management saying that the library would open at 9 am Tuesday. Since then, the library has been showing movies, and “everyone—staff, patrons, administration—seems to feel a sense of camaraderie with one another,” Kolderup said, adding that the director had been at the reference desk since the library opening.

PPL had learned from Hurricane Irene how critical its role is in times of disaster, says communications director Tim Quinn. When Irene struck in August 2011, 4,500 people streamed through the library doors, 2,000 more than the daily average. A lot more than 4,500 came yesterday, he says, though the library had not yet tallied a full count of patrons by 7 pm. School was not in session when Irene hit, adds Quinn, and many people were out of town. Not so this time.

Quinn had made his way to the library early Tuesday morning, and seeing that the electricity was up and the WiFi functional, assembled his “worst case scenario” staff—including a non-librarian neighbor who manned the reference desk all day, refusing breaks. The library ran family movies “day and night” its community room, says Quinn, and will continue to do so as long as the schools remain closed this week. The shelves are emptying—“There’s only one copy of any of the ‘Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’ books left,” says youth services librarian Suzanne Savidge—and when the computer outlets filled up, teenagers organized an impromptu chess tournament, with the librarians’ permission.

“It’s wall-to-wall people and children,” Savidge said, adding that “the teenagers are asking, ‘Can’t we have an overnight?’”

While Sandy has spawned other such inspiring stories, the grim extent of the storm’s damage to public and school libraries in harder-hit areas has yet to be determined. Other areas of New Jersey remained in full disaster mode on Wednesday morning.

The South Orange (NJ) Public Library, north of Princeton, was designated the town’s primary evacuation center. Emergency personnel started arriving on Monday. In the storm’s aftermath, patrons are using the library to power and warm up, as many of them had no heat in their homes. Library director Melissa Kopecky says, “We’re always a shelter for the community. We’re doing what we always do.” Staff computers have been made available to the public, people are reading and charging phones in the stacks, and volunteers and stranded students from Rutgers University have stepped in to help out the bustling library.

Like PPL, the Roxbury Public Library in Succasunna, NJ, is one of the few places in town with electricity and, as of 11 am, Internet access. Patrons were waiting outside before the library’s usual hours—prompting staff to open early to help some of the 83 percent of town households and businesses without power. Minimal damage (to a fence) hasn’t deterred staff from their usual schedule, and the scheduled ‘tween Halloween party was still a go. Library director Will Porter stated, “The parking lot is overflowing, and the library is as busy as I’ve ever seen it.”

“My library has been closed since Monday,” said Liz Burns, youth services consultant for the New Jersey State Library for the Blind and Handicapped in Ewing Township, NJ, and SLJ blogger. “There is no power for school libraries and nothing is being done at the moment. A mandatory curfew is in effect from 7 pm to 7 am to keep people off the streets in the dark. There’s not even any kind of emergency power for streetlights.”

In the New York City borough of Queens, where regions were devastated by the storm and fire, “We’ve got four libraries that are in disaster mode that will need reconstruction,” Queens Library CEO Thomas W. Galante told SLJ on Wednesday morning. Three of those libraries suffered flooding from three to five feet, reaching the computer monitors, he says, and causing electrical damage. The entire facade of the Peninsula branch library has crumbled, pushed off by water flowing out of the library building. A fifth library in the Rockaways sustained no structural damage, but has no electricity.

“We are still assessing” how long repairs will take, Galante says, perhaps ”weeks or a month, versus months.” Still, Galante feels that Queens fared “pretty well” from the storm.

Like all New York City libraries, Queens libraries remained closed on October 31. But Galante said that 55 of the 62 Queens branches will be open no November 1, and staff will “help people with any kind of FEMA applications and other services” they need related to the disaster. Children’s programs will run as usual, but Galante noted that staffing will prove difficult because of subway closings.

Other city libraries suffered comparatively little. Angela Montefinise, spokesperson for the New York Public Library (NYPL), said in an email on Wednesday that the 90 NYPL branches in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island had sustained virtually no structural damage. However, they were contending with minor flooding as well as power outages.

Damage to New York City school libraries had not yet been fully assessed. “Most of the New York City school buildings are closed, and I don’t have a sense of the damage yet,” Richard Hasenyager, director of library services at New York City Department of Education, told SLJ October 30. Hasenyager held out a bit of cautious optimism for the city’s school libraries, however: “Many of our school libraries are located on the second floor. Many times we complain about it, but at times like this, we’re very happy.”

“Our facilities group is assessing the situation and we are not to bother them, Hasenyager said October 31 in a follow-up email. “They will be presenting an update soon, but I don’t know when.”

But with much of lower Manhattan and coastal areas of other boroughs flooded, a vast swath of Manhattan below 34th Street still without power due to an explosion at a 14th Street Con Ed substation, and subway stations brimming with damaging salt water, it’s not yet clear how long Sandy will keep the city in a holding pattern. As subways remained inoperable at press time, New York City public schools were closed through Thursday, November 1.

Elizabeth Naylor-Gutierrez, the NYC DOE’s library coordinator for Manhattan and Queens, pointed out that “First responders are looking at residential buildings, not schools,” so conditions are difficult to assess. Similarly, Freeport, Long Island, high school librarian Rose Luna had no idea what condition her school library would be in, since Freeport, in a flood zone, has more urgent problems: over 80 percent without power, and ocean waters gushing into homes as far as two miles from shore, she said. Because her school library is also on the second floor, she remained somewhat hopeful.

In the meantime, the question of what to do with, and say to, anxious children posed a challenge. FEMA director Craig Fugate encouraged parents to read with their children, according to a news report, and readers Tweeted their top picks at #StormReads. On WNYC Radio’s Brian Lehrer show October 30, Rosemarie Truglio, Sesame Street’s vice president of education and research, teamed up live with Elmo, reassuring frightened child callers who were biding their time at home, and doling out tips to adults about what to say to young kids about the storm. (Listeners were encouraged to tweet questions to @briahlehrer). Truglio’s main points: Keep your routine, listen closely to your child’s questions, don’t give them more information than they can handle, and empower kids by helping them with clean-up and other post-storm efforts as is appropriate.

Sesame Street also offers a hurricane coping kit, and a Youtube video (below) showing staff brainstorming and filming of a hurricane-themed show in which Big Bird’s nest is destroyed. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network site provides more suggestions on how to help children during this time.

Meanwhile, at the New Canaan Library, Kolderup and staff have been handing out cards to new patrons and coaching others in how to use ebooks. She said, “We’re turning the storm into community goodwill, recruitment, an outreach.”