Roger Mastroianni Photography

A design revolution is reinventing the children’s room in public libraries and changing the way young children learn.

The movement involves colorful spaces with mirrors, soft edges, and things to climb on. There are items to play with such as “sentence makers” and audio-based toys. A farmer’s market, cash register, automobile, or airport may be involved. Most importantly, the areas are embedded with tools and features that get kids ready to read.

This new breed of literacy-packed play spaces in libraries is inspired by children’s museums and the developmental theories that drive them. “You can call it interaction, you can call it theme design,” says Sharon Exley, a designer and president of Architecture is Fun, a firm that has conceived spaces for both libraries and children’s museums. “We’re creating architecture in a way that children understand,” she adds. “The underlying story or framework is always literacy, and how you make it fun and playful.”

Bite-sized children’s museums

Tracy Strobel strived for a rich learning experience that would keep patrons coming back when she was conceiving new children’s areas for the Cuyahoga County (OH) Public Library (CCPL), now in the midst of a system-wide rebuilding and renovation project. Strobel, deputy director at CCPL, imagined “bite-sized pieces of a children’s museum” that kids and their caregivers or parents would visit weekly or once a month. They would be “destinations for families much in the way that a children’s museum is a destination,” she says.

The garden-themed toddler area at the Evanston (IL)
Public Library has ample seating for caregivers.
Photo by Doug Snower Photography

While planning the nine new children’s areas, each at roughly 8,000 square feet, Strobel zeroed in on what they needed to offer children educationally. The designs, she notes, had to be “related to the six early literacy skills” identified by literacy experts and adapted by educators: developing vocabulary, print recognition, print awareness, narrative adeptness, letter knowledge, and phonological awareness. Strobel handed potential architects and designers a sheet outlining these and other key requirements. At the same time, she adds, “we try really hard to have a variety of elements at the different spaces.”

Enter the design firm RedBox Workshop, which is conceiving, fabricating, and installing some of the new areas at CCPL. “You’re basically teaching experiential learning through play,” explains Tony LaBrosse, partner and director of design and project management at RedBox. The company has also created play areas at museums, zoos, and hospitals.

In the libraries, at least, books still reign, but the heart of the project was “applying an aesthetic wrapper to early literacy objectives,” says LaBrosse. Many CCPL spaces are built around themes from children’s books. The Warrensville branch environment, for one, was inspired by Ashley Bryan’s book Let it Shine: Three Favorite Spirituals (Atheneum, 2007), with its vibrant, cut-paper illustrations. The library walls, decorated with dancing silhouettes like those in Bryan’s book, do indeed create a vibrant sense of play that riffs on the heart of the literature in the room.

An Evanston patron with cushions
that double as a classic stacking toy.
Photo by Doug Snower Photography

A centerpiece of the new features is an enclosed “crawler space,” as Strobel calls it—a safe, enclosed play pit for the littlest patrons, stocked with stimulating, brightly colored motifs. Nearby, a light board allows pre-literate kids to assemble stories with different Colorform shapes, honing narrative adeptness. A sound board spells out words broken into syllables. When a child pushes a button, he hears an individual syllable pronounced. In a nearby mirror, he can watch himself forming the syllables.

A “sentence maker” also builds print awareness with elements that kids can spin or move up and down to reveal random words forming “wacky sentences,” says CCPL marketing and communications director Hallie Rich.

Elements like these, LaBrosse explains, are about “meeting the individual or group where they’re at on any given day.” He says, “We don’t try to set up an experience that is ‘you will learn this today when you go do that experience.’ We’re not here to judge their learning experience. We don’t have an outcome. We’re not grading.” The designs also “try to create age-appropriate risk” such as exploring—and probably taking a tumble—without getting hurt.

The children’s area at CCPL’s new Mayfield branch takes inspiration from Denise Fleming’s Caldecott Honor book In the Small Small Pond (Holt, 1993). Adopting the idea of wetlands exploration,the space incorporates “science work related to tadpoles or microscopic science with early literacy,” says LaBrosse. There’s a microscope, an insect observation center with large bugs on view, and a soundboard.

Other spaces are purely thematic. At Garfield Heights, it’s all about cars. There’s a garage and a gas pump, levers and pulleys to play with, and toy spark plugs, all of which can be manipulated to boost STEM skills, a priority of the local school system, says Strobel. The Fairview branch takes on the concept of travel, with world landmarks, a play airplane hangar, and control tower. There’s a ticketing and baggage area, along with places to sell food, and a cash register. The environment “allows kids to do all this imaginative play with time, tools, and small motor skills,” says Strobel.

Lamaze and play-based pavilions

The best way to engage early learners, says Exley, is through “literacy-rich and play-based pavilions that allow children to explore” and navigate the world of reading.

She and her partner at Architecture is Fun, husband and architect Peter Exley, kept these child-centered questions in mind while conceptualizing a renovation for the 14,500-square-foot children’s area for the Evanston (IL) Public Library in 2007 and a new, nearly 16,000-square-foot space for the Fountaindale (IL) Public Library in 2011.

Developmental theory is always at the forefront of Exley’s mind. While dreaming up spaces for very young children, she thinks about psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs,” a theory of psychological health. The basic idea is that a fundamental feeling of safety and security enables relationships, esteem, and creative potential.

For Exley, this translates into crawler spaces offering stimulation and security. “Sensory gardens, little padded landscapes, things on the ceiling to focus on” are key elements for the youngest library patrons, Exley says. The soft, colorful elements also offer “Lamaze-style iconography.”

At Evanston, the “garden of early learning,” like Warrenville’s crawler spot, is such a place. It is an enclosed area with playful plant and flower motifs—gingko leaves and stylized roses based on a Charles Rennie Macintosh design. Inside, oversized cushions function as a “classic stacking toy, but we’ve done it as a giant soft sculpture,” says Exley. “If a child is learning to walk or stand, it gives them something to hold on to.”

Elsewhere at Evanston, where the Exleys’ elements were fabricated and installed by RedBox, is a little collection of “storytelling sticks,” resembling garden signs, that can be written on. “Very often preschoolers tell a little story to teachers who write it down and parents get this at the end of the day,” says Exley. To build on kids’ articulation skills, “parents can jot down a thought shared by their child.”

A game pavilion at the Fountaindale (IL) Public Library.
Photo by Doug Snower Photography

For older children, the Exleys conceived tables with built-in bins for art supplies and play items such as LEGO. Branching columns rise from the tables, a nod to architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The overhanging limbs are outfitted with holes that librarians can suspend things from—origami, artwork, globes, or whatever else may be related to the project of the moment. The art area has a built-in sink for washing up. This place is made for action.

The Fountaindale children’s area took its cue from a children’s book, Dragon Tree by Jane Langton (HarperCollins, 2008). With lots of room to move, the team created a “mini-park” with stylized trees arranged to “call out these areas of adventure or discovery,” Exley says.

Those areas include a spot for playing global games, with real globes and one painted with blackboard paint, so kids can draw their own world. A “garden of technology” has informational monitors suspended from trees. There’s a crawler area here, too, and a space for the chess club. In the art area, the trees are equipped with clips for displaying completed art projects.

Exley stresses that libraries considering play-centered areas should be mindful of designing one they can manage. You want an area that “the staff can afford” and maintain. Fountaindale manager of children’s services Wendy Birkemeier says that because of graffiti issues, she doesn’t usually leave chalk out in the library. Her staff puts out washable crayons instead.

More conceptually, Exley returns to the central exploratory aspect of such early learning areas. “You don’t want to have an interactive environment that’s push-button,” she says. “You need something open-ended.”

“Family Play and Learning Spots”

The Hennepin County (MN) Library (HCL) launched its first early literacy play area in 2010, when the Minnesota Children’s Museum received an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to explore the idea of designing early literacy play spaces within libraries. HCL has adopted two of these spaces so far, geared to children ages two to six, at the Hopkins and North Regional branches, with another opening this fall.

“The idea was that children’s museums have great ideas about exhibit design and ways for parents and children to interact around play,” says Maureen Hartman, coordinating librarian, youth programs and services at HCL, of the new 400- to 700-square foot areas. “That’s a really different direction for libraries.” She adds, “We have supported our staff with play training that the children’s museum has offered us.”

On any given day at one of these play spots, you’ll find children busily working in a fabricated garden, made of two pieces of leather with cotton underneath, planting imaginary seeds in a row. One might plunk an illustrated sign reading “carrot” into the ground, cook toy carrots in a play kitchen, and serve them up at a mini café table. Nearby, at a toy farmer’s market, children can sort, count, and identify more vegetables. All this fun is bolstering their vocabulary and reading and honing narration and numeracy abilities.

To inform and support caregivers, “directions and cues to parents” are posted at the early literacy spaces, Hartman says. HCL also produced a document for adults outlining five simple things that they can do to help get kids ready to read, based on the Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) principles issued by the Public Library Association (PLA): “talk, sing, read, write and play together.”

A play kitchen and mini theater at the North Regional branch of the Hennepin County (MN) Library. The Hennepin system’s early learning spots are oriented to children ages two to six and resulted from a collaboration with the Minnesota Children’s Museum.
Photo Courtesy of Hennepin County Library

“Playing is how kids learn,” the document tells readers. “Playing in a space like this helps kids use their imagination to solve problems—it also helps them learn to work with others and prepares them to learn and read.”

For now, HCL is calling these new areas “Family Play and Learning Spots,” according to Hartman. HCL is working with the Minnesota Children’s Museum and the Minnesota Center for Early Education and Development on an evaluation of the impact these types of areas have within libraries. “I’m really interested in a pre- and post- test,” says Hartman. “What does engagement look like between parents with children in a regular library vs. one that’s more thoughtfully planned?”

Answers to that question, and others, will be revealed when the study is completed this fall. Hartman says she will use the findings to leverage support for more play spaces.

In the meantime, the people who help conceive and build these educational hot spots never stop wondering how spatial design can better support literacy and development. “Some designers look at things in two dimensions, like how long you want your desk to be,” Exley says. “We like to think in a four-dimensional way. We come in to add the experience level—in 4D.”

Librarians are often more comfortable working in the literacy classroom than manipulating mathematical data, but it may be statistics that prove to be our greatest ally. When the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were rolled out two years ago, they were packaged as content standards, and six instructional pedagogical shifts were identified. Those shifts called for additional attention to vocabulary, nonfiction materials, text complexity, literacy across content areas, increased curriculum rigor from kindergarten through high school, and a focus on producing evidence (versus opinion). By drawing conclusions from data extrapolated from the English Language Arts (ELA) CCSS, librarians can build a strong case for a seventh shift: research.

In the world of statistics, occurrence, or frequency, is often used to interpret results. Viewing the CCSS standards through a statistical lens as a body of data and assessing importance based upon word frequency produces results that support that case. Start by assuming that the ELA standards represent the intentions of the authors of the CCSS, and the objectives, learning targets, and pedagogy that they are asking educators to embrace. Investigate the language of the standards and examine the number of times certain words appear; you’ll notice that the term “research” appears 132 times, exceeding the mention of “vocabulary” (79) and “nonfiction” (64), and comes in close to “evidence” (155) and “complexity” (196). The word “information” (244) is used more often than all five, but behind “reading” (388).

Clearly, research is an essential component of the learning process in the CCSS classroom. In most schools, it’s the librarian who teaches the higher-level skills that equip students to access, evaluate, and synthesize information—information that they use to speak and write with accuracy and authority when they produce evidence and draw conclusions for discussions, debates, or written assignments.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, half of this generation’s students will earn their living from the creation, dissemination, analysis, and communication of information. Under the CCSS, students begin exploring multiple points of view and presentations in the elementary years; by sixth grade, they are “researching to build and present knowledge” and by seventh grade are expected to conduct “short research projects to answer a question, drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions for further research and investigation.” These benchmarks broaden and expand until 12th grade, by which time students should be “college and career ready.”

In addition, the pedagogy of evidence—text-based answers and the close reading of text—is part of the research process. Approximately half of the Common Core writing standards acknowledge that research is part of the writing process (see, Writing for Information Standards 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10). In the introduction to the ELA standards, under “Key Design Consideration” is this strong indication of that role: “To be ready for college, workforce training, and life in a technological society, students need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information and ideas, to conduct original research in order to answer questions or solve problems, and to analyze and create a high volume and extensive range of print and nonprint texts in media forms old and new….”

Perception data (the court of public opinion) can be as powerful as concrete data. It’s time for library professionals to craft a national message regarding research—in the same way that the arts have implanted themselves into the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) movement in education, turning it into STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, + Art/Design). Formally acknowledging a research shift underscores its function in “building and presenting knowledge” and adds weight to the librarian’s instrumental role within the CCSS.

The time has come to raise our megaphones and strut our stuff. This is an evidence-based claim. We have the data to support it.

Paige Jaeger (pjaeger@WSWHEBOBES.org) is coordinator for school library services, Washington Saratoga Warren Hamilton Essex BOCES, Saratoga Springs, NY.

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced its inaugural list of the Best Apps for Teaching and Learning. Revealed Jun 30 at the American Library Association annual conference, the 25 selected apps cover a broad range of subjects, inspire curriculum connections, and can be used with multiple grades. While chosen with school librarians and classroom instruction in mind, these apps can also be adapted for use in public library programming.

The Best Apps for Teaching and Learning Taskforce, chaired by Melissa Jacobs-Israel, developed a set of criteria based on the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner and selected apps in five distinct categories: books, STEM, organization and management, social sciences, and content creation.

The committee considered whether the apps were well designed, user-friendly, and filled with pop-up ads or other unnecessary distractions. According to the committee, the winning apps encourage deep inquiry, critical thinking skills, and engaging learning experiences. The result is a well-rounded list that will be very useful for teachers and librarians, particularly those new to the world of integrating apps into classrooms and programs.

The list included a few of my own tried and true favorites like Toontastic (a fun and funny content creation app for elementary students) and Evernote (as one committee member noted, “I run my life on Evernote”). There were a few surprises as well. The following are apps that looked so exciting that I downloaded them as they were announced by the selection committee:

Shakespeare in Bits—Hamlet: Where was this when I was in ninth grade? Full-cast narration, animated scenes and character webs help students visualize and further explore the Bard’s famous creation. The original play can also be purchased in-app.

Tinkerbox: This is what great STEM apps can be. Combining engineering, puzzles, and design, children are encouraged to problem solve, apply new skills, and use their imaginations. They can invent crazy machines and share them with friends or with the app developer.

Videolicious: There are a ton of video creation apps, but very few are simple enough for most kids to use successfully and powerful enough to produce high-quality creations. This one hits both marks. Kids can choose photo or video content already saved on their device, record a narration, and select a copyright-free song from the in-app library.

Kiera Parrott is head of children’s services at Darien Library, CT, and a blogger for ALSC.

Send your pictures of the week to sdiaz@mediasourceinc.com

On June 24, the National Museum of Mathematics in New York City kicked off its first annual National Pajama Party Week with the book launch of Bedtime Math: A Fun Excuse to Stay Up Late (Fiewel and Friends) by Laura Overdeck, author and founder of the Bedtime Math nonprofit, an organization whose mission is to make nightly the math problem as common as the bedtime story. The event included math focused games for families and a book giveaway and signing by the author.

Bedtime Math author Laura Overdeck signs books for awaiting fans. Photos courtesy of Bedtime Math

Families read and worked together to solve math games.

Students at The Good Hope School in St. Croix with some of the contenders for the 2013 Irma Black Award.

New York’s Bank Street Center for Children’s Literature (CCL) has named Michelle Knudsen’s Big Mean Mike (Candlewick) the winner of its Irma Black Award for the best read-aloud picture book for first and second grade, and Andrea Menotti’s How Many Jelly Beans? (Chronicle) the winner of its Cook Prize for the best picture book that teaches science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) principles. Both winners were determined by students from around the world.

Knudsen previously received a 2006 Irma Black Award for The Library Lion, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes.

More than 7,500 first and second graders voted to make Big Mean Mike—illustrated by Scott Magoon—the favorite, according to Jennifer M. Brown, CCL’s interim director. Brown also notes that more than 2,000 third- and fourth-grade students participated in voting for the Cook Prize, up from last year’s 619. How Many Jelly Beans? is illustrated by Yancey Labat.

The winners will be celebrated at a ceremony held in Tabas Auditorium at the Bank Street College of Education on May 23, 2013. Peter H. Reynolds will deliver the opening keynote.

Award administrators Jennifer Brown (l.) and Kristin Freda (r.) of the Bank
Street College of Education hold up the most oft-cited finale of the book.

Washington DC high school student Golden Rockefeller (right)
was a 2012 STEM Video Game Challenge winner for a game called Electrobob.
Photo courtesy of E-LIne Media.

Students are invited to enter the annual National STEM Video Game Challenge, and organizers are hoping school librarians will help mentor and support kids throughout the process.

In its third year, the contest welcomes students in grades 5–12, including homeschoolers, to create a video game, incorporating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills into their design. Organizers E-Line Media and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop partnered this year with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to extend their outreach to museums and libraries, including K–12 school libraries.

“The more librarians, the better,” says Christa Avampato, a consultant at the Sesame Workshop working directly on the challenge. “A school library is really a hub of a school, where a lot of workshops, knowledge, and socializing takes place. So a librarian becomes more of a mentor with the kids and, as such, has the opportunity to develop interest in the challenge.”

Getting students excited about STEM subjects is precisely why organizers launched the Challenge three years ago, says Brian Alspach, executive vice president of the New York-based game publisher E-Line Media. And video game design seemed the perfect vehicle. Not only do kids like to play them, but many have also experimented with making their own games using programs such as MIT’s Scratch and Microsoft’s Kodu, which are freely available online. (Students can use these programming languages, among others, to create STEM Challenge entries.)

“When you connect to the interest of a young person, that creates a really powerful environment for learning,” says Alspach. “The concept of kids doing something they enjoy is what we’re trying to instill with the STEM challenge.”

Last year’s winners included the Darwin’s Finches game by Steven Stulga. Winner of the High School Open Platform category, the game turns players into species of birds from the Galapagos Islands, and they learn about natural selection. Owen Leddy’s Pathogen Wars, which took the top prize in the High School Playable Game category, had players traveling through the human immune system.

Students—as well as librarians, teachers, parents, or any adult hoping to mentor an entrant—can take advantage of several in-person events taking place across the country in the next two months. On the Challenge site, a Mentor Resource Kit is available for download, with ideas on how to create your own related workshops, and a webinar is in the works. Marsha Semmel, director of strategic partnerships at IMLS, says the sponsors are hoping to push the contest into more public and school libraries to take advantage of the kind of education taking place in these centers.

“We wanted to highlight the fact that a library, any kind of library, is a good place to teach and learn about gaming,” she says. “We want to promote libraries as effective areas of learning.”

Students can enter in either the middle school or high school categories, depending on their age, and can submit a game on their own or as a team of up to four members. Prizes include an AMD laptop fully stocked with game-making software, a $2,000 cash prize for their winning school, plus a visit to New York City to pick up their award. Registration opened in February, and students have until April 24 to submit their finished entry—just enough time to get your students’ game face on and start coding.

Free resources:

ABDO has also just published a biography series for upper elementary students—“Women in Science”—that highlights the compelling lives of six female scientists (Rachel Carson, Joanne Simpson, Antonia Novello, Chien-Shiung Wu, Hayat Sindi, and Mae Jemison) that is sure to interest young readers.

Teaching guide: Hurry up and get your free copy of Brother Sam and All That: Historical Context and Literary Analysis of the Novels of James and Christopher Collier (Clearwater Pr., 1999) from AudioGO. The lessons compiled in this companion teaching guide provide teachers and librarians with information about how to use historical fiction in the classroom—just what the Common Core Standards require—and tips for teaching the novels by James and Christopher Collier. AudioGO publishes audiobook and ebook versions of more than 50 novels by James and Christopher Collier, including the classroom favorite, My Brother Sam Is Dead. The first 100 people to email Michele.cobb@audiogo.com will receive this teaching guide at no cost.

You Have to Be in It

Be Creative: If your students are between the ages of 13 and 18, here’s their chance to enter the Instructables Make-to-Learn Youth Contest, sponsored by Autodesk, a producer of 3D design software. All they have to do is make something—from a short movie to a painting, a science fair project, a school assignment, a garden, a video game, etc. Once the project is completed, the entrant just has to answer four questions about what they learned: What did you make? How did you make it? Where did you make it? What did you learn? All entries must be received by April 15. For more information, check out the rest of the rules here. Entries will be judged by a distinguished panel, including Chad Sansing (Central Virginia Writing Project), Leah Buechley (MIT Media Lab), Karen Wilkinson, (Exploratorium/tinkering studio), Antero Garcia (Colorado State University), and others.

Winners will be announced on or about April 22. Three Grand Prize winners will receive a Dream Maker kit consisting of a $200 gift certificate to SparkFun, Amazon, or Home Depot to purchase supplies for projects; a 32GB mini iPad; and a $50 gift card to the iTunes App Store. Five First Prize winners will receive a Dream Maker kit to purchase $200 worth of supplies. Ten runners up will receive a $50 gift certificate.

In addition, librarians, teachers, scout leaders, and anyone whose job is strictly educational can get a free Pro membership to Instructables that gives them access to classroom project ideas, advanced project editing tools, and the ability to download PDFs of projects and ebooks.

Close the digital divide: The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) and Best Buy have become partners in attempting to close the digital divide for teens. Every time Best Buy Mobile opens a new location in the United States, YALSA will designate a public or school library in the vicinity to receive $2,000 from Best Buy to purchase digital library resources for teens. According to YALSA, that library will take part in a community celebration to promote the partnership. To help the designated libraries get training on how to best use the money they receive, YALSA is creating an online community for the recipients to share information and best practices.

“This partnership is so important to YALSA because it helps us make strides towards fulfilling our mission of expanding and strengthening library services for and with teens,” said Jack Martin, YALSA president. Best Buy Mobile specialty stores are usually located in shopping centers and malls and offer smartphones, tablets, accessories, services, and plans.

Video game challenge: The National STEM Video Game Challenge, presented by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and E-Line Media, is the perfect way to tap into your middle and high school students’ passion for playing video games. Now in its third year, the Challenge promotes science, technology, engineering, and math education. U.S. students in grades five to twelve, either individually or in teams of up to four students, can submit an original game concept and design through April 24, 2012. The games can be created using any game-making platform such as Gamestar Mechanic, Mirosoft’s Kodu, GameMaker, Scratch, or a written game design concept document. Be sure to check out all the rules and entry information.

Winners will receive an AMD-powered laptop computer loaded with game design and education software. Additionally, the school or non-profit organization designated by the winner will receive a donation of $2,000.

This year, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is joining returning sponsors: the AMD Foundation, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, the Entertainment Software Association, the Hive Digital Media Learning Fund in the New York Community Trust, BrainPOP, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting PBS KIIDS Ready to Learn Initiative, Learning Game Network, and Edmondo. As a new sponsor, IMLS is supporting the development of tools and online museum- and library-specific content to help these institutions help students create games. There will be 14 workshops held throughout the country, so make sure to check out the Game Design Workshop page.

Freebies

Interactive ebooks: Listen up, libraries with tight budgets. Capstone, a publisher of children’s books and digital products and services, is offering library customers free interactive ebooks for their library. All you have to do is order any of Capstone’s library products, including hardcover books from any of its imprints, PebbleGO, or Capstone Interactive Library interactive eBooks, and you can receive these free ebooks for your library. Customers who purchase $1,000 of any Capstone library product, can select 20 free interactive eBooks; those purchasing $2,000 of library products can select 50 free interactive eBooks. Use the promotion code “13CILANY” and place your order by May 1, 2013. “With over 2,000 interactive ebooks available, there’s plenty of choice,” said Matt Keller Capstone Chief Marketing Officer.

Publishing News

Acquisition: Dreamscape Media has acquired the iconographic book to video firm, Nutmeg Media. Its new owners will be responsible for the sales, marketing. and distribution of the entire Nutmeg Media catalog of 107 award-winning, book-based children’s video titles. “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to bring such a highly regarded line of video titles into our growing portfolio, and we’re hoping to introduce even more libraries to these wonderful programs,” said Brad Rose, Vice President of Dreamscape. “As we move forward and produce new video titles, we intend to continue the Nutmeg tradition of high-quality, award winning, iconographic video programming based on new children’s books.”

To encourage participation in the process, CCL is offering suggested discussion guidelines for use in hosting your own picture-book talks, plus an easy online registration form to sign up to be part of the voting. The deadline for all ballots is April 15.

CCL is also inviting children to create their own clever campaigns in order to lobby for their favorite Irma Black Award and Cook Prize candidates, according to Jennifer M. Brown, CCL’s interim director. “Please feel free to send us photos of your students’ posters, murals, bookmarks, and campaign speeches,” she says. She can be contacted via jbrown@bankstreet.edu.

The 2013 Irma Black Award
The four picture book finalists chosen for the Irma Simonton Black and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature are:

Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs. Mo Willems. HarperCollins.

This Is Not My Hat. Jon Klassen. Candlewick.

Big Mean Mike. Michelle Knudsen. Illus. by Scott Magoon. Candlewick.

The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? Mo Willems. Hyperion (Disney).

The finalists were chosen by third- and fourth-graders at the Bank Street School for Children from a pool of 16 read-aloud books chosen by a jury of teachers, librarians, reviewers, graduate faculty, Bank Street College alumni, and members of the Bank Street Children’s Book Committee.

The students spent a month—one week each with rotating sets of four books—working together with their teacher to vote for their favorite book each week, then met with interim children’s librarian Allie Bruce to discuss the 8 books with the most votes and choose the finalists.

Through these discussions, the students helped each other become sophisticated picture book evaluators, as evidenced by a talk about Jon Klassen’s This Is Not My Hat, Bruce tells SLJ. As she notes, one student observed, “The words are the fish telling you a story, but if you look at the pictures, everything he’s telling you is wrong,” while another student added, “That’s how the words and pictures work together!”

Irma Black Award suggested discussion guidelines for first- and second-grade students can be found here, and schools can be registered to vote on the finalists here.

The Irma Black Award was established in 1972 to honor Irma Simonton Black, author, educator and long-time faculty member at Bank Street College of Education.

The 2013 Cook Prize
The five finalists chosen for the Cook Prize for the best picture book that teaches STEM principles for third- and fourth-graders are:

How Many Jelly Beans? Andrea Menotti. Illus. by Yancey Labat. Chronicle.

Timeless Thomas: How Thomas Edison Changed Our Lives. Gene Barretta. Macmillan.

Infinity and Me. Kate Hosford. Illus. by Gabi Swiatkowska. Carolrhoda

Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas. Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm. Illus. by Molly Bang. Scholastic.

Busy Builders. Roxie Munro. Marshall Cavendish.

The finalists were chosen by a jury composed of two graduate faculty at Bank Street College of Education, two teachers in the Bank Street School for Children, and two distinguished alumni from the Bank Street College of Education.

Cook Prize suggested discussion guidelines for third- and fourth-grade students can be found here, and schools can be registered to vote on the finalists here.

The Cook Prize was established in 2012, in honor of two ground-breaking Bank Street educators—Don Cook of the Graduate School of Education, and Michael Cook (no relation) of the School for Children.

In naming this award “The Cook Prize,” Bank Street not only honors Michael and Don for their intangible contributions to the world of education, but encourages excellence in publishing informational books on STEM topics for elementary-aged children, Brown says.

App Challenge for Students

STEM app challenge: The Verizon Innovative App Challenge was created by the Verizon Foundation to ignite students’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Hosted by the Verizon Foundation and administered by the Technology Student Association (TSA), groups of 5–10 students in middle and high school and their faculty advisers are given the opportunity to develop an original mobile app concept that incorporates STEM and addresses a need or problem in their school or community. Between October 15 and January 18, each team entering the contest must submit an essay of up to 1,000 words that describes the team and the process it went through to develop the concept, how it will address the problem, what STEM skills were used in the process, and its functionality and potential impact. Each team must also submit a three-minute video or other visual presentation describing the app concept and how it will function. Teams may create a video, use presentation software such as PowerPoint or Keynote, or utilize online tools like Animoto, Prezi, or SlideRocket. Be sure to check out the rules and guidelines.

During the week of February 21, a winning middle school and a high school team will be chosen from each state. From this group, five middle school and five high school teams will be selected as challenge winners on March 18. Each challenge winner’s school will receive a $10,000 grant to build the app and to enhance STEM education. Members from the team will receive a Samsung Galaxy wireless tablet.

Lifetime Achievement Award

Prolific author honored: Popular author Russell Freedman has won the Educational Book and Media Association’s (EBMA) 2012 Jeremiah Ludington Award. Named after the Association’s founder, the annual lifetime achievement award is given to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the “education book business.” Russell has written more than 50 biographies and other nonfiction books, and won the 1988 Newbery Medal for Lincoln: A Photobiography (Clarion, 1987). At EBMA’s annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, in January 2013, Freedman will receive a framed certificate and $2,500 will be given to the charity of his choice—the San Francisco Public Library. “The EBMA board and membership are thrilled to present this year’s Ludington Award to Russell Freedman,” said Gene Bahlman, EBMA president and vice president of Follett Library Resources, Inc. “His contributions to children’s nonfiction literature spanning over 50 years is unmatched and truly impressive.” Previous recipients of the award include Steven Kellogg, Jon Scieszka, Kevin Henkes, Judy Blume, and Richard Peck, among others.

Teens’ Top Ten

Best books: Divergent (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books), Veronica Roth’s debut novel set in a dystopian Chicago world, has been selected by teens as their favorite book in the annual Teens’ Top Ten vote sponsored by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). To come up with the top ten books, national teen book discussion groups created a list of 24 of their favorite books published between January 2011 and March 2012. Then, teens across the country voted for their top three favorites online between August 15 and September 15 to create the 2012 Teens’ Top Ten. You can check out a video announcement of the list.

The other winners are: The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton, 2012) by John Green, Legend (Putnam) by Marie Lu, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Quirk Bks., 2011) by Ransom Riggs, What Happened to Goodbye (Viking, 2011) by Sarah Dessen, Across the Universe by Beth Revis (Penguin/Razorbill, 2011), Cinder (Feiwel and Friends, 2012) by Marissa Meyer, The Scorpio Races (Scholastic, 2011) by Maggie Stiefvater, Where She Went (Dutton, 2011) by Gayle Forman, and Abandon (Scholastic/Point, 2011) by Meg Cabot. The winners will be featured on YALSA’s literature blog, The Hub: Your Connection to Teen Reads.

Awarded

Children’s book illustrations: If you’re in New York City between October 24 and December 22, you’ll have the opportunity to see The Original Art 2012, an annual exhibit celebrating children’s book illustration at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators. Founded in 1980 by illustrator and art director Dilys Evans, the exhibit showcases the original art from the year’s best children’s books that have been selected by a jury of illustrators, art directors, and illustrators. This year, 139 books were chosen from more than 550 entries submitted.

Awards in a number of categories will be presented at an opening reception on October 25 at the Society of Illustrators. Gold and silver medals are going to three books representing a variety of mediums and techniques. Laetitia Devernay won the Gold Medal for The Conductor (Chronicle, 2011). The Silver Medal winners are Jon Klassen for This Is Not My Hat (Candlewick, 2012) and Steve Jenkins for The Beetle Book (Houghton Harcourt, 2012). In addition, the Founders Award, given to the most promising new talent in children’s book illustration, is going to The Brothers Hilts for The Insomniacs (Putnam). The Lifetime Achievement Award for distinguished accomplishments in the art of children’s book illustration was awarded to Tomie de Paola and the late Richard Scarry.

Best Practices

Cutting-edge recognition: Is your school or public library using cutting-edge technology? The American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for InformationTechnology Policy (OITP) and the Library & Information Technology Association (LITA) are accepting nominations from libraries that have successfully implemented technological advancements. Submissions for best practices must involve the use of technology, must be a novel idea or implementation of a service, and must document the project so that it can be replicated. Nominations may be made for work in numerous areas, including application development, circulation, collections, community services, integration of Common Core Standards, open source, patron services, professional development, readers’ advisory, references services, web services, and many more. The applications must be submitted no later than November 6, 2012, and a joint committee of members from the Subcommittee on America’s Libraries for the 21^st Century and the Library & Information Technology Association will review the nominations. Winners will be announced at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in January 2013.

“We want to showcase libraries that are serving their communities with novel and innovative methods and provide the library community with some successful models for delivering quality library service in new ways,” said Patty Saidenberg, chair of the Cutting-edge Technology in Library Services selection committee.

Digital Reference Update

Database update: A “Focus on History through Video” feature has been added to Infobase Learning’s African-American History Online. On the homepage, each time the site reloads, a new video will be shown. A gallery of all the videos in the database can be accessed by clicking on the link just below that video screen. To help students who are searching for video clips from a specific time period in African-American history, the video gallery can be filtered by era. “Booker T. Washington Is Enshrined in Hall of Fame,” “Joe Louis and Bill Conn Sign for the Title Bout,” and “Torpedo Boats” are among the new videos.  This footage from the time adds context and depth to students’ understanding of events in African-American history. The database also includes primary sources, images, time lines, biographies, maps, charts, subject entries, and more.

Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. These new informational texts are scary, bizarre, but grossly enlightening.

ALBRIGHT, Rosie. Detection Rats. PowerKids Pr. 2012. ISBN 9781448861491. JLG Level: CK2: Series Nonfiction: Science K-2 (Grades K-2)

Detection Rats introduces primary readers to African pouched rats in this volume of the Animal Detectives series. With a large font and controlled vocabulary, kids learn that these large rats can be trained to use their sense of smell to locate land mines. They are also taught to decipher diseases. Includes an index, words to know, and links to websites.

FRANCHINO, Vicky. Tarantulas. Scholastic. 2012. ISBN 9780531209080. JLG Level: C35: Series Nonfiction: Science 3-5 (Grades 3-5)

Fondly known in elementary school libraries as “those blue animal books,” Tarantulas is part of the “Nature’s Children” series, and is filled with full-page photographs that will have your students quoting facts as if they were the scientists who discovered them. Some of those tidbits include: Tarantulas have eight eyes but their vision isn’t very good; they don’t have teeth, so they liquefy their victims in order to digest them; their stomach muscle acts like a straw and draws the liquid in. From fun facts to vanishing habitats, this “blue book” is sure pique interest and fly off the shelf.

JENKINS, Steve. The Beetle Book. Houghton Harcourt. 2012. ISBN 9780547680842. JLG Level: SCE: Science Nonfiction Elementary (Grades 2-6)

“Line up every kind of plant and animal on Earth…and one of every four will be a beetle.” With gorgeous torn paper illustrations, Jenkins again delivers fascinating research about more than 75 beetles. The poison in an iron cross blister beetle can kill a horse. When a deathwatch beetle bores into the walls of a house, its taps are loud enough for a person to hear. A female firefly may use her light to attract a mate and then eat him. Full size illustrations and highlighted enlargements strengthen the text.

Consider using the concluding list of beetles for your students to use in their research. What other amazing facts can your students discover?

JOHNSON, Rebecca L. Zombie Makers: True Stories of Nature’s Undead. Millbrook Pr. 2012. ISBN 9780761386339. JLG Level: SCE: Science Nonfiction Elementary (Grades 2-6)

Easily the most memorable, information-rich, and intriguing book in this list, Zombie Makers will send shivers up your spine. A jewel wasp locates a particular place in the brain of a cockroach and causes it to become a zombie. It lays its eggs in the body where they remain until they hatch and eat the roach (which is still alive). Scientists learned about zombie ants and the fungus that claimed them when they discovered that the ants were nearly all found in cool places about 10 feet from the ground. They observed zombie crickets drowning themselves in a pool. When they pulled them away from the water, the crickets walked right back into it. Nearly all of the crickets had the same fungus.

Horrific and amazing, these gross facts will have you reading aloud―and leaving the light on at night. You may never look at flies, roaches, wasps, and worms the same way―ever again.

WOOLF, Alex. Killer Crocodiles. Arcturus. 2012. ISBN 9781848379473. JLG Level: C35: Series Nonfiction: Science 3-5 (Grades 3-5 )

Magazinelike in layout, this volume from the “Animal Attack” series, explores the world of the crocodilian. It is the family of aquatic reptiles that includes alligators, crocodiles, caimans, and gharials. Punctuated by sidebars, the two-page spread highlights a topic with facts while drawing in reluctant readers with “Snack on This!” American crocodiles regurgitate their food to use as bait to attract their next meal. Crocodilians cannot chew, so they bite their food into pieces and throw their heads back to help it go down their throats. Full glossary and index complete the text and make it an excellent choice for your nonfiction fans.

And the shape of wombat poop? Unusual Creatures by Michael Hearst spills the facts― wombat’s feces is a six-sided cube. Why? You’ll have to read it to find out.

For ideas about how to use these books and links to supportive sites, check out the Junior Library Guild blog, Shelf Life.

Junior Library Guild is a collection development service that helps school and public libraries acquire the best new children’s and young adult books. Season after season, year after year, Junior Library Guild book selections go on to win awards, collect starred or favorable reviews, and earn industry honors. Visit us at www.JuniorLibraryGuild.com.