Our Caldecott Short List!

Thanks to all the staff who voted off our "long list," we have our final dozen Caldecott Hopefuls. (We were shooting for a list of 10 books, but we just couldn't bear to make that many cuts!)

This will be the list for our online poll, which goes live on December 26 on Tales' Treehouse. Voting will continue through January 17. On Monday, January 18, ALA will announce their media awards and we will annouce our winner too!

Remember, the Caldecott Committee does not announce a short list. We have no idea which books they are seriously considering these last 6 weeks before making their decision!

Last year, there was only one book that received a Medal or Honor sticker that we did NOT have on our online poll: River of Words, by Jen Bryant. How will we do this year?

The Lion and the Mouse
The Curious Garden
Red Sings from Treetops
Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11
Tsunami!
Mermaid Queen
All the World
Higher! Higher!
14 Cows for America
Otis
Eleanor, Quiet No More: The Life of Eleanor Roosevelt
Jeremy Draws a Monster

100 Great Picture Books

Looking for some terrific picture books to recommend, use at storytime, or enjoy yourself? Check out this list prepared by Melissa Depper, Virginia Brace and Lori Romero. 100 Great Picture Books features "Fresh, fun books just right for sharing with children ages birth to 5 years!"

Use the search box on Tales' Treehouse to find "great picture books" or find the list on the Great Books page. Remember you can use the print icon on the top right corner to produce a printable list. (Print example)

Science Fair Frenzy

Are we all back from vacation and our holidays? Rested?

Ready for the Science Fair Season?

Many schools have their Science Fairs in the winter or spring, and children and their families come in to the library with a variety of information needs.

• Choosing the right type of project.
  Lots of kids have no idea what they'd like to work on. A great place to start is to ask if their teacher is asking them to do a project, an experiment, or an invention. What's the difference?
  
  A project is a demonstration of a concept: the classic exploding volcano, for instance, or how seeds grow.
  
  An experiment starts with a question, then uses the scientific method to investigate the answer. Instead of just using charts and photos to show how a bean seed grows (project), an experiment might ask: "Which brand of fertilizer helps bean seeds grow fastest?"
  
  An invention, on the other hand, designs a solution to a particular problem. There are some sample invention ideas here, at Science Fair Central.



• Developing ideas.
  With the type of project in mind, then you can help them figure out what idea they'd like to develop for the Science Fair. They may know exactly what their topic is and what their project will be; they may know their topic but not have a research question yet; they may have no clue about anything.
  
  Spend a few minutes now in your science section, at 507.8! There are lots of resources there! Look for books that run you through the whole process--types of projects, choosing ideas, presenting results--and books that just provide lots of experiments and projects to reproduce. Don't forget to browse your whole 500 section, as experiment books are also listed by discipline: 520.78 for astronomy, and 550.78 for earth science, for example. The more you are familiar with that section now, the easier it will be when you catch that question later, on the floor.
  
  After you've looked at the shelves, take a look at the Science Fair Projects page on Tales' Treehouse. There are great experiment idea sites here, plus general sites as well.



• Background research.
  Kids often will need to add additional information about their topic to their presentations or reports. Ask if they need to get their information from a book, or if we can use encyclopedias or databases.
  
  Don't forget to check science encyclopedias or even the World Book for articles. Look through the kids databases, and if you can't find anything in kids, try the Science Reference Center database on the adult site.

What tips or resources help you out with Science Fair questions?

Grade-Level Reading Lists

This time of year, we sometimes get patrons who are asking for good books they can buy as presents for their nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. They may not see them often and may wish us to recommend books by grade level because they don't know what the children are currently reading.

Well, help is at hand! While we have fewer paper bibs and lists in the libraries, there are grade-level reading lists on Tales' Treehouse.

This is a great resource to share with grownups. To get there, go to the Treehouse, click on Swoop the Owl, then on Great Books. You'll see "Books by Grade Level" on that list.

We want to make sure there's a good mix of genres and interests on each list. Go have a look and see how we've done so far. If you have titles you'd love to see included, send them to Alyson Corcoran!

In One Ear

Working with kids means we need to be able to help them find more than just books. We need to be Media Advisors, too. To that end, I'd like to ask everyone to listen to one children's music CD this month. Stick it in your car's CD player for a few days, or listen to it while you do the dishes, but listen to the whole thing, then tell us about it. How does it compare to the music you loved when you were a kid, or to the music your kids listened to when they were small? How would you recommend it in one or two sentences to a child or their family?

Need some help choosing? Here's a few sites I gathered up. Where do you go for music recommendations?

Zooglobble
Kids' Music That Rocks
NPR's "The Year In Music for Kids 2007"

Try a search in Tales' Treehouse for "Children's Music" and explore what's available, including this article.

Also, I ran across this cool Music Blog from the Kalamazoo Public Library. It includes reviews of children's music, and has links into their kids' music collection.

Book Trailers

Another post! I'm trying to get back up to speed after a kind of a slow month.

Here's a look at something kind of new: book trailers! They're just what they sound like, movie trailers for books. They are being done by all sorts of people--authors, students, publishers, fans. Here's a few to check out:

Rain Is Not My Indian Name
How to Lose Your Tail
Adventures of Deadwood Jones

What do you think? How do these compare to vodcasts? Do you think these would be appealing to kids? Should we link to trailers in Tales' Treehouse when we can find them? Would this be a cool project for our kids and/or teens, to create their own trailers? Here's a link to a college professor who is doing just that.

New Books!

This week we received tons of new children's books in from Baker & Taylor, which makes it a great time to explore the new book situation in your branch's children's area!

• Where does your branch put new children's materials? Is there a new book shelf? A display? Do books go right into the regular collection?
• How long do the NEW stickers stay on the books at your branch? Who's in charge of keeping an eye on the new children's materials and removing stickers? Talk to them and find out what their usual procedure is. How can you help them?
• What do you like about how your branch handles the new book collection? What would you like to see done differently?
• What titles are catching your eye right now? Tell us about one title currently in your new book collection.
• Don't forget to check out Tales' Treehouse and look at the "New Books, Movies & Music" tab under Swoop the Owl. This is a great place to recommend to families.

Leave a comment with the answers to any or all of these questions!

Online Storytimes

Melissa and I have been working on putting up online storytimes on Tales' Treehouse (Melissa is much better at this than me, but I'm practicing!) to engage parents and kids in online literacy activities--for whatever reason: maybe they couldn't make it to a face-to-face storytime or maybe they're just spending some time together online and need a little guidance. Our goal is to provide some online books, song clips, photos/videos/illustrations, rhymes, games/activities, printable projects, and literacy tips around a particular theme. We hope to have two new ones to feature each month. Maybe you can direct patrons to these during your storytimes or in helping someone on the computers...Let us know if you have any great resources to share or would like to see particular themes.

Hi from Jill (with ulterior motives)

Hi All!

I work at Support Services where I maintain the Children's website, Tales' Treehouse. I've been in this position for 2 years, and before that, I worked at Smoky Hill in reference/technology training for about 7 years. What I hope to get out of the IG is how I can support branch staff in using our website to help patrons (I've re-written this clunky sentence a couple of times to no avail--I want to share ideas with everyone to make the website more successful).

Here's the ulterior motive part (I okayed my solicitation with Melissa first): I will be contacting site supervisors about setting up a meeting of the minds to brainstorm on Tales' Treehouse. I'm looking for any staff interested in giving me feedback on the site--the "wouldn't it be cool ifs" and "it's really hard to finds" and "I have patrons asking me fors" and "I really like the ways"--these are all things I'd like to hear so that I can plan for upcoming "redesigns." If you're interested or know someone who would be, please let me know! Thanks in advance!